It’s a large building . . . square . . . with white walls and red clay tiling roofing.
A ten foot high brick wall runs around the perimeter of the property, a wall that is covered, for the most part, with ivy.
It is the Barclay School, a private school for girls . . . grades nine through twelve . . . and it houses, at any given time during a school year, around one hundred students . . . about twenty-five per grade . . . give or take a few.
Mr. James Hendersen runs the school. He also owns it . . . having inherited it at a young age . . . and is now the school’s administrator. Finances are never a serious worry at Barclay’s. If, at any time, the outflow of funds exceeds the inflow, well, there are other sources of income to cover the shortfall . . . allowing Mr. Hendersen to operate the school as he sees fit.
The dormitory occupies the entire second floor of the school building and it is divided into four quadrants or “wings” that are identical to each other in their lay-out and facilities. Each wing has seven dorm rooms . . . with four girls to a room . . . and each class is given its own wing. For example, the juniors are all in the same wing, as they were the previous two years, and will be the following year.
The four wings have access to each other, and so, if a tour is being given, the tour guide would go from the senior wing through the door into the junior wing then on into the sophomore wing and then on into the freshmen wing and, if need be, back into the senior wing . . . making a complete circle (or, in this case, a square).
The classrooms, cafeteria, auditorium, and administrator’s office/ apartment are all on the first floor of the school building. The “free stuff room” is also on the first floor. The free stuff room is filled with things that have been donated to the school by alumni and local townspeople. There is clothing, shoes, coats and jackets, gloves, blankets, bed sheets, towels, baseball caps, sun glasses, jewelry, watches, wall hangings, and many other items. Everything in the free stuff room is arranged by size (where applicable) and is in excellent condition. Off to the left of the free stuff room is a utility room that is used for fabricating, cleaning, altering, and repairing, and it has an ironing board, a programmable sewing machine, a dress mannequin, a washer and dryer, a computerized wood carving machine, a work bench, and shelves filled with various tools.