* * *

The preppie talked incessantly about a new T.V. show called the "Prisoner." In the show, Patrick McGoogan plays a retired British secret agent who is kidnapped. He is unable to discover which side--his own or the enemy--has captured him. Whenever he asks where he is, he is told "the Village." He buys a map at the General Store, but the map shows only the village, the mountains, and the sea. No roads are shown. He asks the store manager for a more detailed map, and is told: "There are none; there is no demand for one. No one wants to leave the Village."

* * *

In the summer between junior and senior year, he took law boards, scoring over 700. When he returned in the fall, he applied to the top law schools, including Harvard. Both his board score and his grade point hovered above the arbitrary level set by Harvard in order to gain admittance. Things were looking up.

* * *

They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good.

They'll stone you just like they said they would.

They'll stone you when you're trying to go home.

They'll stone you when you're left all alone.

* * *

He had no fear of being left out. He was used to that. But he did have an obsessive fear of being locked in. The last day of his junior year, he was still cleaning up his room and packing his things when they locked the only exit to the House. They had locked him in. The superintendent had left for the day, and he had no way to get out. It was enough to drive a crazy person sane.

* * *

No one could tell him advanced standing was an advantage. When he chose to stay four years, it was as if he had provoked some hidden beast, who rose up to strike him down. When he went to have a picture taken for his new bursar's card, they had no card for him. He had completed three years of school, and as an advanced standing student, he no longer existed.

The last week of junior year, he received a note saying that if he did not pay his term bill, he could not graduate.

He did not pay it. A small victory.