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a dozen tutors.
    But that would have been too much trouble. If Dr. Bija had spoken to the school counselor, as she had hinted, her recommendations had been completely ignored. After a little while I gave up and started sketching a landscape on my notescreen. It was one of my stass dreams, all twisted tree-scapes and melting horizons. But the notescreen just wasn’t a sketchbook.
    Though I could pull up palettes with a thousand and one shades of color, it didn’t feel like real artwork to me.
    As the tone sounded for the end of class, I dutifully copied down the homework assignment, but I knew I wouldn’t get very far with it.
    In English we were supposed to be studying turn- of- the- century authors, which Mr. Guillory had thought would be old- school for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell the teacher that I’d never even heard of half the authors or that I hadn’t read a single book on the syllabus. The authors they thought were classics must have been utterly obscure when they first came out.
    As far as Chinese went, it was all Greek to me.
    I had phys ed right before lunch and was horrified to discover we were doing a track unit. I ran approximately twenty yards before the coach put me on the sidelines. I was panting and shaking and I would have thrown up, but I had eaten so little that all I did was retch ineffectively. Stass fatigue still impeded most of my motor functions. The coach said he’d try to arrange a pass on my phys ed credits for this term. “That’s . . . not . . . necessary. . . .” I panted.
    “It is,” he said. “Mr. Guillory’s orders. I’m to make sure you’re well cared for.”
    I was most chagrined to discover that after Mr. Guillory had left me in my social- psych class, he had traveled to each of my teachers in turn, interrupting their classes, to inform them of the special treatment I merited. If most of the school hadn’t already been resentful toward me, they certainly were now. I’d ask Dr. Bija if she could arrange for my physical therapy sessions to be counted toward my gym credits. I could do some of the exercises the doctors had set for me while everyone else ran laps or shot baskets.
    When I was finally released, I fled to the cafeteria, hoping to find Bren. But the crush of bodies defeated me. Finding one beautiful boy in a school of two thousand wealthy members of the elite was next to impossible. I stood in line and carefully collected the standard meal.
    People had been parting around me like Moses and the Red Sea for most of the day, with expressions ranging from sel fish curiosity to outright loathing, and I’d gotten used to being the elephant in the room that everyone looked at but no one spoke to. But when I stepped away from the line, I was immediately accosted by a well- dressed boy who looked like an Asian version of Mr.
    Guillory.
    “So, you’re the Sleeping Beauty,” he smarmed. “I’m Soun Ling. Pleased to meet you.” His tone suggested that the opposite were true. Still, he stuck out a soft hand for me to shake. I couldn’t figure out how to touch him without dropping either my tray or my notescreen, so I left his hand hanging in the air. He ignored this slight. “Would you care to sit with us?”
    A handful of the kids behind him, male and female, snickered. I wasn’t sure what they were laughing at, but they made me uncomfortable. I’d been the new girl in school enough times to know full well that things could get very unpleasant very quickly if you allied yourself with the wrong group of people.
    Either you alienated others or, more often, ended up the butt of some horrible conspiracy. That was why I had treasured my friendship with Xavier so dearly.
    I wasn’t sure why, but I knew without a doubt that Soun Ling was the wrong person to have my name attached to. I stood helpless, wondering how to extricate myself from this predicament without making an enemy of Soun, or anyone else.
    “Rose!”
    The name cut through the bustle of the