Scout rolled her eyes. “I’m cold a lot. Sue me.”

“How about I just take a shower?”

She nodded and held up two energy bars. “Get in, get out, and when you’re done, art history, here we come.”

Have you ever had one of those days where you give up on being really clean, and settle for being largely clean? Where you don’t have time for the entire scrubbing and exfoliating regime, so you settle for the basics? Where brushing your teeth becomes the most vigorous part of your cleaning ritual?

Yeah, welcome to Monday morning at St. Sophia’s School for (Slightly Grimy) Girls.

When I was (mostly) clean, I met Scout in the common room. She was sporting the preppy look today—Mary Janes, knee-high socks, oxford shirt and tie.

“You look very—”

“Nerdy?” she suggested. “I’m trying a new philosophy today.”

“A new philosophy?” I asked, as we shut the common room door and headed down the hall. She handed over the energy bar she’d shown off earlier. I ripped down the plastic and bit off a chunk.

“Look the nerd, be the nerd,” she said, with emphasis. “I figure this look could boost my grades by fifteen to twenty percent.”

“Fifteen to twenty percent? That’s impressive. You think it’ll work?”

“I’m sure it won’t,” she said. “But I’m giving it a shot. I’m taking positive steps.”

“Studying would be another positive step,” I pointed out.

“Studying interferes with my world saving.”

“It’s unfortunate you can’t get excused absences for that.”

“I know, right?”

“And speaking of saving the world,” I said, “did you have a call after we got back last night? Or did you just sleep late?”

“I sleep with earplugs,” she said, half- answering the question. “The radio alarm came on, but it wasn’t loud enough, so I dreamed about REO Speedwagon and Phil Collins for forty-five minutes. Suffice it to say, I can feel it coming in the air tonight.”

“Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum, dum,” I said, repeating the drum lead- in, although without my usual air drumming. My reputation was off to a rocky-enough start as it was.

We took the stairs to the first floor, then headed through the corridor to the classroom building. The lockers were our next stop. I took the last bite of the energy bar—some kind of chewy fruit, nut, and granola combination—then folded up the wrapper and slipped it into my bag.

At our lockers, I opened my messenger bag and peeked inside. I already had my art history book, so I kneeled to my lower-level locker, opened it, and grabbed my trig book, my second class of the day. I’d just closed the door, my palm still pressed against slick wood, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned and found M.K. beside me—grinning.

“Fell down the stairs, did you?”

Scout slipped books into her locker, then slammed the door shut before giving M.K. a narrow-eyed glare. “Hey, Betty, go find Veronica and leave us in peace.”

M.K. looked confused by the reference, but she shook it off with a toss of her long dark hair. “How lame are you when you can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without falling down?” Her voice was just a shade too loud, obviously intended to get the other girls’ attention, to make them stare and whisper and, presumably, embarrass me.

Fortunately, I didn’t embarrass that easily. On the other hand, I couldn’t exactly correct her. If I threw “secret basement room” at these girls, there’d be a mad rush to find out what lurked downstairs. That wasn’t going to help the Adepts, so I opted to deflect.

“How lame do you have to be to push a girl down the stairs?”

“I didn’t push anyone down the stairs,” she clipped out.

“So you had nothing to do with my hospital visit?”

Crimson rose on her cheeks.

It was mean, I know, but I had Adepts to protect. Well, one nose-ringed Adept to protect, anyway. Besides, I didn’t actually make an accusation. I just asked the right question.

As school bells began to peal, she nailed us both with a glare, then turned on a heel and stalked away, a monogrammed leather backpack between her shoulder blades.

I’m not sure what, or how much, the brat pack had spilled around school about my “fall” and my clinic visit, but I felt the looks and heard the whispers. They lasted through the morning’s art history, trig, and civics classes, girls in identical plaid lowering their heads together—or passing tiny, folded notes—to share what they’d heard about my weekend.

Luckily, the rumors were pretty tame. I hadn’t heard anything about bizarre rooms beneath the building, evil teenagers roaming the hallways, or Scout’s involvement—other than the fact that people “wouldn’t be surprised” if she’d had something to do with it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one at St. Sophia’s who thought she was a little odd.

I glanced over at her during civics—punky blond and brown hair in tiny ponytails, fingernails painted glossy black, a tiny hoop in her nose. I was kind of surprised Foley let her get away with all that, but I thanked God Scout stood out in this bastion of über-normalcy.

After civics, we headed back to our lockers.

“Let’s go run an errand,” she said, opening her locker and transferring her books.

I arched a skeptical eyebrow.