Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children

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 ### Name

 Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children

## World Information

 ### Known Members

 * Eleanor West
* Kade Bronson
* Christopher
* Onishi Sumi
* Angela
* Seraphina
* Cora
* Other students

 ### Travelers

 * Unnamed Rainbow child
* Onishi Rini

## Book Information

 ### Appearances

 * Every Heart a Doorway
* Beneath the Sugar Sky
* Come Tumbling Down

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“*ELEANOR WEST'S HOME FOR WAYWARD CHILDREN: No Solicitations, No Visitors, No Quests.*”
―The Sign at the front of the School
Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children is a main location in the Wayward Children books.

## Description

Eleanor West made the school out of her father's old manor. It is in the center of a field, with perfect green grass, perfect trees, and a rainbow of a garden. Above the porch of the manor hangs a sign that reads "ELEANOR WEST'S HOME FOR WAYWARD CHILDREN: No Solicitations, No Visitors, No Quests."

The foyer walls has old-fashioned wall paper with paintings of roses and twining clematis vines, with antique furnishings and a cherrywood floor. There is also a chandelier shaped like a blooming flower on the top. It was made by one of their alumni out of glass, except for the twelve teardrop-shaped prisms in the centre, which Eleanor made from her tears.

The students are roomed together, about two students to a room. Eleanor often tries to have students from similar backgrounds roomed together so they don't hurt each other. Sometimes children from worlds with no or little sunlight prefer to sleep in darker rooms, or the basement.

Dinner is held in a ballroom with a polished marble floor and vaulted cathedral ceiling. There is space for about a hundred students (though there are only around fourty), with a buffet-style canteen along the wall. After dinner is Group Therapy, where the children share their experiences with travelling to other worlds.

New students have orientation in a small room that had once been a study, full of blackboards and chalk. When Lundy gave Nancy her orientation, she started by explaining the Cardinal Directions, and answering questions.

Outside, there is a dark grove of trees which is the shadiest spot on the grounds, where many of the students like to go. Lundy's body is buried there, along with Sumi's hands.

The basement entrance is at the corner of the manor, with doors that had once been used by tradesmen delivering to the house. While Jack and Jill were in the basement, it was covered with lab equipment on racks, dressers with fancy clothes, and an autopsy table, a bed, a bathtub and lots of acid. Kade says that there's also a bathroom in the basement.

Kade sleeps in the attic. His room has lots of books in it, with few pieces of actual furniture. It also has the group wardrobe, sewing equipment, and storage space.

## School

Eleanor West founded the school to collect children from fantasy worlds who want to remember their experiences, and possibly return to their worlds. She would obtain the children by going to their parents and pretending that their new thoughts were part of a common disease, and that she could help them with therapy. About two thirds of the children she tries to get will arrive at the school. She accepts students aged 12-19.

The students have mostly normal classes with teachers who aren't aware of the situation, and also have electives, like Music, Art, and a class on the World Compass.

It is noted that a vast majority of the students at Eleanor's are girls- Nancy estimates about thirty-six girls when she first arrives, and with only four boys. Lundy explains that this is because society expects boys to be loud and girls to be quiet, so girls can slip away into other worlds more easily. While she would love to have more boys, they simply don't get any.

Should a student find a door back to their world, Eleanor has procedures in case: informing their parents that they ran away again, and lots of students will "run twice."

## Known Members

### Staff

* Eleanor West (Founder and Headmistress)
* Kade Bronson (Assistant Headmaster)

### Current Students

* Angela
* Christopher
* Cora
* Onishi Sumi
* Seraphina
* About Thirty-Four Unnamed Girls
* Two Unnamed Boys

### Former Students

* Loriel Youngers (deceased)
* Jack Wolcott (departed)
* Jill Wolcott (departed)
* Nancy Whitman (departed)
* Nadya (departed)
* Unnamed Girl from a Mirror World (departed)
* Unnamed Boy from a Moleman World (graduated)
* Four Unnamed Webworld Children (two departed, two unknown)
* Unnamed Rainbow Girl (unknown fate)

## References

1. ↑ Every Heart a Doorway, page 15: "The manor sat in the center of what would have been considered a field, had it not been used to frame a private home. The grass was perfectly green, the trees clustered around the structure perfectly prunes, and the garden gew in a profusion of colors that normally existed together only in a rainbow, or in a child's toy box."
2. ↑ Every Heart a Doorway, page 16
3. ↑ Every Heart a Doorway, page 18
4. ↑ Every Heart a Doorway, page 44: Nancy paused in the doorway, daunted by the scope of it, and by the sight of her classmates, who dotted the tables like so many knickknacks. There were seats for a hundred students, maybe more, but there were only forty or so in the room. They were so small, and the space was so big.
5. ↑ Every Heart a Doorway, page 46: Laughter from the girls- and they were *overwhelmingly* girls, Nancy realized. Apart from Kade, who was sitting by himself with his nose buried in a book, there were only three boys in the entire group. It seemed odd for a coed school to be so unbalanced.
6. ↑ Every Heart a Doorwaypage 59: "Because 'boys will be boys' is a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Lundy. "They're too loud, on the whole, to be easily misplaced or overlooked; when they disappear from the home, parents send search parties to dredge them our of swamps and drag them away from frog ponds. It's not innate. It's learned. But it protects them from the doors, keeps them safe at home. Call it irony, if you like, but we spend do much time waiting for our boys to stray that they never have the opportunity. We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women."

page 60: "We've always been open to male students; we just don't get many."