Class has started by the time I check in at the office and reach my second-period classroom. I pause at the doorway. The students look like the American kids at my international school in Brussels—except rather than Chanel and cashmere, they are wearing Patagonia and denim.
“… just the questions on the board,” the teacher says from his perch on an oak desk in the front. He is dressed as casually as his students—a frumpy shirt tucked into tan trousers.
In the front row, a petite girl stands. “Bonjour. Je m’appelle Lydia …”
When she finishes, the teacher looks over at me. “May I help you?” he asks politely.
I straighten my blazer and step inside. He glances at his clipboard. “You’re new?” he asks, squinting at me through his eyeglasses.
“Yes, sir.”
He corrects me. “Oui, monsieur.”
“Oui, monsieur,” I repeat.
“Welcome.” He inclines his head, switching back to English. “I’m Monsieur Steen. Why don’t you sit over there?” He motions to an empty seat in the corner. “I assume you took the requisite courses at your last school?”
“I believe so, sir.” I walk across the classroom, sit down, and put my backpack beneath my desk.
The girl beside me is wearing skinny jeans, a cream sweater, and red sneakers. I can’t help feeling self-conscious in my pleated skirt and tights. Doesn’t my mother know how casual they dress here?
“We’re practicing introductions. You can listen and then have a turn,” Monsieur Steen tells me.
A brawny boy named Cole Richards stands next. He was born in Waterford, has two brothers, and wants to be a cake farmer—or so he says in French.
Sighing, Monsieur Steen removes his eyeglasses and cleans them with the hem of his shirt. Putting his glasses back on, he nods to me. “Time for our newest student to introduce herself.”
Wiping my palms on my skirt, I stand. Everyone murmurs, craning their necks to see me. I keep my eyes on Monsieur Steen.
“Shoot,” he says pleasantly, tapping his kneecap with a pencil.
I eye him, confused, before interpreting that shoot means start. Glancing at the questions on the chalkboard, I answer rapidly in French:
“My name is Sophia Hepworth. I was born in Finland. My parents are diplomats. No siblings. I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up; I don’t think about it anymore I suppose. But when I was little, I dreamed I would grow up to become a ballerina.”
The murmurs hush. I’ve done something wrong.
“We haven’t gotten to those yet,” Monsieur Steen says in French.
“To what, sir?” I respond.
“Past subjunctive, future conditional. You’re French?”
“Not exactly, monsieur,” I answer.
Monsieur Steen turns up his palm and sighs, “Let me see your schedule.”
I take the white sheet of paper from my binder. It is folded neatly in half, and I attempt to press out the crease before stepping forward to hand it to Monsieur Steen.
“If you’re a native speaker, why did they place you in this class?” he asks.
“They said a language is required to—”
“Yes, but it won’t count. You must transfer into a beginning foreign language course. We also offer Spanish, German, and even first-year Mandarin. I’ll give you a hall pass and you can leave.”
Monsieur Steen reaches across his desk. “Here,” he says in English, handing me a fluorescent slip of paper. “Go to the main office, and a counselor will put you in the proper class. Would you like someone to walk you?”
Shaking my head, I take the note. It crinkles between my fingers. “I am in the proper class, sir.”
Monsieur Steen opens his mouth to object, but I intercept him. “They won’t allow enrollment in a beginner course in a language you already speak. Since I’m required to take a language, I chose French.” I shrug. “I like it best.”
He slides onto his feet. “You’re fluent in Spanish, German, and Mandarin?”
Hearing the hushed whispers erupt around me, I nod. My ears go warm.
Monsieur Steen shakes his head. “I suppose I’m stuck with you.”
I can’t tell if he’s upset.
He continues, “Very well. For credit, you can write essays on French history and literature, okay?”
“Oui, monsieur,” I whisper. “Merci.”
“And Sophia?” he says in French, barely looking up at me, “don’t tell Principal Thatcher how bad my accent is.”
“Never,” I answer, smiling almost imperceptibly.
I turn around to see the entire class watching me.
So much for blending in.
CHAPTER 4
“Sophia!”
The girl wearing the red sneakers from French class saunters toward me. “Steen asked me to give you this,” she says, reaching me. She pushes a sheet of paper into my hands. “But I was late to gym, and then Cole stopped by my locker and, anyway, here. I’m Charlotte by the way.”
Charlotte says all this very fast. She’s graceful, with a silky mane of chestnut hair, radiant dark skin, and her knit cream sweater shows her stomach when she switches her books from her left arm to her right.
“Thank you.” I unfold the paper: Write a three-page essay on a seventeenth-century French poem. Your choice.
I slip the paper into my French composition book.
“Do you know where the cafeteria is?” Charlotte asks.
“At the end of the hall, take a left. It’s twenty meters ahead on your right.”
“I know where it is!” Charlotte laughs, “I was making sure you know! Come on”—she gestures down the hall—“I’ll walk with you.”
“You must be the new girl.” A Caucasian boy with sandy shoulder-length hair and vivid white teeth steps up beside us. “Charlotte said you’re from China—”
“I did not, Mason!” Charlotte hits his right tricep. “I said she speaks Mandarin!”
“—but she is obviously wrong because you’re blond.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes as I glance down at Mason’s bag—on it is a patch of the US Ski Team.
Although I’m not exactly hungry, I walk with Charlotte and Mason into the noisy cafeteria. Rows of tables and chairs clutter the room, the floors are sticky with dried soda, and it smells of fried food and greasy pizza—this is what I’ve been missing.
While Charlotte grabs a sandwich from the line, Mason walks me to a rowdy table beside a bank of windows that resemble a hand-painted mural; in the distance are the jagged granite peaks, dotted with emerald spruce and golden aspens.
“Take a seat.” Mason points to an empty chair tucked in to a two-meter-long table crowded with students.
“Where are you from?” an athletic girl with plump pink cheeks and long auburn hair asks. “Abigail said Sweden, and Lydia said France—”
“Let her sit, Emma,” Mason says, catching an empty soda can before it hits him in the chest. He sits down among a rambunctious group of boys—Liam, Henry, Ryan, and others I recognize from my morning classes. I stare between Emma and Mason: same sapphire eye color, same shape to their ears.