Private (Private 1)

no use. I had to look back. When I did, she was holding her curtains I had just met Missy Thurber five minutes before and already I

wide with both hands, still staring.

felt like choking her. She was the piglike girl who had snickered I was breathless. I was caught. But I couldn’t look away. Would about the no-boys rule at yesterday’s meeting. She had highlighted she tell her friends? Would she report me? Could I get kicked out of blond hair that she wore back in a French braid and a nose that Easton for spying? I stared back, willing her to be kind. Willing her turned up so far at the end that you could almost see into her nos-not to tell. For a long moment, neither one of us moved.

trils. You’d think that a girl with a nose like that wouldn’t have the Then she smiled, ever so slightly, and snatched the curtains

guts to be so superior, but she managed to look down it at everyone closed.

she saw. She also held her shoulders so far back when she walked it

30

K A T E B R I A N

P R I V A T E

31

was as if she wanted her large breasts to enter any room a good fif-piercing horror stories, lifting their shirts and sticking out their teen seconds ahead of her. Ridiculous. I would never have even

tongues to display their war wounds.

bothered talking to her if Constance hadn’t told me both her par-Near the front of the room was a large table with slightly more ents and all her siblings had attended Easton and that she knew ornate detailing. Several teachers sat there with their food, talking everything there was to know about the school. I had looked up the in low tones or reading from newspapers. A couple of older gentle-dorm behind mine in the catalog, but other than its name, Billings, men sat back with their arms crossed over their chests, scanning there was no information. All the other dorms read “Bradwell,

the room as they spoke to one another, eager to pounce if someone sophomore girls’ housing” or “Harden, junior and senior boys’

stepped out of line.

only.” Billings just said “Billings House.”

“You don’t apply. They invite you,” Missy said again, rolling her

“At the end of the year, we should apply. We should all apply,”

eyes. “How did she even get in here?” she said, not so quietly, to Constance said in her enthusiastic way as we walked out of the

Lorna, the mousy girl on her other side. Lorna had small features breakfast line and into the Easton cafeteria with our trays of fruit overpowered by bushy brown eyebrows and the kinkiest brown hair and toast. “I bet we would totally get in,” Constance added to me I had ever seen. She hadn’t said much so far, but she hadn’t left alone.

Missy’s side all morning, so I had a feeling I didn’t like her.

The Easton cafeteria was a cavernous room with a domed ceiling

“Nice attitude,” I said.

that terminated in a small, cut-glass skylight that danced slivers of Mis

sy scoffed and took a seat at the end of a table, forcing the sun on the tables and chairs below. Unlike Croton High, the furni-rest of us to squeeze between her and the chair behind her to get in.

ture here was not made of standard-issue plastic and metal, but

“Whatever. The point is, not just anyone can get into Billings.

real, solid wood. Cane-backed chairs were set up alongside tables You have to be . . . special,” Missy said as she prissily opened up her with thick legs, and all surfaces shone as if they had been freshly napkin and laid it across her lap.

waxed. On the walls were paintings that evoked various facets of life

“And it’s like once you live there, you’re golden,” Lorna added.