The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant Read Online Free PDF Page B

catches in my hair. “But at others.”
    I have no idea what he’s referring to—I haven’t had more than one art show. It occurs to me that my dad may have played up my successes to get me in here, so I say nothing and hope not to shatter Villicus’s illusion. Besides, right now, I’m not thinking about art. All I’m thinking about is the unseemly presence of this man’s hands on my shoulders. I try to slink out from under his hands, but his grip is unyielding. It’s not that his touch is some creepy sex thing. It’s worse. It’s the energy he emits, something oppressive that’s intensified the moment he nears me; it strikes something uncomfortable buried deep inside, an unplaceable but overpowering sensation, like a feverish nightmare exhumed.
    At last, his hands slip from my shoulders, stripping away the sense of dread. He lurches toward his war medal case and stares through it while I try to shake off the memory of his touch.
    “Let me be clear.” He turns back to me. “Our admissions criteria are intentionally exclusionary, designed to keep out people like you. It is only by the kindness of those better than you that you are here today.”
    Don’t react to his insult, I tell myself. After all, my housemother isn’t exactly raving about me. And I’m sure my reaction to Harper this morning didn’t put me in a great social position. Freaking out on the headmaster now could put a quick, ugly stop to this “fresh start.”
    “How do you feel when I say such things?” he asks, looking at me as if he knows me.
    Sarcasm is my best defense. “What things?”
    He smirks. “Very well. We might have had a rather enlightening conversation, but you insist on being a child. I am compelled to tell you that you are here today because you have a benefactor.”
    “A benefactor?”
    “Senator Dave Stone—a friend of your father’s—has made it possible for you to be here.”
    Villicus sits at his desk again and pensively temples his fingers under his chin while I put two and two together. Dave Stone is Pilot’s dad. A cold wave of embarrassment rolls over me as I think of Pilot’s dad telling him about the charity case he has to sponsor for this rich-bitch boarding school. To say nothing of how odd it is to learn that my dad, who spends all of his time in a dark funeral home, is connected to a senator. I know Atherton is filled with the country’s wealthiest and most powerful people, but I didn’t know my dad knew any of them.
    “I’m sure you know that you ought to thank him.” He waits for me to nod, and I comply. “He put himself out there for you. Cania Christy accepts only people of a certain net worth and only on invitation. You meet neither criterion.”
    Stiffly, I utter, “I’ll be sure to thank him.”
    “And I’m sure I know how you’ll thank him.” Like perched black crows taking flight, Villicus’s eyes narrow in the cloud-like gray of his face. “You’ll thank him as all girls with your background thank men, especially men of affluence. And I do believe such appreciation will suit his tastes fine, nubile fraulein like you.”
    Tongue-tied at the shock of his comment, I can only blink. I’ve never even properly kissed a guy, and he thinks I’m going to sleep with some old friend of my dad’s to thank him for sending me to this place? In what world?!
    “Now, for the reason I actually called you here today.”
    “It wasn’t just to insult me?”
    Villicus snaps his fingers twice. His door flies open.
    And in waltzes this skinny beanpole of a guy—this tall, lanky thing with pockmarks on his cheeks and probing, miniscule, steel eyes. His frenetic leer lunges toward me.
    “Miss Merchant,” Villicus says, “meet your Guardian.”

three

    MY GUARDIAN
    SINCE FIRST HEARING ABOUT THIS WHOLE GUARDIAN idea, I’ve been naively filling in the blank after the word Guardian with the word angel. Guardian Angel. Part of me had expected that my Guardian would be ushering me through life