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charcoal pencils tied with a bright orange ribbon, which looked surprisingly like a bra strap. It matched perfectly with the funky handmade headband in her blond A-line bobbed hair. “Wow, Grace, your hair looks great today. You should wear it up all the time. It’s totally quirky.”
    Coming from most people, that might sound like a backhanded compliment—especially since I’d worn myhair up in a messy ponytail because I hadn’t bothered to do anything else with it this morning—but from someone like Katie, who brought her tofu sandwiches and organic wheatgrass juice in a varying collection of vintage lunch boxes,
quirky
seemed like a good thing.
    “Um, thanks,” I said. Considering my own best friend didn’t even talk to me anymore, I always found it surprising when anyone at school other than my teachers or Daniel actually made an effort to engage me in conversation. “You look awesome, as always.”
    Which she did.
    Katie was one of those naturally beautiful people who could wear a dress made out of a dyed blue potato sack to a school picnic—which she
had
back in September—and still look drop-dead gorgeous.
    “You’re too sweet.” Katie turned her cobalt blue eyes on Daniel. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks for letting me borrow your charcoal pencil last week. I so wouldn’t have finished my project on time without you.” She held out the bundle of pencils with her many-ringed fingers and offered it to Daniel. “This is for you.”
    “Really? Thanks, Katie.” Daniel’s cheeks tinged with pink, and he seemed extra careful not to touch the bra-strap-resembling ribbon. “You barely used my pencil, though. You didn’t need to get me these.”
    “Anything for my hero,” she said, and smiled at him.
    I liked Katie, I really did. She didn’t treat me in a hands-off manner like most everyone else at HTAlately. And I’d never once heard her say anything bad about me behind my back. But what I didn’t like about Katie was the way she smiled at Daniel. Not to mention the way she always asked his opinion about her latest projects—which were always as stunning as she was. Her parents had moved to Rose Crest during the summer just so she could be in Holy Trinity Academy’s advanced art program.
    Daniel’s cheeks got pinker.
    I kicked him in the shin. A little too hard.
    “Ow. So not necessary,” he said, but gave me a sarcastically devious smile.
    “Talk to you guys later,” Katie said. “I think today’s the big day, don’t you?”
    Ugh. I laid my head back down on the table and listened to her shoes glide across the linoleum floor toward a table on the other side of the room. The big day was the last thing I even had the energy to think about right now.
AFTER LUNCH
    But the bombshell dropped right after fifth period started.
    AP art was a two-period class with a lunch break in the middle. And when Daniel and I came back from grabbing a bite to eat, Mr. Barlow asked us to come into his office. Everyone had been speculating about when the big announcement was going to happen becauseMr. Barlow had been acting weird for the last couple of weeks. He’d loom over our tables while we worked, watching our every brushstroke, making it impossible for me to paint a straight line—and causing me to lose what little hope I had that the big day was going to hold anything but disappointment for me.
    Which was why I was more than shocked when I realized Barlow wasn’t just inviting
Daniel
into his office at the moment.
    April was already in there. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked away when I entered. Katie Summers sat next to Barlow’s desk, looking a bit green but still excited. She smiled and waved at Daniel when he followed me into the office.
    Mr. Barlow shut his office door behind him. He took a stack of large white envelopes from his desk and passed out one to each of us. April turned hers over and practically yelped. I flipped mine over and felt my heart speed up. I slid my hand