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Hmmm, history
had
always been her strongest subject, but circumventing doom?
    A closer look at the syllabus was all it took for Luce to see that Arriane had been right about being in a hellhole: an impossible reading load, TEST in big, bold letters every third class period, and a thirty-page paper on—seriously?—the failed tyrant of your choice. Thick black parentheses had been drawn in black Sharpie around the assignments Luce had missed during the first few weeks. In the margins, Mr. Cole had written
See me for Makeup Research Assignment
. If there was a more effective way of soul-sucking, Luce would be scared to find out.
    At least she had Arriane sitting back there in the next row. Luce was glad the precedent had already been set for SOS note-passing. She and Callie used to text each other on the sly, but to make it here, Luce was definitely going to need to learn to fold a paper airplane. She tore a sheet from her notebook and tried to use Arriane’s as a model.
    After a few origami-challenged minutes, anotherplane landed on her desk. She glanced back at Arriane, who shook her head and gave her a you-have-so-much-to-learn roll of the eyes.
    Luce shrugged an apology and swiveled back around to open the second note:
    Oh, and until you’re confident about your aim, you might not want to fly any Daniel-related messages my way. Dude behind you is famous on the football field for his interceptions
.
    Good to know. She hadn’t even seen Daniel’s friend Roland come in behind her. Now she turned very slightly in her seat until she glimpsed his dreadlocks out of the corner of her eye. She dared a glance down at the open notebook on his desk and caught his full name. Roland Sparks.
    “No note-passing,” Mr. Cole said sternly, causing Luce to whip her head back to attention. “No plagiarizing, and no looking at one another’s papers. I didn’t put myself through graduate school only to receive your divided attention.”
    Luce nodded in unison with the other dazed kids just as a third paper plane glided to a stop in the middle of her desk.
    Only 172 minutes to go!

    A hundred and seventy-three torturous minutes later, Arriane was leading Luce to the cafeteria. “What’d ya think?” she asked.
    “You were right,” Luce said numbly, still recovering from how painfully bleak her first three hours of class had been. “Why would anyone teach such a depressing subject?”
    “Aw, Cole’ll ease up soon. He puts on his no-guff face every time there’s a new student. Anyway,” Arriane said, poking Luce, “it could be worse. You could have gotten stuck with Ms. Tross.”
    Luce glanced down at her schedule. “I have her for biology in the afternoon block,” she said with a sinking feeling in her gut.
    As Arriane sputtered out a laugh, Luce felt a bump on her shoulder. It was Cam, passing them in the hall on his way to lunch. Luce would have gone sprawling if not for his hand reaching back to steady her.
    “Easy there.” He shot her a quick smile, and she wondered if he had bumped her intentionally. But he didn’t seem that juvenile. Luce glanced at Arriane to see whether she’d noticed anything. Arriane raised her eyebrows, almost inviting Luce to speak, but neither one of them said a thing.
    When they crossed the dusty interior windowsseparating bleak hall from bleaker cafeteria, Arriane took hold of Luce’s elbow.
    “Avoid the chicken-fried steak at all costs,” she coached as they followed the crowd into the din of the lunchroom. “The pizza’s fine, the chili’s okay, and actually the borscht ain’t bad. Do you like meat loaf?”
    “I’m a vegetarian,” Luce said. She was glancing around the tables, looking for two people in particular. Daniel and Cam. She’d just feel more at ease if she knew where they were so she could go about having her lunch pretending that she didn’t see either one of them. But so far, no sightings …
    “Vegetarian, huh?” Arriane pursed her lips. “Hippie parents or your