When I get to my room, my roommates are freaking out.

Nelinha is stuffing tools, extra outfits, and cosmetics into her pack. Ester is frantically sorting index cards. She has, like, twelve stacks, all color coded, labeled, and highlighted. Her dog, Top, barks and jumps up and down like a furry pogo stick.

It’s the usual pandemonium, but I can’t help but smile. I love my crew. Thankfully, rooms aren’t assigned by house, or I would never feel like I could be off duty and relax with my besties.

“Babe, don’t over-pack,” Nelinha tells Ester, while stuffing more socket wrenches and mascara into her own bag. (Nelinha calls everybody babe. It’s just her thing.)

“I need my index cards,” Ester says. “And treats for Top.”

Yap! Top barks in agreement, trying his best to touch his nose to the ceiling.

Nelinha shrugs at me. What can you do?

She’s rocking a sort of Rosie the Riveter look today. Her lush brown hair is tied back in a green bandana. The tails of her short-sleeved denim work shirt are knotted over her dark midriff. Her calf-length khakis are permanently stained with machine grease, but her makeup, as usual, is perfect. I swear, Nelinha could be crawling through the aquarium’s pump system or fixing a boat engine and she’d still manage to look fashionable.

Her eyes widen when she sees the black pearl at the base of my throat. “Pretty! Where’d that come from?”

“Early birthday present from Dev,” I say. “It, uh…belonged to our mom.”

Her lips form an O. My roommates have heard all the tragic stories about my family. Between Nelinha, Ester, and me, our dorm room is one of the world’s largest producers of tragic stories.

“Well,” she says, “I’ve got the perfect skirt and blouse to go with that.”

Nelinha’s great for sharing clothes and makeup. We’re more or less the same size, and we have the same skin tone—she’s Brasileira parda; my ancestry is Bundeli Indian—so she can usually fix me up nicely for a school dance or a Saturday furlough in town. But today is not that kind of day.

“Nelinha, we’re going to be living on a boat for the weekend,” I remind her.

“I know, I know,” says the girl who’s made herself up just for the bus ride to the boat. “But when we get back. Maybe for the end-of-year party!”

Ester stuffs one last bag of dog biscuits into her duffel.

“OKAY,” she announces. She turns in a circle, examining the room to see if she’s forgotten anything. She’s wearing her blue HOUSE ORCA T-shirt and flower-patterned shorts over a one-piece swimsuit. Her face is flushed. Her frizzy blond hair has been blown in three different directions. I’ve seen pictures of her as a baby: pinchable plump cheeks, wide blue eyes, a startled expression, like What am I doing in this universe? She hasn’t really changed much.

“I’M READY!” she decides.

“Volume, babe,” Nelinha says.

“Sorry,” Ester says. “Let’s go! We’ll miss the bus!”