I protested, “You still haven’t told us—”

“I told you my name,” he said. “That’s what you asked for. Now, if that name gives you the heebie-jeebies, you can just call me Sal.”

“Sal,” I echoed, testing it out.

“Yes, Sal it is, I think,” Reg said, recovering from his shock and once again filling his face with food.

“At least around the house here,” Sal said. “But if you want to avoid questions you can’t answer, I suggest you call me Grandpa at school.”

“What?” I spluttered.

Reg choked on his eggs. “Did you just say—”

“School?!” I finished.

Sal laughed himself into a hacking cough that drowned out our protests, and he was still howling when he got up from the table and lumbered out the front door.

Reg pushed his plate away, finally losing his appetite, and we stared dumbfounded at each other for a long minute.

“School,” Reg whispered.

I dropped my head into my hands. “Maybe he’s trying to kill us after all.”

Four

The Girl in the Mirror

“This one?” I held up a black Gucci turtleneck.

“Eh.” Reg shrugged.

I tossed the turtleneck aside and yanked a black lace minidress out of my open suitcase. I checked the label. Prada. Perfect.

“This one?”

“It’s okay.” Reg yawned and stretched out on my bed—or more accurately, on the mountain of clothes that now covered my bed.

“Reg, this is important.” I stomped a foot and added the dress to the pile.

“It’s exhausting,” he said. “Don’t you own anything that isn’t black?”

I pouted, inspecting a pair of stretchy black jeans. Sal had given us all of a day to get used to the idea of going to school, and twenty-four hours later, I’d barely had time to unpack, let alone find the perfect thing to wear. I had an outfit for everything—ball gowns for impressing the sons of foreign dignitaries at important political galas, one-of-a-kind jackets to catch the eye of aloof rock stars, ultrashort shorts and tall boots to draw in the cowboys. And yes, most of it was black, because black was better for hunting. But an outfit for a first day of school? Now that was something I had simply never needed.

I held the jeans out for Reg to see. “What do these say to you?”

“They don’t say anything. They’re trousers.”

“Reg.”

He sighed. “What do you want them to say?”

“‘Fall in line, bitches. Your new queen has arrived.’”

“The leather skirt,” Reg said, pointing to the summit of Mount Wardrobe.

I dug back into the pile, pushing Reg out of the way.

“Careful, Charlie,” he teased, rolling off the bed and to his feet. “One might get the impression you’re almost excited to go to school.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but I didn’t meet his eye.

“I must admit, Queen Bee is a role you were born to play.”