When Archie crossed the school threshold behind his father, lessons had already begun. The air in the low, log-walled classroom was thick and warm, saturated with the eternal smells of childhood: chalk dust, the caustic sludge of ink from tin pots, and the dry heat from the iron stove. Sunbeams, piercing the murky windowpanes, lit up a swirling cloud of that very dust, in which midges danced as if performing their own intricate ballet.
They were met by Mr. Burns, the teacher and, by extension, the headmaster of this small universe. He was not an old man, but he carried himself with a solid air, greatly aided by a neat, grizzled beard. He invited Sean MacCallum into his tiny room, which served as both an office and a bedroom. Archie, left outside the door, caught fragments of their conversation: "...discipline... respect... progress..." Mr. Burns's voice was quiet and even, but his words landed with weight, like choice potatoes dropping into a sack.
Finally, they emerged. Mr. Burns laid his broad, warm hand on Archie's shoulder and, peering at him over the round spectacles that had slid to the very tip of his nose, pronounced:
"Be diligent, lad, and study well. Remember: your mind is your only tool. No one here is going to learn for you."
With these words, he led the newcomer to the only free seat in the classroom—at a desk next to a boy whose hairstyle was a veritable rebellion against combs and brushes. Fair hair stuck out in every direction with such ferocity, it looked as if the boy had just finished fighting a wild badger or had tumbled headfirst into a thicket of weeds.
"Sit down, MacCallum. Copy these letters for now," Mr. Burns said quietly, handing Archie a tattered primer.
Archie nodded, fetched his slate board, carefully wiped it clean with his sleeve, and began tracing his first clumsy letters. He had managed only two or three lines when he felt a warm puff of air on his ear and heard a muffled whisper:
"Hey, new kid. What was he whisperin' to you about in there? Givin' you secret instructions?"
Archie glanced fearfully at the teacher, but Mr. Burns was at that moment writing something in a large ledger. So Archie, without taking his eyes off his slate, whispered back:
"Nothing special..."
"Come on!" his neighbor snorted, almost sneezing. He set his slate pencil aside, sniffed loudly—a sound teetering on the edge of propriety—and leaned in again, lowering his voice to a barely audible rustle. "Didn't he tell you that pirate books are banned here? You can't read 'em, on pain of death!"
Archie shook his head in confusion.
"He told me!" the whisper announced with pride. "I had a whole library of 'em, see? But the teacher took 'em. Said you can't bring books like that to school. But the stories in 'em... they were something fierce! About captains, treasures, fiery boardings! Tell me, have you read 'Pirates of the Caribbean'?"
Archie shook his head again.
"Well, there's this captain... Silver! Fought a whole Spanish armada single-handed, get it? Sent a dozen ships to the bottom! Now that's what I call strength!"
"Captain Silver?" Archie repeated, forgetting about his letters for a second.
"The very one! Terror of the seas!" His neighbor's whisper grew solemn.
For the first time, Archie turned and got a good look at the boy who was so passionately whispering to him about naval battles. The kid's face was thickly freckled, as if someone had sprayed him with brown paint through a sieve. His nose had a slight but stubborn crook to the right. And his hair... his hair truly seemed like a living creature, ready to tear itself from his scalp and run off at any moment.
I wonder, the thought flashed through Archie's mind, does he ever try to smooth it down?
But there was no time to observe. The boy—whose name, as it soon turned out, was Larry Botter—couldn't sit still for more than five seconds. He fidgeted constantly, leaned back to the desk behind him, whispered something to the boy sitting there, dropped his slate pencil and picked it up again. The lesson, it seemed, was merely a boring backdrop for far more important business.
"Larry Botter!" Mr. Burns's calm but clear voice rang out. "What are you up to now? Have you got a rope back there that needs untangling?"
Larry jerked and straightened up like a taut string.
"Me? Nothing, sir! It's just... Anders is askin' me how to write the letter 'H'. Can't seem to remember, poor fellow."
"And did you explain it to him?"
"Oh, I did, sir! But he still writes it like some Chinese squiggle!"
"I see. Well then," Mr. Burns rose slowly from his desk, "since you're such an expert, come up to the board. Show us all how to write a proper 'H'."
Genuine drama played out on Larry's face. He clearly hadn't anticipated this turn of events. For a moment he sat as if paralyzed, then his gaze shot toward Archie. His eyes flew wide open, holding a silent, desperate plea.
"Show me..." he managed to exhale, his lips barely moving.
Archie, his heart hammering somewhere in his throat, traced the unfortunate letter on his slate with a trembling hand. Larry, glancing sideways, snatched the image and, trying to lend importance to his stride, marched to the large classroom blackboard. He clenched the chalk in his fingers, paused for a second, then produced a fairly confident 'H' on the black surface. Turning to the class, he even gave a small, triumphant nod: See that?
A few boys giggled discreetly. But Mr. Burns wasn't laughing. He walked unhurriedly to Archie's desk, peered at his slate, then looked back at the blackboard. His lips twitched with a barely perceptible smile.
"Curious, Larry," he said thoughtfully. "Very curious. What you wrote on the board is exactly the same as what our newcomer MacCallum wrote. A coincidence? Or perhaps there's something you're not telling us?"
"Me, sir? Lie?" Larry's face expressed such crystalline, such offended innocence that a saint might have faltered. But Mr. Burns was no saint. He was a teacher.
He turned to a skinny, quiet boy named Anders.
"Tell me, Anders. Did you really ask Larry about the letter 'H'?"
Larry began frantically winking at Anders, making all sorts of silent facial signals, but it was futile. Anders, blushing, buried his face in his desk.
"N-no, sir," he mumbled.
"And what were you talking to him about then?"
Anders took a breath and forced out the words, staring at the floor:
"He... he was tellin' how pirates shake down prisoners for ransom. Said he tried it himself... took the neighbor's dog hostage. Wanted to write a note to the owner, but the dog bit through his trousers, and then his father..."
The rest of the tale was drowned out by a roar of childish laughter that burst forth as if a dam had broken. Larry flushed to the roots of his unruly hair and shot Anders a look that could have incinerated a pirate, or even Captain Silver himself. His face contorted into a grimace where he was evidently trying to produce the contemptuous smile of a sea wolf, but it came out looking more like a disgruntled ferret.
But Mr. Burns was apparently a truly wicked man and did not laugh. He merely sighed and pointed a finger toward the far corner of the classroom.
"Lying, Larry Botter,"—a martyred sigh—"is the worst sin for a pupil. Go stand in the corner and think about why you did it. Until the end of the lesson."
Archie watched as Larry, head bowed, trudged to the corner. It wasn't the lie itself that surprised him—as a farmer's son, he was long acquainted with lying. What struck him was something else. How could a person who spoke so passionately, with such a gleam in his eye, about captains and sea battles, about far-off lands and untold treasures... how could that person not know how to write a simple letter 'H'?
He's a strange one, Archie thought, turning back to copying letters from the textbook. A mischief-maker. A real one.
And in the corner, leaning his forehead against the cool log wall, Larry Botter was already plotting revenge against Anders and, perhaps, contemplating where he might procure a treasure map where, instead of 'H's, there would be pictures of solid chests of gold.