"Yeah. I wouldn't either. I actually moved out of the one house after my roommate got repodded, just because it's so empty without him nagging me to take out the trash or take shorter showers."

Howard smirks. "I knew there had to be a castle. So were you guys rich or something?"

There were only two middle-and-high schools in the Perdido Beach area: Perdido High, the underfunded but relatively average public school, and Coates Academy, the boarding school for troublemaking kids with more allowance than sense. Howard's not really aware that there are other forms of boarding schools.