I looked around until I saw Brandon by his locker. “Bran!” I called, waving him over. I kind of felt bad about doing this experiment on Brandon. It felt like slapping a puppy. A dumb, perverted puppy, but a puppy nonetheless.

Brandon looked as concerned as he was able to. “Hey, Harper. You okay? The paper said you were sick Friday night, and Bee said she didn’t hear from you this weekend, and—”

“I’m fine,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Food poisoning. Anyway, would you mind if I tried out an, uh, experiment on you?”

His face brightened and he gave me a look that I guess was supposed to be sexy, but was vaguely stupid instead. “Does this experiment involve nakedness?” he asked, leaning one shoulder against the lockers.

“Brandon, your best friend is my boyfriend. And my best friend is your girlfriend.”

He shrugged, flipping his hair out of his eyes. Brandon’s hair was a few shades darker than Bee’s, more gold than blond, and while I guess he was attractive in a clean-cut jock kind of way, I’d never go for his type. Too many muscles, too few brain cells. “And?”

Well, at least now I wouldn’t feel bad about hitting him. I raised my hand and brought it down on his cheek with a really satisfying SMACK.

He yelped and a bunch of people in the hall turned to stare.

“Sorry!” I said. “You, um . . . there was a bug. Okay, see you later, bye!”

I dashed into my first period class, my hand stinging and my mind whirling. Normally, first period AP European History was my favorite class, but that day, I didn’t even take notes. I spent most of the time wondering why I’d been able to slap Brandon and not David. If I was Paladin for the Grove, I shouldn’t have been able to hit any of its students.

I wrote in my notebook, “B said offensive thing, so could be hit as he is jerk.”

That made sense. But then I wrote, “D also said offensive thing—called me bitch. But could not hit.”

Then under that, “But you were a bitch to D, so deserved it, so D not jerk, so could not hit.”

Hmmm . . .

Clearly, I needed a test subject, someone totally innocent. If I couldn’t hit him or her, then I was right, and it was my job to protect the Grove. If I could . . . ugh, I did not want to think about that.

I glanced around until my eyes landed on Liz Walker. She was sitting one desk over and up from me. I had several classes with her, but we weren’t exactly friends. She ran with a group some of us called “the churchy people.” Other, less-nice people called them “the Jesus freaks.” Basically, if I were looking for one of the nicest people at the Grove, Liz was it.