She sighed. “I am so hurt and offended, Margot, that I didn’t sleep well last night, and it’s your fault. It’s hard to believe that while I was making plans for our family that included you in a position of honor, you were undermining us.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up her hand. “I think it’s time that you worked on your manners. I’ve brought a book with me—a very significant book to my family. And one of the first lessons is that children should be seen and not heard.”

She handed me a small blue book with a fabric cover. The author was Loretta Seaver Copeland, and the book’s title was:

Philosophical Foundations for Personal Morality:

The Rights and Responsibilities of the Privileged Class

“You should read it,” she said. “Or perhaps you have already, as I found it hidden in your bedroom drawer. I think you’ll learn quite a bit from it. It will probably do you good.”

Oh, perfect. The book about how all teenage girls were basically evil. Of course Laura would see this as required reading. I set the book down next to me on the bed and suddenly realized that if she had searched my room, she would have found my other secrets: the key, the origami money, Lily’s journal.

This was bad. So bad.

She turned to leave.

“Laura—”

“I think you’d better go back to calling me Mrs. Sutton,” she said. “That type of familiarity doesn’t suit me when it comes from someone outside my family circle.”

She turned to leave again.

“Mrs. Sutton,” I said. The words were like shards of glass on my tongue. “Would it be possible to get some food, please?”

She looked at me appraisingly, but there was a hint of approval that I assumed was directed at my manners. “Page two hundred and fourteen,” she said. “Second paragraph. Copy it twelve times. I’ll be back shortly, and if you’re finished, I’ll leave you something to eat. If not, you can try again tomorrow.”

Tomorrow?

She handed me a small notebook and a child’s pen. It was fat, round, plastic.

Before I even flipped to the page, I knew what the text would be:

The proof of virtue is the ability to obey in the face of inner resistance. A demand for obedience performed against the will is the ultimate test of rectitude. A child is led to righteousness by the lantern of his parents’ steadfastness and must by firm hands be molded into a creature of exemplary humility and worth. Abandoned to the darkness of parental deficiency, the child’s quality of character will assuredly be as weak as a lily grown in shade.