Nobody in the upper rows was moving.
I looked down the tiered amphitheater. The scholarship students, scattered along the back and periphery, were sitting like statues, their hands flat on their mahogany desks. None of them zipped their bags. None of them stood up. Across the room, it was an unspoken, unwritten law: the lower-class students did not dare to leave the classroom until the legacy students had completely cleared out. To stand up and block the aisle, to force a legacy student to wait behind a valley stipend jacket, was treated as an unforgivable transgression.
Gabriel rose at a leisurely pace, tossing his leather folio to Benny, who caught it without a word. He stood in the center aisle, laughing softly at a comment Julian made as a small group of high-class seniors gathered a
