Seeing me, he gives a happy shriek and reaches his arms out, so I cross the room to the two of them, taking one of those chubby hands and pressing a smacking kiss to the back. “Going great,” I tell Anna. “I’ve almost finished making a Gus-sized cubby in my luggage.”
She smiles, bouncing Gus a little as he continues to babble. “I’m sure he’d love that,” she says. “And then I’d get to raise a kid with a Scottish accent, which could be fun.”
I laugh and cross back over to the closet, pulling out a sweater. “You promise to smack me if I come back all ‘aye’ this and ‘bonny’ that, right?”
Anna nods, shifting Gus to her other side. “Stepmother’s honor. Now, do y’all want pizza or Chinese for dinner?”
“Pizza,” Lee and I say in unison, and Anna gives us a thumbs-up, which Gus mimics before they head back out into the hallway.
Lee gestures to my laptop. “Show me this school again at least,” he says. “Let me form a clear picture of the place you’re ditching me for.”
“Easy enough.”
I’ve got the Gregorstoun website bookmarked, and I bring it up now, feeling that same flutter in my stomach at the sight of those gorgeous brick walls, the breathtaking scenery around it.
Clicking through the pictures, Lee pauses on one of a bunch of boys dressed in off-white tank tops and long shorts that look like they’re made out of canvas. They’re all grimacing slightly at the camera, their pale skin red with cold.
“Who are these jokers?” he asks, and I look down at the caption.
“‘Class of 2009, participants of the annual Challenge.’”
Lee looks over at me. “What the heck is the ‘annual Challenge’?”
I grin, practically wiggling on the bed. “Omigod, it’s the coolest. They basically send you off into the Highlands in teams, and you have to camp out there, then find your way back to the school.”
The Challenge was actually one of the reasons I’d picked Gregorstoun over other schools in Scotland. The idea of getting to be out on my own—well, kind of on my own—in the Highlands, wind whipping through my hair, camping out underneath Scottish stars? Yes, please.
Lee snorts. “A camping challenge does indeed sound very up your alley. Hope those guys aren’t attached to having functional limbs.”
Pretending to buff my nails on my shirt, I lift my chin in the air. “Gonna kill it, obviously.”
Turning back to the laptop, Lee taps the screen. “Okay, but what if they’re not telling the whole truth? What if the Challenge involves being thrown into a Sarlacc Pit to be eaten, hmm? Have you thought about that?”
“It’s clearly not, because this fellow here,” I say, pointing to one of the taller guys in the back, “is Prince Alexander of Scotland, and last time I checked, he was very uneaten. And marrying an American.”
“Ohhhh, yeah,” Lee says slowly. “My mom is obsessed with that. Getting up early for the wedding and everything.”
I’ve seen Prince Alexander and his fiancée on the covers of a few magazines here and there, and there was some kind of scandal earlier in the summer with the fiancée’s sister, but I didn’t pay much attention. Royal gossip has never been my thing, and it’s not like it’s going to affect me anyway. Prince Alexander is long gone from Gregorstoun, and his brother, Sebastian, isn’t going back.
“Millie Quint, going to school where royalty went,” Lee muses, still looking at the pictures, and I shake my head.
“Millie Quint, going to a great school,” I correct him.
“Besides,” I add, closing out the webpage, “the chances of me meeting royalty are, like, nil.”
FLORA’S OFF TO SCHOOL!
Seen here at Waverly Station in Edinburgh, Her Royal Highness, Princess Flora of Scotland, boards the train taking her north to Gregorstoun in the Scottish Highlands. Once a males-only institution, this year, Gregorstoun opens its doors to women for the first time in over a century. While Princess Flora’s brothers both attended the school, this year, Flora will be the only Baird at Gregorstoun, her twin, Sebastian, having chosen to finish his schooling closer to home in Edinburgh. Rumors that the princess is being sent to the imposing school to curb some of her wilder impulses are, according to the palace, “completely fabricated.”
(“School’s In for the Royals,” from People)
CHAPTER 7
To say that it’s surreal to find myself in Scotland only a week after packing my bags with Lee does not even come close to describing how weird I feel as I lean forward from the back seat of a Land Rover and watch Scotland—the place I’ve spent the past year obsessing over— unfurl in front of me.
Since flying from Houston to London, I’ve been on a train to Edinburgh, and after that, to Inverness. There, I was picked up by a Land Rover driven by a bearded guy who introduced himself as “Mr. McGregor, groundskeeper.” He looks about a hundred years old, but I am so exhausted that he could drive like he was in Scotland’s version of The Fast and the Furious, and I’d be fine with it. So long as I’m getting closer to Gregorstoun, I’m good.
There are three other kids in the car with me, two girls and a boy, and all three seem younger than me. They’ve stayed close together, murmuring in low voices. I saw them on the train from Edinburgh, huddled together.
That was a weird experience, riding the train up, watching the land change from the suburban houses outside the city to the fields, and then stony hills as we got farther north. I was so unsure of what to do that I stayed frozen in my seat the whole time, not even going to look for the bathroom.
All three of them keep shooting me looks, and finally, as the Land Rover crests a hill, I turn back to face all of them with a bright smile.
“So where do you think the sorting hat will put you?” I ask, then lift my hand, twisting two fingers together. “Come onnnn, Ravenclaw!” I say, and all three of them blink.
Mr. McGregor chuckles. Or maybe he’s choking, hard to say.
“You’re American,” one of the girls says. She’s truly little, with ashy-blond hair and giant blue eyes. I can just make out the top of a plastic horse sticking out from one of the pockets on her leather satchel.
“I am,” I say. “My name’s Millie.”
The girl blinks at me before offering, “Elisabeth. Lissie, really. And this is Em”—she gestures to the dark-haired girl beside her—“and Olly.”
“Elisabeth, Em, Olly,” I repeat, nodding at each of them. They all smile politely, and okay, sure, they’re all like twelve, but maybe this is a good sign of the kind of people I’ll meet at Gregorstoun. Maybe they won’t all be Scary Rich People, but just . . . Awkward Kids.