Private (Private 1)

and skirts. As out of place as I felt in my worn Lee jeans and my blue We drove by a matching set of convertible Mercedes. A girl with T-shirt, I had never wanted to live anywhere more than I wanted to live blond hair stood idly by while a man—her father? her butler?—

here, in Easton. I couldn’t believe that very soon I actually would. I unloaded a huge set of Louis Vuitton luggage onto the curb. My dad felt something warm inside my chest. Something I had felt less and whistled.

less over the last few years since my mother’s accident. I recognized

“These people sure know how to live,” he said, and I was

it dimly as hope.

instantly irritated by his awe, even though I felt it myself. He Easton Academy is accessible by a small two-lane road, which

ducked his head so he could see up to the top of the clock tower, winds up from town into the hills above. A small wooden sign on a which I knew from my many hours of paging through the Easton

short stone base marks the entrance to the school. EASTON ACADEMY

catalog marked the ancient library.

ESTABLISHED 1858 it reads in faded letters. The sign is obscured by the What I wanted to say was “Da-a-ad!” What I said was “I know.”

4

K A T E B R I A N

P R I V A T E

5

He would be gone soon, and if I snapped at him I would regret it a senior boyfriend driving her to school on the first day, would be later when I was alone in this strange, picture-book place. Besides, just another thing that would mystify the girls in my grade.

I had a feeling that girls like the one we had just seen never said Of course, they were easily mystified.

things like “Da-a-ad!”

I hoped it would be different here. I knew it would be. Look at it.

Outside the three imposing dorms that stood around the circle

How could it not be?

at the midpoint of the hill, families kissed and hugged and checked My dad brought the car to a stop at the curb between a gold Land that everyone had everything they needed. Boys in khakis and white Rover and a black limousine. I stared up at the ivy-covered walls of shirts kicked arround a soccer ball, their blazers tossed aside, their Bradwell, the sophomore dorm that would be my home for the next cheeks blotched and ruddy. A pair of stern-looking teachers stood year. Some of the windows were already open, raining down music near the dry stone fountain, nodding as they spoke toward each

on the students and parents. Pink curtains hung in one room and other’s ears. Girls with shimmering hair compared schedules,

inside a girl with jet-black curls moved back and forth, placing laughing and pointing and whispering behind their hands.

things, making it hers.

I stared at the girls, wondering if by

tomorrow I would know

“Well, here we are,” my dad said. There was a pause. “You sure

them. Wondering if any of them would be my friends. I had never about this, kiddo?”

had many girlfriends. Or any, actually. I was a loner by necessity—

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. In all the months that my parents keeping people away from my house and my mother and therefore