Souvenir. Therese Fowler

       FIFTEEN

      ‘Good job,’ Ms Henry said Wednesday, handing Savannah her graded world history test. The score, in purple ink at the top right corner, read 104 – an A+, short only one of the possible five extra-credit points.

      Savannah looked over at Rachel’s test. ‘Eighty-two,’ Rachel said, holding up the paper. ‘Your fault, for not letting me come over and study with you.’

      ‘Your fault, for not studying enough on your own.’

      Rachel, dressed today in a tight yellow shirt that made her look chubby – which she was, a little – scooted her chair closer to the aisle and leaned toward Savannah to whisper, ‘When are you going to tell me who was keeping you so busy last night that I couldn’t even bribe you with peanut-butter cup ice cream?’

      It had been a good offer; Savannah was usually glad to hang out with Rachel, and she loved that flavor of ice cream, one of many foods they never kept in her own house because her dad was severely allergic to peanuts in addition to dogs. But she had something else more important to do: finalizing her plans for Miami. ‘It’s not just a “who”,’ she whispered back. ‘It’s a “what” too. And I can’t tell you yet – but I will, I promise.’ At the very last minute, so there’d be no chance of Rachel leaking the plan and screwing things up. Well-meaning as Rachel might be, she was too close to her sister, Angela. While Angela could usually be trusted on small stuff, something like this might bring out her righteous-older-sister side. Savannah couldn’t take that risk.

      ‘Okay, fine,’ Rachel said, leaning back. ‘Whatever.’

      Caitlin Janecke, the most spoiled of all the spoiled girls Savannah knew, said from the desk at Savannah’s left, ‘What’s her problem? Is she pissed about her grade?’

      Savannah looked at Caitlin’s pink cashmere-blend shirt and belted khaki Hollister shorts, the matching pink ribbon in her perfect blond hair; Caitlin was perfect down to her slim tanned legs and calfskin boaters. No, Savannah wanted to say, she didn’t want to believe you gave blow jobs to three different guys last weekend – a story that had come from a reliable source: Caitlin’s sister Riley, a freshman in Savannah’s gym class. Riley, by contrast, had been at the same party but done it to only one guy, she said, and ‘Ohmigod, it was the most awful, bizarre thing you could imagine!’ As slutty as the sisters’ actions seemed, Savannah wished Riley had elaborated just a little more.

      Now was not the time to get into any of it, so she just nodded and said, ‘She didn’t study.’

      ‘Did you?’

      Savannah lifted one shoulder. ‘Not really.’

      ‘God. My parents make me study every night, and I only got a ninety-one. Must be nice to be so brainy.’ The compliment, even delivered so grudgingly, surprised Savannah.

      ‘I guess,’ she said, suddenly chagrined. Maybe Caitlin wasn’t so bad … and having someone so popular envy her out loud pleased her. Brainy was okay, brainy was good – better than her usual tag of ‘hippie girl’, usually delivered with a sneer as though she was smelly and unwashed. This school, filled by girls whose parents had too much money, was made for Caitlin clones. As great a prep school as the place was, originality, unless it was in the pursuit of the finer arts like painting or classical composition, was not so welcome here.

      And she still had two more years to endure. If she could somehow make things work out with Kyle – eventually she’d have to confess her true age and hope he’d stick with her – the time would be much more enjoyable.

      She liked to think that in addition to being brainy, she was also strong on organization and determination. When she came up to a roadblock, she didn’t turn back; she found a way around it. Ever since she was a toddler, this had been true about her. One of the stories her Grandma Shelly liked to tell all her rich friends was of how Savannah once escaped from her parlor, which was gated off to adjoining rooms, while she, Shelly, had gone to the bathroom. ‘I came back – not two minutes later, you understand – and Savannah was gone. Just disappeared from the room! I looked under the furniture, behind it, all around the house, thinking she could’ve climbed over one of the gates. But no! The child had pushed out a screen and gone out through the window! I finally saw her on the patio, where she had a chair pulled up to the fountain so she could reach the water – she was soaking wet and giggling, pleased as punch!’ Her grandma used this story to show how much Savannah was like her dad, and maybe in some ways she was: results-oriented, single-minded – but she would use her powers for good, not evil, that was how she thought of it.

      She packed up her world history textbook and her binder, wondering what her grandma, and the rest of the family, would think if they knew how she was making the Miami trip work; her mom should do a better job of hiding her credit cards. By the time the bill came, she’d have a good excuse to give if she got caught – but more importantly, even if she was caught, she’d have already been to Miami with Kyle.