Free Breathless by Jessica Warman Page A

really hurt!” Estella is cocaptain of the girls’ field-hockey team, and you can tell who the other team members are by the way their shins are covered in bruises so purple as to be almost black. Each day after school, they cringe as they peel off their knee socks. Only Estella and the other cocaptain—Amanda Hopwood—are almost bruise-free.
    “Go get her,” Lindsey urges me.
    “Yeah,” Estella echoes, giving me a much lighter kick under the table, “go get her.” She rubs her hands together. “She can’t avoid us forever.”
    “I don’t know,” I say, watching as Mazzie—who pretended not to notice my wave—sits by herself and begins to eat at a deliberate, fast pace. “Maybe we should leave her alone for now.”
    I feel protective of Mazzie already. I’m not sure why. Maybe because, at first, it also occurred to me to hide out during lunch, as she’s likely been doing up until today, but I managed to force myself to do otherwise. Or maybe because I keep hearing her talking in her sleep, her voice as angry as ever. I’m not sure why I don’t tell Estella and Lindsey about Mazzie’s restless nights—it’s definitely a juicy piece of info. I just don’t. Somehow it feels cruel even for me to know , because I think Mazzie would be mortified if she found out.
    Things loosen up after the first couple of months at school. On paper, Woodsdale Academy is a model of academic excellence. Its students’ days are planned down to the minute. We wake up in time to get dressed and hurry to breakfast by 7:15. Homeroom starts at 7:50. Classes begin at 8:00 and last until 3:00. Every student is required to participate in at least one extracurricular event, preferably a sport, and practice is held at a minimum from 3:30 to 5:30 every day. A sit-down, family-style dinner follows from 6:00 to 7:00. Study hall in the dorms—bedroom doors open, no talking or music allowed—lasts from 7:30 to 9:30. Lights out is at 11:00 for underclassmen, midnight for upperclassmen.
    But most of their “model of excellence” is a load of crap. It’s just so people like the Ghost can feel great about packing up their kids and sending them away. Once you know what you’re doing, it’s easy to break the rules. Take our uniforms, for example. In the student handbook, there are five whole pages devoted to their care and cleaning. During our first dorm meeting of the new school year, we even have a visit from a member of the housekeeping staff, who explains how we should hang and fold each article of clothing in order to keep our shirts and skirts in pristine condition. As we lounge on the sofas and on the floor, we pretend to pay attention as she demonstrates how to properly fold—never roll—a pair of nylon-and-cotton-blend knee socks to be stored in our drawers.
    This is how it really works: after school every day, most of us have loosened our ties and untucked our shirts before we even get back to the dorm. At the end of the hallway, there are two piles: one for neckties, and one for navy blue knee socks. We add our own clothes to the pile, toss our shirts over the back of our desk chairs, and leave our skirts wherever they happen to fall on the floor of our bedroom. Anytime we put on our uniform, we pluck a tie and a pair of socks from the collective pile. At the end of the week, when they come to collect our laundry, the housekeepers know where to find everything. In the student handbook, “improper uniform maintenance” is supposed to be punishable by half a dozen demerits. But nobody ever mentions what a departure we’ve made from Woodsdale procedure—not even Jill, who is usually so rule conscious that, as Estella loves to say, “She would have made a great Nazi.”
    It’s the same kind of thing with sports and academics. Officially, academics come first No Matter What. But Woodsdale has a widespread reputation for its fine swimmers. The varsity team practices year-round, and we compete in scrimmages all fall.
    In my