This was a massive room, with a big fireplace. There was a television, a bunch of sofas, some worktables, and piles of cushions to sit on on the floor. Next to the common room, there was a study room full of desks, then another study room with a big table where you could have group sessions, then a series of increasingly tiny study rooms, some with only a single plush chair or a whiteboard on the wall.

From there, we went up three floors of wide, creaking steps. My room, number twenty-seven, was way bigger than I’d expected. The ceiling was high. There were large windows, each with a normal rectangular bit and an additional semicircle of glass on top. A thin, tan carpet had been laid on the floor. There was an amazing light hanging from the ceiling, big globes on a seven-pronged silver fixture. Best of all—there was a small fireplace. It didn’t look like it worked, but it was incredibly pretty, with a black iron grate and deep blue tiles. The mantel was large and deep, and there was a mirror mounted above it.

The thing that really got my attention, though, was the fact that there were three of everything. Three beds, three desks, three wardrobes, three bookshelves.

“It’s a triple,” I said. “I was only sent the name of one roommate.”

“That’s right. You’ll be living with Julianne Benton. She does swimming.”

That last part was delivered with a touch of annoyance. It was becoming very clear what Claudia’s priorities were.

She then showed me a tiny kitchen at the end of the hall. There was a water dispenser in the corner that had cold or boiling filtered water (“so you won’t need a kettle”). There was a small dishwasher and a very, very small fridge.

“That’s stocked daily with milk and soya milk,” Claudia said. “The fridge is for drinks only. Make sure to label your drinks. That’s what the pack of two hundred blank labels on your school supply list is for. There will be a selection of fruit and dried cereal here at all times, in case you get hungry.”

Then it was a tour of the bathroom, which was actually the most Victorian room of them all. It was massive, with a black-and-white tiled floor, marbled walls, and big beveled mirrors. There were wooden cubbies for our towels and bath supplies. For the first time, I could completely imagine all my future classmates here, all of us taking our showers and talking and brushing our teeth. I would be seeing my classmates dressed only in towels. They would see me without makeup, every day. That thought hadn’t occurred to me before. Sometimes you have to see the bathroom to know the hard reality of things.