But instead, all I say is, “It’s Alice.”

Her face goes blank with confusion. “What?”

“I said, my name is Alice. Not Vanessa.”

“Huh. Is it now?” she finally says, unconvinced, looking for a second as if she actually believes I might’ve mixed up my own name. When I nod, she gives me a tight-lipped smile that isn’t much friendlier than a glare. “Well, pardon me, Alice. But my earlier point still stands, of course.”

“Of course,” I echo.

Satisfied, she spins around on her noisy heels and leaves. As soon as she’s out of earshot, Henry mutters, “Charming, isn’t she?”

On this, at least, we can agree.

9

Next week, an ominous poster appears over the Year Twelve lockers, with the following words printed out in large, block letters:

15 DAYS LEFT

It takes everyone a while to figure out what the poster’s referring to.

“Maybe it means fifteen days left until my will to live runs out,” Vanessa Liu suggests as she crams a mountain of textbooks into her overhead locker, slamming it shut with a roundhouse kick that makes the walls tremble.

Someone behind me snorts. “Sounds about right.”

“Oh! Oh—I know!” Rainie says, her eyes widening, lips parting in a perfect O. Ever since the whole Jake incident, she’s been a lot more enthusiastic about everything. “Maybe it’s for the Experiencing China trip!”

“But, like, that usually happens in late November,” Chanel points out.

“Then what about—”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I say, louder than I mean to. Almost the entire year level goes quiet and turns to me, expectant. My face burns at the sudden attention. Still, I hold my ground and explain, “There are only fifteen days left until our first midterm exam. The teachers probably put the countdown up to remind us.”

Immediately, faces fall. Smiles fade.

“Well, trust the Study Machine to know,” someone says. It isn’t the first time I’ve heard this sort of joke, but there’s an awkward pause after the familiar words, and I know the people from my history class are still remembering what happened in our last test.

My face grows hotter with embarrassment. Shame.

Who knows how long it’ll take me to build up my reputation again?

As people finish cramming books and laptops into lockers and start heading outside for lunch, most of their conversations turning to revision and how far behind they are and how they haven’t even really read Macbeth yet for English, just the SparkNotes summaries, my phone buzzes.

Another Beijing Ghost notification.

I’ve already lost track of the number of requests I’ve gotten, but my heart still stutters in my chest as I find a dark, empty corner in the hall, turn with my back against the wall so that no one can see my screen, and read over the latest message:

Okay to call?

Surprise flutters inside me. This is definitely new.

It can be done, though. Henry’s been fine-tuning the app for weeks in his spare time, claiming it’s a great way to put the skills he’s learned at SYS into practice, and now there’s a call option that distorts the voices on both ends to ensure anonymity. I’ve only used it once before, in a brief test run with Henry and Chanel. Though I wasn’t a huge fan of how the feature made me sound like Darth Vader, everything else worked pretty well.