“Regan,” O’Reilly said as she plunked heavily into the seat next to mine, her backpack giving me a good whack in the side of the head for good measure as she settled in.

“Yes, sir?” she asked, looking at him for the first time.

“Do you see it?” he prompted.

“Your buttons,” she said as though the answer was automatic and obvious.

O’Reilly smiled. “What about my buttons?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and I looked at his buttons for the first time too. I’d thought the discrepancy was something to do with his shoes. I silently crossed my fingers and wished for her to be wrong. Let it be the shoes.

“That one,” she said, pointing to the second button down. “It’s too perfect. Buttons during that time period wouldn’t have looked quite so perfect.”

“Well done!” O’Reilly said. “I’d heard you had an uncanny knack for this. You did not disappoint. Now, can you tell me what time period this jacket would have been produced in?”

Regan’s face went pale, and I smiled smugly as my hand shot back into the air.

“Well?” O’Reilly prompted.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Regan said, “but I don’t know. Maybe sometime around the American Revolution?”

“It was the late eighteenth century,” I said, the words falling out of my mouth without my permission. O’Reilly turned to me, an eyebrow raised in disapproval at my blurting disruption. But it was like word vomit, and I couldn’t stop it now. “1775 was the start of the Revolutionary War, although the uniforms were probably made prior to that in 1774.”

“Thank you, Elliot,” said O’Reilly. “Next time, please wait your turn.”

“Or maybe I’ll just arrive late and expect special treatment,” I muttered under my breath. Regan shot me a look out of the corner of my eye that let me know she’d heard me.

“Where were you?” I asked as O’Reilly called in another professor dressed head to toe in clothes straight from the 1970s.

“My mom called to check in,” she said dismissively, never taking her eyes off the new professor. I squinted at the garish green-striped bell-bottom pants and yellow knit top. Maybe her earrings were off? I’d forgotten how much I hated this class.

Around us our classmates were guessing, and I thought Serina had it when she pointed out that the professor’s shoes were rhinestone-encrusted cowboy boots, but apparently that was on-trend for the seventies. Weird.

Beside me Regan raised her hand again, and I ground my teeth into my lip as she spotted the discrepancy in the professor’s hairstyle.

“That you can remember?” I muttered as O’Reilly stepped back into the center of the platform to begin his lecture on ’70s fashion.