in some ways , elves trooping up and down the halls in glowing , unearthly platoons or dragons over the quad would have been easier for richard to take than this constant erosion of the thayer school he had come to know and love ... the thayer school richard undoubtedly believed to be noble and good , an undisputed bulwark against a world where nothing could be counted on for long ... not even , jack thought , that fathers would come back out of the closets they had gone into .