“Enough of that,” Beth trills. “You guys are going to scare her away.” She steers me away from the crowd. “Sorry about that. I promise you that’s not an everyday occurrence here.”
I try to shake off the weight of my schoolmates’ gazes on our backs. God, what is this place? Dread has suffused every single one of my veins. “Is that girl going to be okay?”
Beth waves off my concern. “She’ll be fine. Sophie used to be in our year, but she started doing drugs—not the cool designer ones, but the really gross, common ones—and she just went in a downward spiral. Came to class one day barely dressed, started ranting about all sorts of crazy stuff. They kicked her out after that.”
The sense of dread is quickly replaced by a sense of what the hell? “Cool designer drugs?” Has Chanel started foraying into pharmacology?
“You know, like Spice, or Gravel, or Molly.”
What the hell is Spice or Gravel? I’ve heard of Molly, but the others are new to me.
Beth laughs at my expression. “I’m kidding, Lia! Obviously we don’t do such things here. I have no idea where Sophie got her drugs from, but yeah, it was scary. I hope she gets help. I don’t know how she got back in here. Security’s pretty tight. Speaking of security…” She rummages in her handbag and hands me a card with my name and picture on it. “Here is your student ID. You need it to get into all the buildings and to pay for your meals and stuff.”
“Thanks.” I almost take my wallet out but decide against it at the last minute. Show Beth my ragged, little cotton coin purse I’m using as a wallet? Nooo, thank you. I stuff the card into my back pocket.
“Anyway! Back to the tour.” Beth’s already walking ahead. “That’s Highland Hall,” she says, pointing to the building that Sophie had been dragged out of. “It’s where all most of the freshman and sophomore classes are taught.”
Looking at the pristine, majestic building, it’s hard to imagine that just moments ago, we witnessed someone my age being dragged bodily out of it.
Beth leads me past Highland Hall and points out over a dozen more buildings as we walk. By the time she takes me to a building called Mather and tells me it’s the girls’ dorms, I feel dazed. There’s no chance in hell I’m going to be able to remember where everything is. And why can’t they call the buildings what they are instead of naming them after dead people?
“That building over there’s Mansfield. It’s the boys’ dorm. We’re not allowed in each other’s dorms after six p.m. Though there are ways around it, of course.” She winks at me, then unlocks the front door of Mather with her card and sweeps inside.
“Holy crap.” The lobby of the girls’ dorm is so grand, it takes my breath away. Not exaggerating; I actually do feel winded, surrounded by the gorgeous interior. Lots of mahogany and ornate furniture that looks way too breakable to be part of a high school. Larger-than-life oil paintings of women in historical garb line the wood-paneled walls. Rosa Parks, Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie. That’s one hell of a bar to set.
I hurry after Beth down a side hallway, where the bedrooms are. A whiteboard hangs outside each room, each one filled with all sorts of doodles and notes. A few of the doors are open, and I catch glimpses of girls listening to music, playing on their computers, or chatting with each other. A couple wave and smile at me, which is somewhat surprising. In my old school, new kids are examined with sullen suspicion before being shuffled into one of the accepted categories—shanker or shanked. I’m kidding. Or am I?
A couple of the rooms we pass are empty, with their doors open. Shiny laptops and speakers lay unattended on the desks.
“Uh, how come people here don’t lock their doors?”
Beth looks confused.
Am I really going to have to explain the concept of theft? What kind of amazing bubble have I entered? “Aren’t people afraid that stuff might go missing?”
“Oh!” Beth laughs. “Draycott’s super safe. We’ve never had any problems with anything like that.” She hesitates. “What’s your neighborhood like?”
Metal detectors. Lockers wrenched open and looted. Cars stolen right from the school parking lot. “Um, not like this.” Abort, abort. I most definitely do not want to be talking about South Melville to anyone here. “What about you? Where are you from?”
“I’m from San Marino.”
“Wow.” I’ve been there once, when some fluke had us competing with San Marino Prep. The houses there are gigantic, bordered by rosebushes, Benzes and Lambos in the driveways.
“Yeah, it’s nice. I miss it sometimes. Anyway, here is your room. I’ll let you do the honors.”
My heart thuds. My own room at last. The apartment I live in with Ibu is a one-bedroom. Enough said.
I push open the door and pause for a moment so I don’t lose it and start squealing.
My new room. It’s beautiful. Okay, it’s probably pretty standard, as far as rooms go: single bed, study desk, wardrobe. But it also has a huge window overlooking the quad. Dappled sunlight streams through the window, dust motes glittering as they swirl lazily above the study desk (MY study desk!), and quite honestly, it looks magical AF. I take off my shoes—I’m not a caveman—and run to the window. I was going to fling it open all dramatically, but it’s old and not the flinging type. I end up grunting as I struggle to slide it up, where it wedges about a foot up. Well, never mind. The rest of the room more than makes up for it.
“Do you like it?” Beth is actually biting her lip, as if worried I might be disappointed by the room. I want to hug her.
“I love it! This is—it’s totally cool.” I try, and fail, to wipe the idiotic grin off my face.
Beth smiles. “I’m glad to hear that. So this is where your tour ends. Any questions?”
I shake my head.
“I’m just two doors down if you need me.”
“Cool.”
After she leaves, I start unpacking and find something lukewarm at the bottom of my duffel bag. Ack. Ibu had insisted on packing me some of her homemade pisang goreng. I told her no, it would be the death of me to have everyone see me unwrapping this greasy package of fried bananas, but since when does she listen? And I hate to admit it, but I’m sort of glad she’d ignored me.
I’m in the midst of inhaling the homey scent when a shrill giggle from the corridor makes me jump. A couple of girls gallop past my room, shouting and laughing in that obnoxious louder-than-necessary way.
“—see her boobs? They got crazy big over the break!”
“Uh, yeah, all thanks to Dr. Carroll. Krista said they cost her like ten grand.”
“Are you serious? That’s such a steal. Oh my god, I’m totally going to ask my mom for a pair when we go back for summer—”
I release my breath only after they’re out of earshot. Then, hating myself, I stride to the trash can and throw the package away. Sorry, Ibu.