“It’s public to be a warning,” I said, focusing not on the violation but on Christina’s plus-one-pound change this week. Don’t do what she did. Don’t let everyone know you’re failing.

“I think...” Ruthie began, flipping over their postcard again, showing me the violation, bringing my focus out of my own head. “If you pay enough attention,” she continued, “it’s less of a warning and more of a guide on how to not get caught.”

Ruthie collected and hoarded this information, and it wasn’t until then that I knew why. She was scouting—who was being careless, who was fearless, who was in the pocket of Brigid and the RAs, who was worth looking into a little further. She was shadowing others in the way I was shadowing her.

I found it ironic that we called them points, like in a game. One big, manipulative game. Only here, the more points you have, the more you stand to lose. Brigid may have run Willits Hall like a better-fed and better-dressed women’s prison, but she was just following the guidelines of the entire school. Where one is presumed guilty (and untoward) until proven innocent. Or until graduation. Because, we’d later learn, it was impossible for women to prove any kind of innocence.

Later that night we sat in our beds, using our phones as flashlights after curfew. We looked like kids trying to be spooky, underlighting our faces, creating unnatural shadows.

“If we’re going to party at this school, we’re going to do it right,” Ruthie mouthed into the light. We learned early on, during one of our very first Violation Rotations, that if Brigid heard even a peep coming from your room after lights-out—a light switch flicking, a page turning, a bottle of water being squeezed—you’d wake up to a violation on your door the next morning. So we became masters at lipreading. We honed our craft until it became second nature. Until we’d be sitting at dinner, talking for half an hour before realizing we’d only been moving our lips. Our first loophole of many.

“Kids are getting in trouble for it,” she continued. “So it exists. We just need to figure out how to get invited...”

Ruthie had been determined since the day we met to go to a party. I figured maybe it was a phase; maybe if I kept her entertained enough, if I filled our evenings with movies and games, she’d realize there are other things to do here that don’t involve getting enough violations that could send me home. I needed to make it the full four years, so I’d never have to go back. I didn’t have other options like Ruthie.

“That’s all we need. An invite or a hint or something—”