“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I can see with my own two eyes you’re not paying your way here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do.”

“Even if I’m on scholarship,” I said, “which I’m not saying if I am or not, how would you know?”

She shrugged, then said, “Your comforter.”

“My what?”

“Your bedspread. Whatever you want to call it. It’s not flowered.”

I was not sure how she’d known which bed was mine, but she was right. My comforter was reversible, red on one side, blue on the other. So that was one of the clues; I’d have to remember.

“But you’re not on scholarship, are you?” I said.

She stared at me. “Of course I am. It costs twenty grand a year to go here.”

“But isn’t-isn’t your dad a doctor and your mom a lawyer?”

She almost smiled, but it turned into a snicker. “What, like The Cosby Show?”

I looked at the floor and wondered if she hated me. I wanted to ask, How could you think you wouldn’t get caught? Or were you hoping you would? But nothing indicated that she had been.

“Listen,” she said, and I looked up. “I’m gonna stop. I just needed a little cash until Christmas break, you know? And the way it’s happened, it’s good for both of us.”

I was incredulous. “How would it be good for me?”

“Your roommate,” she said, but still I didn’t understand. “She’ll be out of here by tonight.”

So Little had stolen Sin-Jun’s money this time; her plan actually wasn’t a bad one. And I was supposed to help. Before, I’d have done so unwittingly, believing when I turned Dede in that she really was the thief. Now, because I’d know it wasn’t Dede but could pretend to have proof, I’d be doing so on purpose.

“You didn’t think I took from you, did you?” Little said.

I glanced away.

“I’d never take from you. Damn, girl.” Her voice was cheerful; maybe if I hadn’t been able to see her, I’d have bought the act. But her eyes were full of unspeakable longing and sadness. As we stood at the threshold watching each other, I felt a sense of recognition so profound that I almost believed I would keep her secret.

2. All School Rules Are in Effect

FRESHMAN WINTER

A fter Madame Broussard checked us in at curfew, the common room cleared out except for Dede, me, and Amy Dennaker, who was inside the phone booth; she kept laughing and saying, “Shut up!”

I looked down at my notebook. “Okay,” I said to Dede. “What’s the reproductive pattern for the protist Euglena?”

“Binary fission,” Dede said.

“Right.” In my head, I repeated, binary fission, binary fission, binary fission. It astonished me that Dede, who seemed to expend most of her energy grooming herself and trying to be ingratiating with people more popular than she was, retained such information effortlessly while I was averaging a C in biology. It was not clear to me how I’d arrived at this juncture gradewise, because before entering Ault, I’d never received lower than a B plus in any class. Either Ault was a lot harder than my junior high had been, or I was getting dumber-I suspected both. If I wasn’t literally getting dumber, I knew at least that I’d lost the glow that surrounds you when the teachers think you’re one of the smart, responsible ones, that glow that shines brighter every time you raise your hand in class to say the perfect thing, or you run out of room in a blue book during an exam and have to ask for a second one. At Ault, I doubted I would ever need a second blue book because even my handwriting had changed-once my letters had been bubbly and messy, and now they were thin and small.

“What about for bacteria?” I said. “What’s the reproductive pattern called?”

“For bacteria, it’s binary fission and conjugation. It can be-”

“What are you guys doing?” Amy Dennaker had emerged from the phone booth and was regarding us with more interest than usual. The month before, in February, Amy had scored a hat trick in the ice hockey game against St. Francis and then, in the third period, broken her nose. This made her, to me, even scarier. “If you’re studying for tomorrow, don’t bother,” Amy said.

Dede and I looked at each other. “We have a biology test,” I said.

“No, you don’t.” Amy grinned. “You didn’t hear it from me, but tomorrow is surprise holiday.”

“What’s that?” I said, and at the same time, Dede said, “That’s awesome. Are you sure?”

I turned to Dede. “What’s surprise holiday?” I said.

“How do you know?” Dede asked Amy.

“I can’t reveal my sources. And you can never be totally positive. Sometimes, if Mr. Byden thinks too many students know, he’ll cancel it. But look at it this way: It can’t be on a Wednesday because of sports, it’s not usually on a Monday or a Friday because it would be lame if it was just attached to the weekend, and it’s almost always before spring break. So that leaves Tuesday and Thursday, and the boys’ basketball game against Overfield was rescheduled for next Tuesday. Next Thursday, some presidential speechwriter dude is coming to speak fourth period. And the week after that is the week before spring break. You never know for sure until you see the green jacket, but basically, process of elimination says it’s tomorrow.”

Dede was nodding. Apparently, she had heard about the green jacket.

“Here’s another thing,” Amy said. “Alex Ellison has a history paper due tomorrow, but he told people at dinner that he hadn’t even started it.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Alex rooms with Henry Thorpe, and since Henry is one of the senior prefects, he would know for sure. The prefects are the only students who find out ahead of time. And Henry would definitely tell Alex.”

“Would Henry be allowed to tell?” I asked. Both Dede and Amy looked at me as if they had forgotten my presence.

“No,” Amy said. “But so what?” She seemed to suddenly remember who I was: a dorky freshman she didn’t know very well, sitting with my only slightly cooler roommate. Clearly, she had not meant to be this generous with her time or her information. “Do what you want,” she said. “You guys can study all night long if it floats your boat.”

I waited until she had disappeared up the staircase, then turned to Dede. “So are you going to explain this to me or not?” I still didn’t particularly like Dede, but there was no one I felt closer to at Ault. Back in December, Little Washington had been asked to leave less than twenty-four hours after I talked to Madame Broussard, and when we gathered in the common room for curfew you could feel the difference, the new emptiness. Little herself was gone-her parents had come to get her and, just like that, her room was cleared out-and so was the suspense of who was stealing, or when it would happen next. Around two in the morning, I was having such bad stomach pains that I went into the bathroom, sat on the floor by the toilet, and stuck my finger down my throat. Nothing emerged, but I gagged a few times, then leaned over the bowl, considering the toilet from this angle-the calm water, the curving porcelain. I had been there for about twenty minutes when Dede pushed open the unlocked stall door. “Could you leave me alone?” I said, and she said, “You did the right thing. You didn’t have a choice.”

In the common room, Dede said, “Surprise holiday is an Ault tradition. Once a year, classes get called off to give us a break.”

I thought of my C in biology and wasn’t sure I deserved a break.

“When you see the green jacket at roll call, that’s when you know,” Dede continued. “Mr. Byden might be making an announcement and he’ll take off his jacket, and the green jacket will be on underneath, or someone will jump out from under the prefects’ desk wearing it. Something like that.”