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she says finally. “You can get it yourself.”
    â€œLook.” I walk over to the little dorm refrigerator in the closet, pull out a can of Red Bull, and crack it open. “All I’m saying is, there’s no payoff. What happens after you graduate? You’re back at square one again, right?” I glance at the cello case in the corner. “Or were you planning on conning your way into Juilliard, too? I hear they’re a little more difficult to snooker.”
    â€œWho says I have to con my way in?”
    â€œSo you’re really that good?” I stand up and start walking over to the instrument. “You want to play me something? Adagio for Scam Artists in B Major?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” Andrea says, “because as soon as I tell Dr. Melville that you’re still here—”
    â€œI’ll tell him what I know about you,” I say, “and we’ll both end up doing our senior year in public school. So it looks like we’re stuck with each other.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œI said no.” She settles into her swivel chair, crosses her arms, and smiles. “Because you’re right about one thing, Will. There isn’t room at this school for both of us. And I was here first.”
    â€œWell, I’m not leaving,” I say. “Just because you’re scared of me—”
    â€œPlease,” she says. “I’m scared of you why, exactly?”
    â€œIt’s obvious that I’m far better at this than you are. I know how to hack into the computer system, and let’s face it: my backstory is way more pathetic than yours. I’ve got dead parents
and
a radioactive grandma. You’re old news around here, but I’m fresh and interesting, and you haven’t even seen me play lacrosse yet.” The truth is, I’ve never played lacrosse, but I’m not going to tell
her
that. “You’re terrified I’m going to steal all your action.”
    â€œEven if I agreed to let you stay,” she says, “what makes you think you can fix things with Dr. Melville?”
    â€œWell, for one thing, I know what Dr. Melville looks like”—I turn the computer around again so she can see the school website, featuring a picture of a jovial-looking man with a full gray beard—“and the guy that you sent to my room in the middle of the night definitely wasn’t him. Who was he? Just some local rube that you paid to throw on a Connaughton bathrobe and scare me?”
    Andrea gets quiet for a really long time. She scrunches her lips together and steeples her fingers, and now the frown across her forehead makes her look like she’s concentrating on something very intensely.
    â€œWhat if . . .” she says, sitting down next to me, “we decide . . . to make it interesting?”
    â€œHow so?”   
    â€œWe both want to stay here at Connaughton, correct? And we both have enough dirt to rat each other out. So what if we agree on a mark, a student here”—she pauses to think—“somebody who’s rich enough to make it worthwhile. The first one to get this individual to fork over, say, ten thousand dollars . . . gets to stay.”
    I’m already smiling. “And the loser?”
    â€œPacks it in,” she says. “Happy trails.”
    â€œYou’re serious?”
    â€œOne thing you’ll learn about me, Will. I never joke about money. Ever.” She looks at me. “So do we have a deal or not?”
    â€œOh, it’s on,” I say, barely resisting the urge to add the words
like Donkey Kong,
because I don’t want to blow the mood. “But how do we choose the mark?”
    And just then, her door bursts open.

Five
    T HE GUY WHO STUMBLES INTO A NDREA’S ROOM IS WEARING candy-striped boxer shorts, a rumpled bathrobe, and cowboy boots. His gelled blond hair is