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I hold my door out for them, my mind slowly turning over her light Scottish accent. “Another what?”
“Anothergirl,” an Asian girl whispers conspiratorially as she brushes past me.
The brunette stands in the middle of my room, inspecting it with a critical eye. I recognize that look from somewhere but can’t place it. “It seems smaller than ours. What’s your name?” Without giving me any time to answer, she continues, “I’m Arabella Baxter.” She points to the Asian girl, who’s making herself at home on my bed. “Li Zhihao.” She points to a girl with a waist-length blonde braid. “This is Freya MacRae.” She gestures to a black girl with intricate dreadlocks. “Rebecca Milton.”
“Becca,” she corrects mildly, her gaze flitting from my empty room to my emptier suitcase. I quickly close the lid and shove the case under my bed. Li watches me with interest, twirling my red ribbon around her fingers.
“Baxter,” I realize with a start, squeezing the case through the narrow gap under my bed. “As in Headmistress Baxter?”
“Yes.” Arabella seems to puff her chest out at this. “I’m her niece.”
With the suitcase safely out the way, I look Arabella up and down. It’s clear to see the family resemblance — the sharp eyes, the frowning mouth, a kind ofI’m right, you’re wrongattitude that permeates her expression.
She raises an eyebrow. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”
I’ve only known her for a minute at most but I get the impression Arabella is as brisk and demanding as her aunt.
I give them all the best smile I can muster. “Jessa Weir. I’m the international student.”
Arabella’s eyebrows descend the same way as her aunt’s. “I see. And what’s your background?”
It’s easy to translate this question:why are you so worthy of a place here?
“Elly, can we not?” Freya says, her sweet Scottish accent making her instantly likable. It’s thicker than the others and more melodic somehow. “She’s just arrived and the poor thing already looks half-dead.”
Okay, maybe not so likable.
Without asking my permission or anything, Becca rummages around my belongings and tuts. “What is all this?” I squint at what she’s looking at and realize it’s my snacks from back home. “Tragic.”
“Here. Have someproperfood.” Freya takes out a tan-colored cube from a pretty gauze drawstring bag. “It’ll give you energy.”
“No, don’t,” Li says with a laugh, leaning beside me on my bed. “That stuff’s like crack. It’ll blow her tiny mind.” There’s something compelling about the way Li speaks, low and throaty in a way I didn’t expect. It’s as though every word that comes out her mouth is tinged in her Scottish twang with a veil of sarcasm that I’m not sure whether to acknowledge or not. Either way, it puts me on edge.
Also,the stufflooks nothing like crack. As a former student of Greenvale High, there had been subjects to navigate thathadn’tfeatured on the curriculum. Drugs had been one of them.
I accept the cube and note the chalky dust surrounding it. It looks like a piece of soap, something that’d dissolve in a bath or that would be used to scrub yourself clean. “What is it?”
Freya beams at me. “Homemade tablet. Only the best. My mother made it for me.”
“A tablet of what?” From their laughter, this must be a hilarious question.
“No, silly. It’scalledtablet. You eat it.”
For some reason, I do what she says. I nibble the corner of the cube, and then, realizing it’s not poisonous, devour the whole thing in one go. It’sdivine. It tastes like a hundred heaped spoonfuls of sugar but it sates my growling stomach for a moment.
Freya grins at me. “See?”
If she’s going to supply me with candy, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to get along well with Freya.
Arabella interjects with an impatient tap of her foot. “Enough of this. We have more important things to discuss.”
Becca props herself up on my pillow, crossing her rainbow-socked ankles together. Everyone is wearing casual clothes — jeans and light sweaters — and I’m beginning to feel like an idiot for still being dressed in the Lochkelvin uniform. “Like what?”
“We need to know if you’re on our side, Jessa.”
I blink at her. Automatically, Freya hands me another piece of tablet. I accept it, gnawing on it while Arabella speaks.
“We all know this istheschool to get into for high achievers with political ambitions. A stint at Lochkelvin followed by Politics, Philosophy and Economics at St. Camford. It’s been the traditional career path of every prominent politician and journalist forcenturies. But this school is letting us down.”
