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for Thursday. We’ll be doing a free-response practice essay in class.”
    Everyone groaned and Rafael—a smart but snarky boy whom Alice both admired and feared—shouted, “Practice? How is it practice if it’s just as long and annoying as the real thing?”
    “Be grateful, Raf. Some kids—”
    Rafael waved his hand at Mr. Segal, cutting him off. “I know, I know. Not everyone has these ‘opportunities.’ Education is important.”
    “Exactly.” Mr. Segal shook his head but smiled as Rafael strutted out of the room. Constant complaining was just part of the game Rafael played with everyone.
    Alice took a deep breath and turned around to talk to Eva, who was zipping up her backpack—buttons clanging—but had barely gotten out a breathless “Thanks” when she saw Mr. Segal approaching out of the corner of her eye. She thought of her paper and clenched her own backpack tightly, remembering that he had been leafing through the papers while they took a quiz at the end of class.
    “Alice,” he said. His voice was low, confidential, and she braced herself. She didn’t think she could stand the guilt that Mr. Segal’s “chats” always left her feeling.
    “Uh huh?”
    He slipped into the chair in front of hers. “I didn’t want to say anything during class, but—” She braced herself. “You look like you’re not feeling well. Do you need a note to go to the nurse?”
    “Oh.” The sound was airy but sharp, like the pop of opening a soda can.
    “Are you okay?”
    “I—I’m fine. Yeah, I just … I was feeling a little weird, but I’m okay now.”
    “Hmm.” He looked unsatisfied. “Okay, then. But if you start feeling sick again, you really should see the nurse.”
    “I’m fine. Really.”
    She got up and glanced behind her—only to see that Eva had slipped away while she was distracted. The room was nearly empty except for a couple girls talking by the door.
    With a quick goodbye to Mr. Segal, she rushed out of the room and into the hallway, but she couldn’t see anything in the writhing mass of backpacks and teenagers snaking their way en masse to their next class. Resigning herself to being trapped in the crowd, she tightened her backpack straps and wondered what the odds were that Eva would be in any of her other classes.

 
     
    Apparently, the odds were against her because Alice didn’t see even a glint of Eva’s glittering backpack until she was walking out to the parking lot after her last class. Even though she hadn’t seen Eva in person, Alice had spent the entire day talking about her. There was no shortage of rumors about the new girl and Alice, not usually one to try to keep up with gossip, asked everyone—from occasional acquaintances to almost-friends—what they had heard about her.
    Holly, in history class, told her a gripping story about how Eva’s little sister had been autistic and liked to escape from the house at night. Eva heard her walk out the door the night it happened and had immediately run after her, but it was too late. Her sister was already in the water. Eva dove in after her but almost drowned too because of how terribly the little girl was thrashing around.
    “You can see it in her eyes, don’t you think?” Holly had asked eagerly.
    “See what?” Alice feigned ignorance, hiding her surprise. Holly didn’t seem the type to dwell on the hidden sorrows in other people’s faces.
    “Sadness. Ugh, it’s such a tragedy. You can tell she’s totally depressed about it,” Holly said, smacking her gum. “I wonder what it’s like to know someone who died.”
    Like Holly, a lot of the people Alice knew talked about the accident as if it were a particularly interesting TV episode. It made Alice’s stomach turn. She could remember her aunt lying in a casket, wearing the unnatural, heavy makeup the mortician had applied. There was nothing glamorous about bright red lipstick caked onto lips that had lost their color long ago.
    But Holly’s story was just one