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"We're the Formans. We're bringing Honey Forman to school. This is the Senetsky School of Performing Arts, isn't it?" Daddy asked.

"Of course it is. Drive up when the gate is opened," she snapped back. A moment later we heard the buzz, and the grand wrought iron gates opened slowly, reluctantly, the metal groaning with displeasure about being disturbed. We saw a video camera on the stone column turn toward us, its lens aimed like the barrel of a gun at our moving vehicle.

Daddy raised his eyebrows and gazed at Mommy and me.

"I guess you need to live like this in New York City," he said.

Mommy nodded, but she was too interested in everything to speak. Daddy paused after driving through the gate, took a deep breath as if we were about to go under water, and then he started slowly ahead.

A long driveway wound up to the grand house. Along the way, we gazed more closely at the elaborate Grecian fountains, the stone benches embossed with angelic figures, the beautiful gardens and pruned bushes. A rounds worker was busy trimming a tree off to our right. Squirrels leapt about nervously, pausing to glance at us, tweak their noses, and then demonstrate their ability to make a quick, successful retreat up trees whenever they needed to do so.

"Simon would appreciate the grounds," Mommy remarked.

"He'd probably show them where they are doing things wrong, planting the wrong flowers, foliage." Daddy replied.

Mommy nodded, but there was no way to diminish the look of appreciation in her eyes. Seeing how much she was dazzled made me feel better about being here.

Close up, the mansion was even more impressive. It was a three-story structure fronted by a rather long gray stone staircase, with stone railings on both sides. The grand double wood doors were in an arch, as were the large multi-pane windows on either side. The building went back so far. Daddy said it looked as long as the east corn field back home.

All of the cornices with elaborate moldings, the shallow relief carvings, and ornamental metal cresting made the house look Gothic and bespoke its age, although it was far from worn- looking anywhere.

"Well." Daddy said, turning off the car engine. "it certainly beats any school I ever saw,"

"I am sure the Czar would have lived in such a house," Mommy remarked, her eyes small with her memories of her own Russian history.

For a long moment, none of us attempted to get out. The opening of the front doors put us into action. Daddy hurried around to get my suitcases. and Mommy and I took my smaller bags. We started up the steps and quickly recognized Madame Senetsky's personal assistant. Laura Fairchild, the woman who had greeted us at my audition.

Her dark brown hair looked shorter, trimmed about mid-ear. She wore a navy blue suit and a white blouse with blue trim around its collar. Her eyeglasses hung around her neck on a thin gold chain, the frames decorated with tiny jewels. I hadn't taken much note of her when we had gone to the audition. I had been too nervous to look at anything long or remember anything. Afterward. I was convinced I had failed, and buried the whole experience in the pool of forgets.

Now, when I looked at her. I thought Laura Fairchild's eyes were too small for her long, rather thin and bony face. She had a small mouth as well, but when she smiled-- or really, more like grimaced-- those lips suddenly became very elastic, slicing into her sunken cheeks and opening themselves just enough to reveal her diminutive teeth. She wore a beautiful cameo on her suit jacket, just above her nearly nonexistent bosom.

"Hello," she said, jerking out her right hand almost as if she was going to stab Daddy with her long, thin fingers and sharp nails. "I'm Laura Fairchild, Madame Senetsky's personal assistant."

"Yes. I remember you," Daddy said. He put one of my suitcases down so he could shake her hand.

She extended her hand to Mommy.

"Hello," Mommy said. "What a beautiful place this is, and what an unusual house."

She greeted me quickly, so quickly one would think I might be contaminated, but I wasn't upset about that. Her thin fingers in mine were corpse-cold.

"The house is of Chateauesque style, of course, popularized in this country by Richard Morris Hunt, the first American architect to study at France's prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts," she replied pedantically with a perfect French accent. "Many of his wealthy clients built homes in this style, including the Vanderbilts. This particular residence was built in 1896, and has been in the Senetsky family ever since."

"It's quite a farmhouse." Daddy said, nodding and smiling.

Laura Fairchild looked at him as if he had just gotten off a boat, and then turned back to Mommy and me.

"I'll show you to your room, give you your class schedule and your orientation packet. Please follow me. Do you need any more help with your luggage?"

"No, we've got a handle on it," Daddy said.

She smirked, nodded, then turned and led us into the house.

The entryway itself was circular. On both sides were enormous Greek theater masks in what looked to be archaic stone. One was the face of tragedy and the other of comedy.

"These look real!" Daddy said. Laura paused and turned to them.

"Of course they're real. They come from ancient Greece. the theater of Dianysius in Athens."