From behind the lectern, Dr. Beecham withdrew a rabbit. A live rabbit, apparently indifferent to being held aloft in front of a classroom, placidly gazing out toward the students. There was a wave of giggles, Hazel’s among them. Beecham raised one eyebrow and pulled the rabbit into his chest, stroking it with his long fingers.
“All that is to say,” Dr. Beecham said, “if you wish to leave this class now, I won’t hold it against you. In fact, I think self-knowledge is a form of wisdom. The field of medicine is arduous. I would be lying if I said I haven’t lost more than one patient over the course of a semester.” He pulled out a small scalpel from his pocket and examined the blade as he spoke. “To infection. To disease. To a mishandled blade. Even once”—he placed the rabbit on the lectern. It gave a small hop, but then settled in silence beneath Beecham’s hand—“to shock.”
And then Dr. Beecham brought the scalpel down onto the rabbit. Hazel gasped, but fortunately she wasn’t the only one. Beecham withdrew a handkerchief to dab at the blood splatter that landed across his forehead. “I repeat. If you wish to leave this class, do it now.” The boy next to Hazel looked close to fainting. He shoved his chair out and ran from the room. “Any others? No? Good.”
Beecham rang a small brass bell he’d pulled from behind the lectern, and an assistant in an apron came in, carrying a box of rabbits, all of which mercifully were already dead. The rabbits were distributed amongst the students, along with scalpels that looked as though they had been in use for years. Hazel peeled a brownish drop of dried blood off her scalpel’s handle.
“You have all been given a rabbit,” Beecham said. “I have taken the liberty of doing the killing for you. The term starts with anatomy, but until more men start breaking His Majesty’s laws, human subjects are in limited supply, to say nothing of their considerable price. And so, for your first day: rabbit. Your task will be identifying and articulating the major organs: brain, heart, stomach, lungs, bladder, liver, spleen, large intestine, small intestine.” He wrote the name of each body part in chalk on the board behind him and underlined it.
Hazel looked down at her rabbit, a thin wiry thing with mottled brown fur. The smell of it reminded her of the kitchens after her father and George went hunting. She looked up again to see Dr. Beecham impatient and expectant. “What are you waiting for?” he said to the class. “Begin!”
The scramble started immediately, as the boys around Hazel slashed their knives into their animals and began to hack away at the innards. Hazel paused a moment and examined the animal in front of her. She waited to lift her knife until she could perfectly picture all the slices she would make—as few as possible. And then Hazel cut.
* * *
“FINISHED. I MEAN: FINISHED, SIR.” A few of the boys near Hazel lifted their heads in disbelief. They were covered in sweat.
Dr. Beecham looked up from the newspaper he was reading at his desk at the front of the room.
“All the organs,” he said. “Not just the first one on the board.”
“I know, sir. I’ve got them all.”
Beecham rose and walked slowly over to Hazel’s table, where she had neatly removed all the requisite organs and placed them in organized rows next to the now disemboweled rabbit. “Brain, heart, stomach, lungs, bladder, liver, spleen, large intestine, small intestine,” Hazel recited, pointing them out one by one.
Beecham blinked a few times in disbelief. “What’s your name, young man?”
Hazel’s mouth went dry. “George. George Hazelton, sir.”
“Hazleton. Hazleton, don’t believe I know the name. Is your father a physician?”
“No, sir. He serves in the Royal Navy. But he had an interest in natural philosophy, and I studied his books.”
“His books.”
“Yes. Actually, I’ve learned the most from your grandfather’s book. Dr. Beecham’s Treatise.”
Dr. Beecham smiled. “I’m well familiar. You couldn’t have found a better primer. Class, drop your scalpels. Mr. Hazelton has outdone you all.” He leaned in to examine what remained of Hazel’s rabbit. “I say, in the years I have taught this course, not a single student has ever managed to cut so cleanly and swiftly. Bravo.”
A boy behind Hazel coughed loudly. “Bootlicker,” he coughed again. The boys around him laughed. Hazel had spent enough time with her brothers to know what he meant: she was sucking up to the teacher. The cougher had several large moles prominently placed on his face, and long sideburns perhaps meant to draw the eye away.