Don't Breathe a Word

by Jordyn Taylor

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers; YA Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"A fast-paced, exhilarating story about a boarding school shrouded in secrecy and the girl who will do anything to right the institution's wrongs." —Jessica Goodman, Indiebound bestselling author of They Wish They Were Us

Critically acclaimed author Jordyn Taylor weaves an addictive thriller perfect for fans of Truly Devious.

Eva has never felt like she belonged . . . not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So, when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something.

But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried?

1962:

There is only one reason why Connie would volunteer to be one of the six students to participate in testing Hardwick’s nuclear fallout shelter: Craig Allenby. While the thought of nuclear war sends her into a panic, she can’t pass up the opportunity to spend four days locked in with the school’s golden boy.

However, Connie and the other students quickly discover that there is more to this “test” than they previously thought. As they are forced to follow an escalating series of commands, Connie realizes that one wrong move could have dangerous consequences.

Separated by sixty years, Eva and Connie’s stories become inextricably intertwined as Eva unravels the mystery of how six students went into the fallout shelter all those years ago . . . but only five came out.

Release date: May 18, 2021

Publisher: HarperTeen

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter 1

Eva

present day

I swear to god, sometimes the harder I try to do the right thing, the more spectacularly I end up failing. I was right on time for French, but when I get to the classroom and open the door, the desks are completely empty.

Time to pull out the trusty ol’ schedule and see where I messed up—again. On Monday, I sat in the wrong room and gradually realized the teacher was speaking Spanish, not French, which I probably should have deduced earlier from the red-and-yellow flag tacked to the wall. When her back was turned, I seized the opportunity to stand up, whisper “lo siento” to my confused classmates, and tiptoe to the door.

Strangely enough, I seem to be in the right place. Maybe I’m just the first one here.

Oh, shoot.

It’s Friday, which means there’s an assembly in between first and second periods. I swing my open backpack onto my shoulder and run full speed down the hall, which is empty—obviously. That should have been my first clue. Breathless, I burst onto the quad, and to my relief, there’s still a small crowd of navy-blue blazers shuffling up the steps of the auditorium next door. I join the back of the line all casually, as if sprinting is my go-to mode of transportation. I feel beads of sweat poking out beneath my thick, dark curls.

I’d love to snag a seat next to someone I can introduce myself to. Even as an outgoing person, it’s been harder than expected to meet people. Well, let me clarify: I technically meet people all the time—group discussions in class; meals in the dining hall where I plop myself down in whatever open seat I can find; the line for the communal showers that inevitably stretches down the third-floor hallway in the half-hour before curfew—but it’s hard to actually meet people. Like, in a “let’s hang out and not talk about school stuff” way.

Most students at Hardwick are “lifers,” meaning they start in the fifth grade and go all the way through; by eleventh grade, social groups are calcified like bone. Despite being the same Eva Storm who could strike up a conversation with literally anyone in New York City—a talent that came in handy when my friends and I had to get past bouncers at the college bars near NYU—I’ve felt more or less invisible since Mom and Caleb dropped me off here last weekend. At Tuesday’s assembly, I sat down beside a girl from my English class who’d seemed kinda nice when we’d gotten into groups to read scenes from Macbeth. I said, “Howdy, ’tis me, Banquo”—my delivery was funny, I swear—and she said, “Sorry, do you mind going over there? I’m saving a spot for someone else.”

Shocked at her dismissal, not to mention her failure to appreciate high comedy, I had to move across the aisle to a seat beside my math teacher, Mr. Richterman, who smelled like a blend of coffee and chalk and didn’t seem to recognize me.

At the top of the stairs to the auditorium, an exasperated teacher in a no-nonsense pantsuit shouts at people to tighten their ties and fold down their collars. “Margot and Cassidy, please unroll your skirts,” she calls to a pair of girls with their arms linked. They giggle and cry, “Sorry, Ms. Pell!” as their fingers fly to the fabric at their waists.

“You there, with the curls! Stop!”

Oh no. My foot is on the final step, and Ms. Pell’s laser-beam gaze is pointed at me. The other boys and girls weave around me, rubbernecking like they’re rolling by a car crash.

“You can’t go in there dressed like that.”

Is this a prank? Some kind of Hardwick initiation? I’m wearing the same black loafers, same white knee socks, and same gray kilt as every other girl who’s walked through those doors. But then she reaches out, pinches the corner of my cardigan, and holds it up like the tail of a dead mouse.

“Friday is formal assembly,” she snaps. “You need your blazer.”

Ah. I figure this rule is printed somewhere in the student handbook I got on my first day, but there are a lot of rules at Hardwick (like, sixty-something pages of them), and it isn’t exactly easy to keep track of them all. I know the biggies—like the aggressive nine o’clock curfew every night except Saturday—but I’m hardly an expert in formal assembly regulations. Right now, my blazer is hanging off the chair in my dorm room, conveniently located on the opposite end of campus.

“I, um, don’t suppose you’ll take pity on the tragic new kid?” I venture. You know, the only new student in the whole eleventh grade—the one whose mom and terrible stepdad sent her away to boarding school like a character in some depressing fairy tale.

Ms. Pell’s mouth forms a thin, wrinkled line. “I don’t take pity on students for things they can control, such as remembering a mandatory clothing item. This is how we’ve done things for over a century, and I’m afraid you won’t be the exception. You’ll have to sit out on the steps today.”

“But—”

“Sit, please.”

There doesn’t seem to be any other option, so I sit on the steps, facing the last few arrivals like a fool in a dunce cap. Finally, I hear the door shut, and I’m alone: one tiny speck on a quad surrounded by the ancient stone buildings of Hardwick Preparatory Academy. I picture my loneliness multiplying, like cell division. What I could really use right now, besides a blazer, is a friend.

Maybe my problem is that I just can’t summon the Hardwick spirit that everyone else seems to have. You’ve got the eager beavers, who dash to the front row of every class; the student council members, who make enthusiastic announcements about upcoming social and charity events; the athletes, who strut around campus in their special team jackets; the ultra-rich kids, whose last names sound familiar during attendance because they’re also the names of buildings around campus. They all have their own deep, meaningful connection to this place—not like where I used to go in Manhattan, where everyone had their own shit going on outside school. At Hardwick, it’s like they’re one big happy family, and I’m an intruder barging into the living room with mud on my shoes.

Well, wouldn’t be the first time.

Okay, positive thoughts, please! I won’t always be an outsider. I’ll find someone to hang out with eventually—right? Like . . . uh . . . that redheaded girl in math class, maybe. Jenny something.

Jenny actually seems kind of promising.

I don’t have anything to go on, really. It’s just a hunch. But compared to the other people I’ve encountered in my first week at Hardwick, the girl with the pin-straight, waist-length red hair who sits behind me in math doesn’t seem quite so—I don’t know—indoctrinated by this historic boarding school of ours. The other day, as Mr. Richterman went on about the point of intersection of something or other, I was staring out the window directly beside my desk when I caught her gaze in the reflection of the glass. At first, I wasn’t sure if she could see me too, but then she jerked her head in the direction of the whiteboard and rolled her eyes. The moment the bell rang, she gathered her things and marched out of class, but I’m certain we had a connection of some kind. Maybe I’ll see if I can talk to her today.

When I walk into the room for third-period math, Jenny’s sitting in the same seat as last time. I get a better chance to look at her now: pale porcelain skin; long, lanky limbs; fuchsia lipstick that clashes horribly with her hair, but somehow—maybe it’s how she leans back confidently in her chair, arm resting on the windowsill—she makes it all look so cool. Even the blazer and kilt. She looks at me without any expression on her face.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

She acknowledged my existence. After a week of invisibility, it feels like a drug. I slide into the empty desk in front of her.

Mr. Richterman takes his position at the front of the room. His voice is dry and robotic, like he’s been teaching this stuff since the school’s founding in 1906. “Okay, class, let’s start by reviewing quadratic equations . . .”

Across the room, two dozen mechanical pencils click into action. I try my best to follow along and take notes, but twenty minutes in, I’m having a hard time keeping my grip on the lecture.

Finally, Mr. Richterman puts down the chalk and wipes his fingers on a handkerchief he plucks from his breast pocket. “Now, for the next few minutes, I’d like you break off into pairs and work through the questions on page forty-nine. If you finish early, feel free to test your knowledge with . . .”

There’s already chatter brewing as people lay claim to their partners, so I twist around, ready to shoot my shot with Jenny. Sweet—she hasn’t paired off with anyone. Better yet, she nods at me.

“You wanna do this, or what?” Her voice is deep. A little husky.

I drag my binder into my lap and flip my chair to face her desk. “Okay, but I feel like I should warn you: I haven’t fully grasped anything math related since, like, Sesame Street.”

She cocks her head and purses her fuchsia lips, like she’s analyzing me. There’s an awkward pause where I’m certain I just Banquo’d myself again.

Then she laughs—loudly. It’s a full-on cackle.

“Quiet, please!” Mr. Richterman shouts.

Jenny downgrades to a giggle and leans over the desk. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“You could put a gun to my head, and I would not be able to confidently tell you what a parabola is.”

We both snort and try to hold in our laughs, which is always next to impossible when you’re not supposed to be laughing. Jenny and I do our best to focus on the math problems, but they’re also next to impossible, so we end up playing tic-tac-toe in the margin of the textbook. She beats me in the first two rounds, but in the third, I draw a triumphant line through my three diagonal Os.

Putting down her pencil, Jenny abandons the game and peers out the window. “It’s so nice out,” she says longingly, twirling a lock of coppery hair around her finger. I didn’t notice it before, but her nails are painted the palest of pinks, even though nail polish is expressly forbidden (according to a page of the student handbook I actually remember).

I follow her gaze out the window, down to the main quad, where two groundskeepers snip at a highly manicured garden. Inside the rectangular edges, yellow flowers are arranged on a green background to spell out “HPA,” for Hardwick Preparatory Academy. A bronze plaque at the front notes which wealthy alum donated funds for such a thing. There are a lot of those plaques around Hardwick, dating from the early 1900s to now. Again: people really love it here.

“I wanna be outside,” Jenny whispers. “Don’t you?”

She stares at me with those huge gray eyes flecked with gold, a smirk playing on her lips. She isn’t like the other people at Hardwick. She sees me. Maybe I’m not thinking straight, but her last question almost sounds like . . . a challenge. My heart thumps like I’m boarding a roller coaster.

“Okay, back to your desks so we can go through the answers as a class!” Mr. Richterman calls out.

Damn. I turn back to my desk, but my pulse still pounds as I consider my next move. I have an idea—something that worked one time at my old school, when my friends made a pact to skip class and go lie out in the sun on Randall’s Island. But do I dare?

I find Jenny’s reflection in the window.

She’s looking right back me.

That’s it. I’m doing it. I scribble three words in the corner of a piece of paper, tear it off, and crumple it into a ball. I flick the ball along the windowsill with just the right amount of force, so that it rolls to a stop near Jenny’s shoulder.

Through the window, I watch her notice it. Then she looks at me. I give her a small nod. She grabs the ball of paper and unfolds it in her lap, reading my simple message:

COME WITH ME.

Once again, our eyes find each other’s in the glass. Baby, we are doing this! The next part is up to me. I close my eyes and steel myself for pain. Three . . . Two . . . One . . .

Smack.

I fling my upper body onto my desk, letting my chair legs scrape against the floor for added effect. People gasp. Mr. Richterman stops talking, and everyone turns to the source of the noise. Slowly, I push myself up, blinking and looking around like I’m in a daze.

“Miss Storm, are you okay?”

I pretend to sway dangerously in my seat. “I-I don’t know,” I reply. “Low b-blood sugar, maybe . . .”

Mr. Richterman pinches the bridge of his nose and scans the room. “Can someone please accompany Miss Storm to the infirmary? I don’t know if I want her walking there on her own in this state.”

Yes. This is exactly what I was banking on—but will Jenny get the message?

Before anyone else can volunteer, her gravelly voice comes to the rescue. “I’ll take her, Mr. Richterman.”

“Thank you, Miss Price.”

“It’s no problem at all.”

“All right. Off you two go.”

The next thing I know, Jenny is helping me from my seat and shepherding my fake-stumbling body out the door. We keep up the act as we descend the wide wooden staircase and step outside onto the quad. I’m delirious with excitement that we pulled this off. Hopefully I don’t actually faint now.

“This way,” Jenny whispers, because we’re still in earshot of classrooms with open windows. She turns sharply to the right, down a shady path that snakes behind the library. I follow her across an empty parking lot, because she seems to know what she’s doing and where she’s going. She leads me into the sprawling glen that surrounds the campus, home to a network of twisting trails that ramble for miles through the trees.

I’m no stranger to this part of campus: every morning, I’ve been sneaking out the back door of Ainsley House to go jogging through the woods. I’m actually a pretty strong runner; I did cross-country all throughout middle school, back when I still wanted to prove I was good at stuff. I was definitely one of the best on the team, but still, Mom and Caleb never came to my meets, which were often in Jersey or Connecticut. In high school, I gave it up—gave it all up, really. But running still makes me feel happy, especially this past week, when I’ve been stressed about not fitting in here.

When we’re deep enough in the trees that I can’t see any school through the gaps between trunks, Jenny finally speaks.

“Nice performance in there, lady. I’m impressed.”

“Hey, you gave a nice performance, too. You seemed very concerned.”

“But your final stumble into the door frame!” She mimes a chef’s kiss. “Brava.”

I laugh. “Why thank you.”

“Seriously, you were so smooth.”

“I tried my best.”

Jenny tosses her hair over her shoulder, then takes off her blazer and ties it around her waist. For some reason, I’m hyperaware of the way I’m walking, my body just behind her left shoulder. Should I stay in back and let her lead? Or should I move to her side, like we’re friends? My solution is to stay at a perfect diagonal, tracking my position in relation to hers with every step.

“So. You’re new, right?” Jenny asks bluntly.

Oh, great. I can feel myself deflating faster by the second. Do we really have to focus on what an outsider I am? “Yes, ma’am. How long have you been here?”

“I started last year,” she says, “so I know what it’s like. Everyone’s friends already, and you’re basically this invisible blob drifting around campus. Like, Hello?! Does anybody want to talk to me?”

Wait. Jenny was new last year? Jenny actually gets it? Oh my god, I want to hug her. “Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel.”

“You managing okay?”

“It’s a little lonely.” An understatement. “But I go for these long runs every morning to try and clear my head. That helps.”

“Oh, cool. You’re a runner?”

“Yeah. Just for fun. Not, like, marathons or anything.”

“I hate working out. Did you try out for cross-country?”

“Nah—I didn’t even know there had been tryouts until they emailed out the sports schedules the other day.”

“Damn. Sorry, dude.”

I shrug. “It’s whatever.” In reality, I’d been a little disappointed.

Jenny suddenly stops in the middle of the path, tilting up her face to catch a narrow ray of sunshine that somehow made it through the crisscrossing branches. “Hold up. The lighting here is really great.” She pulls out her phone and opens the camera app with the fastest thumbs I’ve ever seen. “Just a quick pic. This might be feed-worthy.” She slips her backpack off her shoulders and holds it out to me. “Do you mind?”

I take it from her immediately. “No. Of course not.”

“Thanks.” She shakes out her hair so it hangs all over the place—but in a cool way—and ever so slightly purses her lips. She takes about twenty rapid-fire selfies, swipes through them, and hearts a few. Others make her recoil in disgust.

“For Instagram?” I ask.

“Yeah. I’m getting five hundred bucks to post a photo with this lipstick on, so . . .”

“Whoa. Did I just witness you . . . influencing?”

“Oh my god, stop. That word is horrifying.” But she smiles to herself as she puts her phone away, and we start walking again. She forgets to reclaim her backpack, and for some reason, I don’t say anything. I just keep on carrying it.

“So, how did you end up here anyway?” Jenny asks.

Oh, good. A chance to revisit the memory of the night they told me I was enrolled—the four of us sitting around the table in our Upper West Side apartment eating takeout sushi. The way Mom leaned over and squeezed my shoulder with her polished talons, like she was telling me something good; that smug look on Caleb’s face that made me want to hurl my dinner at him. When I found out my half sister Ella, who’s in ninth grade, wasn’t going to boarding school—it was just me, the other daughter, being sent away—I really did pick up a cucumber roll and throw it at Caleb’s chest, which unfortunately only bolstered their argument that I needed a stricter academic environment.

But I give Jenny the sanitized version—the one that doesn’t hurt as much: “My mom and her husband want me to get my grades up before college applications. I was kind of slacking off, I guess. But they didn’t tell me I was going to Hardwick until, like, right before we left. So . . . surprise! I’m here.”

“Jeez. That is seriously harsh.”

“It wasn’t amazing! How’d you end up here?”

“Well, I’m from Philly, but my parents bought this major brewery in Albany, so we moved up there. Hardwick’s like two hours away, but it’s by far the best private school upstate, so I was like, ‘Yes. Let’s do this.’”

“Ah. Less harsh.”

“Yeah. Your story is rough, dude. And I take it you weren’t at another boarding school before?”

“Nah, it was a small public school in Manhattan. It’s, um, super weird having my school tell me when I need to be in bed with the lights out. I’m surprised they don’t supervise teeth brushing.”

Jenny laughs again. Every time it happens, I feel like Mario collecting coins in a Nintendo game. “Yeah, the curfew was hard to get used to,” she admits. “And the Saturday classes—super rough.” She pauses and then her voice changes. It’s softer and sharper at the same time, like she’s telling me a secret. “Eva, I know everything feels like absolute garbage right now. But I promise, Hardwick is a great place. And it gets better as soon as you find the right people to hang out with. Listen . . . I know we like, just met, but you seem really fucking cool.”

Oh my god.

I was right.

Jenny and I were destined to be friends.

And then all of a sudden, without my express permission, my brain is picturing me and Jenny doing everything together. I’m coming up with questions I can ask her parents about beer-making when I visit their brewery: How do you add the different flavors? Who makes the designs that go on the labels?

A tiny warning bell goes off in my head. I’m doing what I did with Jeffrey Chung last fall, when I was all-in from the moment he took me to the roof at Alicia Barney’s Halloween party and kissed me against the railing, even though I was legitimately concerned about us both falling over, and even though he was wearing one of those awful Scream masks, which he’d pushed up onto the top of his head, and the strings were cutting into the sides of his face. We’ll be a couple, I told myself as I stroked the back of his neck, and we’ll go to winter formal in color-coordinated outfits. The next weekend he hooked up with Alicia at Nina Brown’s party, and I felt like a rug had been ripped out from under me.

But that was different. Jeffrey was a boy, and everything is more complicated where boys are concerned.

All I need is for Jenny Price to be my friend.

And she just told me I’m really fucking cool.

“Aww. Thank you.” I don’t know what the right response is.

Jenny lifts up the side of her blazer and pulls out her phone again. When she looks at the screen, she stops in her tracks. “Oh, snap.”

“What is it?” I figure we might have to go back and retake the selfies.

“My friend Heather just texted me. She has a free period right now and wants to know if I can hang out.” Jenny looks back at me over her shoulder, biting her fuchsia bottom lip. “I’d obviously invite you, but, like, it’s Heather’s room, and she’s kind of particular about us inviting people over who she doesn’t know, so . . .”

“No, no, it’s totally cool!” But my stomach drops. I was the one who MacGyvered us out of class! I had imagined the two of us spending the rest of the afternoon together wandering through the woods and then maybe drifting to the dining hall for dinner.

“Okay, cool. Sorry about that. I mean . . . at least you’re not in math anymore.” She looks at my hand. “Wait, are you still carrying my bag?”

“Oh—I—um—yeah. I guess I am.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I don’t know.” I hold it out to her. “Here.”

“Thanks.” She takes it and slings it over her shoulder, then starts walking faster than before. Apparently, Jenny doesn’t want to keep Heather waiting. We get to a spot where a smaller path splits off to the left, up a hill and toward another opening in the trees. Beyond, there’s a stone building that looks like a dorm; I see a window with a navy-blue Hardwick pendant stuck to the glass.

Jenny turns to face me. “I have to run. Heather’s letting me in through the back door.” Before she leaves, she shoves her phone in my hand. “Give me your number. There’s a party tomorrow night, and if Heather’s okay with it, I’ll text you the info.”

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god. I put my number in Jenny’s phone and hand it back to her.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Well, see ya.”

“See ya. It was really nice meeting you.”

It was really nice meeting you?! What did I think it was, an internship interview? She hurries up the hill, backpack bouncing heavily against her side—not quite running, but almost. From the trees, I can just make out the back door opening and Jenny disappearing inside. I wish more than anything that she could have stayed—or better yet, that I could have gone with her to Heather’s.

Which is silly, because I don’t even know these people.

And at least I didn’t have to sit through the rest of that math class.

But I can’t deny the crackle of electricity in my chest when I look at my phone half an hour later, and there are two text messages from a number I don’t recognize:

Hey it’s Jenny. Heather says it’s cool if you come to the party tomorrow. Meet in the parking lot behind the library at 10.

And don’t bring anyone else.

 

Chapter 2

Connie

1962

I only see two ways to cope with the current state of affairs: either get on with your life like a normal person, or spend every waking hour imagining the world being blasted to smithereens—like me. In my sixteen years of existence, I’ve only ever managed to think about the bomb, or actively try not to think about the bomb; either way, I’m technically thinking about the bomb.

“You’re thinking about the bomb again, aren’t you?” Betty asks.

“What? How did you know?”

“Because you were doing that thing where you stare into the distance like an old frontier woman who’s about to succumb to diphtheria.”

“Really?” I frown. “I was going for dysentery.”

“Connie.”

“Sorry, Bets. I’m here now.”

It’s a sunny April afternoon, just warm enough that we can finally wear our knee socks instead of tights, and we’re lounging on a blanket in the corner of the quad. Betty looks at me through her red cat-eye glasses, which match the color of the giant bows holding her pigtails in place. She asks pointedly, “Is this about the assembly?”

This is what happens when you’ve been best friends since the fifth grade: you learn to read each other’s minds. She knows I’m thinking back to this morning, when we were leaving Ainsley House for breakfast and there was a notice on the bulletin board for a special assembly on “nuclear preparedness” tomorrow during fifth period.

The last time we had one of these, it was right after we got back from winter break. They brought us into the auditorium and played a recording of President Kennedy’s inauguration speech from last year: the one where he talks about the “dark powers of destruction”—the “deadly atom” that could destroy all humanity should our enemies not make peace with us. Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. Then the dean of students got onstage and explained that on government orders, a large basement room had been converted into a public fallout shelter for the community. The underground shelter could apparently hold hundreds of people, with walls thick enough to shield us from the harmful radiation that follows a nuclear blast. It had food and water and beds so we could live down there for weeks, if need be. I was so lightheaded when I left the auditorium, I tripped and fell into a waist-high snow bank.

“Yes, it’s about the assembly,” I tell Betty.

She sighs and scoots closer to me on the blanket. “I know all the bomb stuff scares you, but think about it: There hasn’t been a nuclear attack anywhere on Earth for what, seventeen years? Why would it randomly happen now? They just have to do this stuff as a precaution. The assembly will probably be some stupid duck and cover drill.”

“Stuff has happened since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bets. They’ve tested all kinds of bombs and missiles.”

“Okay, but have the tests amounted to anything?”

“I don’t know, but if we’re all being told we should build fallout shelters, that must mean the situation is kind of serious, don’t you think?”

“Connie, you need to calm down. No fallout shelter is ever gonna be used.”

I lie down on my back, like a starfish. Sometimes I feel so flattened by the threat of nuclear war, this invisible sense of doom that’s been hanging over me since the day I was born. I’m not even sure I fully understand who the Communists are, or what a nuclear weapon looks like, which means my thoughts can spiral to an infinite number of terrifying places. I’ve never been able to rein them in; even if I’m distracted by something else—like class, or a book, or Betty, or the complicated world of boys—they’re always there, in some capacity, chugging along in the back of my brain.

I roll over into the fetal position, facing Betty. A lock of sandy-colored hair falls in my face and I blow it away, only to have it fall right back where it was. “Bets, how do you not dwell on stuff that’s a bummer? What do you think about instead?”

When she doesn’t answer immediately, I look up to find her gazing off to the left. I follow her eyes to the nearest window on the first floor of the science building, through which I can clearly see the interior of our social studies teacher’s office. I can also see our teacher, Mr. Kraus, entering the room, sitting down at his desk, and pulling out a notepad and pen.

“Oh god, Bets, have you memorized his schedule?”

“I have no comment on the matter.”

“And is that why you insisted we sit in this very specific corner of the quad, which is in no way different than any other section of grass?”

“I think you know the answer.”

“Fine.” I push myself up and poke her playfully on the shoulder. “But I don’t understand why you’re so in love with him.”

Betty tilts her head to one side, her eyes never leaving the window. “I’m not in love with him,” she muses. “I’m just . . . intrigued by him.”

So is everyone at Hardwick, boys and girls alike. In class, they scramble to sit in the front row, the better to catch the attention of the handsome twenty-four-year-old prodigy from Yale. Mr. Kraus is full of stories from his college years—not just about studying under some famous social scientist, but also about his wild exploits outside class, like the time he spent a summer backpacking around Europe, or when he and his ex-girlfriend rented a car and drove all the way from Connecticut to Alaska without a map. Everybody is jealous of his grown-up adventures except for me; I like things that are familiar—things that feel safe. Why would you go on a road trip to Alaska and not bring an atlas? What’s there to gain by doing that?

“Andy’s had all this amazing life experience,” Betty continues.

“I still think it’s weird that everybody calls him Andy. He’s a teacher—he’s not supposed to have a first name.”

“He told us to call him that,” she says defensively.

All of a sudden, Betty bites her bottom lip and opens her eyes really wide at the exact same time.

“I know that look, Bets.”

“I have an idea,” she says. (I can always recognize her idea face.) “Let’s go tap on his window and say hello.”

“Seriously? We’d have to walk through that flower bed to get there.”

“It’ll be spontaneous. He’ll like it.”

“I don’t know . . . I don’t really want to.”

Now she pokes me on the shoulder. “Don’t be a chicken. We can ask him what the special assembly is about. He’s probably the only teacher who would tell us.”

She has a point—not that it would really matter either way, because I’ve always been happy to let Betty take the lead. The next thing I know, Betty and I are delicately stepping around the yellow tulips spelling out “HPA” for Hardwick Preparatory Academy. I let her walk a few feet in front of me, just so it’s abundantly clear to Mr. Kraus that Betty is the ringleader of the operation. I’m in it for the information he can offer to quell my nerves—not for him.

Tap, tap, tap.

At the noise, Mr. Kraus jerks his face toward the window. For a second, he seems startled at the sight of us, but he regains his composure and flashes a rakish grin. Most teachers at Hardwick would probably wave us away or shout at us to get out of the flowers, but Mr. Kraus puts away his notepad, saunters over, rolls up his sleeves, and wrenches open the window.

“Hi, Andy,” Betty chirps.

“What the heck are you two doing here?” Mr. Kraus asks. “And did you just walk through the tulip garden?”

“We wanted to come say hi.”

She nudges me with her elbow. “Uh, hi,” I mumble.

Mr. Kraus shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. He has a heavy brow and distinct dimples, an expressive face with lots of nooks and crannies. I’ve heard people compare him to Clint Eastwood.

“Well then. How do you do, ladies?”

“We’re good. We were just catching some rays.”

Another elbow. “It’s nice out,” I chime in, gesturing vaguely at the air. Can’t we just get our information and get out of here?

“It is nice out, isn’t it? Early this morning I jogged all the way to Burk Creek and back. Beautiful.”

“That’s a long way, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s gotta be around six or eight—actually, it might even be ten miles, when you factor in the curves.”

“Wow!”

“I used to run even farther in my high school cross-country days. It’s all about pacing yourself correctly.”

“Totally,” Betty says. I know for a fact that she hates exercise more than anything else in the world.

“Anyway, girls, I’d love to keep chatting, but you two should probably jet before someone sees you in the flower bed. The gardeners are always outside my window tending to it.”

“Wait,” I cut in. “Mr. Kraus, we were also wondering if you knew anything about the special assembly tomorrow—the, um, the ‘nuclear preparedness’ thing? There was a notice on our bulletin board this morning . . .”

“Of course!” He claps his hands. “The whole thing was actually my idea.”

“It was?” asks Betty.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies. “You’ll see what it’s all about tomorrow.”

“You can’t tell us anything?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Sh-should we be worried?” I ask, unable to keep my voice from faltering.

“Worried? No way,” Mr. Kraus says. He gestures with his chin toward the garden we’ve just trodden through. “This is Hardwick. You’re in good hands.”

Talking to Mr. Kraus doesn’t entirely ease my concern about the assembly. I mean, I’m relieved there isn’t some international emergency going on, but I wish it were a run-of-the-mill safety drill instead of something he planned. In class, he always makes us play these weird games he dreams up the night before. Yesterday, half of us had to be blindfolded and follow verbal directions from our partners to find a series of random objects hidden around the room. It was bedlam, with people constantly bumping into each other. I tripped over a chair and hit a desk when Betty accidentally said “right” instead of “left,” and now there’s a bluish-purple bruise sprouting over my hip bone. Despite the chaos, people were thrilled not to have to sit at their desks for the whole period, but I couldn’t help wondering what the exercise was meant to teach us, other than “maybe we should just stick to the textbook before more of us get hurt.” I never thought I’d say this, but I spent the whole next day wishing they would just show us that Duck and Cover cartoon from the first grade—the one where Bert the Turtle disappears inside his shell when an evil monkey drops a stick of dynamite from a tree. The song was so pleasant.

There was a turtle by the name of Bert,

and Bert the Turtle was very alert;

when danger threatened him, he never got hurt.

He knew just what to do.

When fourth-period math is over, I hurry to the arts building and join the throng of students filtering into the auditorium. Betty, who had French class right next door, is saving me a seat inside. The lobby feels like the inside of a beehive, except it’s hundreds of students buzzing with questions about why we’ve been summoned here out of the blue.

As the crowd gets denser, something collides with my back and I stumble forward. The next thing I know, two large hands are wrapped around my shoulders, steadying me.

“Sorry, Connie. It’s friggin’ packed in here. Are you okay?”

It turns out, the hands belong to Craig Allenby: class president, star midfielder on the soccer team, and ridiculously handsome person whose blue eyes and long lashes make my knees go all wobbly every time I see them, which is often. By some stroke of luck, Craig and I were randomly assigned to be lab partners in chemistry this semester, which means I’ve gotten to spend a lot more time in his presence than ever before—a relief, because I’ve kind of been in love with him since he came to Hardwick in ninth grade.

Then again, so has everyone. At Hardwick, he might be more popular than the Beatles. He’s Paul-Newman-level handsome, smart, outgoing, and singlehandedly—or singlefootedly?—responsible for making the school’s soccer team the best in the league. Girls stare when he passes in the halls or on the paths around campus, and boys practically trip over their own feet rushing over to give him a high five or a pat on the back and talk about some big play from his latest game. Every issue of the Hardwick Herald seems to have at least one story on Craig’s latest accomplishment, be it a winning goal, a Model United Nations victory, or a successful student council election campaign. There was even that time he rescued an injured barred owl from a tree branch in the glen, patiently coaxing it to safety over the course of three-and-a-half hours. You would think the constant fanfare might go to his head, but that’s the other thing about Craig Allenby. He’s humble—a true man of the people. Case in point: he pays attention to quiet nobodies like me.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks, Craig.” You should probably keep your hands on my shoulders—my knees are still wobbly.

With people pressing in on us from all sides, we have no choice but to stay next to each other as we shuffle toward the door. Other kids keep bumping into Craig and then sheepishly saying hi to him, and after the third or fourth time this happens, I’m absolutely certain they’re doing it on purpose. Craig, as usual, is a human magnet.

“You have any idea what this is about?” he asks, turning away from the doe-eyed senior girl who just stepped on his foot.

“Nope, but I do know that it was Mr. Kraus’s idea. He told Betty and me yesterday.”

“Andy planned the assembly?” Craig’s face lights up. “Outta sight. That guy’s the best, isn’t he?”

He looks so handsome when he smiles, and I can’t help but feel proud of myself for making it happen. “Yeah,” I reply. “He is.”

As soon as we make it into the auditorium, a high-pitched voice calls out Craig’s name. I look to my right, where a few rows up, Helen Honeyman is waving to him. She has a blond flipped bob parted off to the side, the ends curling softly around her smooth, rosy cheeks.

Helen is one of the prettiest people I’ve ever seen, and she’s wealthier than just about anyone at Hardwick, which is saying something. Her father’s apparently some famous lawyer in New York City, and her mother owns seven horses, which she keeps at a farm in Connecticut. It’s proof of how superior Helen is that I know these things about her, despite us never having spoken one-on-one in all the years we’ve been at school together. On the flip side, I can almost guarantee she doesn’t know what my father does for work—accounting—or anything else about my life, for that matter. If Craig is a man of the people, Helen is, well, a normal popular person. She spends most of her time in the center of an exclusive group of girlfriends and doesn’t seem to notice anyone else.

“Looks like I gotta go,” Craig says with a quick wave, and he hurries up the aisle to where Helen is sitting. The two of them must be an item again; I can usually get a read on their ever-changing relationship status by how hard Craig slams his books down when he arrives in chemistry. Just last Monday, the sheer force almost sent an Erlenmeyer flask flying off the table.

I find Betty sitting a few rows behind Helen, wrinkling her nose at the school’s most volatile couple as their mouths collide in a hungry kiss. The way Craig’s hand grasps the back of Helen’s neck—how he draws her into him, like he wants to breathe her in—makes me ache with jealousy and longing at the same time.

“Why do they keep getting back together?” Betty asks as I take my seat. “We all know how it’s going to end.”

“Beats me,” I reply.

Betty scratches her chin. “I mean, she must be the problem, ’cause it wouldn’t be him, obviously. She’s probably so high maintenance in a relationship, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I can’t even imagine.” Really, I can’t. If I were lucky enough to date Craig Allenby, I wouldn’t ask him for a single thing. I’d probably follow him around like a golden retriever, tongue lolling out, just happy to be in his presence.

Once I’m settled, I realize my brief conversation with Craig helped distract me from the mysterious presentation ahead of us. Anything remotely related to Mr. Kraus makes me apprehensive. I think it stems from this look he gets on his face during every one of his social experiments, as we careen around the room acting ridiculous. His eyes go wide and his jaw drops, but with a hint of a smile. It’s almost like he’s reveling in the power he has over us, and I don’t like it at all.

Finally, the stream of students entering the auditorium starts to thin, until each one of the red velvet chairs has a uniformed body in it.

A hush settles over the room as the dean of students walks onstage and takes his place behind the podium.

“Good afternoon, students.”

“Good afternoon, Dean Denton,” say hundreds of voices in unison.

“Thank you all for being here. I’ll make sure this doesn’t last too long, so you can still get to the latter half of your fifth-period classes.”

In the seat directly in front of me, Bobby Tackett boos at the prospect of going back to class; a few people laugh, but most of us are focused on Dean Denton, who continues.

“Now, I’m sure you all saw on your bulletin boards that the purpose of this assembly is nuclear preparedness. Needless to say, we are living in very dangerous times, and the school is doing everything it can to keep you safe, such as constructing a fallout shelter on campus—which you already know. But since then, I’ve been wondering about the best way to acquaint you with this shelter, so you know what to do should the worst-case scenario transpire.”

As soon as the dean says “worst-case scenario,” my thoughts go back to the president’s terrifying speech. Dark powers of destruction. The deadly atom. I’m scared I might be sick on Bobby Tackett’s head.

While I try my best to take deep breaths, Dean Denton motions for Mr. Kraus to join him onstage.

Some of the students whoop loudly—Betty included—when the young teacher comes jogging into view. Mr. Kraus waves to the crowd like a movie star, and when he reaches the podium, he accepts a hearty handshake and a clap on the back from the dean.

“Andy Kraus has been a wonderful addition to our staff this year,” Dean Denton says, “and the other day, he came to me with an excellent proposal regarding our underground shelter. Mr. Kraus, would you like to take over?”

The two men trade places. When Mr. Kraus steps up to the microphone, he grins at the room one last time before transitioning to a more serious expression. “Good afternoon, students. I, like your dean of students here, want to make sure you’re prepared in case you-know-what hits the fan. And so I said to Dean Denton, ‘I think the only way to fully prepare people is to have them live in the shelter for a short period of time—the same way they would in the event of a nuclear attack.”

Wait—what?

A current of gasps and murmurs travels around the room as people piece together what Mr. Kraus seems to be proposing. Students living inside the shelter? By themselves? For how long?

“Settle down,” Dean Denton says, taking back the microphone. “Settle down. Mr. Tackett, get back in your seat, please. The plan is to test a group of six students. That group will stay in the fallout shelter for a period of four days, communicating with Mr. Kraus via radio. If everyone agrees it was a good learning experience, then we’ll open the training program to the rest of the student body.”

This time the auditorium explodes with noise: people asking questions; people insisting they want to be among the first group locked inside the shelter. I feel dizzy—a bit detached—like the pressure from above is finally starting to suffocate me.

“A week from today,” Dean Denton says, “Mr. Kraus will put a sign-up sheet on the door of his office. Take some time to think about whether you’d be interested. It’ll be first come, first serve.”

Betty grabs my wrist, and by the look on her face, I know exactly what’s about to come out of her mouth—and I am not going to like it.

“You’re not going to like this . . . ,” Betty begins.

“Just say it, Bets.”

My friend takes a deep breath. “I know you’re freaked out . . .”

“I am very freaked out.”

“But I think we should do it.”