director, Dr. Waugh, is a lean, blond woman with a South African accent. She leans against the front of her desk and beams down at me. “Katie,” she pronounces. “We’re so thrilled to welcome you to Woodsdale.”
Before I can say anything—like reminding her they couldn’t possibly have had time to score my admissions test—she continues. “There are only two new sophomore girls this year. You and your roommate. Her name is Madeline Moon. She comes to us from a boarding school in Connecticut, and I’m sure you two will really hit it off.”
Dr. Waugh doesn’t seem like the kind of person to use the expression “hit it off” in everyday conversation, unless she’s talking to someone like me, who comes from someplace like Hillsburg. Dr. Waugh wears tailored black pants that look expensive, a white shirt with a narrow black tie, and high-heeled white sandals. Her office isn’t air-conditioned and it’s at least ninety degrees outside but she isn’t sweating at all. On her ring finger, there’s a band with a single diamond so big I can’t stop staring at it. The wall behind her desk is covered with half a dozen framed degrees and certifications of merit, most of which are from Harvard; the others are from Brown.
“So . . . are there other new kids? In other grades?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Most of our students begin their Woodsdale career in ninth grade, but we certainly make exceptions for . . . special circumstances.”
“So there’s nobody else? Just me and, uh, Madeline?”
She nods. “That’s right.” And then she leans over, her face only a few inches from mine, and smiles so big that I can see all the fillings in her bottom teeth and feel her warm spearmint breath on my face. “Don’t be nervous, Kathryn. We’re a family here. Everything will be fine.”
They call the two weeks before school begins “preseason,” which is an intensive, all-day, every-day practice session for school athletes to prepare for the upcoming year. Even though swimming is a winter sport, there is practice year-round for the varsity team. So, three days after my first visit, my parents drive me back to Woodsdale—this time with our car packed full of my things—and drop me off at my dorm, Wallace Hall.
We hug each other. None of it feels real. My mother has tears in her eyes, and the Ghost cups my chin in his hands and says, “I’m proud of you.” He smiles. Even though the room is piled with boxes of my stuff, there is a tactile void surrounding us, so heavy that it’s like standing in the eye of a hurricane and trying to pretend the weather is perfect. The room is big, bigger than my room at home. Its walls are bare, the bunk beds unmade—there’s no sign yet of Madeline Moon. I can’t stop thinking about what Will would say about all of this.
“Shipping my little sister off to boarding school? Oh, that’s low.” He’d shake his head in disappointment over the whole sorry situation; probably light a cigarette in the middle of the room, indifferent to the smoke alarm going off. “You know what you should do, Katie? You should get yourself kicked out right away for something so bad it gives the Ghost a heart attack.”
Over the next day or so, the dorm fills up with other girls. Wallace Hall is a long, narrow building with a single hallway and rooms on either side. On one end of the building, there’s a huge common room with tables and sofas and a piano and TV. On the other end there’s a huge apartment where our house mother, Mrs. Martin, lives with her husband.
All of the girls seem to know each other. Most of them are freshmen or sophomores, except for a couple of dorm assistants, who are seniors. Even the freshmen all know each other from somewhere—either they went to the same private schools or the same summer camps or something.
Everyone seems friendly at first; girls introduce themselves, look me over, and then continue talking to their roommates or other friends. In my