“There isn’t much more to tell.” I shrug as I brush past him to stare into the fridge, even though I know there are no sodas. “I found a baby in the girls’ locker room. It was tiny and red, and it wasn’t breathing. Mom’s investigating. End of story.”

“End of—?”

“Don’t you need to go run laps around yourself, or something?” I wave one hand at his workout clothes. Which are practically all he wears these days. “Isn’t your big test next week?”

“It’s the Candidate Fitness Assessment.”

I know. The CFA is all he talks about, other than to stress about his grades in calculus and physics. Which means it offers limitless potential as a change of subject.

“Is that not a test?”

“It’s West Point’s way of assessing my athleticism.”

I know that too. He has to do timed sets of exercises and a one-mile run (child’s play, for Penn). And he has to be able to throw a basketball, like, around the globe. From a kneeling position.

I’d collapse halfway through any one of those, but Penn will kill it.

“I’ll be glad when this is over. For your sake,” I tell him, thinking back to his nomination interview with our congressman. Penn was so nervous that he sweated through his shirt.

“Some people have already been accepted, but most of us won’t hear back until April,” Penn says as he sticks an earbud into his left ear, jogging in place again now. “So it could be a while.”

Four more months of watching him stress over every test and run himself into the ground. Which will only get worse when baseball season starts up.

I think he’s lost his mind. I mean, yes, Mom and Dad both served in the army. But West Point is something else entirely. I’ve looked at the brochures he leaves lying everywhere. He’ll have to wear a uniform to class and go on long runs with a twenty-pound backpack, while upperclassmen yell at him. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

No thanks.

But Penn’s convinced the only way he can afford college is if he gets into West Point, because his four years there would be free, in exchange for a service commitment. Because according to our guidance counselor, only 41 percent of the kids who graduate from our school go on to college, and even fewer of those finish a bachelor’s degree. And most of those who do wind up with a ton of student debt.

I look up when I realize Penn’s staring at me. “What?”

“Your junior year’s half over, and you haven’t even taken the ACT yet.”

“So?”

“So, time’s running out.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Just because you have every minute of your entire existence already planned out doesn’t mean the rest of us should.”