Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

“Shut it, Hopper. Just rub the stupid shoe already.”

“I’m not rubbing it. I don’t want Breather luck. Good Breather luck is bad Drinker luck. They’ve been lucky enough already.”

He’s got a point.

III.

I’m late. I’m lost. I can’t read the small print on the campus map. And here’s the funny thing—I’m afraid to talk to any of them. Me, Wren Lola Lafayette. Afraid of Breathers.

I’d kill them before I’d talk to them.

That’s what I think, anyway. I wonder if Hop would say it was true.

So I walk in the nearest brick building, which looks like Independence Hall from my old history book. I guess I’m in some kind of dorm, which is not where I want to be, but I could be wrong. It’s hard to tell. It could be the head janitor’s office, for all I know. All the buildings here look equally strange to me.

I knock on the first door inside the hallway. No answer.

I push the handle, and it opens.

The Chinese Breather at the desk doesn’t look up from his computer.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for the Admissions office.” No answer. I try again, holding up my campus map.

“Uh, hello? You know someone named . . .”

“No.”

I’m not surprised.

My stomach growls and I let the door close in my face.

IV.

“His name is Sherlock. Like the detective.”

It takes me a second but I put it together. She’s talking about the enormous dog curled on the soft carpet between us. It’s the first time the admissions officer has spoken to me, now that her office door has closed behind me. After all this time—the Common Slap and the Wiki transcripts and the Breathernet recommendations—I feel like I have stepped into a boxing ring and the match has begun. Then I try to remember if stepping into the boxing ring was on the list of bad college essay topics, the one Mr. Skrumbett gave us. Banned essay metaphors. Stepping into the ring. Running the race. Going the distance. Leaving the nest. I can’t remember.

I give up.

I can’t think of anything, not a single thing, to say.

The woman is speaking but I’m not listening. Her lipstick is so red it makes me uncomfortable. I pat the dog’s head. He growls. It’s not my fault, or his. Breather dogs like Breathers, and this is a Breather dog. Though when he growls, I can’t help but notice he’d make a great Drinker dog. His teeth are even bigger than mine.

“Ms. La-fay-ette?”

I look up. Seems like we’re not talking about the dog anymore.

“Ma’am?”

“I read your application. You’re the first applicant we’ve ever had from . . .” She squints, looks more closely at the screen in front of her. “Tresspassaunt.” She gives the word an extra little twirl, like it was French or something. Tress-pass-aunt. Har-vard Yard. Gyll-en-haal. Fer-arr-i.

“You’re a first generation college applicant?”

“Ma’am?” I’m still trying to figure out the right answer to that question when she says it again.

“You’re the first person in your family to attend a university?” She speaks more slowly, as if I am deaf, smoothing out the hard words so that I will understand. I understand even less than she realizes.

“Yes, ma’am. Well, my Grandma Hoban says my mom went to beauty school, but I didn’t put it down, I wasn’t sure that counted.” Her look tells me it didn’t. “My Bre—my parents left when I was . . . little.”