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never bothered to investigate, had never done more than mouth the words. She just didn’t care to sing publicly, she had explained early in the year. She knew they’d probably thought she’d inherited Skye’s voice. Ha.
    The song ended, and the bustle of the meal began. Barb Schulman asked for the butter and Marnie passed it over, for the first time looking up fully and seeing—Mrs. Fisher. Mrs. Fisher, dorm counselor, was sitting two tables away with a group of sophomores. But she was regarding Marnie steadily, frowning slightly. Defiantly, Marnie caught her eye and stared right back.
    Had Ms. Slaight talked to Mrs. Fisher? Even if she left out Marnie’s gospel-inspired insult—and for some reason Marnie figured she would—she could have displayed Marnie’s artistic chemistry test. More trouble … when all Marnie wanted, really, was to be left alone. Was that too much to ask?
    Marnie broke eye contact with Mrs. Fisher. If only she could quit school altogether. But how would she live? She didn’t get Skye’s money for years, and Max had made it abundantly clear that she was to stay in school. Could she get a job? But doing what? Trouncing elves?
    Still aware of Mrs. Fisher’s gaze, Marnie pretended to be as interested as the rest of the table in what Dorothea Polley was saying about college. One of the things Marnie liked to do was to imagine that the speech coming out of the other girls’ mouthswas enclosed in big cartoon balloons. When anyone got too bombastic, Marnie would pull out an invisible hatpin—a long silver one with a pearl on the end, she’d decided—deftly skewer the balloon, then watch the imaginary letters flutter to the floor in glorious disarray. Pop! Pop! Pop! It was
Sesame Street
run amok, and made dinner considerably more enjoyable.
    “What I want,” Dorothea was now saying intensely, “what I think I need, is a really, really good drama department. And lots of opportunities to actually
act.
I mean, a college that doesn’t just offer a drama
major—lots
of places do that—but somewhere that does a lot of
productions.
A
range
of productions. Everything from
Shakes
peare to … to …” Dorothea’s arm swept the air. “… to, oh, you know, someone very modern like …” The arm again; Marnie groped in the seam of her jeans for her hatpin. “… like … like …”
    “Like Chekhov?” Jenna Lowry supplied.
    Almost against her will, Marnie turned her head to glance at Jenna’s expressionless face. Jenna, who was pretty, athletic, popular, and famous throughout Halsett for being gifted at literature … but who was not usually openly vicious.
    Dorothea was bestowing a warm smile on Jenna. “Yes,” she said. “That’s
exactly
the kind of contemporary writer I mean.”
    “I thought so,” murmured Jenna. Marnie watched her exchange a fast look with Tarasyn, with Barb. Dorothea, predictably, missed the byplay completely.
    And suddenly Marnie was filled with a namelessrage. So what if Dorothea didn’t know Chekhov from someone Jenna “Lit/Crit” Lowry might condescend to call “modern”? So what if Dorothea was uninformed, or even an idiot? She didn’t deserve to be mocked in public.
    “Wait a minute,” Marnie said, interrupting the conversation Jenna had just started about some new movie. Everyone turned, in surprise, toward her; Marnie rarely spoke at meals. “I thought Chekhov was a nineteenth-century playwright,” she said aggressively to Jenna. “Russian, right?
The Cherry Orchard? Uncle Vanya?
”
    A second passed.
    Then Jenna said, blandly: “Ah, Marnie, you’re thinking of
Anton
Chekhov. Dorothea and I were discussing
Jessica
Chekhov. Jessica’s work is very, uh, avant-garde.”
    “Yes, that’s right!” put in Dorothea emphatically. But she spoke a little too quickly, and you could see the alarmed white around her eyes.
    Marnie ignored her. She gave Jenna a long stare. Jenna, also carefully not looking at Dorothea, lifted her chin and gave Marnie a very