Read The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant for Free Online Page B

you are measured,” Teddy says.
    Villicus piles on. “Candidates will be judged by their Guardians at every turn on whether or not they are satisfying their PTs.” His eyes land on mine. “You must live and breathe your PT, Miss Merchant, if you wish to become valedictorian.”
    “If you don’t mind, what does that mean, practically speaking?” I ask. “How will I live and breathe it?”
    “Suppose,” Teddy offers, “your PT is to…be selfish to succeed in life.”
    “That sounds awful.”
    “I would grade your actions over the course of the next two years against that PT. I would expect you to skip to the front of every line, fail to share, sabotage the efforts of your peers, especially those who are most desperate, and—”
    “Steal money from a beggar’s bowl,” I suggest.
    “Precisely!” Villicus and Teddy exclaim.
    “I was joking,” I whisper. Neither hears me.
    “Keep in mind,” Teddy adds, “that everyone around you is making every effort to live and breathe their own PTs. You won’t know it’s happening. You won’t know what they’re playing at. But that is precisely what they’re doing.”
    Evidently, our PTs are assigned to us by our Guardians. Guardians are selected from the faculty, the housemothers, even the secretaries. One Guardian for each junior and senior—freshmen and sophomores don’t participate.
    “I will be your shadow,” Teddy says finally. “Naturally we’ll be cohabitating at Miss Malone’s—”
    “Wait, what?” I interrupt. “You’re living at Gigi’s, too? With me?”
    “Where did you expect me to live?”
    “There’s not even any room there!” I already know, though, that he must have claimed the guest bedroom, which is why I’m stuck in the attic.
    “Miss Merchant,” Villicus interjects, his tone flat, “you have put up more barriers in these past ten minutes than the average student does in their entire time on this campus.”
    “I’m just surprised—”
    “ And I’ve already considered,” Villicus thrusts on, “the possibility that you are not fit for this institution. Perhaps I ought to send you home. Do you realize that this morning alone I turned away a very wealthy man who implored me to let his daughter into the school? He’s flying out here tonight by helicopter just to see if he can persuade me. And here you sit! Snarling. Making demands.”
    That shuts me up. Both Villicus and Teddy notice my reaction, and both smile; they share a joyless grimace. I’d love to be in a position to march out of here and stun them both, but with everything my dad gave up and all the strings he pulled to get me into Cania Christy, that would be a slap across his grizzled face. I wring my hands but know there’s no use in fighting this.
    “So we’re living together, Teddy?” I choke out at last.
    “The better to oversee your activities,” Villicus says.
    Teddy piles on. “You’ll be graded at every turn. Morning, noon, night.”
    As a junior, I’m supposed to work with my Guardian to document the activities I’ve completed that prove I’m living and breathing my PT. Guardians track progress daily, weekly, monthly. And, on graduation day, if I’ve pleased Teddy, he will argue my case before the Valedictorian Committee, which, with just one member, is the smallest committee in the world: Headmaster Villicus. The student whose case is best argued will be named valedictorian. Along the way, we’re supposed to keep our PTs private—no other students are allowed to know another’s PT as that may give them an unfair advantage.
    It’s hitting me now, like lightning bolts shattering a gray sky, that Teddy is going to make or break me. He sneers at me like he knows I’ve just figured that out.
    “Success does not happen by accident,” Villicus says. “Success is borne of looking inside oneself, recognizing one’s strengths, and making conscious decisions based on those strengths. That’s what your PT is. Because mankind is rarely capable