up.
“Hello?” she said, like she’d done a hundred thousand times before. My heart lurched. I missed Lia like crazy, but I didn’t trust her anymore. And the truth was, I couldn’t bear to tell her what had happened and risk her laughing at me, too. Instead, I covered the mouthpiece so she wouldn’t hear me cry, and listened to her breathe until she hung up.
W hen Tamara came back to our room right before ten o’clock check-in, I was already in bed. We both pretended I was asleep. She set her alarm, and I sincerely hoped it was for 7 the next morning and not 2 A.M . What if someone heard her alarm go off in the middle of the night? If she was going to be that dumb, she’d get caught. Then tomorrow or the next day, Sasha would make an announcement that featured me prominently in the role of Tattletale McSquealerpants.
I was still awake at one thirty when Tamara’s bedsprings creaked. I heard her feet on the floor, and then the patio doors opened. I was so mad at her; I hoped she got caught. I was scared to death she’d get caught.
I was alone in our room. She had really done it.
My insides pretzeled when I thought about how theconsequences were out of my hands. In the dark, every creak in the dorm was a teacher coming to check Tamara’s empty bed. Every gust of wind was more teachers, probably holding lit torches and the leashes of growling bloodhounds, on the trail after Jessie and Sasha and Tamara and Brynn. As I lay there, I could actually see Sasha, caught and crying. But also penning her announcement for tomorrow morning. Behind her, the headmistress called an emergency disciplinary committee together, still wearing her bathrobe.
About a minute later, it was three in the morning. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I slunk out of bed and got dressed, convinced I was getting stupider by the second to do what I was thinking about doing. The patio doors opened like a thunder crack. I waited either to have a coronary or for Miss Andersen to walk in and bust me. Who could have slept through that noise?
The moon was out. Billowy silver clouds blew fast across the sky. All the lights around campus were dimmed for the night, leaving little pools of amber splashed around the pathways. I shivered.
And then I was outside. An expulsionary offense. My shoes scuffed the patio, loud as a jackhammer, so I slippedthem off. The ground was cold and wet, but I didn’t care. Bare feet didn’t make noise. I took off at a jog, not bothering to crouch in the shadows or anything. If someone saw me, that was just my bad luck.
The crazy thing was how great it felt to be outside in the middle of the night. The air seemed superoxygenated; every inhale made me light-headed with all the energy in it. I ran, hardly needing to breathe at all. It felt like I was the only person left on earth.
But once I got to the back door of the chapel, I didn’t know what to do. I heard a noise and peeked around the corner of the building.
There was nothing but scraggly bushes, a narrow dirt path, and the edge of the mesa. I could see right away that the stained-glass wall was open a bit. And a girl was crouched outside the chapel, peeking in. Candlelight from inside flickered on the stained glass, striping the girl’s face with red and orange.
The girl looked at me, eyes wide, finger over her lips to warn me not to shout out. I crept over to her. It was Rachel, from my Spanish class — she was a loud, exuberant girl with pink cheeks and big brown eyes. In class, she always cracked jokes using our vocab words, and whenevershe raised her hand, the teacher always sighed before he said, “Yes, Rachel.”
“Are they still doing the séance?” I whispered, wanting her to know that I knew what was going on, that I had some kind of right to be there, too.
Rachel nodded. Looking inside the chapel was like seeing into another world. Everything seemed calm. The warm honey of the wooden pews and the flicker of candlelight. A blanket lay in the aisle,
“Hello?” she said, like she’d done a hundred thousand times before. My heart lurched. I missed Lia like crazy, but I didn’t trust her anymore. And the truth was, I couldn’t bear to tell her what had happened and risk her laughing at me, too. Instead, I covered the mouthpiece so she wouldn’t hear me cry, and listened to her breathe until she hung up.
W hen Tamara came back to our room right before ten o’clock check-in, I was already in bed. We both pretended I was asleep. She set her alarm, and I sincerely hoped it was for 7 the next morning and not 2 A.M . What if someone heard her alarm go off in the middle of the night? If she was going to be that dumb, she’d get caught. Then tomorrow or the next day, Sasha would make an announcement that featured me prominently in the role of Tattletale McSquealerpants.
I was still awake at one thirty when Tamara’s bedsprings creaked. I heard her feet on the floor, and then the patio doors opened. I was so mad at her; I hoped she got caught. I was scared to death she’d get caught.
I was alone in our room. She had really done it.
My insides pretzeled when I thought about how theconsequences were out of my hands. In the dark, every creak in the dorm was a teacher coming to check Tamara’s empty bed. Every gust of wind was more teachers, probably holding lit torches and the leashes of growling bloodhounds, on the trail after Jessie and Sasha and Tamara and Brynn. As I lay there, I could actually see Sasha, caught and crying. But also penning her announcement for tomorrow morning. Behind her, the headmistress called an emergency disciplinary committee together, still wearing her bathrobe.
About a minute later, it was three in the morning. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I slunk out of bed and got dressed, convinced I was getting stupider by the second to do what I was thinking about doing. The patio doors opened like a thunder crack. I waited either to have a coronary or for Miss Andersen to walk in and bust me. Who could have slept through that noise?
The moon was out. Billowy silver clouds blew fast across the sky. All the lights around campus were dimmed for the night, leaving little pools of amber splashed around the pathways. I shivered.
And then I was outside. An expulsionary offense. My shoes scuffed the patio, loud as a jackhammer, so I slippedthem off. The ground was cold and wet, but I didn’t care. Bare feet didn’t make noise. I took off at a jog, not bothering to crouch in the shadows or anything. If someone saw me, that was just my bad luck.
The crazy thing was how great it felt to be outside in the middle of the night. The air seemed superoxygenated; every inhale made me light-headed with all the energy in it. I ran, hardly needing to breathe at all. It felt like I was the only person left on earth.
But once I got to the back door of the chapel, I didn’t know what to do. I heard a noise and peeked around the corner of the building.
There was nothing but scraggly bushes, a narrow dirt path, and the edge of the mesa. I could see right away that the stained-glass wall was open a bit. And a girl was crouched outside the chapel, peeking in. Candlelight from inside flickered on the stained glass, striping the girl’s face with red and orange.
The girl looked at me, eyes wide, finger over her lips to warn me not to shout out. I crept over to her. It was Rachel, from my Spanish class — she was a loud, exuberant girl with pink cheeks and big brown eyes. In class, she always cracked jokes using our vocab words, and whenevershe raised her hand, the teacher always sighed before he said, “Yes, Rachel.”
“Are they still doing the séance?” I whispered, wanting her to know that I knew what was going on, that I had some kind of right to be there, too.
Rachel nodded. Looking inside the chapel was like seeing into another world. Everything seemed calm. The warm honey of the wooden pews and the flicker of candlelight. A blanket lay in the aisle,
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