46 Students Remaining #4
That night, we discover a library in an old Victorian-style house just outside the main square.
Luminary is paper-free, so no one actually needs the library, but the ambiance is perfect, with loads of dusty old books lining the walls, narrow, twisty staircases, and squishy leather armchairs, fires crackling in every fireplace.
Scar and I meet there every night for the rest of the week, studying right up until dinner.
It’s strange, but…despite the difficulty of the work and the insane amounts of studying, despite the fact that I know roughly 90 percent of my classmates won’t make it to the end of the year—this place is heaven.
I’d never expected to describe a school like that, but Luminary feels like so much more than a school.
It’s in the details: how the library smells of oak and leather, and the way the crotchety old librarian, Mr. Hubert, brings us eye-wateringly strong cups of tea in delicate vintage cups whenever we come in to study.
It’s the way fog rolls in over the distant fields around the barns in the early morning, so that they look like strange islands floating on a misty sea.
It’s the mouthwateringly good food in the cafeteria: seared duck and gnocchi with osso buco and juicy burgers served on pretzel buns with sides of curly truffle fries.
It’s my bed, my private shower, the tablet where every single textbook I need is already downloaded—not a sketched penis to be seen.
Our second week of school ends with another assembly in the auditorium.
Seven, Zo, Scarlett, and Mando sprawl across the seats in front of me while we wait for it to start, in the middle of a heated discussion about the validity of astrology.
“So why do conversations with Scorpios always hurt my feelings?” Seven is saying. “If that’s not proof—”
“Lia’s a Scorpio,” Scarlett blurts, and Seven waves a hand at my face, as though my mere existence proves some point that I would happily refute if Rani hadn’t just walked into the auditorium.
He’s carrying a book, an actual paperback, not something loaded onto his tablet for school, but the front cover’s been ripped off, so I can’t tell what it is.
I pretend to study the back of his book for a moment, and as if he can feel the weight of my gaze, Rani’s eyes flick up and meet mine. He smiles and warmth floods my body.
“Hey, Michaels,” he says, dropping into the seat behind us. The clawlike edge of one of his tattoos stretches above the collar of his T-shirt, strange and mysterious. I want to trace it with my finger. Or my tongue.
Rani arches an eyebrow and, like he can read my dirty mind, says, “Have you ever thought of getting a tattoo?”
The question takes me off guard. I pull my eyes away from the claw on his neck and blink at him. “What?”
“Because I think you could pull one off. A rose, perhaps. Right here.” He brushes his fingers over my wrist in a way that sends shivers up my arm.
The others have all fallen silent, I notice.
They’re frowning down at their tablets like they’re studying their schedules or going over notes, but I’m not fooled.
They’re eavesdropping. I suppose it serves me right for making friends.
“I’m not really a flower person,” I tell Rani.
“Yeah, I figured that out,” Rani says. “But I didn’t say flower. I said rose. You need something with thorns.”
Before I can form a response to that, the overhead lights in the auditorium dim and a spotlight appears, following Wyatt Sullivan onto the stage. The room falls silent as he takes his place behind the lectern.
“Congratulations on finishing your second week at Luminary!” he announces.
“By now, I hope you’ve all gotten used to how we do things around here.
” He keeps going, but to be honest, I have a hard time following along, because Rani is leaning foward and now I can smell whatever shampoo he uses.
It’s a very clean, floral scent. Lilies. My stomach tightens.
“Could you tell us what happened to the ten students who’ve already been sent home?” Aarav Patel is asking when I force myself to start listening again. “Are we being judged on class participation? Or what we do outside of school hours?”
“Luminary students are being evaluated individually, according to their strengths and weaknesses,” Wyatt explains. “Work your own curriculum and you’ll be fine.”
I raise an eyebrow at this. The statement is nearly identical to what Ashlyn told me.
Wyatt’s assistant, Lynn, is here, too, I notice. She’s huddled to the side of the stage, tablet out like she’s taking notes. But she doesn’t seem to be watching Wyatt. Instead, her eyes move over the audience. Watching us.
We only lose one other student by that Friday, a girl called Olivia Thomas. It’s the first time I actually know one of the kids who’ve been sent home, though I only know Olivia because she borrowed a tampon from me in the bathroom.
Still, I feel a strange sort of pang when I make the connection.
Olivia seemed cool. She was kind of short and skinny, with really long, dark hair, and when I gave her the tampon, she told me this story about overhearing her mom unwrapping one in the bathroom before she knew what they were, how she was convinced that her mom liked to hide in the bathroom eating candy bars. She seemed funny.
I think of Olivia and the candy bar story a few times, but there’s so much going on at Luminary that it’s hard to dwell on the people who leave.
We’ve been warned that our first round of tests starts next week.
There’ve been mountains of homework in every one of our classes, and the mood on campus has been tense as everyone struggles to prepare.
I spot kids muttering under their breath and sitting by themselves at lunch, anxiously going over notes.
A fight even broke out in the cafeteria because Jada Brooks, a sporty girl I recognize from our dorm, was talking too loudly while Chloe was trying to concentrate.
On Saturday, Mando catches up with me as I’m making my way to the library to meet Scar for an all-day study session. “Does your sister have a problem with me?” he wants to know.
“Scar has never had a problem with another person in her life,” I tell him. “She likes everyone.”
“Really? Because I keep trying to talk to her back at our dorm, but she won’t even look at me.”
I avoid Mando’s eyes as I consider how to answer.
Oh, Scarlett. I have no doubt that if she’d just asked him to get a coffee with her, they’d officially be dating by now, but Scar read Wuthering Heights at too young an age, and it’s left her with all kinds of bananas ideas about how romantic relationships are supposed to work.
It’s against the sister code to tell Mando she’s acting like this because of an all-consuming crush she developed when she first laid eyes on him, but poor Mando seems really upset at the idea that she might not like him.
I glance at his fingers, which are wrapped around his tablet.
His thumbnail is all ragged, like he’s been nervously chewing on it.
“Just be patient with her,” I tell him. “She can be a little shy at first.”
On Sunday morning, Seven and I are curled up in front of the fire in the Innovator dorm’s living room, along with a couple of other girls, Jada Brooks and Sofia Diaz, who are frowning down at their tablets, studying.
“He’s impossible,” I’m telling Seven. “He doesn’t believe in breaks or snacks or anything except for studying and death. I’d say he’s made of stone except stones warm up in the sun.”
I’ve taken to complaining about Ian daily, so I don’t need to explain who “he” is.
“I do get a weirdly intense vibe from Ian,” Seven agrees.
This morning, they’re wearing a gauzy silk robe covered in tigers, and some sort of gooey face mask is slathered over their skin.
The only time I’ve ever seen Seven’s face without glitter is when they’re wearing a face mask.
Though I suppose that’s not strictly true, as this face mask also has glitter in it.
Seven adds, “He strikes me as someone who should try meditation.”
“I have a theory that he lost the part of his brain that analyzes human emotions in a boating accident and had to replace it with a microwave,” I say.
Seven makes a hmm sound in the back of their throat, considering this.
“That would explain why his hair is always so…” Here, they make an elaborate hand movement, as though to indicate how Ian’s hair is somehow both stiff and swoopy, like it was momentarily wind-tossed while watching a college football game, then carefully gelled into place so it would never move again.
I snort. “Nothing could explain that hair.”
“I should ask if he’ll let me give him a perm.”
“Please ask him that,” I beg. If anything, it might distract Ian for long enough to let me take a break.
We’ve spent the last two weeks studying for hours every day, both in class and during the Advanced Seminar blocks we have every afternoon.
So far, we’ve plowed through all six volumes of Winston Churchill’s history of the war using Ian’s very particular way of reading (he only reads the first and last sentence of every paragraph, which allows him to make his way through massive books at an ungodly speed).
From there, we went through the German invasion of Poland, the fall of France and the Low Countries, the Battle of Britain, and the German attack on the USSR. We looked at the economic consequences of the war and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
And to top it all off, we did a deep dive on the Third Reich, eugenics, and the more disgusting experiments performed by the Nazis.