As David Loehmann drives Robert Stephens through the gate of the Gracetown School for Boys, Robert is overwhelmed by a powerful smell of smoke that no one else seems to notice. The odor, along with Robert’s uneasy sense that summer can bring haints and other strange signs, makes the school feel immediately sinister. Loehmann advises Robert to say he can cook so he might be assigned to the kitchen instead of field labor, then stops at the main building and gives Robert his business card, which Robert hides in his sock before entering.

Inside, Robert is struck by the polished, official front room, but the illusion of order breaks when the white receptionist, Doris, speaks openly and contemptuously about Robert and his father. She already knows Robert is the boy who kicked Lyle McCormack, showing Robert that his case has followed him here. When Robert tries to defend himself, Doris treats that as more evidence that the school will need to break him. Loehmann mentions that Robert can cook, then leaves him behind, abandoning Robert to the institution.

Superintendent Fenton J. Haddock receives Robert alone in his office and immediately uses fear to establish dominance. Haddock offers Robert a peppermint, but the gesture only heightens Robert’s suspicion because Haddock follows it with threats of whipping, biblical justification for violence, and warnings that any attempt to run will bring dogs, clubs, or bullets and could keep Robert imprisoned until age twenty-one. The intimidation is so severe that Robert wets himself. Haddock then issues Robert one set of clothes, orders him to strip completely, and inspects him while Robert desperately tries to avoid angering him and blurts out that he can cook. Pleased by that, Haddock decides Robert will finish the school day and then go to the kitchen, but he also promises that the twenty lashes Red McCormack wants are still coming, at an unknown time.

Before sending Robert away, Haddock points out an old family photograph and recounts being a six-year-old boy holding his infant sister in 1900. Haddock’s tone briefly softens, but his story turns unsettling when he says he never wanted a baby sister. At that moment the smoke smell intensifies for Robert, and he finally understands what disturbed him about the photograph: the baby in Haddock’s arms is dead, while the adults look grief-stricken and only young Haddock seems faintly pleased. The chapter ends with Robert realizing that the man controlling the reformatory is deeply disturbed, making his new captivity feel even more dangerous.