“Oh,” I say, finally getting it. “I thought it was strange when she said in class that her mother owned a whorehouse and she didn’t know her father. A little TMI, if you know what I mean.”

Now everyone at the table is laughing. I look again at Angela, who has turned a bit so I can’t see her face.

“She seems nice,” I backpedal.

Wendy nods.

“She is. My brother had a crush on her for a while.”

“You have a brother?”

She snorts like she wishes she could give a different answer.

“Yes. He’s my twin, actually. He’s also a pain.”

“I know the feeling.” I gaze over at Jeffrey in his circle of new friends.

“And speak of the devil,” says Wendy, grabbing the sleeve of a boy who’s passing by our table.

“Hey,” he protests. “What?”

“Nothing. I was just telling the new girl about my awesome brother and now here you are.” She flashes a huge smile at him, the kind that says she might not be telling the whole truth.

“Behold, Tucker Avery,” she says to me, gesturing up at him.

Her brother resembles her in nearly every way: same hazy blue eyes, same tan, same golden brown hair, except his hair is short and spiky and he’s about a foot taller. He is definitely part of the cowboy group, although toned down from some of the others, wearing a simple gray tee, jeans, and cowboy boots. Also hot, but in a completely different way than Christian, less refined, more tan and muscle and a hint of stubble along his jaw. He looks like he’s been working under the sun his whole life.

“This is Clara,” says Wendy.

“You’re the girl with the Prius who almost rear-ended my truck this morning,” he says.

“Oh, sorry about that.”

He looks me up and down. I feel myself blush for probably the hundredth time that day.

“From California, right?” The word California seems like an insult coming from him.

“Tucker,” Wendy warns, pulling at his arm.

“Well, I doubt that I would have done any damage to your truck if I’d hit you,” I retort. “It looks like the back end is about to rust off.”

Wendy’s eyes widen. She seems genuinely alarmed.

Tucker scoffs. “That rusty truck will probably be towing you out of a snowbank next time there’s a storm.”

“Tucker!” exclaims Wendy. “Don’t you have a rodeo team meeting or something?”

I’m busy trying to think of a comeback involving the incredible amount of money I will save this year driving my Prius as opposed to his gas-guzzling truck, but the right words aren’t forming.

“You’re the one who wanted to chat,” he says to Wendy.

“I didn’t know you were going to act like a pig.”

“Fine.” He smirks at me. “Nice to meet you, Carrots,” he says, looking directly at my hair. “Oh, I mean Clara.”

My face flames.

“Same to you, Rusty,” I shoot back, but he’s already striding away.

Great. I’ve been at this school for less than five hours and I’ve already made two enemies simply by existing.

“Told you he was a pain,” says Wendy.

“I think that might have been an understatement,” I say, and we both laugh.

The first person I see when I come into my next class is Angela Zerbino. She’s sitting in the front row, already bent over her notebook. I take a seat a few rows back, looking around the classroom at all the portraits of the British monarchy that are stapled to the top of the walls. A large table at the front of the room displays a Popsicle-stick model of the Tower of London and a papier mâché replica of Stonehenge. In one corner is a mannequin wearing a suit of chain mail, in another, a large wooden board with three holes in it: real stockades.

This looks like it could be interesting.

The other students trickle in. When the bell rings, the teacher ambles out from a back room. He’s a scrawny guy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and thick glasses, but he somehow comes off as cool, wearing his dress shirt and tie over black jeans and cowboy boots.

“Hi, I’m Mr. Erikson. Welcome to spring semester of British History,” he says. He grabs a jar off the table and shakes the papers inside. “First I thought we’d start by dividing up into British citizens. In this canister are ten pieces of paper with the word serf on it. If you draw one of those, you’re basically a slave. Deal with it. There are three pieces of paper with the word cleric; if you draw those, you’re part of the church, a nun or a priest, whichever is appropriate.”

He glances toward the back of the room where a stu-dent has just slipped in the door. “Christian, nice of you to join us.”

It takes all of my willpower not to turn around.

“Sorry,” I hear Christian say. “Won’t happen again.”

“If it does you’ll spend five minutes in the stocks.”

“Definitely won’t happen again.”

“Excellent,” says Mr. Erikson. “Now where was I? Oh yes. Five pieces of paper have the words lord/lady. If you draw one of these, congratulations, you own land, maybe even a serf or two. Three say knight—you get the idea. And there is one, and only one, paper with the word king, and if you draw that one, you rule us all.”

He holds the jar out to Angela.

“I’m going to be queen,” she says.

“We shall see,” says Mr. Erikson.

Angela draws a paper from the jar and reads it. Her smile fades. “Lady.”

“I wouldn’t whine about it,” Mr. Erikson tells her. “It’s a good life, relatively speaking.”

“Of course, if I want to be sold off to the richest man who offers to marry me.”

“Touché,” says Mr. Erikson. “Lady Angela, everybody.”

He makes his way around the room. He already knows the students and calls them by name.

“Hmmm, red hair,” he says when he gets to me. “Could be a witch.”

Someone snickers behind me. I steal a quick look over my shoulder to see Wendy’s obnoxious brother, Tucker, sitting in the seat behind mine. He flashes me a devilish grin.

I draw a paper. Cleric.

“Very good, Sister Clara. Now you, Mr. Avery.”

I turn to watch Tucker draw from the jar.

“A knight,” he reads, looking pleased with himself.

“Sir Tucker.”

The role of king goes to a guy I don’t know, Brady, who is, judging by the muscles and the way he accepts his rule like he deserves it instead of drawing it by chance, a football player.

Christian goes last.

“Ah,” he says faux mournfully, reading his paper. “I’m a serf.”

Mr. Erikson follows this up by going around the room with a set of dice and making us roll to see if we survive the Black Plague. The odds of surviving are not good for serfs, or clerics, since they tended the sick, but miraculously I survive. Mr. Erikson rewards me with a laminated badge that reads, I SURVIVED THE BLACK PLAGUE.

Mom will be so proud.

Christian doesn’t make it. He receives a badge decorated with a skull and crossbones, which reads, I PERISHED IN THE BLACK PLAGUE. Mr. Erikson marks his death down in a notebook he has to keep track of our new lives. He assures us that the usual rules of life and death don’t apply as far as this exercise is concerned.

Still, I can’t help but take Christian’s immediate demise as a bad sign.

Mom is waiting for us at the front door when we get home.

“Tell me everything,” she commands as soon as I cross the threshold. “I want to know all the details. Does he go to your school? Did you see him?”

“Oh, she saw him,” Jeffrey says before I can answer. “She saw him and she passed out in the middle of the hallway. The whole school was talking about it.”

Her eyes widen. She turns to me. I shrug.

“I told you she’d pass out,” says Jeffrey.

“You’re a genius.” Mom moves to ruffle his hair but he dodges her and says, “Too fast for you,” before her hand lands. “I put some chips and salsa out for you in the kitchen,” she says.

“What happened?” she asks after Jeffrey goes to stuff his face.