A Week in the Woods Read online

  A gust of wind swirled some powdery snow down from the roof of the garage. Mark shivered, and as if she’d seen him, Anya stuck her head out the mudroom door and called, “Too cold, Mark. Come get your coat and hat.”

  Mark stood staring out at the snow another minute or two, then turned and walked slowly across the polished concrete floor to the back door.

  When he came into the kitchen, Anya said, “I’m going to make us a quick supper. Your coat is in the closet there behind you. Back inside in fifteen minutes, okay?”

  Mark said, “I’m not going out,” and turned away from her to look around the room.

  Like the house, the kitchen was part old and part new. On the old side, Leon had already built a fire. The huge fireplace was like a little room made of stone and mortar. Mark could have walked all the way into it. There was even a small granite bench built into one side of it. A heavy copper pot hung from an iron hook above the andirons, a reminder that this fireplace had once been the center of the kitchen.

  Mark went out through a low doorway and wandered through the dining room, then a study, and a small sitting room. The ceilings were low, and the walls were painted in deep greens and blues. There were old-fashioned chairs and tables, with braided rugs covering the wide floorboards. All the lamps had bulbs shaped like candle flames. Everything tilted—floors, walls, and ceilings—and the rooms felt cramped and dark. The small windows didn’t let in much light.

  Mark studied the thick shutters to the right and left of each window. They weren’t like the shutters in their family room in Scarsdale. These shutters were solid wood with broad iron hinges and sturdy latches. They weren’t there to look nice or to give a little privacy. These shutters had been made to keep things out.

  The old living room had another huge fireplace, though not as deep as the one in the kitchen. This one was made of brick with a broad wooden mantel. Mark went to the tall cabinet built into the wall on the left side of the fireplace and pulled the door open. He’d read about this cupboard in the brochure that the real estate lady had sent to his parents.

  It was a firewood bin, almost empty at the moment. Mark pushed on the back of the cupboard, and the panel swung inward, just as the brochure had said it would. In the dim light Mark could see the narrow staircase. It led up to a secret room, and people believed it had been used to shelter runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.

  Leaning forward and looking up into the gloom, Mark thought, Plenty of time to explore tomorrow. That was true, but Mark knew the real reason he didn’t climb over the logs and go up the stairs: He didn’t like to be alone in the dark. Mark pulled the panel shut, closed the cupboard door, and moved on.

  The new part of the house didn’t impress Mark. Sure, everything was gorgeous, every rug, every antique, every painting. Sure, everything was designed perfectly, from the octagonal sunroom to the home theater installation to the pink granite lap pool. Spacious rooms, beautiful materials, rich furnishings.

  But Mark knew how easy it had been for his parents to write the big checks. He knew how easy it had been for his mom to pick the best architects and designers and decorators. And since Mark knew that, it all seemed ordinary to him.

  Except for the views. Mark had no defense against the beauty of nature. The house was perched in the middle of a large upland meadow with stunning views in every direction. The architect had made sure that each oversized window was placed for maximum impact.

  At the landing on the staircase leading up to the bedrooms, Mark stopped to stare into the distance. The sky was clearing from west to east, and where there had been solid gray twenty minutes ago, now streaks of pink and gold spread along the underside of the clouds. The dark pines along the ridge, the tracery of leafless birch and maple trees, the rocky outcroppings—everything stood out in sharp relief against the blazing sky. And off to the east, the White Mountains lived up to their name. Standing still, Mark drew in a deep breath as if to taste the air, and he wished he had gone outside instead.

  “Suppertime!”

  Mark pulled his eyes away, the spell broken. “Coming!”

  Tomato soup, grilled ham and cheese, peeled carrot sticks with ranch dip, chocolate milk, and fresh apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Anya knew all Mark’s favorites, and she’d made sure to have them on hand for this first meal at his new home.

  Leon took a loud sip of soup from a mug, then wiped at his moustache with a napkin. “So,” he said, “what do you think of the place? Pretty great, eh?”

  Mark shrugged. “Yeah.”

  Leon hadn’t kept it a secret that he loved the whole idea of moving north. Mark’s father had sent him up to the new house twice in the past month. Leon needed to learn all about the water system, the backup electrical generator, and the security system. The house even had its own water tower and sprinkler system because the nearest fire department was over ten miles away.

  Leon gestured over his shoulder. “The mountains, you saw them?”

  Mark nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  Leon winked at Anya. “The White Mountains are not so nice as the Ural Mountains, but they’ll do, don’t you think? But I am not happy about the soil here. Bad. Very bad.”

  Mark took another bite of his sandwich. He didn’t know that much about Leon and Anya, but he knew they had lived in central Russia before coming to America. Anya had taught at a nursery school and Leon had worked on a potato farm. In Scarsdale Leon had taken over part of the side yard and planted a garden. From June to October he and Anya had enjoyed a steady harvest of homegrown vegetables.

  After supper Leon smiled at Mark and said, “Come. I’ll show you our new apartment.”

  Through a door at the rear of the kitchen, a short stairway went down to a small living room with two easy chairs, a couch, and a pair of end tables. Nothing fancy, but comfortable and homey. Leon pointed to his pride and joy, his big-screen TV. “See? One hundred and twelve channels now. Satellite. Very clear.”

  Mark nodded. “Great.”

  There was a small kitchen off the living room with a simple wooden table and two chairs. There was a bathroom, a roomy bedroom, and like the rest of the addition, everything was fresh and new. The views from these windows were not as broad as the ones from the upper levels, but the scenery was just as dramatic. The sunset was past now, and it was dark enough to see a few faint stars above the snowy hilltops to the east.

  Anya came down the stairs and Leon went to meet her, putting out his hand and bowing like a fancy gentleman. “Welcome to your castle, my lady.”

  Anya smiled shyly and said, “Don’t be foolish, Leon.”

  Mark felt awkward, like a stranger in their home. He said, “I’m pretty tired.”

  He turned and trotted up the stairs, and he didn’t answer when they both called good night after him.

  Mark found his room. They had done what he’d told them to. Same bed, same bedspread and drapes. Same carpets and bookcases, same desk and dresser. And he could tell Anya had tried to arrange his stuff just like it had been last week.

  But it wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same.

  Mark lay down on his bed. He didn’t even take off his shoes. He pulled his old down comforter up around his chin and lay still, staring at the perfectly smooth ceiling in his new room.

  An hour or so later his eyes closed and he fell asleep with the lights on.

  Four

  Attitudes

  For the first two days Mr. Maxwell had given the new boy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the kid just felt shy, or homesick. Or maybe he was trying to prove himself, be sort of tough. He was a good-looking kid, maybe a soccer player, or at least that kind of build. Sharp brown eyes, seemed plenty bright. And he certainly dressed nicely, and wore his hair neat and not too long.

  But after twenty-two years in the classroom, Mr. Maxwell could spot a slacker a mile away. And by Wednesday afternoon at the end of his third class with Mark, he’d reached his decision: This new boy was a slacker.

  It was written all
over him. Like the way he chose to sit at the rear of the room. Or the way he leaned back with his chin up, his head tilted a little to one side, his eyes half closed. The boy didn’t pay attention, didn’t even pretend to. This one had a bad attitude. Everything about this kid said, “I don’t care, and I don’t care if you know I don’t care.”

  Then on Thursday morning Mr. Maxwell learned who the new kid was.

  He was talking to Mrs. Stearns, the reading teacher. “That new boy named Mark?” he asked. “What’s he like in your class? He’s not doing a thing for me.”

  Mrs. Stearns opened her eyes wide. “You mean you haven’t heard who he is?”

  Mr. Maxwell shook his head. He didn’t spend much time in the teacher’s room, so he was always behind on school gossip.

  Mrs. Stearns leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He’s the boy from the family who fixed up the Fawcett farm. And he’s an only child, too.”

  Like everyone else who had heard this news, Mr. Maxwell’s eyebrows went up. He said, “Oh, really? The Fawcett place, eh?”

  Everyone in Whitson knew about the Fawcett place. For months they had been talking about it, waiting to see what kind of people had bought the old farm property—plus another four hundred acres surrounding it on the crest of Reed’s Hill. The buyers had closed the deal in late September, and according to Beth Keene at Mountain Real Estate, the total sale price for the old farm and the surrounding parcels of land had been two and a half million dollars. That was big news in Whitson.

  But the news didn’t stop there. Three days after the deal was settled, a building contractor and an architect from New York had come to town and set up an office in a little storefront on Main Street. The contractor put out the word that he was looking for first-rate tradespeople, as many as he could find.

  High-paying construction work was always scarce during the fall and winter months, so plenty of people came looking—carpenters, brick layers, stonemasons, plumbers, heating and air-conditioning engineers, cabinetmakers, electricians, painters, wallpaper hangers, and a host of others. And everyone who was hired had to agree to one condition: All the work had to be finished by February first. The contractor was offering top wages and plenty of overtime, so people signed on and went right to work.

  One team began restoring and remodeling the original farmhouse. An even larger group began building a new addition that was almost triple the size of the original house.

  At one point more than sixty men and women were hard at work out at the Fawcett place. The tight deadlines meant that crews were working day and night. Near the end, some of the workers from distant towns even parked their RVs in the pasture in front of the house and lived on the site until the job was finished.

  And the job did get finished. By comparing notes, the local people figured out that the materials and labor for the work must have cost the owners at least another million dollars—not to mention the new furnishings.

  There’s nothing that attracts quite as much attention as large amounts of money. So it would be fair to say that in the modest little town of Whitson, almost everyone was curious about these new neighbors. After all, any people who had a few million bucks to throw around were bound to be interesting. Might be a movie star! Or even two movie stars!

  When Mrs. Stearns told Mr. Maxwell the news, his attitude toward this new boy changed instantly. But it didn’t change for the better.

  Because the only kind of people Mr. Maxwell disliked more than slackers were environmentally insensitive, buy-the-whole-world rich folks.

  And the only people he disliked more than rich folks were their lazy, spoiled kids.

  Five

  Zero Pressure

  George Washington and Abraham Lincoln stared at Mark from the calendar that was thumbtacked next to the chalkboard. Mark stared back and forced his mind to work. Friday, February 27th, he thought. It’s Friday, February 27th. So that means I’ve been at this school . . . exactly ten days. Feels like ten years.

  Mark was having trouble staying awake. He propped up his head and chewed on the end of his pencil. Anything to keep his eyes open. The teacher—was it Miss Longhorn? or maybe Mrs. Lego?—whatever her name was, Mark thought she was a lousy math teacher.

  In fact, the moment Mark had walked in the front door of Hardy Elementary School, he’d decided that the whole place was lousy.

  Before Monday, February sixteenth, Mark had never set foot inside a public school. He’d had third grade, fourth grade, and half of fifth at Lawton Country Day School in Scarsdale. The two years before that he’d been at the American School in Paris. Before Paris it was kindergarten at the Hames School in New York City, and before that he’d gone to a Montessori school in Santa Fe.

  He glanced at the fraction problems on the chalkboard, and fought back a yawn. He thought, I learned all that stuff ages ago.

  Mark shifted in his chair and looked out the window. More snow. For the past week, at least two inches of snow had fallen every day. And Mark was glad. The snow was like a layer of soundproofing. It made everything quiet, and quiet was something Mark had begun to appreciate.

  A stretch and a yawn earned Mark a disapproving scowl from the teacher. He straightened up in his chair, but slumped down again as soon as she looked back at the chalkboard. He thought, At least I get to sit in the back of the room at this school. So I guess that’s one good thing about the place.

  Mark also liked that there were so many kids in every class. At Lawton Country Day School Mark’s classes had been small, no more than twelve students, sometimes as few as five. In classes like that there was no escape, no chance to slack off. Never. But here, there were twenty-four other kids. Zero pressure.

  Scanning the room, Mark looked over his classmates. He stared at the backs of their heads and tried to remember some names. But even a clear look at their faces wouldn’t have helped him much. Mark could only recall the names of two kids. Two names in ten days—that’s pathetic! Mark gave a mental shrug. But so what? It’s not like it matters.

  * * *

  When Mark had arrived for his first day in the middle of February in the middle of fifth grade, he decided the place didn’t need him any more than he needed it. In four months fifth grade would be over, and he’d be gone for good. And these kids? Were any of them looking for a new friend? Why would they be?

  The way it looked to Mark, most of the kids at his new school had been together since kindergarten. Hardy Elementary School was an old school to them, and they were the old kids. And by the middle of February in the middle of fifth grade, they had themselves pretty well sorted out into pairs and sets and groups of friends. Mark had no place in their universe, so he kept to his own little orbit.

  By the middle of February in the middle of fifth grade, the old kids at the old school had also gotten themselves sorted out academically—and in just about every other way possible. They knew who the best students were and which of their friends were going to be in the accelerated math group or the low English group at the middle school. And they also knew which girls and boys would probably make the basketball teams and the soccer teams, and who was the best artist in the fifth grade.

  They knew these things because most of the old kids had been looking at each other and listening to each other for years. And they had been watching as the teachers looked and listened too. Suddenly all that information felt like it was important, so the old kids were getting things figured out.

  By the middle of February in the middle of fifth grade, it was starting to feel like elementary school was ending. The old kids were looking ahead to sixth grade at the middle school. Big brothers and sisters had told them who the nice teachers were, and also which ones to watch out for. So the old kids had begun to talk about stuff like that at lunch and recess, and when they walked home after school with their friends.

  But Mark? That kid who moved into that huge house out west of town in the middle of February? Mark didn’t know a thing about this school or the kids in it. He didn’t ev
en know the name of the middle school.

  After a week or two most new kids would have found someone who was halfway friendly, an old kid who didn’t mind answering a lot of questions. Because most kids would have wanted to figure out what was going on.

  But Mark Robert Chelmsley hadn’t done that. He wasn’t like most kids, and especially not like most kids in Whitson, New Hampshire. That’s why the other fifth-graders left him pretty much to himself, which seemed to suit Mark just fine.

  Even Jason Frazier left him alone, and Jason rarely missed a chance to bully someone. In this case Jason had made a good decision. Mark had taken private karate lessons three afternoons a week since he was six. He knew self-defense. Jason would have learned quickly that Mark Robert Chelmsley was not a boy to be bullied.

  During fourth and fifth grades in Scarsdale, Mark had also had math and English tutors come to his home two afternoons a week, and a month before moving to Whitson, he had taken his private-school entrance exams. He’d done well, and that’s why he was already accepted into Runyon Academy. Next year he’d be going to one of the most exclusive prep schools in America, the kind of school attended by presidents and senators and their children and grandchildren.

  “Nothing but the best for you, Mark. Nothing but the best.” That’s what his dad had said.

  A week before the move his mom had said, “Now, Mark, I want you to make the most of these few months up in Whitson. This school will be a nice little break before you get down to some serious work next year at Runyon.”

  That’s what she’d said. What Mark had heard was this: “Mark, all you have to do is have a little fun and try to stay out of trouble until you leave for summer camp. Because what happens at Hardy Elementary School doesn’t really count.”

  So Mark didn’t care which teachers at the middle school were nice. He didn’t care which kids were the smartest or the best soccer players. And if he found himself starting to care, or even starting to wonder about things like that, he told himself, It’s got nothing to do with me.