Miss Pepperman blinked solemnly behind her thick glasses.

Along with her hands, which were fluttering excitedly at her sides when she talked, they gave her an owl-like appearance.

“Most students don’t. Or they just don’t care. Some evenings, not a single soul comes down here. Can you imagine? All these wonderful stories and no one cares to read them. It’s a pity, really . . .”

“For what it’s worth, I will come here more often from now on,” I promised.

“Wonderful! Then I don’t have to be all alone here! It does get quite lonely after a few years. There’s only one other person who comes here regularly.”

“Who is it?” I curiously asked.

“Jasper Des Lauriers, of course!” she said. “You two would get along famously, I’m sure. He had exactly the same look on his face when he came in here for the first time!”

I almost had to laugh at the thought of befriending Noelle’s best friend. He seemed nice enough in class, but if he was anything like Noelle, I doubted we’d click as friends. “Perhaps.”

Miss Pepperman moved her arms in an expansive gesture that seemed to encompass the entire library. “Well, go ahead, darling, take a good look at everything! And don’t you leave without taking at least one book with you!”

“I won’t!” I promised as she got back behind her desk. Now I could see why I hadn’t noticed her at first: sitting on her chair, she was barely tall enough to look over the counter.

There were only two other girls in here, sitting at one of the computers and giggling about whatever they were seeing on the screen. As if sensing my stare, one of them, about thirteen years old, turned around to me.

“Hey, Evelyn!” she chirped.

“Hey.” I blinked at her in surprise. “How do you know my name?”

“Oh, everyone knows your name,” the other girl giggled.

“You’re on the Who’s New? page on The Chitter Chatter!”

“The what?”

The girls exchanged an amused glance. “The Chitter Chatter, Seven Hills’ gossip blog!”

“Someone . . . writes a gossip blog about the students here?”

“Yes,” the other one said impatiently. “No one knows who’s writing it. It’s been going on for about two years now, but no one has a clue.”

“There’s a pretty large betting pool, so if you have an idea and it turns out to be true, you might get a few hundred pounds out of it,” the other girl added.

“So . . . whoever’s behind it wrote something about me?” I asked, still hung up on that part.

“Not just about you. At the start of each year, there’s an article introducing every new student at Seven Hills.”

I frowned and tried to look over her shoulder to see some of the computer screen. Noticing, she got up from her chair and said, “We’re done here, so you can read through it if you want?”

“Thanks,” I replied, slowly sinking into one of the chairs while they left.