“Gorgeous!” exclaimed Friday.

  “I know,” said a girl.

  Friday jumped. She hadn’t realized there was someone else in the room. “Where did you come from?” asked Friday, spinning around.

  “I was hiding in the wardrobe,” said the girl. She had a vague and airy way of speaking. “I didn’t like to come out until I knew you weren’t a dangerous psychopath.”

  “How do you know I’m not a dangerous psychopath?” asked Friday.

  “I don’t know,” admitted the girl dreamily, “and yet I do. Sorry, I’m not very good at explaining things. My mother says I’m an idiot savant who isn’t a savant at anything.”

  “Your mother says you’re an idiot?” Friday’s own parents were not in any way affectionate, but even they would not say such a thing about her.

  “My mother reads a lot of romance novels,” explained the girl calmly. “She likes to think of all the people in her life as characters in novels. That way we can all contribute to her primary narrative of a tortured heroine forced to endure mediocrity by the cruelty of life.”

  “Is she forced to endure mediocrity?” asked Friday.

  “Well, yes,” agreed the girl. “But it was her decision to become a real estate agent.”

  Friday decided it was best to change the subject. “My name is Friday Barnes, and I think I am your roommate.”

  “Do you realize your name is a day of the week?” asked the girl.

  “Yes,” said Friday.

  “Just checking,” said the girl. “I find it very common for girls called Madison to not realize they have been named after the fourth president of the United States.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Friday.

  “Me?” asked the girl, as if this was a surprising question. “Melanie Pelly.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Friday, shaking Melanie’s hand.

  “Is it, or are you just saying that out of social convention?” asked Melanie.

  Friday considered the question for a moment. “It is,” she decided. “I was concerned that you would be narcissistic and ruthless, but you don’t appear to be.”

  “No, they’re not my adjectives,” agreed Melanie. “I left you the bed by the window because it’s nicer, so I thought you’d want it.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Friday.

  “It makes no difference to me,” said Melanie. “I tend to go off wandering in my mind, so it doesn’t matter where I am physically. Besides, I can always go and sit on your bed when you’re not here, and you’ll never know unless I tell you about it.”

  “True,” agreed Friday. “So have you thrown my suitcase into the swamp? I believe that is traditional when a roommate has been delayed.”

  “Goodness, no,” said Melanie. “I did see the other girls dragging some things down there earlier. And I did want to join in so that they would let me be part of the group. But your suitcase was very heavy. So I took my own suitcase and threw that in instead.”

  “But won’t your own things be damaged?” asked Friday.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Melanie. “I doubt it. The school doesn’t allow personal computers or mobile phones, so there were no electronics in the suitcase. Just a few casual clothes and a hockey stick. I don’t mind if the catfish get that.”

  “Do you know what we do now?” asked Friday.

  “Oh yes,” said Melanie. “This is my second time here.”

  “Really?” said Friday, worrying that her roommate was about to tell her that she had attended the school in a previous life when she was Cleopatra.

  “I did eight months of seventh grade last year,” said Melanie.

  “Why only eight months?” asked Friday.

  “My family took me on a trip to Africa during spring break,” explained Melanie. “I was bitten by a tsetse fly and came down with the sleeping sickness. I only woke up four weeks ago.”

  “So you’re repeating the year?” asked Friday.

  “Yes,” said Melanie. “Which suits me because I wasn’t paying very close attention the first time around.”

  “Well, according to the schedule our residential tutor gave me, the dinner bell will ring in three minutes,” said Friday.

  “You’d better use that time to change your clothes, then,” said Melanie. “You might put other people off their food if you go to dinner covered in blood.”

  Friday looked down and realized that her T-shirt and cardigan were spattered in the distinctive reddish brown of drying blood. A wave of nausea swept over her and the floor began to spin.

  “Please don’t faint,” said Melanie, guiding Friday to the bed. “Or if you do, do it on a soft furnishing. If you crack your head open on the nightstand, you’ll make a mess of this lovely carpet.”

  Friday held a hand to her head as if holding her thoughts in and squeezed her eyes shut, willing the dizziness away.

  Suddenly the door burst open and a very beautiful girl strode into the room, flanked by two almost-as-beautiful friends.

  “Hello, this is Mirabella Peterson,” Melanie told Friday.

  “I’m not talking to you,” said Mirabella, the very beautiful girl.

  “Really?” said Melanie pleasantly. “I could swear I heard sound coming out of your mouth.”

  Mirabella chose to ignore Melanie and turned to Friday instead. “I don’t believe for a second you cut your head open because my father hit your suitcase,” Mirabella declared. “I think you had a razor blade hidden in a hairclip and you cut your own head open so you could sue my family. This sort of thing happens all the time. Poor people get the idea from watching too much professional wrestling on television.”

  “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” said Friday. She could barely even hear Mirabella above the swishing nausea-induced sound in her ears.

  “This school isn’t for the likes of you,” said Mirabella. “I’ve got forty witnesses who will say they saw you leap in front of our car.”

  “There weren’t forty people there,” said Melanie. “There were fourteen students, thirteen parents, four chauffeurs, a maiden aunt, two teachers, and Diego the gardener, who was hiding in the bushes staring at Miss Harrow because he is deeply in love with her but doesn’t speak English so he can’t tell her so.”

  Everyone looked at Melanie.

  “I notice things,” she explained. “My brain just does it. The hard part is getting it to notice things that are useful.”

  Mirabella decided to continue ignoring Melanie and turned back to Friday. “You don’t know much about Highcrest, do you?”

  “This is my first day,” said Friday.

  “Well, it is traditional for people like me, who pay full fees, to resent people like you, who don’t pay a cent and weasel your way in here on a scholarship,” explained the girl. “Every grade has one scholarship student, and it is the Highcrest way to make that student’s life here as miserable as possible.” Mirabella turned to her friends. “Girls, grab her suitcase. It’s going in the swamp.”

  The two friends grabbed hold of Friday’s suitcase, but it didn’t budge.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Mirabella.

  “It’s really heavy,” said the friend. “It won’t move.”

  Mirabella walked over and grabbed the handle. “Must I do everything myself?” But she couldn’t lift it either. “What have you got in here? Gravel?”

  “Books,” said Friday.

  “Typical. Scholarship kids are always bookworms,” said Mirabella. “Well, you haven’t heard the last of this. I’m going to make your life here at Highcrest a nightmare.”

  With that the girls left, slamming the door behind them.

  “Why didn’t you tell her you’re not the scholarship kid?” asked Melanie.

  For the third time in the five minutes since she had met her, Friday’s roommate had surprised her. “How do you know I’m not?”

  “I don’t know,” said Melanie. “And yet I do. It must be something about your body language.”

  “I’m not,” admitted Friday, “but I didn’t like to say so because someone is, and if the scholarship kid really is targeted for bullying, I’m not going to be the one to drop them in it.”

  “You’ll have to put up with a lot yourself,” predicted Melanie.

  “I’m used to social isolation,” said Friday.

  “Isolation is nice,” agreed Melanie. “That’s why people like to go on vacation to deserted beaches. But I don’t think what Mirabella has planned for you is going to be anything like that.”

  Chapter

  11

  Bullying

  Friday was interested to see how Mirabella intended to make her life miserable. Life at an exclusive boarding school would be a lot more fun than she had imagined if there was a nemesis for her to thwart. But from her brief encounter with Mirabella, Friday doubted that she would be nemesis-worthy. She was probably going to be more of an annoyance than an archenemy.

  And this proved to be correct, because Mirabella’s idea of what made someone miserable was wildly different from Friday’s. The next morning at nine, when Friday walked into her first class, geography, Mirabella loudly announced, “Attention, everybody, this girl is the scholarship student. Nobody talk to her.”

  The other students glanced at Friday briefly. None of them had any intention of talking to her anyway. And for Friday this was a dream come true. She wished Mirabella would go to more places with her and make similar announcements, particularly at the hairdresser. Friday had always had tremendously awkward conversations with hairdressers. She found she had a polar-opposite life view to them and, consequently, conversation was painful. She was always embarrassed to confess that she never used a hair dryer. Not on her hair anyway. She often used one as a heat source when accelerating a chemical reaction.

  The last person to enter the room was, unprofessionally enough, the teacher. Mr. Maclean was in his early forties. Friday had seen his type before. He had all the confidence and swagger of a man who had spent the first twenty years of his adult life being very good-looking. Now in middle age he had gained a little weight and lost a little hair, and the unnatural confidence seemed slightly pathetic. Even his subject was slightly pathetic. Geography had once been a fascinating noble pursuit. There was a time when the ability to read a contour map, navigate by the stars, predict the weather, and recount the major imports and exports of Guatemala was an impressive skill set. But in this day and age, all these things could be accomplished in three seconds with a smartphone.

  Mr. Maclean didn’t even seem particularly interested in his own subject. He seemed to want to focus the beginning of the lesson on dazzling his new students with his charm. While Mr. Maclean told boastful stories about his world travels, Friday took out her first detective novel of the day. She usually read at least one book during the course of the school day, sometimes two, and occasionally three if she had a particularly boring math lesson.

  Friday was just getting to a good part in the novel she was reading secretly under the desk when suddenly the door to the classroom burst open and there in the doorway stood … a Greek god.

  Chapter

  12

  The Greek God

  Obviously, it was not really a Greek god, because this wasn’t Greece and the Greek gods have not paid earthly visits for many centuries now. But the boy who stood in the doorway was totally unearthly in his handsomeness: his hair was so blond, his eyes were so blue, his face was so handsome, and his body was so lean, tall, and athletic. His only blemish was a small vertical scar above his right eyebrow. But even his scar looked handsome, as if it had been applied by a brilliant Hollywood makeup artist.

  Friday found herself wondering if she was having some sort of brain aneurysm, because it was easier to believe she was having an anatomic failure of her cerebellum than to believe that a boy this good-looking could exist.

  Then he did the most amazing thing. He smiled, and it was like watching a supernova.

  “Sorry, sir, my name is Ian. I’m late because I had a terrible stomachache when I woke up this morning,” he said in a beautifully smooth voice.

  “Are you all right now?” asked Mr. Maclean, drawing away from this possible source of disease. “Perhaps you should be in bed, resting.”

  “Oh no,” said Ian, smiling warmly at his teacher. “I adore geography. I couldn’t stay away.”

  Ian then turned and looked at Friday, which actually made her flinch. She had seen beautiful people in magazines, but she had never seen someone so good-looking in real life before.

  “Are you all right?” whispered Melanie.

  “What?” asked Friday. She had forgotten that Melanie was sitting next to her.

  “You seem to be hyperventilating,” said Melanie, “and given that you had a head injury yesterday, I’m concerned about you.”

  “I didn’t realize seeing someone so good-looking could have such a disconcerting effect on my respiratory system,” Friday whispered.

  “Who’s good-looking?” asked Melanie. She had been staring dreamily out the window. “Oh, you mean Ian Wainscott? Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  Friday was struggling to not think about it as she watched Ian stride with the confidence of a catwalk model and the athletic grace of a cheetah down the aisle. She gulped. He was coming right toward her. He was looking at her again. Was he going to speak to her?

  But Ian simply slid into the desk on the other side of Friday. Friday breathed a quiet sigh of relief and looked down at her empty notebook. Perhaps she would take some geography notes after all to take her mind off this distracting boy.

  “Anyway, where was I?” said Mr. Maclean. “Oh yes, explaining the rules. We’re stuck with each other for the next twelve months—unless one of you gets expelled.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “Or you get fired,” said Melanie.

  Everyone turned and looked at her. “Sorry,” said Melanie. “Did I say that out loud? I meant to just think it.”

  “Yes, anyway,” said Mr. Maclean, “I think it’s important to start off by knowing where we all stand. A little birdie showed me a copy of your entrance IQ tests this morning.”

  This got everyone’s attention. Mr. Maclean smirked at the class, very pleased with himself for catching their focus. People loved knowing their IQ score. If it was high, that was obviously good. But if it was low, that was good, too, because they could tell themselves they were too smart for their intelligence to register on a standardized examination.

  “We are indeed privileged to have the brightest student this year right here in our class,” said Mr. Maclean mysteriously.

  But it was apparently not a mystery to the majority of students, because they all turned and looked at Ian. Ian smiled. He was better at smiling than Mr. Maclean. His smile had only the slightest trace of smugness in it.

  “Yes, we all know,” said Mirabella. “Ian is a genius. He was always winning all the prizes at school.”

  “Ian who?” said Mr. Maclean, checking his register. “Wainscott? Oh no, not him. He’s second. The brightest student this year—indeed, ever to take the Highcrest Academy IQ test—is a boy called … Friday Balmes.”

  Friday could feel the heat rising up through her neck.

  “Who?” asked Ian, visibly shocked. Angry even.

  “Friday Balmes,” said Mr. Maclean.

  Friday could not see her face, but she was entirely sure that if she could it would be beetroot-red at this moment.

  “Balmes, put your hand up,” ordered Mr. Maclean, looking around the room.

  There was no escaping now. Given time, Friday could have forged a birth certificate, a passport, and school documents and passed herself off under another name—Adrianna Hicklestein, for instance—but she could not do that in a split second, and certainly not without access to Photoshop software and a color printer. She would have to say something.

  “Barnes,” she said.

  “No, Balmes,” corrected Mr. Maclean.

  “I think I know my own name,” said Friday.

  “It’s you?” said Mr. Maclean, clearly surprised. He squinted at Friday. He had not noticed her before. “You’re not a boy, are you? I thought Friday was a boy’s name.”

  Some of the class giggled. Mortification sank into every cell in Friday’s body.

  “My name is Friday Barnes,” said Friday. “Should you be wearing reading glasses, Mr. Maclean?”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Maclean. “My eyesight is twenty-twenty.” He squinted at the register, holding it as far away as possible. “Ah yes, Barnes, you’re right. Must have been a typo. Sorry, I thought you’d be a boy. And taller.”

  “I’m not,” said Friday.

  “Evidently,” agreed Mr. Maclean. “Anyway, Barnes here is the new top dog. He is—I mean, she is your competition for the next twelve months. The one you’ve got to take down if you want to be the alpha student.”

  “Surely education should be a collaborative learning process, not a dog-eat-dog competition?” queried Friday.

  This time the whole class laughed, including Mr. Maclean.

  “My dear girl,” said Mr. Maclean, “this is a private school. You’ve entered Lord of the Flies now.”

  * * *

  The rest of the lesson went smoothly enough. Mirabella took every opportunity to make snide comments about Friday, but she was obviously having difficulty arousing the interest of the other students. When they did glance at Friday it was with apathetic disinterest, which was just the way Friday liked things.

  “Excuse me,” said Ian.

  Friday looked up and flinched again. Ian had leaned across the aisle and had his hand on the edge of her desk. He smiled his supernova smile and she caught her breath. Somewhere in the back of her very large brain Friday noted that Ian even smelled nice.

  “May I borrow a pen?” asked Ian. “I seem to have forgotten mine.”