I resisted the urge to groan.
It turned out that the paper was full of questions, most of them inane. Did we share a bedroom? No. Whose bedroom was bigger? Neither. Beth used her real estate prowess to find us a house with bedrooms with exactly the same square footage. Was I allergic to any foods? Kiwis. What was our high school mascot? Warriors. Could I pretend not to know how to drive, since it’d be weird if I knew and he didn’t? No problem. Left my license at home anyway.
“What the hell is that?” Isaiah blurted as we hit the edge of the arboretum. The trees abruptly stopped and the world ahead of us was flat and green, except for a dozen small wooden structures sprouting out of the ground.
“Fort Farm,” I said. “They meant it literally.”
Each building was built out of five wooden pallets—the kind usually seen on forklifts at Costco. With sharply pointed roofs and only two walls, they looked like house skeletons. Except for one that had been draped in navy blue sheets. A literal blanket fort in the middle of a field.
The sheets rustled. Isaiah took a jump backwards, as though expecting a wild animal to come charging out. Instead, there was red bedhead, an unfolding of limbs, and then the Perfect Nerd Girl standing in an R2-D2 nightshirt that skimmed the top of her knees. On brand, even at sunrise.
She squinted her reflective eyes at us and yawned. “Ever, right? From Meg’s team?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Uh, hi.” Isaiah coughed and I jerked my head at him. “This is my brother. We were out for a jog.”
“Mm,” the Perfect Nerd Girl grunted, her mouth set into a deep frown. “Jog elsewhere.”
“Sure thing,” Isaiah said. He spun on his heel and put on speed for the first time, tearing back the way we came.
I thought I heard voices behind me as I followed him, but when I glanced over my shoulder the counselor was gone and the sheets were still.
“God,” Isaiah whispered as we passed the directional sign again. “Can you imagine how much shit we’d be in if that RA had heard us talking about not being related? We almost outed ourselves.”
“Yeah, we really lucked out there. I guess we’ll have to stop talking about it forever.”
I wondered if anyone else knew that one of our resident advisers had forsaken her post on our floor. And—if no one else knew—what would it mean that I did?
9
The first day of classes loomed like an electrical storm over the cafeteria. Every table seemed to be filled with equal parts excitement and terror. And supreme disappointment in the breakfast options.
I should have remembered, said Oscar Wilde, that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals.
“What’s our first lecture today?” I asked, looking up from the oil slick that was my plate. The sausages were cold in the middle. I dipped one in lukewarm maple syrup, hoping that the temperature would balance out.
It didn’t.
“Literature with Hari,” Leigh said. “Then philosophy, lunch, art history, and essay prep.”
Galen snorted. “How can we have an entire class on essays? Didn’t we all prove we could write one when we got in?”
“It’ll be fine,” Brandon said, balancing his tray under his nose as he settled onto the bench between Galen and Hunter. “Ben’s our essay tutor. It’ll probably be a study hall.”
I had hoped it was the whole mistaken-for-a-ghost thing that had made Brandon so interesting yesterday, but there was something about him that immediately made my skin feel too tight. I couldn’t stop myself from examining him—his hair wet around his ears and neck, his voice extra woolly from sleepiness. It made me feel hot and gangly and like maybe Oregon didn’t have enough oxygen.
“Who’s Ben?” Kate asked.
“Third-floor resident adviser,” Leigh said. “Messina graduate, currently attending the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in political science.” She winced around at seven blank stares. “What? I’m the only person who read through the binder?”
“You can just say UC Berkeley,” I said.
“Noted,” she chirped. And I was positive that she actually had made a mental note. While I’d dressed for the day, she’d started memorizing the brands and properties of the hair products I used. She claimed it kept her brain limber.
“I am dying,” Perla wailed, digging her fingertips into her temples and smooshing the skin forward. “Who do I have to blow for a cup of coffee?”
“That would also be Ben,” Brandon said. “He’s in charge of the kitchen.” Perla glared at him, and he shrank back on the bench as though he could hide behind Jams’s right ear. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be heteronormative. There’s a female counselor on kitchen duty, too. I think her name’s Simone?”
“Simone Freeman, Rayevich rising junior,” Leigh said. She propped herself up on her elbows and leaned toward Perla. “Regardless of your sexual preferences, I would suggest appealing to Simone for coffee. She’s a philosophy major with an emphasis in ethics. You could present a case for the social mores of daily caffeine intake versus the subjugation you feel juice presents to your lifestyle. And I thought I heard her talking about doing a Starbucks run for the counselors.”
“Oh hell no,” Perla snarled, launching herself off the bench.
“When did you overhear the counselors talking?” I asked Leigh under my breath, as we watched Perla stomp across the dining hall toward the counselors’ table. “We stood in line at the breakfast bar together.”
“Hm?” She blinked at me as she took a bite of squelchy pancake. She shook her head as she chewed. “Oh, that was a statistical gamble. Adults eighteen to twenty-four make up forty percent of Starbucks’ annual sales. With twelve counselors that fit that demographic currently fighting off sleep deprivation and looking forward to their first day of teaching, someone’s going to share Perla’s need for coffee.” She batted her eyelashes at the rest of the table. “I could call her back over?”
We all turned to watch Perla wedge herself between two counselors at the table in front of the window. Her hands immediately starting pointing and flapping as her rant built up steam again.
“No,” Galen said firmly. “Let her get her fix. Maybe she’ll be nicer.”
“Caffeine causes your cerebral neurons to increase fire,” Brandon said, stirring his cereal. “Your pituitary gland shoots out adrenaline, in case you’re being attacked. Most people aren’t nicer when they enter fight or flight.”
Kate sighed. “We’ve established that she’s neither an afternoon nor a night person. Our last hope was a spike in cheerfulness before noon.”
Hunter put his head in his hands. His shoulders quivered against today’s too-tight T-shirt. It took a second before the sound of his giggles slipped between his fingers.
“Sorry,” he wheezed, wiping his eyes with his knuckles. “It’s just—I don’t know. When you think about going to genius camp, you don’t think, I’m going to be surrounded by geniuses.”