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'Better than average,' Mother said.

'Listen,' Father said. 'We're going to make money.'

This was news to us; Franny and I kept very still.

Frank must have been nervous at the prospect. 'May I be excused?' he asked.

'Of course, dear,' Mother said. 'How are we going to make money?' Mother asked Father.

'For God's sake, tell me,' Coach Bob said. 'I'm the one who wants to retire.'

'Listen,' Father said. We listened. 'This school may be worthless, but it's going to grow; it's going to take on girls, remember? And even if it doesn't grow, it's not going to fold. It's been here too long to fold; its instincts are only to survive, and it will. It won't ever be a good school; it will go through so many phases that at times we won't recognize the place, but it's going to keep going -- you can count on that.'

'So what?' said Iowa Bob.

'So there's going to be a school here,' Father said. 'A private school is going to go on being here, in this crummy town,' he said, 'and the Thompson Female Seminary isn't going to go on being here, because now the girls in town will go to Dairy.'

'Everybody knows that,' said Mother.

'May I be excused?' Lilly asked.

'Yes, yes,' Father said. 'Listen,' he said to Mother and Bob, 'don't you see?' Franny and I didn't see anything -- only Frank, sneaking by in the upstairs hall. 'What's going to become of that old building, the Thompson Female Seminary?' Father asked. And that's when Mother suggested burning it. Coach Bob suggested it become the county jail.

'It's big enough,' he said. Someone else had suggested this at Town Meeting.

'Nobody wants a jail here,' Father said. 'Not in the middle of town.'

'It already looks like a jail,' Mother said.

'Just needs more bars,' said Iowa Bob.

'Listen,' Father said, impatiently. Franny and I froze together; Frank was lurking outside my door -- Lilly was whistling, somewhere close by. 'Listen, listen,' Father said. 'What this town needs is a hotel.'

There was silence from the dining room table. A 'hotel,' Franny and I knew, lying in my bed, was what did away with old Earl. A hotel was a vast ruined space, smelling of fish, guarded by a gun.

'Why a hotel?' Mother finally said. 'You're always saying it's a crummy town -- who'd want to come here?'

'Maybe not want to,' Father said, 'but have to. Those parents of those kids at the Dairy School,' he said. They visit their kids, don't they? And you know what? The parents are going to get richer and richer, because the tuition is going to keep going up and up, and there won't be any more scholarship students -- there will only be rich kids coming here. And if you visit your kid at this school now, you can't stay in town. You have to go to the beach, where all the motels are, or you have to drive even farther, up toward the mountains -- but there's nothing, absolutely nothing to stay in right here.'

That was his plan. Somehow, although the Dairy School could barely afford enough janitors, Father thought it would provide the clientele for one hotel in the town of Dairy -- that the town was so motley, and no one else had dreamed of putting up a place to stay in it, didn't worry my Father, in New Hampshire the summer tourists went to the beaches -- they were half an hour away. The mountains were an hour away, where the skiers went, and where there were summer lakes. But Dairy was valley land, inland but not upland: Dairy was close enough to the sea to feel the sea's dampness but far enough away from the sea to benefit not in the slightest from the sea's freshness. The brisk air from the ocean and from the moutains did not penetrate the dull haze that hung over the valley of the Squamscott River, and Dairy was a Squamscott Valley town -- a penetrating damp cold in winter, a steamy humidity all summer. Not a picture-pretty New England village but a mill town on a polluted river -- the mill now as abandoned and as ugly as the Thompson Female Seminary. It was a town with its sole hopes hung on the Dairy School, a place no one wanted to go.

'If there was a hotel here, however,' Father said, 'people would stay in it.'

'But the Thompson Female Seminary would make a dreadful hotel,' Mother said. 'It could only be what it is: an old school.'

'Do you realize how cheaply one could buy it?' Father said.

'Do you realize how much it would cost to fix it up?' Mother said.

'What a depressing idea!' said Coach Bob.

Franny started to pin my arms down; it was her usual method of attack -- she'd get my arms all tied up, then tickle me by grinding her chin into my ribs or my armpit, or else she'd bite me on the neck (just hard enough to make me lie still). Our legs were thrashing under the covers, throwing the blankets off -- whoever could scissor the other's legs had the initial advantage -- when Lily came into my room in her weird way, on all fours with a sheet over her.

'Creep,' Franny said to her.

'I'm sorry you got in trouble,' Lilly said under the sheet. Lilly always apologized for ratting on us by completely covering her body and crawling into our rooms on all fours. 'I brought you something,' Lilly said.

'Food?' Franny asked. I pulled Lilly's sheet off and Franny took a paper bag that Lilly had carried to us, clutched in her teeth. There were two bananas and two of the warm rolls from supper in it. 'Nothing to drink?' Franny asked. Lilly shook her head.