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  September 3

  Dear Diary,

  Does anyone actually say that anymore? Maybe some fifth-grade girls. The type who have unicorn-and-rainbow diaries with easily picked locks and “I heart Billy” drawn on every page. This one doesn’t have unicorns, which is surprising since it’s from Dad. He probably thinks I still play with Barbies. It’s not that he doesn’t care about me. Just more like he doesn’t notice me anymore. He hasn’t since he started dating Isa. Truthfully, he hasn’t really noticed me since Mom died, but I can’t blame him for that. The past couple of years have been a giant blob of suck. At least Dad has Isa, though. I guess one of us should have someone.

  Isa. That stupid name makes me want to scream. I almost poked through the page with my pen writing it. Any normal person would shorten Isabelle to Belle, or even Isy, if they wanted to be cute. But Isa? EEEESUHHHH. God. Most Pretentious Nicknames for a thousand, Alex.

  But she’s the reason I’m here, at Prescott Academy, where graduation nearly guarantees you a spot in an Ivy League. And she’s the reason Bex gets to go to the Campbell School, which means she’ll get into Prescott, too, when she’s old enough. Dad can’t afford fancy private schools, but Isa the Bulldog Lawyer can. So I guess I can put up with a stepmother when I’m required to come home. Holidays already suck without Mom, and the same fake smile hides both grief and irritation.

  Bex hugged me so tight before they left. She’s scared to go to a new school, and she’s never been away from home before. She’s never been away from me. That’s going to be hard. As cool as it’s going to be on my own here, what am I gonna do without Bex’s hugs? Her nonstop chatter? Her—

  Sorry. My roommate showed up. Her name is Emily. She seems cool, and she didn’t bring anything annoying like wind chimes or beaded curtains, but she did bring chocolate. :) Off to the dining hall for dinner.

  September 4

  Okay, so I think I’ll try to write in this thing every night before I go to sleep. I don’t know why. I’ve never really kept a diary before, but . . . I don’t know. I guess it’s nice that Dad got something for me. And it will be fun to document what it’s like to go to Prescott Academy. Maybe years from now, when I’m a famous chemist, I’ll use it for reference when I write my memoirs. But anyway . . . about that documentation. Here I go. . . .

  Today was just so weird. Prescott isn’t just a different school, it’s a different planet. I got to my first class, English, and sat at an empty desk. Everyone around me was talking because they all know one another, but it wasn’t like home. At home, if someone asked how your summer was, you’d say it was lame or talk about a summer job or something. These Prescott kids . . . It was all “Oh, Paris is just so lovely in the summertime!” and “Daddy’s new yacht couldn’t even fit at the dock in the Hamptons” and “I tried amazing caviar on solid gold plates!”

  Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t much better. These are the kinds of kids who clearly never had to wonder IF they’d ever get a car, just when. Oh, and also, since we all have to wear the same uniform, apparently the trend is to show off the only things that we can individualize: makeup, jewelry, and what brand of flats you wear. Seriously. I’m guessing my Payless fake leather won’t get me into the upper echelon at Prescott. I suppose I could ask Isa for better flats, but . . . honestly, I’d rather die than feel like I owe Isa anything.

  Thank God Emily and I had calculus and civics together, and we found each other at lunch so I didn’t have to eat by myself. She told me last night that she’s a scholarship student. That’s the only way her parents can afford this place. She begged me not to tell anyone, but she didn’t have to. I get it. I told her about my dad and Isa. I didn’t mention Mom.

  Emily wants to be a writer. Like movie scripts and stuff. She’s pretty quiet, but if you get her talking about movies, she could go for days.

  That’s another thing that’s different about the kids here. They’re really focused on the future. Everyone seems super smart and ambitious, and they take classes seriously. Back home, classes were just sort of a necessary evil until summer. And they certainly weren’t supposed to be interesting. Here, even my least favorite classes are going to be interesting and challenging.

  Speaking of favorite classes . . . There’s a guy in my chemistry class. His name is Drew. Definitely not a scholarship student. His dad owns a restaurant chain or something—at least that’s what Emily said. Anyway, he’s kind of cute. Preppy, but his hair does this floppy thing that’s truly adorable. I saw him later at lunch, too, sitting with a very serious-looking bunch of people. Serious but glamorous. They were just sitting at a dining hall table together, but they might as well have been posing for a Vanity Fair cover. The girl had the prettiest, thickest black hair and dark red lipstick. She had large black rhinestones on her flats. At least I think they were rhinestones. For all I know they could have been real gems from Tiffany. It wouldn’t surprise me in this place.

  I’m going to have to buy some better shoes.

  September 5

  Day two at Prescott was just as weird as the first, made even weirder when Drew actually spoke to me about halfway through chemistry.

  Drew: Bailey, right?

  (I nodded dumbly, like I’d forgotten the English language.)

  Drew: You seem like you really know this stuff.

  Me: Um. Yeah. There was a really good chemistry teacher at my old school. I used to do extra assignments for her. For fun.

  Drew, looking amused: For fun?

  Me: Well, um, yeah. I was kind of good at it, so she let me work ahead of the class.

  Then he just nodded, sat back in his desk, and locked eyes with Dark Lipstick Girl. They looked away from each other at the same time. He said nothing else to me, after class and all day. But when I walked by his table of glamorous people at lunch, he and Dark Lipstick Girl stared at me in this sort of predatory way.

  What is this? Am I the girl who accidentally stumbles upon a group of vampires and werewolves at her school?

  I asked Emily about Drew. She warned me to stay away from him while also drooling over the way his Prescott uniform sweater tightens over his chest, so . . .

  September 7

  Tomorrow is the first Friday here at Prescott. In other words, it’s the first Friday night I’ve ever had without parents around. Prescott has a curfew. We have to be back in our dorms by eleven, but that doesn’t mean we have to sleep. I’ve heard a few people talking about parties in the dorms, but no one’s invited me. It’s okay. Emily and I have decided we’re going to stay up all night and watch movies and pig out on chocolate. I guess she wasn’t invited to any parties either.

  September 8

  The plot thickens.

  Mr. Callahan asked me to stay after chemistry class today, so the whole class I was sick to my stomach with nerves. Turns out he wanted to know about my old school back home. He said he noticed I seem to be ahead of what he’s teaching at Prescott.

  Ahead of a class at Prescott!

  So I told him about Miss Beverly at my old school and how I’d spend a lot of days after school in the lab, doing special stuff that no one else got to do. I also told him that I want to be a chemical engineer. He laughed when I told him I hadn’t even known that was a thing until Miss Beverly told me ab
out all the jobs that use chemistry, but now it’s the only thing I can see myself doing. He asked if I’d thought about college, like I haven’t been dreaming about Harvard since I was three. He said he’d help all he could.

  I thanked him and walked out the door, and that’s when Dark Lipstick Girl grabbed my arm and dragged me into the ladies’ restroom.

  DLG: Bailey, right?

  Huh. The same way Drew greeted me the first time. Weird. Definitely vampires.

  Me: Yeah. Were you listening to me talk to Mr. Callahan?

  DLG, shrugging: Not on purpose. You’re pretty good at chemistry, then?

  Me: I guess. I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.

  DLG: Katy. Katy Ashton. Your last name is Wells, isn’t it? Are you on scholarship?

  I got super uncomfortable with our conversation at that point. The assumption felt awful. Maybe it was my cheap flats? Or maybe it’s just that my family doesn’t summer at the same vacation spot as everyone else? Whatever. She sort of backtracked after that. She put her arm around my shoulders and started walking with me toward my next class.

  Then she invited me to Science Club. Seriously? This gorgeous girl is part of something like the Science Club? Prescott isn’t like my old school AT ALL.

  Katy, formerly known as DLG: It’s Saturday night. Herschell Hall. That’s the upperclassmen boys’ dorm. Seven o’clock.

  Me: The Science Club meets in a dorm on Saturday nights?

  Katy just smiled at me, all secretive and glamorous, and told me she’d see me there. Seriously. If Science Club is code for Vampire Club, I will be not be surprised. Pissed at how clichéd it would be, but not surprised.

  September 8 Sorry! It’s actually September 9 now!

  Emily is fast asleep. I’m about to pass out too. I know it’s probably lame that we stayed in and watched movies, but I had a lot of fun. She’s really down-to-earth. Honestly, she seems like she could be from back home. We watched Notting Hill. Emily had never seen it before and seemed to love it, so maybe she won’t mind watching it again sometime. It was Mom’s favorite. We used to pop popcorn and put on fleece pajamas and watch romantic comedies all the time. We’d both cry at all the sad parts and some of the happy parts and tease each other about being saps. When Bex got a little older, she’d stay up late with us too. She’d always have a box of tissues ready for when Mom and I would start sobbing.

  I wonder how Bex is doing. I miss her.

  I really miss Mom.

  September 9, later

  Walking over to Herschell Hall was the most I’d really seen campus since orientation day over the summer. So far I’ve kept to the class buildings and Baker Hall, my own dorm. Herschell, though, is on the other side of campus, and there’s a pretty pond and park in between. The leaves are starting to turn and I can tell it’s going to be gorgeous here in the fall. Maybe I should start studying outside.

  Katy met me at the entrance, holding the door open for me so it wouldn’t lock us both out. When she told me we were going to meet in Drew’s room, my stomach did a massive somersault. How is he in Science Club? I’ve never heard him answer a single question in chemistry. Of course, everyone here at Prescott is a genius, or at least that’s what their glossy brochures try to tell you.

  We walked up three flights of stairs and into a dorm room that looked a bit like mine, only it had window seats and a slanted ceiling on account of the room being on the top floor. I guess I expected the room to be gross and smelly, like frat houses in movies or something, but Drew’s room was tidy and, maybe I’m mistaken, but I think it had been professionally decorated. It kind of looked like the reading room at the New York Public Library. Soft lighting, dark wood furniture, everything just a little gilded.

  Drew was smoking a cigarette on one of the window seats, the window wide open, no screen. He took a big puff and then handed what was left of it to a boy who sat on the floor by his feet. And while Drew looked like he’d stepped out of a Burberry ad, the other boy was every bit the geeky kind of person I’d been hoping to meet since I got here. Like a lankier but more rugged Harry Potter, the boy took the cigarette, braced it between his lips, and stood, extending his hand to me.

  He introduced himself like James Bond. “Clark, Warren Clark,” he said. Crystal blue eyes locked onto mine and didn’t look away, even when I did. Drew started talking about me, about how I really knew my stuff in chemistry class. He said Warren was just like me that way. That, and Warren is a scholarship student too. I told them I’m not on scholarship and they acted totally surprised until I told them that my stepmother is Isabelle Marlowe, which made Drew chuckle, and Katy said her own father had been up against Isa and lost on more than one occasion. Then Drew started talking about how Katy’s father had represented his in some sort of embezzlement charge and got him out of it with just community service, and then everyone was talking about people I didn’t know, places I’d never been to, and stories I wasn’t a part of. Weekend trips to sunny beaches, cabins in the Berkshires, wrecking a Porsche and getting a replacement the next day. And they were funny but I felt even more out of place than ever. Even Warren has history at Prescott. It sounds like he spends a lot of time with Drew, and spends just as much money. He didn’t mention having a job, but maybe he does. How else does he have that kind of money?

  But at some point I noticed he was looking at me again, his blue eyes kind but intense. I met his gaze and did my best to smile back.

  At no point did we talk about chemistry, or even science.

  When Katy walked me back to my dorm, she hooked her arm through mine and tossed her gorgeous hair over her shoulder and told me I was welcome at the next meeting. I feel like I passed some sort of test I didn’t even know I was taking. Of course I told her I’d go.

  September 11

  I guess I thought Katy would invite me to sit with them at lunch, but she didn’t. They only nodded slightly as I passed by their table on the way to sit with Emily. Warren was wearing a beanie, which is against the uniform code, but I get the feeling that the so-called Science Club can get away with anything. I’ve asked a few other people about Drew. Turns out his family owns most of the neighboring town of Wiltshire, so I bet the headmaster is afraid to touch him. He flat-out put his head down and slept during chemistry today, and Mr. Callahan didn’t do anything about it. And I looked out the window during civics this morning and Warren was sitting in a tree, feet and overcoat dangling, smoking a cigarette. Smoking on campus, sleeping during class, skipping classes . . . All of those things are against the rules at Prescott, but I haven’t seen Drew or his friends face any consequences.

  Oh, and Warren is in English with me. Or he’s supposed to be, when he bothers to come. I didn’t realize that because I guess he always sits in the back, and I always sit in the front and don’t turn around much because I’m trying so hard to focus on the merits of Shakespeare. (Okay, I actually hate Shakespeare. I know it’s a necessary evil in school, like eating four servings of vegetables every day, but really. So stuffy. No wonder I have to focus so hard. Everything else I can ace in my sleep, but not Shakespeare. Oh no. He demands undivided attention.)

  I asked Emily about Warren. She told me he was a scholarship student, which I already knew, and that he’s from her hometown. She said nothing about his personality, and I could be wrong, but I think maybe she doesn’t like him. There was something kind of cold in her eyes when she talked about him. When I pressed her further, all she said was that he spent last summer at Princeton in some sort of science program, so he’ll probably go there when he graduates.

  Well, at least one person in the Science Club seems to like science.

  September 13

  I feel like maybe I’m getting the hang of Prescott. I mean, I still wear my Payless shoes, but I’m getting used to everyone being so rich. And I feel like I can kind of fake it, or at least play along when I have to.

  The classes aren’t as hard as I expected, either. It’s a lot more work than my old school, and I feel
like all I do at night is homework, but it’s not harder, really. It’s just like they expect more. It’s kind of weird not having parents around. You’d think everyone would slack off with no one telling them what to do. But everyone seems to try harder because of it. I even keep my side of the room clean. Well, sometimes.

  Mr. Callahan had me stay after school and balance some really challenging chemical equations today. He didn’t tell me I did well—I think compliments are going to be hard to come by with him—but he was smiling ear to ear when he checked my work. I asked him about the Science Club. He just chuckled like I’d said something funny and told me I didn’t need a club. Then he told me I didn’t have to do the chemistry homework tonight. I might have some free time!

  September 14

  I don’t even know where to start today.

  Emily and I were about to go to dinner when Katy showed up and told me it was time for the meeting. I felt really bad leaving Emily to eat alone, but I had a feeling that if I turned Katy down, I’d never get a chance to hang out with her again. I’d be out of the club, so to speak, and I just can’t give up this chance. It will be so nice to have a group again. Somewhere I belong. I hope Emily isn’t too mad.

  So we get outside and I start walking in the direction of Herschell Hall, and Katy grabs my arm and turns me in the opposite direction, almost off campus, to a building that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. It’s creepy as hell. The old walls kind of sag in places, several of the windows are busted out, and there are no streetlights in sight. It looks sort of like a big, yawning stone monster.

  Me: Here? Is this even Prescott’s building?

  Katy: Of course. We use the old science building for our meetings. Come on. I promise there are no ghosts.