“I’m sorry,” Scout said. Her voice was soft, quiet, compassionate.

I shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve known for a while that they were leaving. Some of those days I was fine, some days I was wicked pissed.” I shrugged. “I’m probably not supposed to be mad about it. I mean, it’s not like they went to Germany to get away from me or anything, but it still stings. It still feels like they left me here.”

“Well then,” Scout said, raising her cup of water, “I suppose you’d better thank your lucky stars that you found me. ’Cause I’m going to be on you like white on rice. I’m a hard friend to shake, Parker.”

I grinned through the melancholy and raised my own cup. “To new friendships,” I said, and we clinked our cups together.

When dinner was finished, we returned to our rooms to wash up and restock our bags with books and supplies before study hall. I also ditched the tights and switched out my fabulous—but surprisingly uncomfortable—boots for a pair of much more comfy flip- flops. My cell phone vibrated just as I’d slipped my left foot into the second, thick, emerald green flip- flop. I pulled it out of my bag, checked the caller ID, and smiled.

“What’s cooking in Germany?” I asked after I opened the phone and pressed it to my ear.

“Nothing at the moment,” my father answered, his voice tinny through four thousand miles of transmission wires. “It’s late over here. How was school?”

“It was school,” I confirmed, a tightness in my chest unclenching at the sound of my dad’s voice. I sat down on the edge of the bed and crossed one leg over the other. “Turns out, high school is high school pretty much anywhere you go.”

“Except for the uniforms?” he asked.

I smiled. “Except for the uniforms. How was your first day of sabbaticalizing, or whatever?”

“Pretty dull. Mom and I both had meetings with the folks who are funding our work. A lot of ground rules, research protocols, that kind of thing.”

I could practically hear the boredom in his voice. My dad wasn’t one for administrative details or planning. He was a big-picture guy, a thinker, a teacher. My mom was the organized one. She probably took notes at the meetings.

“I’m sure it’ll get better, Pops. They probably wanna make sure they aren’t handing gazillions of research dollars over to some crazy Americans.”

“What?” he asked. “We are not so crazy,” he said, a thick accent suddenly in his voice, probably an impersonation of some long-dead celebrity. My dad imagined himself to be quite the comedian.

He had quite an imagination.

“Sure, Dad.” There was a knock at the door. I looked up as Scout walked in. “Listen, I need to run to study hall. Tell Mom I said hi, and good luck with the actual, you know, research stuff.”

“Nighty night, Lils. You take care.”

“I will, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” I closed the phone and slipped it back into my bag. Scout raised her eyebrows inquisitively.

“My parents are safe and sound in Germany,” I told her.

“I’m glad to hear it. Let’s go make good on their investment with a couple hours of homework.”

The invitation wasn’t exactly thrilling, but it’s not like we had another choice. Study hall was mandatory, after all.

Study hall took place in the Great Hall, the big room with all the tables where I’d first gotten a glimpse of the plaid army. They were in full attendance tonight, nearly two hundred girls in navy plaid filling fifty-odd four-person tables. We headed through the rows toward a couple of empty seats near the main aisle, which would give us a view of the comings and goings of St. Sophia’s finest. They also gave the plaid army a look at us, and look they did, the thwack-thwack of my flip-flops on the limestone floor drawing everyone’s attention my way.

That attention included the pair of stern-looking women in thick-soled black shoes and horn- rimmed glasses. Their squarish figures tucked into black shirts and sweaters, they patrolled the perimeter of the room, clipboards in hand.

“Who are they?” I whispered, as we took seats opposite each other.

Scout glanced up as she pulled notebooks and books from her bag. “The dragon ladies. They monitor lights-out, watch us while we study, and generally make sure that nothing fun occurs on their watch.”

“Awesome,” I said, flipping open my trig book. “I’m a fun hater myself.”

“I figured,” Scout said without looking up, pen scurrying across a page of her notebook. “You had the look.”

One of the roaming dragon ladies walked by our table, her gaze over her glasses and an eyebrow arched at our whispering as she passed. I mouthed, “Sorry,” but she scribbled on her clipboard before walking away.

Scout bit back a smile. “Please quit disturbing the entire school, Parker, jeez.”

I stuck out my tongue at her, but started my homework.

We worked for an hour before she stretched in her chair, then dropped her chin onto her hand. “I’m bored.”

I rubbed my eyes, which were blurring over the tiny print in our European history book. “Do you want me to juggle?”

“You can juggle?”

“Well, not yet. But there’re books everywhere in here,” I pointed out. “There’s gotta be a how-to guide somewhere on those shelves.”

The girl who sat beside me at the table cleared her throat, her gaze still on the books in front of her. “Really trying to do some work here, ladies. Go play Gilmore Girls somewhere else.”