Caleb was crossing it the way he crossed it every Friday, saxophone case in his right hand, backpack on his left shoulder. Mrs. Brooks had asked him to bring the Selmer to her office before he left for the weekend. She wanted to adjust the neck strap. Nothing more than that.
He was 10 steps from the east corridor when he heard the voice behind him.
"Mr. Sutton."
Caleb stopped. Forty students in the atrium stopped with him. The sound of footsteps and conversation dropped by half, then by three quarters. Somewhere near the main staircase, a phone came up.
Then another. Then four more.
Caleb turned around. Harold Whitaker stood in the center of the marble floor, two assistant deans a half step behind him. He had come down from the third floor. He had been watching from the mezzanine. He had chosen his moment.
"What," he said, "is that doing out of storage?"
Caleb's voice was steady. Respectful. "Just moving it, sir. Mrs. Brooks asked me to bring it to her office."
"Mrs. Brooks doesn't run this gala. I do."
Caleb said nothing.
Whitaker closed the distance. Ten feet. Six. Three. The assistant deans stayed where they were.
A visiting parent on the far side of the atrium, a woman in a red coat who had been picking up her daughter for an orthodontist appointment, took her phone out of her purse and pressed record without lifting it.
"You think that dented thing in your hand is an instrument?" The first phones in the crowd tilted up. "You think that belongs on a Jefferson stage?"
A freshman near the staircase said softly, "Oh my God."
Whitaker heard it. His mouth curved. He turned his body slightly so the students could see his face. He was no longer speaking only to Caleb; he was performing through him.
"Mrs. Brooks tells me you're a prodigy. She uses that word. Prodigy. I've heard it in her emails for 2 years now."
He let the silence hang.