Second, if I got too close to Isaiah, I’d never be able to wash off the stink of his cologne.
Thankfully, Leigh had taken Isaiah’s appearance in stride. They’d bonded over a shared love of academic decathlon. They’d spent the rest of lunch trading war stories about the worst books they’d been required to read for competition.
It was boring, but harmless.
“For the next three weeks, you will refer to me only as ‘Captain,’” the Perfect Nerd Girl from Stanford was saying to her team as she tossed binders at them. “And if we lose a single competition to Team Four, I will have all of you wishing that I had an airlock to throw you out of. Do I make myself clear, nuggets?”
“This is what I was telling you about,” Leigh hissed, keeping her head down. “Messina people are freaking strange.”
I started to point out that the Perfect Nerd Girl was referring to Battlestar Galactica, but the speaker set up in front of the dining hall thrummed to life.
“Victor Onobanjo,” growled Lumberjack Beard. His mouth was way too close to the microphone, garbling his voice. “Please report to Team Four. Victor Onobanjo.”
I yanked Leigh back as a scrawny, dark-skinned kid in a soccer jersey raced past us, waving his arms over his head.
“Seriously,” Leigh said, wrenching the hem of her cola-stained shirt down around her shorts. “With this many smart kids in one place, you’d think they could follow basic signage. This is the problem with trusting an IQ test for admission. It doesn’t factor in common sense.”
“Says the girl who attacks ghosts with soda.”
“You’re going to have to let that go, Ever.” She sighed. “It’s very twenty minutes ago.”
In the shade of a wide oak tree, the green poster board Team One flag was planted. A circle of mismatched blankets was set out. Meg was sitting cross-legged next to our Rayevich counselor, who was thin with owlish brown glasses balanced on his long, light brown nose. A stack of thick plastic-wrapped binders sat between them. Most of the team was already seated—two girls that I vaguely recognized from the lobby of the residence hall were sharing a My Little Pony blanket, and two boys were beside them, staring vacantly at their cell phones.
“Oh, honey,” Meg said as Leigh and I approached. “I told you that you could go back to your room to change.”
“I’m fine,” Leigh said, folding her arms over the worst of the stains on her shirt. “I don’t want to slow us down.”
“I love that you’re already a team player,” Meg said. She sounded as though she really meant it, but that could have just been because everything she said sounded vaguely like it was licensed by Disney. She twisted to the side and her face lit up with a megawatt smile as Brandon-Who-Was-Not-Named-John and a boy in a sweater vest approached. Each of them was carrying an armload of the water bottles from the beverage table.
“Oh, B, you sweetums,” Meg said as the boys set the water bottles next to the flagpole. “Thank you both.”
“Tosh,” said the boy in the sweater vest, collapsing down next to Meg.
Brandon looked around, as though hoping for another blanket to appear, before he sat down next to me. He folded his elbows and knees close to himself, making sure not to brush a single thread of my blanket.
Uh. Did we not share a moment back in the dining hall? I totally fought my resting bitch face for that not-John.
That’s it, Ever, I thought. Take a page out of the Elliot Gabaroche handbook. No more smiling back.
He leaned forward, his shirt riding up in the back, revealing a stretch of snowy skin that had never seen the sun before. He snagged two water bottles from the pile and sat back, holding them out to me.
“Do you want one?” he asked. His voice was surprisingly husky. Not smoker raspy, but softly scratchy. Like a wool sweater.
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. Thanks.”
I took the bottle by the top, carefully avoiding his fingers wrapped around the bottom. He held the second bottle out farther, as though hoping to create a small wrinkle in the universe to pass it through. When that didn’t work, he said, “Leigh?”
“Yes, please,” Leigh chirped, not moving.
“Sorry,” he mumbled at the toe of my shoe. “I don’t want to reach. It’d be rude—”
“It’s fine,” I said.
He started to reach past me as I put my hand out to take the bottle. He sat back, and I dropped my hand.
“I’ll pass it,” I said.
The bottle thumped into my palm and I thrust it at Leigh.
“Much safer than soda,” she said, grinning at Brandon.
“Much,” he said. He glanced up at me for a second, widening his eyes as if to say, I’m never letting her near soda again.
I smiled back at him. Screw the rules.
“Now that we’re all here,” said the Rayevich counselor, adjusting his glasses, “we can go ahead and get started.”
Meg clapped her hands together. For the first time, I noticed that her shirt had the UCLA logo on it. Was the pleasant weather here making her more chipper or had she successfully murdered the person who’d written on her door?
“I’ll start,” she said. “I’m Meg Royama. I’m a Messina Academy graduate and I am currently double majoring at UCLA in gender studies and psychology. I’m so happy to be at Camp Onward. My parents never wanted to pay the tuition to let me go here when I was eligible for the Melee. I am the cocaptain of Team One, and I will also be your social science tutor.”
“And I am Hari Bhardwaj,” said the Rayevich counselor, inclining his head to Meg. “I am your other cocaptain, and I will be your literature tutor. I just finished my junior year here at Rayevich.”
“Hunter Price,” said the guy next to Hari, slipping his cell phone under his leg. He was sitcom pretty, with expertly mussed blond hair and laser-cut cheekbones. He was giving the Perfect Nerd Girl a run for her money on who could wear the tightest T-shirt. His sleeves were in danger of popping their seams. “I’m seventeen and from Seattle. I’m homeschooled, but I row crew and play soccer.”
“And what will you do if you win the guaranteed admission to Rayevich?” Meg asked.
He gave her a smile so lopsided and disarming that it had to have been rehearsed. “Major in environmental science, with an emphasis in urban farming.”
“Wonderful,” Meg said. “And do you know when and where Greenpeace was founded?”
A ripple of tension went around the circle. I heard Brandon sigh. Meg kept her placid smile aimed at Hunter, whose fingertips inched toward his phone.
“It was founded in Vancouver,” he said. He reached up and scratched at his temple. I’d never seen someone scratch their head in thought before. “But I don’t know when.”
“Nineteen seventy-one,” Hari answered flatly. “Next.”
“Galen Emiliano-Mendez,” said the boy next to Hunter. He was heavyset, with sharply parted hair. He was sitting on his hands. “I’m from Medford. If I win, I want to study anthropology.”
“And where were the oldest known human footprints found?” Hari asked.
Galen gulped. “Africa.”