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year.
    “We’ve found a place where we think you might do a little better.” Before I can ask her what kind of place it is, she hurries to explain. “It’s not to punish you or anything like that, sweetie, it’s to help you because we want to see you reach your full potential. You and your brother are so gifted, and we want you to have every opportunity to maximize those gifts—”
    “It’s okay,” the Ghost interrupts. I’m still half-asleep. He hands me a thick booklet. “She can read.”
    The front of the booklet says, “Woodsdale Academy: Preparing Students for Excellence since 1814.” Beneath the heading, in smaller letters, it reads, “A Coeducational College Preparatory School for Boarding Students in Grades 9–12.” And beneath that, right there on the cover, is a picture of three girls and two boys, each of them wearing swimsuits and caps, beaming at me with perfect white teeth. They’re seated on the edge of a glistening, Olympic-sized indoor pool. Their arms are around each other, matching maroon towels slung over their shoulders, and they all look so happy to see me. Behind them there’s a banner:
    O HIO V ALLEY
A THLETIC C ONFERENCE
C HAMPIONS
    I flip through the booklet, looking at all the pictures. There are students strolling arm-in-arm through a lush autumn landscape, each of them wearing neat uniforms and carrying full backpacks. A more candid shot shows two girls in what appears to be a dorm room. They’re both wearing Woodsdale Academy T-shirts, their hair set in pink curlers, heads tilted together as they grin at the camera like they’ve never had more fun in their lives. In another shot, a teacher leans helpfully over a student’s shoulder as he peers into a microscope.
    “Where is it?” I ask.
    “Close,” my mother says. “Really close. We can visit you all the time.”
    “Four hours away,” the Ghost clarifies. “It’s in West Virginia.”
    I close the brochure and stare at the cover again, at the glistening swimmers who have never met me and won’t know a thing about me except that I can swim faster than any of them.
    “The last set of admissions tests for the year is this afternoon,” the Ghost says. “You need to get dressed.”
    I glance at both of them, back and forth. My mother’s eyes are dewy. Her eyelids flutter nervously as she takes long, loud sips of coffee.
    Finally, I look at the Ghost. I feel like, if I stare at him long enough, maybe he’ll break down and show some warmth, hug me or cry or something, but the longer I stare at him, the steadier his gaze seems to get.
    “Do I have a choice?” I ask.
    He doesn’t even blink. “No.”
    I want to fight with him for the sake of fighting. Because, I mean, who wants to get sent to boarding school ? And then I think about the last few weeks, about what school will be like when I go back and everybody wants to know about Will and I won’t have anything to tell them, and depending on what they’ve heard I might have to fake a headache and spend the afternoon on a cot in the nurse’s office, waiting for the day to be over. And then I’ll come home to what? My mom. The pool in our yard. In a month or so, it will be too cold and they’ll have to cover it for the fall and winter, and all I’ll have is Rec swimming four days a week, two hours a day.
    Who wants to get sent away to boarding school? I do.
    I shrug. “Okay. I’ll get dressed.”

chapter 3
    Woodsdale’s campus is nicer than any school I’ve ever seen in my life. Most of the buildings, including the main school building, are restored old mansions. The administrative building is all wide hallways and winding stairwells and shiny hardwood floors covered with Oriental rugs. After the admissions test, which takes only an hour or so and isn’t hard, I sit beside my parents in the admissions director’s office and watch the Ghost write a check. I figure the real “admissions test” is whether or not the check clears.
    The admissions