The Longborough School for Boys is the North Thrush boarding school that Ned attended at age nine, following the death of his mother. It was at this school that Ned started to learn the nature of his power, how to control it and how to lie to preserve his secret. It was also here that Ned was first reunited with his best friend, Digby.^[1]

Contents 1 History and Appearance 2 Ned as a student 3 List of Students 4 Sources

History and Appearance

Little is yet known about the history of Longborough School for Boys, although the exterior architecture and interior style indicates it has been around for some time. The school, located in the Papen County^[2] town of North Thrush, also serves as lodging for its male students during term time. The teachers are notoriously strict and carry giant rulers, although whether corporal punishments is actually used at the school, or simply the threat of it, is unclear.^[3]

The Longborough School is an L-shaped three-story building that sits on one of the many North Thrush fields of green grass. The architecture appears to be of a 19th century style, with light brown exterior walls and a red roof with six chimneys. The rooms of the school are extremely drab and dusty, with uncarpeted metal floors and plain beige walls, bare except for several chalkboards. Pairs of students sit in black tables that face the teacher's desk at the front of the room.^[3]

The school's motto is "Institutum Superior Omnibus", which is Latin for "tradition over all."^[4]

Ned as a student

After the death of Ned's mother, his father dropped Ned off at the school when he was 9 years, 29 weeks and 4 days old, according to the Narrator. Ned's father promised that he would be back to get him, which would eventually prove to be a lie. Ned was socially detached at the school, not so much from the strict teachers or the unfamiliar students, but because he had recently discovered that he had the ability to bring the dead back to life. The students mocked him for his detachedness, hurling both taunts and actual objects at him during class. Ned got even with them by resurrecting the frogs from a science dissection lesson, but from this experience he learned that his ability should not be so frivolously or irresponsibly used.^[3]

Ned learned other lessons about his power at the school, lessons that had nothing to do with the curriculum. He learned how to lie about his ability and maintain a normal life, starting with denying any involvement with the frog incident. That ability to lie would be fine-tuned throughout his years at the school, and would become particularly helpful in concealing his powers as an adult.^[3] It was also at the school that Ned learned he could only keep those he resurrected alive for exactly one minute before another life had to be taken; he discovered this by placing fireflies in a jar, resurrecting one jar-full of flies and then waiting with a stopwatch until the second jar-full of flies died.^[5]

Learning to live with his secret was a particularly stressful time for young Ned. He tried to rationalize that he was blameless for any consequences for his actions, and eventually decided at the school that he would never again touch and bring back another dead person or animal, a vow which he obviously did not follow.^[5]

List of Students

The following have been shown as students of the Longborough School for Boys.

• Ned
• Eugene Mulchandani
• Ingmar Todd

Sources

1. ↑ Pigeon
2. ↑ The Norwegians
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3} Dummy
4. ↑ Bitter Sweets
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} The Fun in Funeral

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