“What?” he asks when he sees me looking at him strangely.

I half laugh. “You have them all snowed, don’t you?”

“What do you mean, New York?”

“I mean,” I say, gesturing back toward the blushing Ms. Getty and the beaming Principal Ben, “you have them all believing you’re some kind of perfect boy next door.”

His brown eyes sparkle with mischief. “Are you suggesting I’m not?”

“I’m suggesting you’re a con artist of the highest—”

“Tru Dorsey.” A girl with platinum hair that hangs long on the right and is shaved close on the left steps into our path.

She looks angry and more than tough enough to take Tru in a fight. I prepare myself to get out of the way.

“Aimeigh,” Tru says, his arms and his smile wide, “how was France?”

She punches him in the shoulder. That’s my kind of girl.

I move a step to the side.

“You never sent me the footage from graduation,” she says, and for the first time I can sense the teasing under her dark image.

“Oh shit,” he says, “I totally forgot.”

“Tonight,” she warns.

“Absolutely.”

She flicks a glance my way. “Who’s your friend?”

He looks at me, like he suddenly remembered that I’m there. “Aim, this is Sloane, fresh from New York City.”

“That’s Aimeigh,” she says, “with an e-i-g-h.”

She extends her hand and I take it.

“Sloane,” Tru continues, “Aim’s the school documentarian. Do not get on her bad side unless you want to be immortalized in eternal humiliation.”

Aimeigh shakes my hand. “Don’t listen to him,” she says with a smile. “I only have a bad side.”

I can’t help but crack a smile in return.

“I am also ArtSquad captain this year,” she says.

I’ve never heard of that. “ArtSquad?”

“Like an academic decathlon,” she explains, “except for art.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“Hey, Aim,” Tru asks, “you have AGD first period?”

She nods. “Yeah, why?”

“So does Sloane.” He tries to wrap his arm around my shoulders again, but I dodge out of the way. “I was going to show her…”

“But you have elsewhere to be?” Aimeigh finishes.

Tru gives her a big hug. “You’re a rock star.” Then, to me, “Catch you later, New York.”

I roll my eyes as he starts walking backward down the hall, the way we came.

“Send me that footage!” Aimeigh shouts before he reaches the corner.

He mock salutes and then he’s gone.

“Come on.” She turns to me. “AGD is this way.”

Just as I thought. The moment anyone to impress is out of sight, Tru ditches me onto the nearest available person. “Unshocking.”

“What?” Aimeigh says as we head for the pair of glass doors at the end of the hall.

“Him,” I say, jerking my head back the way he fled.

“Tru?” She flashes me a genuine smile. “He’s the best. Can’t rely on him to send the footage he promised at the start of summer, but there’s no one I trust more behind a lens.”

Even Aimeigh thinks he’s all goodness and heart? Maybe I really am wrong about him. Maybe Mom and his parents are wrong, too, not that they would admit it. Mom would still kill our deal in a heartbeat if she knew I was even having a second thought about him.

Aimeigh pushes through the doors, into the outside. “So, New York, huh?”

The lawn before us is crisscrossed with sidewalks like some geometric coloring book. Without having to pull it back out, I picture the map Principal Ben gave me. Paths lead from Building A, across to Building D, diagonally to Buildings E and E, and right to Buildings B and C.

“Yep, New York,” I say as we make the turn that will take us to Building C and advanced graphic design.

“Which PS did you go to?”

I bite back a retort. People watch a few TV shows and suddenly they think they know everything about life in New York. Not everyone goes to public school, takes afternoon tea at the Plaza, or gets mugged on their way through Central Park.

“School of Drama and Art,” I say.

Aimeigh lets out a two-note whistle. “Impressive. So NextGen isn’t a big change, then?”

I shrug. What can I say? NextGen is a huge change? Austin is a huge change? My entire life is in upheaval? Just because they are both art schools doesn’t make SODA and NextGen educational equals.

SODA is unlike any other school in the country. In the world. Graduates are pretty much guaranteed acceptance and financial aid at the best art and design schools in the world: Juilliard, Tisch, RISD, Parsons, the School of Visual Arts. At SODA, my post-graduation plan to study animation at the School of Visual Arts was a no-brainer. Now it’s suddenly in question.

That and the fact that Mom is determined that I will attend a Real College so I can get a Well-Rounded Education.

“What’s your favorite museum?” Aimeigh asks. “I’ve always wanted to visit the Guggenheim.”

Apparently her attempts at small talk are limited to asking me about New York, but since the city is my favorite subject, I’m good with that.

As I tell her about the Dia:Chelsea on our way to Building C, I scan the lawn, study the other students milling around in back-to-school excitement. At first glance, they don’t look all that different from students at SODA. There are definitely the recognizable archetypes.

The hippie-dippie free love types, with their peasant skirts, patchwork denim, and waist-length dreadlocks.

The wanna-be beatniks in skinny ankle jeans, patent oxfords, and bored expressions. Even a beret or two.

The poser urban core, whose bling and footwear probably cost more than the entire monthly income of the Queensbridge Projects.

I’m not denying my own privilege, but at least I’m not pretending it doesn’t exist.

“In here.” Aimeigh yanks open the door to Building C and leads the way.

It looks like a garden variety school hall. Sections of lockers broken up by classroom doors, drinking fountains, and bathrooms. But instead of walls, the space above the lockers is glass. The hall is full of light.

I pause for a moment, stunned at how bright the space is, at how the sun bounces off every surface. It’s literally glowing. As much as I don’t want to like anything about this place, I want to breathe in the rays.

Aimeigh yanks open the door to the second room on the left.

“Mrs. K is the best,” she says as I catch up with her.

From the moment we walk through the door, I know that advanced graphic design at NextGen is going to be top notch. The setup is spectacular. There are eight tables in the center, each with two chairs, light boxes in the corners, and a strip of plugs in the middle. Along two walls, computer workstations with huge flat-panel monitors display hypnotizing screensavers and a scroll of text that reads: To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.—Milton Glaser

There is an interactive whiteboard projection screen at one end and a counter full of art supplies, everything from pencils and markers to sketchbooks and scratchboards at the other. It’s like playtime for graphic designers. Everything we could possibly want or need to unleash our creativity. I feel inspired just walking into the room.

Almost all of the seats are already filled, and a tall woman with shiny black hair and purple-framed glasses is writing something on the whiteboard.

15 minutes free sketch

I nod to myself. This, I can do. No matter how much things change, how upside-down my life feels, how far from home I really am, it can always come back to the art.

I slip into the last open chair next to a girl with shoulder-length brown hair who is studiously drawing circles in a sketch book. Seconds later, I have my stylus in one hand and my tablet open to a drawing app.

“Mrs. K likes us to warm up with traditional materials,” the girl next to me says. She points to the art supply bar at the back of the class. “There are sketchbooks in the lower left cabinet.”