At no point during his first night at the Maypenny cabin does Dan sleep; instead, he occupies himself by paging through some of the books from the shelf. At four in the morning, he vacates his room in favor of the kitchen, hoping to fix himself breakfast; it's only when standing before the stove does Dan realize his culinary skills, already limited, have gone without practice for more than six months. Rather than risking disaster, he selects an apple from the refrigerator. Perhaps, if Dan sufficiently ingratiates himself, Elijah would be willing to give him cooking lessons.
Elijah arrives in the kitchen shortly afterward, dressed for the outdoors. He begins to assemble breakfast ingredients, frowning at Dan's attire as he does.
"Is that what you're wearing?" He asks. "Those boots and that jacket aren't fit for the weather, son."
Dan is clad in a leather jacket that was formerly his father's and the cowboy boots Luth gave to him. The jacket is too large, hanging off his wiry shoulders, and the boots are growing too small, pinching his toes with every step.
"I don't have anything else," he explains to Elijah. "The Sleins gave me work boots and a coat to wear, but on loan. They took them back when I left the farm."
"Hmm." Elijah's expression is less than pleased, but, as he piles Dan's plate high with eggs and pancakes, Dan concludes the ire is not directed at him.
The morning goes smoothly, with Elijah instructing Dan on various tasks throughout the preserve, until it comes time for Dan leave for the bus stop. Although Elijah sends him on his way with directions, Dan finds himself hopelessly lost in the preserve in a matter of minutes. Finally, after stumbling around in the ice and snow for almost a half hour, he locates the correct point, barely reaching the area with enough time to catch the bus. The driver sends him an impatient glance as Dan runs up the steps at the last possible moment.
His stomach twists with anxiety at the prospect of attending a new school, but Dan does his best to suppress the worry, as he does with every other emotion he experiences. But when he scans the bus for an empty seat, another student with incredibly messy hair is snickering and pointing at him, leaning to whisper cattily into the ear of the girl sharing the seat. This girl is a pretty brunette who's wearing a dress that, if memory serves from his time palling around with Luth and his wealthy friends, costs more than a year's worth of groceries. She smirks and nods as her friend whispers to her, both of them glancing back and forth at Dan and then each other, obviously intentionally broadcasting to him that he's the topic of their discussion. Still, the blatant passive-aggressive behavior is flagrant nearly to the point of admirability.
Turning his back to them, Dan hefts his Tom Ford backpack (thoughtfully shoplifted for him by Luth) and swiftly slides into the closest empty spot, pretending he can't sense their smirks throughout the entire bus ride.
Little improves during the morning. To introduce Dan to the new school, he's assigned some incessantly chatty guide by the name of Mart Belden. Throughout the entire morning, Dan is forced to suffer through the kid's endless yammering until, at long last, he manages to ditch him in the cafeteria when Mart tries to invite him to his usual table.
"No way in hell," Dan says flatly, when Mart attempts to corral him to a spot where the snobby brunette and her curly-haired friend of indeterminate gender are sitting. "I'm not going to spend my one free period today being patronized by a bunch of backwoods yokels." The Sleins gave him enough of that to last a lifetime.
"But where—" Mart begins, but Dan interrupts.
"There." He jerks his thumb at a table where a group of boys in letterman jackets are setting down their trays and strides over, leaving Mart behind.
"Mind if I sit here?" Dan asks one of them. His blue hair and facial piercings are recognizable from Dan's morning English class.
"Of course not." He smiles at Dan, pulling out a chair beside himself and indicating for Dan to sit. "I'm Taz Devlin. And you're Dan Mangan, the new kid." Pointing down the row of their tablemates, he names each one of them. "Across from me is Avery Hollington-Chatsworth, then Jerry Vanderhoef, Tad Webster, and then Michael Larson. Kingston Wright usually sits here, too, but his parents are letting him ditch school for a concert."
"Lucky bastard," the one named Jerry grumbles.
"No worries, Jerry, he'll just grow up to be vain and spoiled. Unlike the rest of us." The blond named Avery smirks and offers Dan his hand. "Hey, Dan. What's with the leather jacket? You a rebel without a cause?"
"More than I can ever say," Dan replies dryly.
Until later that day after school, when he's yet again lost beyond hope in the game preserve, Dan doesn't realize how good it felt to be wanted. Every foster home he's had, then Regan, and now Elijah, have had him foisted upon them. He was made readily aware of his status as an inconvenience. But Taz and his friends welcomed Dan to their lunch table and invited him back, placing no price on their graciousness. Unlike that brunette and her friend, they didn't mock him, but treated him like a person who deserved goodwill and respect.
Being wanted was one of the reasons he was infatuated with Luth as quickly as he was, Dan realizes heavily. With his mother dead and his father gone, Dan wanted some form of attention. Of security. And Luth's attention, prurient as it was, served that purpose.
The clip-clop of hooves on the trail behind him tears Dan away from his brooding. It's those two from the bus, again. Though he stands aside to let the two of them pass, he lets himself be dragged into an argument by that jackass with badly-permed hair. The altercation escalates till he's trying to ride a horse to prove a point, and though he's had Western riding lessons, the unfamiliar tack on this horse hinders him. The immediate result is being thrown from the horse and ripping his father's jacket. Ultimately, though, after a shouting match with Regan, the outcome is that Dan will be provided a horse to work on the game preserve as long as he's willing to learn English-style riding.
The horse given to him is a handsome blue roan named Spartan, with feathered hooves and an ornery demeanor that makes him seem older than his four years. While not particularly inclined to emotion, Dan can't hide a thrilled smile at the prospect of having a horse to call his own.
"Suck on that, you curly-haired freak," he mutters, holding his palm open for Spartan to graze on some sugar cubes.
That snobby brunette girl at school loses her watch and immediately blames Dan for it. Given how she and her rat's nest-haired friend seem intent on making Dan's life exceedingly arduous, he can't say he's surprised.
"This is the last straw," Regan informs him in a very tightly controlled voice. His hands are planted on the table, and he's leaning forward; Dan can see that he's on the verge of losing his temper. "I know you took that watch and sold it to Mr. Lytell."
"I've never so much as met Lytell," Dan says calmly as he sits at the kitchen table, holding a mug of cocoa.
A muscle in Regan's jaw twitches. "Daniel. You placed both of our jobs at risk when you stole that watch. You've sealed your fate. I'm sending you to that reform school at the end of the week."
"I had nothing to do with that watch, and I'll prove it." Dan levels an unblinking gaze at Regan. "Take me to Lytell. Ask him if I'm the person who sold him that watch. He'll tell you that he's never met me before, and this will all be resolved."
"I don't have time for your lies," Regan snaps. "Do you have anything else to say for yourself?"
A pause resounds in their conversation as Dan lifts his mug, sips from his hot chocolate, and sets his mug back down. Once his mug rests safely on the table again, he asks, "Where was my mother buried?"
Apparently, Regan was unprepared for this question. He lurches back, arms falling limply to his sides, and his face oddly blank. "What?"
"I left for New York City before she could be buried," Dan explains placidly. "I'd like to visit her grave sometime, but I'm not sure where she is."
For a several heartbeats, Regan merely stares at Dan like he's never seen him before in his life, before whirling around and stalking out the front door.
"I wonder what flowers I should bring to her," Dan says to the empty room.
He receives no response.