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shuddered. “I’m going out. Where do you lot party ’round here?”
    We exchanged a look. “You’d have to ask someone like Vanessa about that. She probably knows where the underage clubs are.”
    “The what?”
    “Underage clubs,” I repeated. “You’re sixteen, right?”
    “Do you seriously think I’d waste my time with children?”
    “Let me rephrase. You’d have to ask Vanessa about that. She probably knows where you can get a fake I.D.”
    “What has that got to do with clubbing? Do you know or not?”
    I gave up. “I don’t. Sorry.” I grabbed Lissa and Carly by the arms and hustled them out the door. “Have fun.”
    We were halfway to Room 216 before anyone spoke. “I know what I’m praying about tonight,” Lissa said.
    “No kidding.” My voice sounded grim, even to me. “And while you’re at it, pray that Tobin finds her another room.”
    GILLIAN HADN’T HAD TIME to put up her usual neon-colored prayer-circle posters, so I didn’t expect many people to show. Which, as it turned out, was a good thing. Because ever since I started school here and started hanging around with her and Lissa, it had slowly sunk in that they were different. I mean, I try to be as nice as possible to everyone. I’d rather make a friend than an enemy, you know? Especially at Spencer, where friendships seem to extend to college and beyond, creating this network of alumni that are all wealthy, famous, and connected.
    But like I said, there was something . . . more . . . about Gillian and Lissa. Something that I wanted to be a part of with them, even though it scared me. I’d tried to talk with Shani about it last term, but she just got weirded out and changed the subject. So while I’d been in Mexico, I’d had plenty of time on my own to think. To locate the family Bible in my
abuelita
’s room and dip into it. To realize that, since September, I’d been circling around a choice and I couldn’t see yet what lay beyond it.
    And now here we were, heading for the very first prayer circle of the term, where something told me I was going to stop circling and start facing that choice head-on.
    Room 216, as usual, had gotten filled up with junk over the break. If everyone goes away, where does the stuff come from? It’s a mystery. Anyway, we spent about ten minutes locating the chairs and piling cardboard boxes out in the hall for the maintenance staff to take away. The unofficial art exhibit had gone from odd sculptures and oils to a collection of graphic art mounted on foam core and tacked up along the wall, above the Edwardian wainscoting.
    One of the pictures caught my eye. A lithe female figure was caught in mid-kick, taking out an evil-looking cloud with yellow eyes. Lettered neatly in the bottom left corner was a name:
G. Chang.
    “Gillian, is this yours?”
    My loudmouth friend, who has never backed down from anything, that I know of—well, except during that whole episode with Lucas Hayes last term—actually blushed. “I told them not to put that in here,” she mumbled. “It’s not very good.”
    “I think it’s really good. I didn’t even know you could draw. That graphic arts class must really kick.” I glanced at the panel again. “No pun intended.”
    “Kaz thinks it’s good,” Lissa put in, moving the chairs into a tight circle. “And he should know. Some New York editor asked for his whole book during break.”
    “Wow.” I didn’t know a thing about graphic novels or publishing, but this sounded pretty impressive to me. “Did you guys see a lot of each other when you were down there?”
    Lissa nodded and sat, stretching her long legs out and crossing her ankles. “Sure. He’s my best friend.”
    Personally, I had my own ideas about that. I’d seen the expression on Kaz’s face that night at the Benefactors’ Day Ball, when he’d saved Lissa on the dance floor. I don’t have the biggest pile of ex-files in the world, but even I can tell when a guy is
apasionado
for a girl. But