These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

Who doesn’t need to be woken up at all, apparently.

Because unlike Poe, she remembers exactly what day it is. So she’s all awake and ready to go, and as excited — if her huge grin and shining eyes are any indication — as Poe.

And I have to say it’s a rare sight, seeing my friends excited about a day at school.

Because St. Mary’s is slightly different than a regular high school.

It’s definitely a lot different from the boarding school my parents wanted to send me to last year.

For one, this school is located in the middle of the woods in the town of St. Mary’s and not in Connecticut. And secondly, St. Mary’s is an all-girls school that people send their daughters to because of a very specific reason.

To be reformed.

Rehabilitated. Restored. Remade even.

Meaning, people send their delinquent, troublemaking daughters to St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers — a reform school — to become good.

Like if you steal something, say money, and try to run away with it. And you think your getaway plan is foolproof but it’s not and you get caught. And the person who catches you — let’s say your guardian — wants to teach you a lesson? This is the place they’ll send you to do that.

Or instead of money, you could steal a car and drown it in a lake for revenge on your ex-boyfriend. That will land you here as well. Or maybe you’ve always been a troublemaker and people around you are tired of your wild ways. In that case too, this is where you’ll find yourself.

So it’s safe to assume that in order to rehabilitate us bad girls, this school has many rules.

Stringent and iron-clad rules.

Rules about showing up to classes on time, about turning in your homework on time. Eating on time, sleeping on time, waking up on time. Then there are rules about when to go off campus and for how long, when to use electronics and again for how long, and so on.

And when you follow these rules, you get rewarded. In privileges.

For example, you get to watch TV for more than an hour every night, which is the allotted time. Or you could use the school computer for an extra hour. Or you could go off campus more than once in a week, things like that.

That’s basically the gist of how things work around here.

So as I said, it’s a very rare thing that my friends are happy to begin the day.

The only person who’s not happy about what day it is today is my third best friend, Calliope Thorne, or Callie.

Actually she was my very first friend in this place.

I got here a year ago, for my junior year, and Callie was the one who befriended me. In fact, she was the one who befriended all of us when we first got here: Poe in her sophomore year, and Salem, just a couple of months ago for our senior year.

Basically, Callie is the glue of our group. She’s the reason all four of us had a chance to meet each other and become very best friends.

We see her as soon as we enter the cafeteria for breakfast and rush over to give her a big hug. She already has trays loaded with bagels and yogurt and cut-up fruits for us. And she’s brought us cupcakes; Callie loves baking. But none of us really care about the food right now.

We’re more concerned about our friend, who these days looks perpetually tired and pale.

“Hey, how are you doing today?” I ask, taking a seat beside her.

She grimaces, doing the same. “Bad. I threw up twice before getting here.”

“Yikes.” Poe echoes the grimace, taking the seat on the opposite side of the table. “But maybe this will cheer you up.” She roots around her bag and produces a jar of peanut butter. “Ta-da.”

Callie’s eyes grow wide and in a display of strength — a rare one these days — she lunges for it. “Oh my God. Where’d you get this?”

Poe shrugs and answers proudly, “I stole it from the kitchen.”

“What?” That’s Salem, who’s sitting beside Poe. “And you never told me?! I could’ve gone with you. I’m the thief here.”

She totally is.

A very good one at that. Only the one time that really counted, she got caught.

She’s the girl who stole money from her guardian and was running away with it but got caught. And the rest is history.

But Poe’s no slouch either. Along with potentially starting a revolution and destroying this place, she can steal things too. She’s the girl who’s always been a troublemaker and the bane of her guardian’s existence. So he sent her here not only to punish her but also — we all think — to get away from her.

While Callie gets busy with the peanut butter and soothing Salem, offering to let her steal a book from the library, I root around in my bag because I have something for her as well.