Dad closes his eyes and opens them again. His pupils pop to Uncle Roy. “Get him a laptop.”

“I thought you said—”

“Just do it.” Dad looks back at Brandt, his voice tight. “I’ll take your money, kid. Every penny. And the sooner I do it, the sooner I can scour your stench from my office.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re out of there as promised, Brandt following me into the back seat of the Caddy with an extra two thousand dollars in his pocket.

“Well, what do you think?” I say, just as Uncle Roy gets behind the wheel. “Smooth, right?”

Brandt doesn’t say anything as Uncle Roy drives us back to Connaughton. He fidgets with his phone, then sits back and stares out the window. I try to imagine what he’s thinking. He just won two grand in three hands of online poker, while “my associate”—really just Lupo Reilly in the main office—texted him how to bet. The system itself wasn’t difficult to work out, and since Dad never seemed to notice Brandt checking his iPhone, Brandt must have assumed he got away with it. Which is exactly how we want to leave it.

Uncle Roy drops us off in front of the statue of Lancelot Connaughton. For a second we both just stand there, shivering. Then Brandt looks at me.

“When can we go back?” he asks.

I take my time before answering, making sure I get exactly the right expression on my face. “We should probably hang back a bit. If we come back too soon, it’ll be obvious that—”

“Next Friday. I want to do another test run. Ten thousand this time.”

I shake my head. No doubt Uncle Roy has the cash to pay out a ten-thousand-dollar win, but I’m not sure he can get his hands on it that quickly. “You saw it work,” I say. “If we go back too many times—”

“One more test run,” Brandt says. “If it works, I’ll front you the full two mill for the big score. I want to bring him down hard.” He glares at me. “You want to get this guy, right, Shea? For slapping your mom around?”

“Yeah, of course, but—”

“Then make it happen.”

And he leaves me standing there.

Twenty-Three

THE NEXT DAY IS THE HOMECOMING LACROSSE MATCH. Tuesday’s freak snowstorm is a distant memory, and the manicured field is green and dry. Even though I don’t understand the game, I’m sitting in the stands with a fresh cup of coffee, watching Connaughton trounce the hopeless schmoes from St. Albans, who—even to my uneducated eye—seem to have forgotten which end of the stick to hold on to. The score is already 3–0. Around me the stands are full of parents and alumni dressed in the school colors, drinking their lattes and cheering every play. Six rows down, Brandt and Andrea are side by side, sharing a blanket. I’m not sure what canoodling is, but I’d be willing to bet they’re doing it.

“Can I sit here?”

I look up and see Gatsby standing in front of me. She looks tired, her face pale in the morning light, her hands plunged deep in the pockets of her coat.

“Oh,” I say. “Hey.”

“Listen,” she says, “about last night . . .”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

She just stands there. I’m waiting for more, some kind of explanation, but there isn’t anything else. “It’s cool.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you all right? I tried to call . . .”

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Was it some kind of Sigils thing?” I ask. “Like, another test or something? Because, I mean, if that’s what it was . . .”

“No,” she says. “It wasn’t anything like that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There’s a silence between us that seems to last forever. It’s like there’s this soundproof bubble around us, and the rest of the world is sealed away somewhere on the other side of it, going about its business, remote and unreal. Sometimes that kind of privacy can feel good—intimate, special. Not this time.

“I came by your room,” I say. “I saw the light on.”

“Will.” Gatsby lowers her eyes. “That whole thing. It was a mistake.”

“Which part?”

“When you invited me to the dance . . .” She looks back up at me. “I shouldn’t have said yes.”

“Why not? Is it something I did?”

She shakes her head. “You didn’t do anything.” Somewhere down on the field something happens and the crowd cheers, and we just keep looking at each other.

“Listen,” she says, “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Sure,” I say, and my voice sounds strange to me, like it’s being piped in from some completely different person.

And I watch her go.

I look down at Brandt and Andrea, snuggling together under the blanket. I couldn’t care less what they’re doing, but I find myself wondering if Brandt’s said anything to her about our trip down to Lowell last night. Then, right on cue, Andrea turns around, looks up at me, and wrinkles her nose.

On the field, it’s halftime, and I see Dr. Melville walking across the playing turf with a microphone. Behind him, a pair of students are carrying out some kind of banner, unfurling it along the field. From here I can see that it’s a flag, deep blue with white and orange bands and a star in the upper left corner.

Which is when I realize that it’s the flag of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Which is the last thing I need right now.

“Hello, everyone,” Dr. Melville says. “I’d like to invite a very special student down to talk to you.” He gestures up to the stands, to where I’m sitting. “A young man whose background and ambition are the very definition of the opportunity that Connaughton Academy offers to those with the willingness to advance in the world . . .” He pauses. “Alumni, parents, and faculty, please welcome William Shea.”

The applause is thunderous.

“What is this?” I mutter, rising up slowly on knees that don’t seem to be working quite right, and make my way down the aisle toward the field.

As I walk past Andrea, I feel her reach up and swat me on the butt. I look around at her.

“Did you do this?” I ask.

She grins. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

Twenty-Four

“MANY OF YOU MAY NOT KNOW,” DR. MELVILLE IS SAYING as I make my way out onto the field, “that Mr. Shea comes to us from halfway around the world, hailing from a remote Pacific Island called Ebeye.”

From out in the crowd, I hear a single cackling laugh. I don’t have to look up to know that it’s Brandt. I can tell he’s grinning at me. Dr. Melville ignores the distraction and presses dutifully on.

“I received an email last week from another student asking if Mr. Shea could come up and speak to all of us today about his homeland, about some of the ongoing difficulties that they’ve been facing for the past fifty years since the government began testing nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands.” Dr. Melville’s voice becomes solemn. “The student who wrote that email is here with us today, and I’d like to invite her down as well.” Turning, he gestures up to the stands again. “Andrea Dufresne?”

More applause. Andrea glides down on it like a pageant queen on a parade float of destiny. “Thank you, Dr. Melville.” She takes the microphone from him and gives me a quick glance out of the corner of her eye—and now I don’t even know her angle. I’ve clearly been snookered so smoothly that I didn’t even realize it was happening, but I don’t even know what else Andrea has up her sleeve.

“As many of you know,” she says, “I’m a scholarship student myself. My parents were U.S. aid workers who lost their lives in the Balkans. I’m attending Connaughton thanks to the gracious support of the administration and alumni endowments. But when I heard about the obstacles that Will has had to overcome after the tragic death of both of his parents—who were flying medicine to an orphanage when their lives were so unexpectedly cut short—and the way that his community came together to send him here for school, well . . . I knew that I’d found not just a kindred spirit for myself, but an inspiration for all of us.” She looks up at the flag. “Will, can you tell us a little bit about your country’s flag?”