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question. You’re the one who assumed I was being negative.”
    “Please excuse the peanut gallery,” Amie said with a smile. “Have you met everybody else?”
    “I haven’t met Lesley,” I said. “I met Scout, though.”
    Mary Katherine made a sarcastic sound. “Good luck there. That girl has issues .” She stretched out the word dramatically. I got the sense Mary Katherine enjoyed drama.
    “M.K.’s just jealous,” Veronica said, twirling a lock of hair around one of her fingers, and sliding a glance at the brunette on the floor. “Not every St. Sophia’s girl has parents who have the cash to donate an entire building to the school.”
    I guess Scout hadn’t been kidding about the extra shelves.
    “Whatever,” Mary Katherine said, then crossed her legs and pushed herself up from the floor. “You two can play Welcome Wagon with the new girl. I need to make a phone call.”
    Veronica rolled her eyes, but swiveled her legs onto the floor and stood up, as well. “M.K.’s dating a U of C boy,” she said. “She thinks he hung the moon.”
    “He’s pre-law,” Mary Katherine said, heading for the door.
    “He’s twenty,” Amie muttered after Mary Katherine had stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her. “And she’s sixteen.”
    “Quit being a mother, Amie,” Veronica said, straightening her headband. “I’m going back to my room. I suppose I’ll see you in the morning.” She glanced at me. “I don’t want to be bitchy, but a little advice?”
    She said it like she was asking for permission, so I nodded, solely out of politeness.
    “Mind the company you keep,” she said. With that gem, which I assumed was a shot at Scout, she walked to Amie. They exchanged air kisses.
    “Nighty night, all,” Veronica said, and then she was gone.
    When I turned around again, Amie was gone, her bedroom door closing behind her.
    “Charming,” I muttered, and headed back to my room.
    It was earlier than I would have normally gone to sleep, but given the travel, the time change, and the change in circumstances, I was exhausted. Finding the stone-walled and stone-floored room chilly even in the early fall, I exchanged the uniform for flannel pajamas, turned off the light, and climbed into bed.
    The room was dark, but far from quiet. The city bustled around me, the thrum of traffic from downtown Chicago creating a backdrop of sound, even on a Sunday night. Although the stone muffled it, I wasn’t used to even the low drone of noise. I had been born and bred amongst acres of lawns and overhanging trees—and when the sun went down, the town went silent.
    I stared at the ceiling. Tiny yellow-green dots emerged from the darkness. The plaster above me was dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars, I assumed pasted there by a former St. Sophia’s girl. As my mind raced, wondering about tomorrow and repeating my to-do list—find my locker, find my classes, manage not to get humiliated in said classes, figure out where Scout had gone—I counted the stars, tried to pick out constellations, and glanced at the clock a dozen times.
    I tossed and turned in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position, my brain refusing to still even as I lay exhausted, trying to sleep.
    I must have drifted off, as I woke suddenly to a pitch-black room. I must have been awakened by the closing of the hallway door. That sound was immediately followed by the scuffle of tripping in the common room—stuff being knocked around and mumbled curses. I threw off the covers and tiptoed to the door, then pressed my ear to the wood.
    “Damn coffee table,” Scout muttered, footsteps receding until her bedroom door opened and closed. I glanced at the clock. It was one fifteen in the morning. When the common room was quiet, I put a hand to the doorknob, twisted it, and carefully pulled open the door. The room was dark, but a line of light glowed beneath Scout’s door.
    I frowned. Where had she been until one fifteen in the morning? Exercise