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loved discussing her digestive tract.
    She smiled at Syd, her teal eyes meeting his green ones “OMG, TY!”
    She wrapped her glossed lips around the straw, took a huge gulp of the smoothie, and then forced a burp, praying Taz wasn’t lurking anywhere nearby. Then she snort-giggled and snuck a look at Syd, who seemed unfazed. Tweety andOphelia covered their mouths, both girls struggling not to burst out laughing.
    Skye studied Syd’s face for a reaction.
Nada!
His green eyes still shone with Skye-appreciation. “Nice one, babe. Once, I burped an entire Fugazi song.”
    Skye needed to turn up her gross-o-meter, fast.
    “Ew, my burp smells like salami!” Skye screech-giggled, fanning the air in front of her face with her hand. “OMG, Syd, tell me there isn’t salami in my smoothie!” She burped again, for good measure.
    This time Syd’s thick eyebrows furrowed like kissing caterpillars and his full lips twisted into a grimace. Surely he was grossed out enough by his burping belle to take off running? Skye crossed her fingers on her right hand and held them behind her back.
    “Is something wrong?” Skye grinned at him, practically tasting her freedom underneath her nasty burp.
    “I’m going to talk to the chef ASAP. They need to make another one of these, or check the blender, or something. I’ll catch up with you later.”
    “Wait, Syd!” Skye tried, but he’d already broken into a jog and was headed straight for the café. She stared at his skinny jeans disappearing back into the Pavilion, her mouth hanging open in a bewildered
O
.
    “Let’s ditch him in the cafeteria,” sighed Skye. “I need to think. And to think, I need to walk.”
    “This is going to be tougher than we thought.” Ophelia frowned and threw her arm around Skye’s slumped shoulders. “But at least you got rid of him for now.”
    Skye shook her head dejectedly, spraying a few water droplets from her damp hair onto her shoulders. “Yeah, but he’ll be back.”
    Like salami, Syd couldn’t be kept down for long.

8
    ALPHA INFIRMARY
PANACEA SUITE
    TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH
7:02 A.M.
    Allie pressed the CALL button on the clear screen hovering in front of her, and Madame Vandertramp, her scarf-draped French teacher, went instantly mute on the video screen. Allie watched as Madame stabbed a whiteboard with her glamorous French-manicured fingers and silently explained the importance of
verbes reflexives.
    “How can we help?” a melodic, health-promoting voice chirped from the screen.
    “Um, could I have another pillow? And maybe some more soup?” Allie modulated her voice to sound pinched with a sinus infection.
    “Right away, Allie. Some tea to go with it?”
    “Sure,” Allie fake-coughed. “Thanks.” She pushed the CLASS button and was right back to French, having barely missed a thing. But her eyes drifted to the wall of her room, where a vertical waterfall burbled soothingly. Every fewminutes, the waterfall was tinted a different color. Right now, it was purple. Allie smiled, leaned back into her 1,000-thread-count sheets, and decided she’d have to fake sick for at least a week—the Alpha Infirmary was more relaxing than a five-star hotel.
    Nurse Nightengale, the infirmary’s efficient chief, appeared silently, wearing a white lab coat cinched in the middle by a white leather belt decorated with a red patent leather cross. She smiled, her brow creased in an empathetic worry-line that made Allie feel as protected as if it were her own mother’s face hovering above her bed in Santa Ana.
    “How are we feeling?” Nurse Nightengale said softly.
    “Not so good,” she whispered, rubbing her glands on either side of her throat.
    “Drink this,” Nurse Nightengale said. “And just relax. If you feel too tired to attend your virtual classes, we have a video library with all the latest movies and TV shows you’ve been missing. Research shows that watching humorous programming can actually cure ailments, so this is the one place