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  “I’m going to be a doctor.”

  “So of course you plan to go to university.”

  Obviously. She’d been raised to believe everyone went to college, unless they weren’t smart or driven enough. Or poor, she guessed. Erin had heard of a woman who applied for a job at McDonald’s, and wasn’t hired because other applicants had college degrees. Without a degree, Erin’s future was bleak. Without an Ivy degree, she believed her future was bland.

  Penelope finished her notes. “Students from abroad are always special cases, aren’t they? Mathematics, foreign language, statistics, and English literature are compulsory. You will choose three other subjects. For university entrance, you will want science. I would recommend visual arts for you. For music, our ensembles do not accommodate guitar, but I can recommend some fine teachers in Christchurch. I’ll find you some names.”

  Penelope passed Erin her schedule and a Pupil Handbook. “Read this tonight. The most pressing matter is that we don’t allow makeup. No jewelry. Wear your ring for today, but tomorrow you’ll need to leave it home. For now, remove all the makeup before your first class.”

  “Is there a reason for that?”

  “It’s unnecessary. And it’s a distraction. You should be focused on your studies. Your classmates should be focused on their studies. No jewelry, no makeup, no visible body art. Shoes are required.”

  Erin stared. “So it’s not my imagination, right? Is bare feet a religious thing or … cultural?”

  “Cultural, absolutely. Shoes are constraining. Some of us go barefoot year round. If I’m being honest, I wear them only at work, and if I’m the last in the office, they come off immediately.”

  Instead of career advice, application strategies, or a long checklist, Penelope had given Erin only food for thought.

  Wheaton’s head guidance counselor, Mrs. Brown, monitored the emotional ebb and flow of two thousand students. After Grandma Tea died, Mrs. Brown had left a little purple note with Erin’s first-period teacher. When Erin started fighting with her boyfriend freshman year, Mrs. Brown had sent a flurry of purple notes inviting her to talk.

  Erin had ignored all the purple notes and visited the stuffy office only to discuss college strategy.

  One of Mrs. Brown’s chairs housed a sloppy pile of paperwork in an array of colors. In the chair usually reserved for students, Claire sat pursing her lips and tapping on her phone.

  Everything about Mrs. Brown—smile, eyes, arms, body—sagged in pity when she saw Erin. She caught herself and tried to smile. “Miss Cerise. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  She closed the door behind Erin, and Claire stood so Erin would sit.

  Claire crossed her arms and glared at her daughter. “I talked to Principal Drouin about cyberbullying and this weekend’s fiasco; she’s handling it. Mrs. Brown and I have a solution to the other problem. Getting into Columbia—or any Ivy, really, at this point—requires something unique. Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra makes you different, but we must show breadth of interest and uniqueness. Did you know that only a fraction of one percent of high school students study abroad? That will make you unique. There are spots available.”

  Erin picked the cuticle of her left thumb, parting it from her flesh.

  “And you can choose where you go.” Mrs. Brown navigated between several websites and her inbox. “There are maybe ten options left. Let’s see. Moscow. How’s your Russian?”

  “Spanish,” Claire said.

  “I know,” Mrs. Brown said. “Unfortunately, everyone has been pushed into Spanish when we really should be learning Mandarin. Soon the whole world will need Chinese.”

  “So, China?” Erin said.

  “No. I was saying that everyone and his brother takes Spanish. So, Spain and Mexico go first. You passed on Moscow. We have Jordan.”

  “Absolutely not,” Claire said.

  “The Netherlands, Russia, Brazil, Greece.”

  “Even with the best tutors, she can’t learn any of those languages in time,” Claire said.

  Mrs. Brown returned to her computer. “The only English-speaking countries we have are Nigeria, New Zealand, and Scotland. That one’s Edinburgh.”

  “She’s not going to Nigeria,” Claire said.

  “Okay. Scotland and New Zealand.”

  “Your choice!” Claire raised her eyebrows in expectation.

  Senior year somewhere else. Erin could barely catch up, let alone choose. Though everything was broken in Wheaton, she didn’t want to flee.

  “How long will I be gone?” she asked.

  Mrs. Brown said, “One semester, either way.”

  Near England or Near Australia?

  Erin had visited London three years ago two weeks before the PSAT, so her memories were of flash cards and root words. She wracked her brain for anything about either country. Australia was hot and England was chilly. New Zealand and Scotland both were full of sheep—or perhaps that was Ireland?

  “Do I have to go?”

  “You should want to go,” Claire said. “Studying abroad will make you an appealing candidate. Almost no one does this.”

  Mrs. Brown clicked her pen as Erin pondered her options. “You should know that New Zealand is kind of wonky because the seasons are opposite. You’d be starting in the middle of the New Zealand school year and would have to leave in mid-July.”

  Mid-July was less than two months away, and she already had math at University of Chicago and summer swimming to fill those weeks. Her departure, however—from that viral video, from Ben’s sphere of gravitational pull, from her horrid new nickname—couldn’t come soon enough.

  “New Zealand.”

  Claire grabbed the doorknob. “Great! I am very late for work. I’ll send you a check and completed paperwork tomorrow.”

  Erin stared blankly at Mrs. Brown. Her life had changed in an instant. Again.

  SIXTEEN

  Students—all of whom wore the same blue blazer—poured past Erin as she walked out the front door of her new school. Jade was waiting in the light drizzle. “All set then?”

  Erin nodded slowly.

  “Where’s your first class?” Jade asked.

  Erin scanned her schedule. “M5?”

  “Can I see?” Jade studied Erin’s schedule as they walked around the administrative offices.

  Erin had expected the school to loom down a corridor beyond the administrative offices, but Ilam High had no corridors, no metal detectors, and no roof.

  Like a tiny college campus, discrete buildings housed specific subject areas. Jade identified the languages building, the literature building, the maths building—all of them circles of classrooms with doors on the outside.

  Ilam High was inside out.

  A sea of royal blue blazers congregated around doorways and between buildings.

  In what seemed like the middle of campus, Jade said, “This is the commons. Tea and lunch here. Toilets there. Fields are just on the other side of the arts building. What’s your sport?”

  “Swimming.”

  “Oh. Shall I walk you back to M5 then?”

  “I can find my way, thanks. I need to stop in the restroom. Toilets.” The word toilets felt ugly in her mouth, as if uttering it invited an image of her sitting to pee.

  “Cheers!” Jade disappeared into the sea of blazers and Erin was alone again. No one noticed her because she had become part of the sea. And why introduce yourself to the new girl if you didn’t know she was new?

  The patina of mourning marred Erin’s uncertainty. She was here to mourn Ben. And her swim team captainship. And her sense of belonging.

  And her skin. Removing makeup with New Zealand paper towels was like exfoliating with sandpaper. No Boscia. No Make Up For Ever for her eyes.

  When the bell rang, she called it good enough and retraced her steps to M5, where her tiny, perky calculus teacher wore a synthetic mock turtleneck and pleated slacks.

  She handed Erin a textbook. “I’m Donna Weiler. Have you been studying calculu
s in the States?”

  “I have. This year I’m supposed to take a second calculus course at the community college.”

  A smile. “Well done. Lovely to have you, Erin. Take any seat you like.”

  There was precisely one empty chair: in the center of the front row. Some things are the same in either hemisphere.

  Ms. Weiler said, “We have a new student today, from the United States.” A pause. A long pause. “What was your name?”

  “Erin. Erin Cerise.”

  “Right. Everyone introduce yourselves after the second bell. Now, before the term break, we were discussing the fundamental theorem of calculus. I’d like to move on to separation of variables on page two-nine-three, but wonder whether anyone had any questions about the fundamental theorem before I do that.”

  No one did. Separation of variables it was. Erin opened her book and felt comfortable for the first time in days.

  _________

  Lunchtime hiccupped blazers into the open air again. The drizzle had stopped sometime during Erin’s Italian class, but the benches and concrete weren’t yet dry so she leaned against the math building.

  Ilam had a little to-go window with hot lunch options, but most people were eating sack lunches. And they were eating them everywhere—standing in clusters or sitting on damp benches in the commons. Just like in Wheaton, bookworms pored over novels and outcasts stood awkwardly alone.

  But at Ilam, musicians played guitars and sang in groups. A gaggle of girls sat in a semicircle comparing bracelets they had hidden under their sweater sleeves. No one was squealing over a new dress or admiring nail polish because there was no nail polish. Except on Erin, of course. Everything felt less frenetic.

  On the other side of the earth, everyone would tease these people about what they were wearing. Erin was embarrassed about her wool and equally embarrassed about their wool. But they all were in the same boat.

  Erin followed a herd around the art building to discover an enormous unmarked field with nary a goalpost or sideline. People, still mostly in blazers, played Frisbee and soccer. Three different games of Erin didn’t know what—played with a football—were underway.

  No adults supervised. In Wheaton, security guards ensured students stayed where they belonged—in class or in the cafeteria—or weren’t smoking in the bathrooms between periods.

  Ilam High’s campus was one giant picnic.

  She caught a rogue Frisbee a fraction of a second before it beheaded her.

  A lean, blonde guy jogged toward her. “Sorry! I’ll take the disc.” He was easily a head taller than she and lanky like a basketball player. She handed over the disc and he lobbed it toward a girl in the field.

  Just beyond him was a group of people—guys and girls—playing cricket. Erin could scarcely believe it. Cricket. Her first night in London, after her parents had gone out for the night, she sat in her hotel room doing homework to the sounds of cricket on the TV. The sport was complicated: wickets and bowlers and overs.

  These guys were in school uniforms and not the bright whites of the cricket … field? Court? Diamond? She didn’t know.

  “There you are!” Jade said. “I’ve been looking for you. How was your morning?”

  “Good,” Erin said.

  “I usually sit over there.” Jade pointed to a threesome playing guitars. “I want to introduce you around, though.”

  She walked Erin around the courtyard, introducing her to so many people Erin would never remember their names. Jade introduced her as “Erin from America.” Erin appreciated the clean social slate.

  “Summer swims, too” Jade said, standing next to a girl who’d tied her school blouse into a knot at her waist.

  “Good to meet you, Erin,” Summer said. “Need a lift to swim?”

  It seemed juvenile to admit Felicity was driving her around Christchurch. “I have a ride today, but maybe tomorrow?”

  “Sweet as.”

  Jade introduced other students, including a pockmarked guy named Jackson, who wore a badge reading HEAD BOY.

  He said, “You have the cutest accent ever.”

  “Thanks, you too.” Erin blushed.

  Introductions finally over, Erin and Jade settled atop their school bags in the grass near the guitar threesome. Erin opened her hastily packed lunch. At the last possible second, Felicity had told her to throw something together, so lunch was ten pounds of fruit.

  “We spent the winter hols in the States. Beautiful beaches,” Jade said.

  “What were you doing in America?”

  “Cousin’s wedding, but it was really just an excuse to get a bit of sun. Bunch of my mates skied at The Remarkables, and I would have rather done that.”

  The Remarkables. That’s where Good-Time Girl had skied two weeks ago. Perhaps she was one of Jade’s mates. Erin suspected Good-Time Girl could show her the best of Christchurch; perhaps Jade was the lead required to track her down.

  Even her disastrous birthday celebration hadn’t been as isolating as Monday morning in homeroom. Amid video announcements for sports results and study abroad, morning briefing provided prime time for gossip.

  Erin caught two words: “Gag reflex.”

  In her peripheral vision, she caught a classmate making a lewd gesture and tonguing his cheek. Another guy gagged and pretended to vomit on his desk.

  Heat swelled in Erin’s chest and crept up her neck.

  She looked around the room, then turned to Ben’s best friend, Jamie. “What are they talking about?”

  He laughed.

  Erin stood. “What are you talking about?”

  Someone behind her made a vomiting sound.

  What had Ben told everyone? She hadn’t gagged on anything but her own vomit. Erin whipped out her phone and texted him: “What did you tell people about Saturday night?”

  She texted Lalitha the same thing.

  Aaron, who Erin had dated just before Ben, laughed. “Now I know why you said no to oral. Glad I didn’t push you any harder to do it.”

  “That is not what happened,” Erin said.

  The PA popped and rattled: “Erin Cerise to the guidance office.”

  She gathered her things and stomped to the hall.

  “So long, Gag Reflex,” she heard before the room erupted in laughter.

  She would never live this down. Gag Reflex would follow her forever. Someone would write it in her yearbook. Next year—senior year—someone would spray it in shaving cream on her Fiat or Sharpie it on her locker.

  SEVENTEEN

  Felicity was chipper as she helped wrestle Erin’s cello case into the backseat. “And how was your first day?”

  “Fine.” Erin rested her head against the seat back.

  “Really? A totally different school on the other side of the world, and all you’ve got for me is ‘fine’?”

  Erin stared at blue blazers pooling around the car. “It’s very different.”

  “It’s quite a bit, eh?”

  Felicity’s eh was similar to a Canadians’ eh, but more resigned and less of a question.

  “What did you think of it?”

  Erin faced Felicity. “I’m not sure. I’m digesting the experience. It’s kind of a lot.”

  “I’m sure,” Felicity said as they pulled away. “Tell me the best parts.”

  Felicity pointed out the route to the pool as Erin told her about Italian class. Felicity parked at the pool entrance as Erin poorly described the sport she’d seen at lunch.

  “Sounds like rugby! You fancy a go?”

  Erin closed her eyes and considered that. “They were mostly guys.”

  “They’d welcome you! Every girl has to play once or twice … to see whether she likes it.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good as gold. I want to hear more after dinner, but you’re nearly late. This is Jellie Pool. Suppose you could walk, but it’s a haul to make it in time. You’ll have to ask your teammates how they get around. I’ll fetch you at half five, then?”

/>   “That’s just two hours,” Erin said. “How about six thirty?”

  “Tea’s at half six.”

  “I used to practice four hours a day. I assume we’ll have weight training afterward.”

  “Six on the dot, then. Have fun.”

  “Thank you.” Swim practice was many things—grueling, challenging, taxing—but hadn’t been fun for years.

  _________

  After some confusion at Jellie Pool’s front desk, Erin found the changing room and shifted gears from school to swimming. Or tried to shift gears. She was fried, and in desperate need of a nap.

  Slowly, she followed signs to the pool and cringed when she stepped onto the pool deck. Erin hated short pools: flip turns broke her stroke twice as often, which seemed to prolong practices and races.

  She checked in with the coach, who insisted she call him Percy and assigned her a warm-up lane with Summer and two other girls.

  These girls were her new teammates, sure, but swimming was a very individual sport. Unlike softball or soccer, where everyone had to function together, in swimming she just did her best. On her own. And the fastest girl won, no matter what the rest of her team did. Except in relays, of course.

  Erin liked being the fastest girl in the pool.

  Damned Quigleys.

  The girls in Erin’s lane warmed up slowly, and Erin kept their pace. Working in the water was slice of normalcy.

  Percy called a brief meeting, and Erin clung to the side of the pool with her new teammates. Her teammates had covered their tattoos during school, but the pool was a whole different story. Most swimmers had a little something—a clown fish, a graphic skull, a tiny rainbow—and many older swimmers had several. It was a literal sea of tattoos.

  Erin couldn’t fathom putting any image on her body forever. When the redhead next to her turned eighty, she’d be mortified at the name of the boy band scrawled between her shoulder blades.

  Percy introduced Erin to the team. “She’s from the States, and a fine swimmer.”

  After greetings all around, Percy recapped the season for Erin: most secondary schools had already qualified for New Zealand’s national swim meet, but no one from Ilam was in yet.