Luce wondered how this stranger knew about her dietary preferences, but more than that, she had to ask: “Um, why are you being so nice?”
The girl laughed, sighed, then shook her head. “Not everyone at Sword & Cross is a whore or a jock.”
“Huh?” Luce said.
“Sword & Cross … Whores and Jocks. Lame nickname in town for this school. Obviously there aren’t really any jocks here. I won’t oppress your ears with some of the cruder nicknames they’ve come up with.”
Luce laughed.
“All I meant was, not everyone here is a complete jerk.”
“Just the majority?” Luce asked, hating it that she already sounded so negative. But it had been such a long morning, and she’d already been through so much, and maybe this girl wouldn’t judge her for being a little bit gruff.
To her surprise, the girl smiled. “Exactly. And they sure give the rest of us a bad name.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood. You can call me Penn.”
“Got it,” Luce said, still too frazzled to realize that, in a former life, she might have stifled a laugh at this girl’s moniker. It sounded like she’d hopped straight off the pages of a Dickens novel. Then again, there was something trustworthy about a girl with a name like that who could manage to introduce herself with a straight face. “I’m Lucinda Price.”
“And everybody calls you Luce,” Penn said. “And you transferred from Dover Prep in New Hampshire.”
“How’d you know that?” Luce asked slowly.
“Lucky guess?” Penn shrugged. “I’m kidding, I read your file, duh. It’s a hobby.”
Luce stared at her blankly. Maybe she’d been too hasty with that trustworthy judgment. How could Penn have access to her file?
Penn took over running the water. When it got warm, she motioned for Luce to lower her head into the sink.
“See, the thing is,” she explained, “I’m not actually crazy.” She pulled Luce up by her wet head. “No offense.” Then lowered her back down. “I’m the only kid at this school without a court mandate. And you might not think it, but being legally sane has its advantages. For example, I’m also the only kid they trust to be an office aide. Which is dumb on their part. I have access to a lot of confidential shit.”
“But if you don’t have to be here—”
“When your father’s the groundskeeper of the school, they kind of have to let you go for free. So …” Penn trailed off.
Penn’s father was the groundskeeper? From the looks of the place, it hadn’t crossed Luce’s mind that they even had a groundskeeper.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Penn said, helping Luce shampoo the last of the gravy from her hair. “That the grounds aren’t exactly well kept?”
“No,” Luce lied. She was eager to stay on this girl’s good side and wanted to put out the be-my-friend vibe way more than she wanted to seem like she actually cared about how often someone mowed the lawn at Sword & Cross. “It’s, um, really nice.”
“Dad died two years ago,” Penn said quietly. “They got as far as sticking me with decaying old Headmaster Udell as my legal guardian, but, uh, they never really got around to hiring a replacement for Dad.”
“I’m sorry,” Luce said, lowering her voice, too. So someone else here knew what it was like to go through a major loss.
“It’s okay,” Penn said, squirting conditioner into her palm. “It’s actually a really good school. I like it here a lot.”
Now Luce’s head shot up, sending a spray of water across the bathroom. “You sure you’re not crazy?” she teased.
“I’m kidding. I hate it here. It totally sucks.”
“But you can’t bring yourself to leave,” Luce said, tilting her head, curious.
Penn bit her lip. “I know it’s morbid, but even if I weren’t stuck with Udell, I couldn’t. My dad’s here.” She gestured toward the cemetery, invisible from here. “He’s all I’ve got.”
“Then I guess you’ve got more than some other people at this school,” Luce said, thinking of Arriane. Her mind rolled back to the way Arriane had gripped her hand on the quad today, the eager look in her blue eyes when she made Luce promise she’d swing by her dorm room tonight.
“She’s gonna be okay,” Penn said. “It wouldn’t be Monday if Arriane didn’t get carted off to the nurse after a fit.”
“But it wasn’t a fit,” Luce said. “It was that wristband. I saw it. It was shocking her.”
“We have a very broad definition of what makes for a ‘fit’ here at Sword & Cross. Your new enemy, Molly? She’s thrown some legendary fits. They keep saying they’re going to change her meds. Hopefully you’ll have the pleasure of witnessing at least one good freak-out before they do.”
Penn’s intel was pretty remarkable. It crossed Luce’s mind to ask her what the story was with Daniel, but the complicated intensity of her interest in him was probably best kept to a need-to-know basis. At least until she figured it out herself.
She felt Penn’s hands wringing the water from her hair.
“That’s the last of it,” Penn said. “I think you’re finally meat-free.”
Luce looked in the mirror and ran her hands through her hair. Penn was right. Except for the emotional scarring and the pain in her right foot, there was no evidence of her cafeteria brawl with Molly.
“I’m just glad you have short hair,” Penn said. “If it were still as long as it was in the picture in your file, this would have been a much lengthier operation.”
Luce gawked at her. “I’m going to have to keep an eye on you, aren’t I?”
Penn looped her arm through Luce’s and steered her out of the bathroom. “Just stay on my good side and no one gets hurt.”
Luce shot Penn a worried look, but Penn’s face gave nothing away. “You’re kidding, right?” Luce asked.
Penn smiled, suddenly cheery. “Come on, we gotta get to class. Aren’t you glad we’re in the same afternoon block?”
Luce laughed. “When are you going to stop knowing everything about me?”
“Not in the foreseeable future,” Penn said, tugging her down the hall and back toward the cinder-block classrooms. “You’ll learn to love it soon, I promise. I’m a very powerful friend to have.”
THREE
DRAWING DARK
Luce meandered down the dank dormitory hallway toward her room, dragging her red Camp Gurid duffel bag with the broken strap in her wake. The walls here were the color of a dusty blackboard—and the whole place was strangely quiet, save for the dull hum of the yellow fluorescent lamps hanging from the water-stained drop-panel ceilings.
Mostly, Luce was surprised to see so many shut doors. Back at Dover, she’d always wished for more privacy, a break from the hallwide dorm parties that sprang up at all hours. You couldn’t walk to your room without tripping over a powwow of girls sitting cross-legged in matching jeans, or a lip-locked couple pressed against the wall.