“Belle?”
Her dark eyes are wide. She looks frightened, or at the very least, freaked out.
“It’s me,” I say, smiling. “Sophia? Your cousin?”
“I know,” she says, her voice whisper-soft. She pulls open the door further, and steps back to let me inside. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Aunt Kate had to go to work so she dropped me off.”
The second I’m inside the dorm room, Belle closes the door and twists the deadbolt back into place. Then she turns to face me. My cousin is a little taller than I am, willowy, and pale. Her long dark hair goes all the way to her waist, falling in unkept soft waves down her shoulders. She’s wearing black leggings and a red sweater, with black and red plaid house shoes on her feet.
“How are you?” she asks, a soft smile tipping up on her lips.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think my frail-looking cousin was suffering some disease. She’s so tiny and fragile. Wait…
Maybe she is. I don’t know anything about her.
“I’m fine,” I say, smiling again. “How are you? Are you okay?”
She nods quickly, her hand tugging at the sleeve of her other arm. “I’m good.” She holds her hands out. “Welcome to the dorm.”
I take this opportunity to look around. The room is narrow, but it’s not quite the size of a closet, to my relief. This part of the dorm is a living area, with two small loveseats, a coffee table, and a low bookshelf that’s filled with books, both of the textbook variety and of the fun, fictional variety. Then further down the narrow room, two beds are up against each corner. There are identical bookshelves next to each bed, but one is empty. Between the beds against the far wall, is a very tall window that stretches from a few feet above the floor and goes all the way up to the high ceilings. I look up, taking in the sight of the tall ceilings, which seems to make the room feel bigger. The bed on the right is clearly Belle’s because it’s made up with purple sheets and tons of pillows. Posters of classic literary novels line the walls. The bookshelf next to her bed is filled with more books and storage boxes.
My bed has a bare mattress, no pillows, and a stack of uniforms.
I roll my suitcases to the bed and run my fingers over the uniforms. “Are these mine?”
Belle nods. “The laundry crew drops them off each Tuesday, all fresh and clean.”
“These are hideous. But at least everyone has to wear them,” I say with a snort.
Belle’s smile fades away. “So obviously, this is your bed. You should get some new sheets as soon as you can. The stuff they supply here is awful and scratchy. I can let you borrow some of my sheets for now. That’s your closet,” she says pointing to a narrow door to the left of my bed. “And that’s the bathroom.”
I pull open the other door and peer inside what is the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen. There’s just a shower, toilet, and small sink.
“This is totally not okay,” I say, closing the door and turning back to my cousin. “That bathroom is entirely too small! How are two people supposed to share it? This is a school, not prison!”
Belle chuckles. “You should be really grateful for that bathroom. The alternative is the shared bathrooms in Stratford Hall.”
My eyebrows rise. “The what now?”
She points to the window, where a large and imposing building is just across a small pathway. “That’s the student dorms. Each floor has a different grade, and the boys and girls are separated out on different hallways. They all share a common bathroom on each floor.”
My eyes go wide. “What kind of torture is that?”
She shrugs. “It’s a boarding school.”
“So why do we have a bathroom if no one else does?” I already know the obvious answer – money – but it doesn’t make sense because Belle’s mom doesn’t have much of that.
Belle tugs at her sleeve again, a nervous habit. “These are the staff dorms. The staff has private bathrooms. I got moved here a few years ago.”
“Ew... this is a staff building? I don’t want to live next to teachers.”
“It’s mostly staff, not teachers. Like office workers, and TA’s and stuff. And honestly, not many people live here. I think most of the rooms are empty.”
I roll my eyes. I guess the benefits of a private bathroom, no matter how small, outweigh being in a building that won’t have fun parties.
“There was a memo for you,” Belle says, turning to the bulletin board that’s hanging on her side of the dorm room. She plucks off an envelope and hands it to me.
