Free The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice Page B

that Lucy, Pell, and the other girls would be safe. Angus is gruff, but I like him. He's an outcast too, but you can tell he cares about the school. I got to his desk, and this is so weird: the elevator doors were just closing behind him, and I swear I saw someone in a wheelchair in there.
    “Who's that?” I asked.
    “Who's what?” he asked. “I didn't see anyone.”
    “I saw someone in there. In a wheelchair.”
    “Haven't you heard about the ghost of James Desmond Blackstone?” he asked me, arching his eyebrows. “Everyone knows James Desmond loved a good swim.”
    “Ghosts don't swim,” I said.
    “Are you sure about that?” he asked. “You're new to Newport Academy—this is the cool school with the ghost pool.”
    “That's what I want to ask you about. What if the water damages the ceiling? Could it pour down into the dorm rooms?”
    Angus shook his head. “Mary wouldn't allow it.”
    “You don't really believe that.”
    “Of course I do. Everyone knows about Mary. You'll hear the stories about Mary Langley and her pool the longer you stay.”
    “
If
I stay,” I muttered, walking away.
    A ghost's pool. Right. Mary Langley whoever she was. She had a sister too. Beatrice. Lucky ghosts. Even they have each other.
    Things to hold on to—that's what you need. Hold tight, stay safe… Because you never know what's going to be yanked away from you. I used to say that my sister was like having a permanent best friend. But then I found out nothing is permanent.
    You have to hold on to your sister, hold on to your friends.
    My friends are back home. Many wrote me off, hating me, calling me
klepto
. But the ones who stuck with me were loyal and true, and I felt so grateful that they still loved me. To think of life in Columbus going on without me is a little like imagining what will happen after you die: people can survive you being gone, and that is an ugly fact. It makes me want to grab what I can, what is here and now. Even china pineapples. And brass mice—I have one of those now too, from the display case in the library.
    After dinner last night, Amy called to say Megan has taken my place both on the bus and in homeroom. It's not even an alphabetical thing—like her name comes next in line and she'd naturally just slot into my spots. No—it was willful. Megan wanted to sit there, and she took the seats. Megan was one of the people who talked about me most, called me a thief to my face. What kills me most of all is that Amy and Ellie didn't kick her out.
    Amy sounded mad, like “that bitch is trying to take over,” especially on the bus. But the thing is, the seat Megan took is right next to Amy. And did Amy move or in any other way protest? No. And Iasked, believe me. Is this how it goes? Megan's their new friend, they've embraced her as if she never talked badly about me, and here I am making new friends with Lucy and Camilla.
    But that's nothing like missing Carrie. We were each other's other half. I don't really exist without her. You love a person, and you can't imagine life without them. But suddenly something happens, and they're gone, and you just keep breathing, eating, sleeping, waking up.
    Her photographs are here, and she's not.

    September's heat lingered into the first week of October, making the kids restless and yearning to be outside. Maura was impressed with their ability to concentrate and read, connect with the material she assigned them. She was teaching four English classes: Composition, English Lit, and for AP students, the Art of Fiction, and Russian Literature. Each required extensive writing on the part of the students.
    Maura had bought blue notebooks for everyone, passed them out the first day, and told her students to write about their lives, just as her favorite professor had done.
    The Art of Fiction caught her every time. Fiction existed in life as well as literature: the ways people deceived themselves and those they loved most. Not always out of malice, but out of love