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around to gape at her. “Hard to absorb? Finding out that Ben & Jerry’s had discontinued White Russian was hard to absorb. This is . . .” I wave my hands in the air, trying to find the words to actually describe how I feel. “. . . freaking unbelievable.”
    She starts taking T-shirts out of the suitcase and folds them into neat piles according to color family.
    “I’m sorry,” she says, setting a red RUN HARD OR RUN HOME T-shirt on the red, orange, and yellow pile. “I should have told you sooner, but I thought you had enough on your mind already with all the major changes in our lives. I didn’t want to overburden you with this additional worry.”
    So instead she waits until we’re almost here. When I can’t get away.
    I snatch the T-shirts off the bed before she can restack them in order of shade and hue. Color coding is so not my thing.
    “Whatever,” I say, not really meaning it—I mean, she did keep this a secret for over a month. A month! “I’m over it.”
    There is a tall dresser in the corner of my room, and I try to pull open one of the middle drawers while balancing the enormous stack of T-shirts in my left hand. The drawer does not cooperate and it takes a monumental tug to pull it open, sending the T-shirts tumbling.
    After I pick the T-shirts up off the floor I proceed with putting them away.
    The dresser is the closest thing my room has to a closet. Other than that I actually kind of like the room. Like the rest of the house, the furniture is seriously old—the sturdy, made-to-last kind—and the floor is age-worn tile in the same dark brown as the furniture. The walls are bright white plaster and they feel cold when I touch them. I can’t wait for our boxes to get here so I can add some of my own color.
    “Phoebe,” Mom says like she’s disappointed that I’m not spilling my feelings all over the tile floor. “You can’t bottle up your emotions inside. Talk to me. Are you worried about fitting in?”
    “Look,” I say—fine, I shout—as I slam the drawer shut, “drop the shrink act. I’m fine. I don’t need psychotherapy or a Rorschach test or an open dialogue. Just point me to the computer so I can e-mail home.”
    She looks like she really wants to say something shrinklike, but thinks better of it. Good thing, too. I grew up on her therapist approach. It so doesn’t work on me anymore.
    The computer—something from the dark ages of technology if the dingy gray plastic is any sign—is in Damian’s office. You’d think a guy with Greek gods on his PTA could afford to upgrade.
    He is in his office when we get there, filling out some paperwork at his desk. Looking up, he smiles and asks, “Are you here to use the computer, Phoebe?”
    I nod, thinking that’s enough of a response. Until Mom pokes me in the ribs.
    “Yeah. I want to e-mail my friends back home.”
    “Oh.” His face falls and he looks to Mom for support.
    Great.Another secret? Another reality-shattering headline?
    “Honey,” she begins. Her voice is quiet and way too hesitant, but it’s the hand on my shoulder that tips me off to the really bad news. “We don’t want to say you can’t stay in touch with your friends, but—”
    “What? I can’t even e-mail my two best friends?” I shake her hand off my shoulder. “I thought being stuck on this stupid prison-of-anisland was going to be bad, but I can’t believe this! Why don’t you just put me in solitary and slide bread and water under my door twice a day?”
    “It’s not that,” she insists.
    “Phoebe,” Damian says, using what I know must be his patient principal voice, “you are entirely free to e-mail whomever you choose. But we must ask you not to reveal the truth about Serfopoula and the Academy. We trust you to act responsibly.”
    Is that all?
    “Fine,” I say, sounding like it’s a major concession when I’m actually thinking, As if they’d believe me.
    I mean, Nola and Cesca are my best friends and all, but there are limits