Rashid turned to walk to his Latin class, his chest tight. It felt that way always now, but even more so before Latin. The thought of driving to New York with Washington and having to act like everything was all right for a whole day made him sick. But he couldn’t say no. As sick as he felt, he still had this deep, inescapable feeling that to leave this school would be death. That it would kill him as surely as being home had killed Kofi. He feared that to refuse any request—especially one from the headmaster—could lead to his having to leave. So he set himself to do what was asked of him and kept quiet about the knife in his heart.

The worst thing about that knife was that the serrated edge was distracting him from the work he needed to do to stay at Chelsea. He tried to read, but the words swam before him in a red mist. He did homework, wrote papers, parsed verbs, but it was all so hard. His assignments from all his teachers kept coming back to him littered with red marks, see mes, errors. He was hanging on, but it felt like just barely.

Latin was the worst. They had just finished midterms, and he needed to do well. He’d studied his head off, going over and over the material. He’d felt okay going into the test. Not great, but okay. Up until now, he had been consistently getting Cs and sometimes even a B on his regular work, despite hordes of frantic red-ink corrections. Even when he hadn’t got something wrong exactly, Washington seemed to find some little thing that could have been done better or more smoothly or with more thought or care or something. Basically, he seemed to feel that Rashid just wasn’t right. And after that scene yesterday … He gazed at Washington with slitted eyes. His ears were ringing.

“Well, gentlemen. I have your midterms for you. There are many of you who will need to bear down in order to bring your final grade up for the year. At this time of year, I generally make myself available for questions and discussions of some of the material we’ve covered. I hope that you all will take advantage of my availability as you see fit. I think once I return these tests, you’ll have a better idea of whether or not you need to speak with me.” He passed the papers to the students, facedown. Rashid didn’t turn his over for a few moments. When he did, his throat tightened abruptly. If it hadn’t, he might have cried out. A D-was staring him in the face. Next to it was a terse comment: “You may see me if you wish, but basically, you need to apply yourself to more careful study.”