Two Transfers Bet They Can Beat Me

The strap of my backpack cut into my shoulder before I even reached the corner of Marbury and Eighth, and I adjusted it without breaking stride. Twenty pounds. I weighed it that morning on the kitchen scale, same as every Monday. AP Calculus, AP Physics, AP U.S. History, two binders, three notebooks, the Princeton Review I'd been working through since June, my lunch, a full water bottle, and the extra paperback in case I got stuck waiting somewhere with no signal. The sidewalk outside Halloran Prep smelled like wet leaves and the diesel exhaust of the idling buses. October in Bell Harbor meant gray water and gray sky, the kind of coastal town where the money was old enough to have forgotten it was money. Halloran sat on the bluff above the marina, brick and ivy and a wrought-iron gate that had been there since 1892. Most of the kids got dropped off. I walked from the ferry. It was a twenty-two-minute walk uphill. I timed it once. I timed everything. "Morning, Elara," said Ms. Okafor, holding the side door open with her foot while she balanced a tray of lab supplies against her hip. "Morning." I took the tray from her without stopping. She laughed and let me. That was the thing about Halloran. Everyone knew me. Not because I was interesting but because I was predictable, and at a school like this, predictable was its own kind of famous. Elara Voss, the girl who never missed a day, who took the maximum course load, who showed up to study hall with her hair in the same braid and her shoulders permanently bent forward like she was bracing against wind. The girl who had been first in her class since sixth grade. I had a reason. I always had a reason. My brother Theo broke his leg two weeks before his senior year finals. Not a sports injury. Not a car accident. He got jumped in the parking lot behind the library by three guys who wanted his calculus notes and his phone and, mostly, wanted to prove something to a kid who walked around with his chin too high. He'd been the smart one before me. He'd been the one everybody said was going places. One surgery, one titanium rod, one semester of missed exams later, and Theo was working at his friend's bike shop, taking classes at the community college two nights a week, telling everyone it was fine. I was twelve when that happened. I've been carrying the bag ever since. "Elara!" Someone waved at me from the senior bench by the fountain. Priya, my lab partner, half-eaten bagel in hand. "Did you see the email?" "What email." "Two transfers. Juniors. Starting today." She bit into the bagel. "From the city." I opened the side door and held it for her. "Okay." "You're not curious?" "I'm curious about the physics test Friday." Which was true. There was a differential equations problem on the practice set I'd been turning over since seven a.m. Priya rolled her eyes, but affectionately. She was one of maybe four people at Halloran who talked to me like I was a person and not a rumor. That was enough. Homeroom was in the east wing, second floor, and I climbed the stairs two at a time with the bag slamming against my spine. The hallway was warmer than outside, smelled like floor wax and somebody's peppermint gum. The big glass case at the end of the corridor held the honor roll board, gold letters on black felt, updated every quarter. My name had been at the top of it since I was eleven. I stopped, like I always did, to check. Not out of vanity. Out of habit. It was like touching a wall when you walk past it in the dark, just to know it's still there. "Look at that handwriting," said a voice behind me, low and amused. "You think they carve the names or print them?" "They print them." I answered before I turned around, because the question was obviously meant to be overheard and I don't like leaving sentences hanging. Two girls stood at the other end of the case, in matching Halloran blazers they hadn't bothered to button. The taller one had dark curls and a jacket tailored to her frame, the kind of fit that doesn't come off a rack. The shorter one had a sharp bob and a phone in her hand, and both of them were looking at the board with the specific expression of people who had spent their whole lives being the smartest person in a room and had just walked into a bigger room. The taller one glanced at me. "You know where the registrar is?" "Second floor, west wing. Past the chapel." I shifted my bag strap. "You're the transfers." "Astrid," she said, not offering a hand. "That's June." June nodded without looking up from her phone. "Top of the board," she said, flicking her eyes at the gold letters. "Elara Voss." "That's me." "GPA?" I didn't answer. It wasn't a secret, but it wasn't a conversation I was interested in having in a hallway. Astrid smiled. It was a nice smile, polished, the kind that had been practiced in mirrors. "We were just saying. This is a small school. Small town. Didn't expect much competition." June finally looked up. "Next exam cycle. November. I'll beat Voss by twenty points." "Thirty," Astrid said casually, still smiling. "You'll be lucky to beat her by twenty. I'll get thirty." "You're both new," I said. "You haven't taken a Halloran exam." "Exactly," said Astrid. "How hard can it be." The bell rang. They turned and walked away, blazers swinging, and a small cluster of sophomores who'd been watching the whole thing parted for them like water. I stood at the honor roll board for one more second. My name, top line, same as always. Then I turned and went to homeroom, and I said nothing about it to anyone for the rest of the day, because that was what Theo would have done, and Theo was the cautionary tale.