“I don’t think so. Their families are both big deal names in international shipping, and the marriage is the first step in merging their kingdoms. Rich people’s lives are very different from ours.”
“I’ll say. Although, they sure do know how to eat.” I took a gulp from the sparkling water in my crystal glass. “I had the pleasure of meeting Trey and Quinn today. Is that other guy any different?”
“Ayaz? He’s Turkish and he has a temper. If he tells you to do something, you do it.” Greg pointed to Loretta’s soup. “Are you going to finish that?”
“Ayaz put Greg’s head through a wall in the Senior Common room on the first day of school,” Loretta said. She shoved her soup toward Greg, who didn’t eat it himself, but passed it down to a hulk of a black kid sitting next to him.
Greg lifted up his floppy blond hair to reveal a long scar. “I’ve been marked by Ayaz. Doesn’t make me special, though. I bet everyone in the school’s got a similar scar from that guy.”
“Wow.” That scar looked nasty. I thought I’d left fights and violence behind in Philly. At my old school in the Badlands, we had to enter through metal detectors to make sure no one was carrying weapons. “Did he have a reason, or was this just a random act of head-smashing?”
“Because Greg’s gay,” Loretta muttered, poking at her potatoes.
“Because I was gay and I flirted with him. I was joking around, but apparently, it wasn’t funny.” Greg gestured around at the table of scholarship students. “They already knew I was gay. The scholarship committee pulled together these extensive files on each of us. Somehow, the monarchs must’ve seen them. They know everything about us and our old lives. So that’s terrifying.”
Anger seethed inside me as I watched the three Kings laughing with their friends. “I know they’re Kings of the school and they’re richer than Croesus, but that doesn’t mean this Ayaz guy can go around putting heads through walls.”
“I agree, but I’m not going to be the one to do anything about it,” Greg shrugged. “I worked my ass off to get here, and I won’t let the Kings or Queens jeopardize it.”
“How could they jeopardize your place?”
“Andre here—” Greg patted his friend on the shoulder, “is mute. He can’t talk because of a head trauma sustained some years ago. Despite this, he reported Quinn Delacorte for making inappropriate comments to Loretta. Instead of investigating it, Headmistress West gave him a lecture about focusing on his own studies instead of concerning himself reporting other students, and docked him 20 merit points. 20 points are nothing to a rich kid like Trey or Ayaz, but it could be a disaster for us. If any of us drop too low, they rescind our scholarship. Any one of us could be kicked out at any moment. And Trey and Courtney and their posse know it.”
What the Kings and Queens giveth, they can also taketh away.
I scraped the gravy residue off my plate, wondering if it would be a demeritable offense to lift up the dish in my hands and lick off the last morsels. Loretta leaned forward and shoved her potatoes onto my plate, and I dug in gratefully, Greg’s words playing across my mind. For the first time, I understood why Loretta was so frightened. The Kings and Queens on the table opposite reallydidrule the school.
The wait staff moved around the room, topping up bread plates and taking drink orders. While everyone ate, teachers stood up to give announcements about sports teams and extracurriculars. I noticed that all the teachers were doctors or professors, almost as if this was a college instead of a school. A plump woman at the end of the row introduced herself as Dr. Halsey and invited anyone who wanted to try out for the school production to come to auditions in the auditorium on Thursday.
“Are any of you guys going to audition?” I asked.
Around the table, three scholarship students shook their heads. Loretta jerked hers so hard I was afraid it would fall off.
“Well, I’m gonna try out.” I chewed a mouthful of potato and gravy. “I used to write plays and perform them with the theatre troupe at my old school. My best friend made these elaborate sets – he was an amazing artist. It was heaps of fun. Even though we had no funding for a proper theatre department, we won a couple of competitions. According to the brochure, I need extracurricular activities if I have any hope of being top of the list, so I figure—”
Loretta was shaking her head.
“What?” I demanded.
“Courtney plays all the lead roles in school productions, unless she’s directing,” Loretta said sourly. “She’s been taking acting lessons from some Hollywood star since she was three. She won’t like you there.”
“I don’t care what Courtney likes.” I turned to Greg. “You want to come with me? We could sing a duet?”
“Are you assuming that because I’m gay I must love musicals?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Well, you assume correctly.” Greg grinned. “I do a mean Ryan fromHigh School Musical.”
“Of course you do. I was thinking morePhantom of the Opera—”
Or with this school, maybeSweeney Todd. We could pretend to slit Courtney’s throat and bake her into a pie.
Loretta glared at Greg. “Didn’t you learn anything from Ayaz? Just keep your head down, stay out of trouble, and hope you don’t come dead last.”
“Why?” I demanded. “What happens if you come last—”
Something sharp slammed into my forehead, knocking my head back. A paper plane fell into my gravy. It was covered in doodles and handwriting. Familiar handwriting.
