Private (Private 1)

chest heaving up and down.

preparation for class and quizzes.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “We most definitely do.”

I grew warmer with each comment she read and finally the

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giddiness was tempered. I tried to discern which teacher had said Disturbing. Very disturbing.

what, and therefore whom I now hated the most. Unfortunately,

“If you are no longer a student at Easton, then you won’t have

when I thought about it, I realized that any one of them could have your new friends or that Thomas Pearson to spend time with any-said any of these things. They were all right. I had turned out to be more, will you?”

an abysmal student.

Oh, God. Had she seen us? Why was she looking at me that way?

“One more round of grades like this and you will be put on aca-

“Now, are you going to start taking your schooling more

demic probation. Your scholarship will be reassessed and the Board seriously?” she asked, her eyes gleaming in triumph.

of Directors might begin to wonder if it made a mistake in admit-

“I . . . I will,” I said, trying to figure out where the school had ting you,” she said, lifting her chin imperiously. “Believe me when hidden the secret surveillance cameras. Other than at morning

I tell you that the Board of Directors does not appreciate being services, I had never seen Ms. Naylor outside her cave. How did she shown that it has made a mistake.”

know whom I was hanging out with?

It was weird the way she referred to the board as an “it” instead

“Very well, then. You’re excused.”

of a “they.” Grammatically correct, maybe, but it made me think of I scrambled out of my seat and her office, feeling her eyes on the a supercomputer behind a green curtain handing down verdicts

back of my neck. Once outside, I took a deep breath and considered from on high. It was effective, though. I officially had the fear.

everything she had said. She may have been creepy and potentially

“Now, what are we going to do about this, Miss Brennan?”

voyeuristic, but the woman had a point. If I didn’t pull my grades up Naylor asked, laying the papers down and lacing her bulbous finI was going to be booted, and then I wouldn’t have the Billings Girls gers together on top of them.

or Thomas to distract me anymore. I would be on a Greyhound back I swallowed hard. “Study harder?” I suggested.

to Croton before you could say “big fat failure.”