3662. The school administrators met after a few days to
discuss what had happened, and quickly came to the conclusion that the entire
blame had to fall, not on Alexis, but on the cadets who were unable to ascertain
that the coachman’s boy was not a person ever allowed in a military
establishment.
3663. “What,” they asked rhetorically, “would happen in a
encampment during war, if the enemy was mistaken for one of themselves and
allowed to enter.” So it was a matter of military discipline and all the boys
involved were assigned to find twelve examples in military history where
battles were lost because of that sort of simple carelessness.
3664. Meanwhile, it was Friday afternoon and Alexis was
locked in a room in the basement of the school. Everybody else had left the
grounds and it was the beginning of a three-day weekend. The coachman’s boy
assumed, as you also would assume, that some silly mistake had been made. He
could see that he was locked up as in a jail, but the only explanation he could
thing of was that he had been mistaken for some cadet who had to be
disciplined.
3665. He heard voices and the footsteps of people moving
around on the upper floors. He imagined that any second a key would turn in the
lock of the door, and he would be released, even perhaps, with an apology. The
sounds of commotion and movement became louder for a while, and then died away.
Finally he heard the sound of the footsteps of one solitary person. A door
closed in the distance, and there was complete silence.
3666. Then the lights were turned off. Then began three days
during which Alexis did not eat or drink anything. He had a long period of time to
give a great deal of thought to a great many things. The problem was that
Alexis had no idea what those things were that he needed to think about.
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