“Seth.” Evelyn’s voice made me turn my head. “You’re making me nervous.”

I understood what she was talking about only when I followed her eyes to my left hand, which was incessantly tapping my pencil against the table.

“Sorry,” I muttered and put it down.

Evelyn, with an ever-patient smile on her face, went back to her essay. Unlike me, she was actually productive, one hand flying across the paper while the other absentmindedly toyed with the end of her braid.

Knowing that I wouldn’t get any more done today, I shut my book and pulled out my phone instead. At the top were a bunch of notifications for messages from my parents—I swiped them away with a grim sense of satisfaction and clicked onto my internet browser instead. Ignoring them was a childish thing to do, but I wanted to savor the righteous anger for a little bit longer. It was an ugly emotion, but it was also the only one standing between me and the overwhelming homesickness that flashed its teeth in the back of my mind throughout the day and swallowed me whole at night.

The first site that was open was The Chitter Chatter, as always.

Like everyone else at the school, I knew that it was dumb to take such an interest in the opinions of a bully who didn’t even have the guts to reveal their identity, but there was a sense of morbid curiosity about it: The Chitter Chatter was like a murder scene you couldn’t look away from, and the victim could be anyone.

Today, the only update was a rearrangement of the Hottest Students ranking. I studied it for a moment before I let out a quiet snort. “Hey, Eve, congrats.”

Evelyn looked up from her paper again. “Congrats on what?”

“You’ve made it to fifth place on The Chitter Chatter’s ranking of the hottest students now.”

“Really?” she asked and leaned over the table to look at my phone screen. “Since when?”

“I don’t know, I only just saw it. Seems like The Watcher has taken a liking to you.”

Scrunching up her nose, Evelyn commented, “I’m not sure that’s something I should be happy about.”

“Bit scary to think about,” I agreed.

“What place are you?”

“Eighteenth, or something.”

Evelyn smiled. “Also not bad.”

“Oh, sugar honey iced tea!”

My head snapped around when Miss Pepperman’s voice suddenly disrupted the quiet. She was balancing on one of the ladders, struggling to put a book back onto the highest shelf. Her legs wobbled alarmingly as she stretched as far as possible, only for the book to slip out of her fingers. It landed on the wooden floorboards with a thud, spine facing up.

I immediately got up and rushed towards her. “I’ll get it!”

Miss Pepperman let out a relieved sigh and began her shaky descent down the ladder. “Oh, thank you, dear! This library truly isn’t built for people who need to stand on a chair to get their tableware out of the cupboards!”