"Monster? What —?"

The PA system on her end cut her off, a tinny voice saying, "Dr. Fellows, please report to station 3B."

"That'd be your cue," I said.

"It can wait. Is everything okay, Chloe? You sound off."

"No, just . . . my imagination's in overdrive today. I freaked Milos out this morning, thinking I saw a boy run in front of the cab."

"What?"

"There wasn't a boy. Not outside my head, anyway." I saw Kari at her locker and waved. "The bell's going to ring so —"

"I'm picking you up after school. High tea at the Crowne. We'll talk."

The line went dead before I could argue. I shook my head and ran to catch up with Kari.

* * *

School. Not much to say about it. People think art schools must be different, all that creative energy simmering, classes full of happy kids, even the Goths as close to happy as their tortured souls will allow. They figure art schools must have less peer pressure and bullying. After all, most kids there are the ones who get bullied in other schools.

It's true that stuff like that isn't bad at A. R. Gurney High, but when you put kids together, no matter how similar they seem, lines are drawn. Cliques form. Instead of jocks and geeks and nobodies, you get artists and musicians and actors.

As a theater arts student, I was lumped in with the actors, where talent seemed to count less than looks, poise, and verbal ability. I didn't turn heads, and I scored a fat zero on the last two. On a popularity scale, I ranked a perfectly mediocre five. The kind of girl nobody thinks a whole lot about.

But I'd always dreamed of being in art school, and it was as cool as I'd imagined. Better yet, my father had promised that I could stay until I graduated, no matter how many times we moved. That meant for the first time in my life, I wasn't the "new girl." I'd started at A. R. Gurney as a freshman, like everyone else. Just like a normal kid. Finally.