This Is My Brain on Boys Read Online Free PDF Page B

face.
    He would appreciate this. They’d had many conversations about their fear of the nearly invisible Demodex mites burrowing and procreating in skin pores.
    â€œSecurity check,” Ed announced, slowing down at the guard house at the base of the bridge to the Academy.
    Tess, Ed, and Addie pulled out their IDs. Kris sat, hands between his knees. “My, um, ID was taken from me last spring.”
    Ed cleared his throat and murmured something that sounded like “too bad they didn’t take it sooner.”
    â€œIf you don’t have an Academy ID, they won’t let you pass,” Addie said, removing hers from her wallet. If the school had yanked his ID, then Kris really must have been expelled. And the only people who were expelled that she knew about were the group that vandalized the lab.
    Of course, Kris wouldn’t have had a part in that.
    â€œMaybe my driver’s license will work,” he said, getting his out.
    Ed handed over the four cards.
    The guard passed them over a scanner and then stuck his head in the window, zeroing in on Kris. “This isn’t an official 355 ID.”
    â€œI know,” Kris said. “I’m on a list.”
    The guard checked his computer. Then he swiped a temporary ID and handed it to him. “This expires in five days. After that, you won’t be allowed in without special permission. There’s a note here that you should check with Administration ASAP.”
    Kris slid his license back into his wallet. “Don’t worry. It’s my first stop.”
    Addie was about to propose that Kris could have manufactured a fake driver’s license and hacked into the school’s computer system to add his name to a list, but Tess shot her one of those looks that she thought might possibly mean “not now.”
    â€œYou’re lucky they’re letting you back on campus at all,” Ed said cryptically.
    After that, an awkward silence settled over the car and the three passengers suddenly developed an intense interest in the scenery as Ed drove up the causeway.
    The bay was still churning from the morning’s storm, white-capped waves lashing the rocks along the shoreline ahead. Ed stopped at the iron gates, punched in his code, and they swung open.
    Home, Addie thought happily, admiring the grand willow trees, their graceful branches swaying in the wind, the banks of colorful red, pink, purple, and yellow petunias so carefully maintained by the landscapers, the bright green lawn of the quad, the stone administration hall with its antique clock, the white-clapboard residential buildings, and, her favorite, the nearly hidden laboratory perched at the edge of the cliff.
    As its unusual name indicated, the Academy was not the average New England prep school, though with its historic brick buildings, ivy-covered walls, and massive oak trees, it could have passed for one in a lineup.
    It was named in honor of Agent 355, a still-unidentified female spy from the American Revolution who was thought to have exposed the American traitor Benedict Arnold. Unfortunately for Agent 355, she was captured by the British, gave birth to a son she conceived with another American spy, and died on board an enemy ship.
    Almost two hundred years later, a group of spies who were also mothers worried that their children would not be safe from the Soviet Union’s KGB if they attended normal schools. So they founded Academy 355. Its reputation for educational excellence—along with state-of-the-art security—quickly became a draw for others who felt a need to protect their kids.
    The Academy didn’t admit just anyone. Tess was invited to apply, because her Famous Actor parents were hounded constantly by paparazzi and desperately wanted to protect their daughter from the limelight.
    Dex was admitted because his mother directed a private assassination-for-hire agency contracted by the US government to discreetly eliminate terrorists. Her