I want to be frank right from the jump about the elephant in the room on the page christ i’m already messing this up there’s absolutely nothing remarkable about the story of a shy kid navigating life at an ornate and mysterious old boarding school i want to get that out
Of the way because i’m sorry to tell you that’s the story we’ve begun i will say that the plot is kind of appropriate though because there’s also nothing remarkable about the shy kid at its center or at least there wasn’t when his story really began enroute to
Blackfriar’s school for boys on a foggy autumn morning oh he’ll also learn in due course that our shy protagonist has a terrible secret and an absent parent i know what you’re thinking groundbreaking dare i hope that he’ll also have an athletic bully and a stern schoolmaster with a dark dusty office
And an even darker agenda well my friend cringe along with me as i inform you that you’ll meet both of them before the end of his first semester so let’s take stock new kid fish out of water spooky boarding school dark secret bully dead mom yeah we’re walking shall we say
Well-trod territory cliche one might say hell i would say if you’re still reading i applaud you you’re damn polite a saint really if you’re still here let me assure you that as painful as all this probably is for you for a 16 year old feeling cliche is actually quite a privilege
Cliche means normal and as the town car carried zachary orson jr zoe for short ever closer to his new life at blackfriars school normal seemed like a place they’d zoom past hours ago i can tell you this with authority because maybe my biggest regret in all
Of this is what i have to tell you next zoe orson is me the redhead over my shoulder is scolding me so i’ll just get on with it
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