Extraordinary Means

“First day,” I said.

“You’ll love it here,” she promised. “What’s your dorm?”

“Um, six?” I said.

“John’s in six!” she said, as though this was the biggest coincidence in the world. “He’s my boyfriend. He’ll be here in a minute; the line’s taking forever today.”

I was at the wrong table. I knew it then, as the girl introduced me to John, her acne-ravaged boyfriend, and to Tim and Chris, the two chess players I’d mistakenly assumed were sitting by themselves, not waiting for the rest of their group.

“Are you really going to eat all that?” John asked, staring at my tray.

“It’s a joke,” I explained, halfheartedly. “The nutritionist said—”

“Oh, you don’t want to make her mad,” Genevieve warned. “She’ll give you a strike against privileges, and if you get three in a month, you’re ba

“The social?” I asked.

“Didn’t your tour guide tell you anything?” Genevieve asked.

“Not really,” I said, not wanting to get into it.

“Oh. Well, we get some big activity every month,” Genevieve explained.

“I think this time it’s line dancing,” John put in, sounding scarily excited.

I snorted. No wonder Sadie had baited the nutritionist. I’d assumed it was detention, or chores, or whatever else bad kids are punished with, not a free pass from making a fool of yourself to “Cotton-Eye Joe.” But then, Nick had said she only got in trouble when she wanted to.

Genevieve launched enthusiastically into a description of line dancing, just in case I wasn’t already aware how much I would rather go to the dentist. I smiled and nodded, wishing I could have breakfast in peace. But I was the one who’d sat at their table, and they were just being nice.

And as awful as they were, it looked like I could have picked tables far worse. The group to my left was totally checked out, and I couldn’t tell if they were just early-morning zombies, or if the glazed expression was permanent. And on my right was a table of girls who were actively Not Talking to Each Other as they glared at their scrambled eggs.

I glanced across the dining hall, toward Nick and Sadie’s table. There was something magnetic about it, about them, even from all the way where I sat, in the outer rings. I couldn’t figure out what they were—not that your typical social groups applied at a place like Latham. There were four of them, and they were laughing. Nick had picked up his breakfast sausage and was holding it aloft like an orchestra conductor, waving it slowly and deliberately.

Next to me, Genevieve started coughing. She scrambled for a napkin, pressing it over her mouth.

“Sorry,” she said. “The orange juice had pulp.”

“You okay, bu

God, I really had picked a wi

I glanced over at Sadie’s table again, and sure enough, that’s what they were laughing at. Nick, with his tofu sausage, was conducting the coughing.

THANKFULLY, ALL THE classrooms were in the same building, so I found my way to English without too much trouble. It was in a large, wood-paneled room with huge open windows, like an atrium. There was an old-fashioned chalkboard and twenty desks.

Twenty. I was used to SMART Boards. Lockers. Public school. And something told me that Mr. Holder, a balding crane of a man in a shapeless tweed blazer, had never been near a public school in his life.

“Yes?” he asked as I hesitated in the doorway, wondering if seating was assigned.

“I’m Lane Rosen,” I said. “I’m new?”

“Welcome to the rotation,” he said grimly. “Take the seat next to Mr. Carrow.”

He pointed toward a sullen-looking boy in the first row. I sat, taking out my notebook and pencil. Holder slapped a copy of Great Expectations and a photocopied packet on my desk.

“Read a chapter, answer the questions. Rinse and repeat. When you’re done, I’ll give you an essay topic,” he said, leaving me to it.

I stared down at the paperback on my desk. All around me, students were working. Some of them had different books. I spotted Lord of the Flies, Moby Dick, and The Sun Also Rises. I sighed and opened my packet, skimming the questions so I knew what answers to look for when I started reading, a trick I’d picked up in SAT prep.

When class was over, Holder said, “See you on Wednesday,” and everyone started to pack up. I was about halfway through the questions for chapter two.

“Wait,” I said to the boy next to me. “What’s the homework?”

“Good one.” He snorted, as though I’d said something fu

In history, we watched a documentary on the black plague and filled in a worksheet during the movie. The teacher didn’t even stay in the room. When she left, I expected the class to erupt into chaos, but everyone continued watching, except for a couple of kids who put their heads down on their desks and went to sleep.

I sat at the same table for lunch, which I hadn’t meant to do, except Genevieve was two places behind me in line, so there really wasn’t an exit tactic. I’d hoped my missing tour guide would have found me by now, but no such luck. I could feel the monotony setting in, and I wished it wouldn’t.

I didn’t want to be at Latham. I didn’t want this routine of having my meals checked and my teachers write me off at first glance. I wanted to be in third-period AP Euro, in Mr. Verma’s classroom with all the old newspapers framed on the walls, where we got pizza the Friday before an exam.

Back at Harbor, being in AP was like belonging to the club that teachers liked best. We were going somewhere in life, the teachers said, handing us extra-credit assignments instead of detention, study guides instead of busywork. I’d just never thought that where I was going was Latham House.

WE TOOK A long break after lunch. As I trudged across the quad, toward the cottages, I saw four students cut out toward the woods. Nick and Sadie’s crowd. They walked quickly, heads down, as though hurrying toward something far more interesting than rest period. And even though they did it in plain sight, no one seemed to care.

The eight cottages were arranged in a half-moon, around a gazebo in desperate need of a paint job. They were more like ski lodges than actual cottages, with dark wood and deep porches and neat rows of windows.

Each cottage had around twenty residents, if I had to guess. The first floor was a lounge area with dilapidated plaid sofas, a long study table, and stacks of board games. There was a separate television room, and a microkitchen, even though we weren’t supposed to cook anything.

The best places in the lounge had already been staked out by early arrivers. I watched as a group of four Asian kids played a loud game of Settlers of Catan on the rug, and two boys with a deck of Magic cards hunched over the coffee table.

My new and hopefully temporary acquaintances from earlier were setting up a game of Chinese checkers, and they cheerfully waved me over.

“We can play teams,” John suggested.

“I should finish unpacking,” I said, edging toward the door.

“Well, later then,” Tim called. Or maybe it was Chris. I didn’t want to stick around long enough to figure it out.

As I made my way back to my room, muffled music and the unmistakable sound effects of video games leaked from behind closed doors. It was reassuring to hear the Smiths and someone’s Pokémon battle, for some small part of my day to be normal.

I reached into my pocket, forgetting for a moment that it was empty. I felt so lost without my cell phone, like I might get the most important email of my life and it would just sit there for hours, unread. Not that I was expecting an email like that, but still.