When the lunch bell finally released us at noon, I didn't go to the refectory. I couldn't face the copper pillar, and I certainly couldn't face Julian Vance or another round of threats from the valley kids.
Instead, I took my simple brown bag and walked out toward the southern terrace—a massive, stone-paved balcony that overlooked the entire valley basin. Up here, the wind was clean, carrying the faint, crisp scent of pine from the high mountain woods that bordered the campus perimeter.
I sat on the low stone wall, my legs dangling over the edge, looking down at the massive, sprawling network of the valley flats below. From this height, the tenements looked like tiny gray matchboxes, and the massive rail yards where my father used to manage the logistics lines looked like a tangled web o
