Two kids whooped and high-fived each other. Annabelle looked at the essay she’d barely started, barely holding back tears as she gathered up her things.

She managed to echo Ms. Ames’s “Have a good summer” before stumbling into the hallways that had emptied out almost an hour ago. When Mia and Jeremy and everyone else had all gone to lunch without her.

The other four extra-time kids were all boarding students, so they told Annabelle they’d see her at middle school closing ceremonies and headed to the cafeteria or the dorms. Annabelle pushed open the side door, stepping into the bright June sunshine.

She gulped in the island air—a little bit salty if you really paid attention, even this far from the ocean. It was over, anyway. Seventh grade was finally done, and summer stretched out ahead of her, full of adventures with Mia and Jeremy and summer swim team practices at the pool, where most of the kids didn’t go to the Academy and she got to be Annabelle the star butterflyer, not Annabelle who could never finish her work on time at school.

Mom’s car was waiting at the curb, and she rolled down the window. “Belle! How’d it go, honey? Did we study the right things? Did you feel ready?”

“I’m never ready for Mr. Derrickson’s tests.”

Annabelle plopped down onto the hot front seat, tossed her things on the floor, and slammed the door closed.

Mom’s eyebrows folded in, forming that tiny worry line right in the middle. That was how she used to look at Dad, back when things got really bad. And it was how she looked at Annabelle now, way, way too often.

“Well, you worked so hard,” Mom said. “I’m sure all that effort paid off.”

Then she nodded. As if she could nod those words into being true. She patted Annabelle’s knee and reached up to grip the steering wheel, her silver bracelets clinking. Mitch had given her one of those bracelets for each of their wedding anniversaries. She had three so far, and she wore them all the time.

“Where to?” she asked as she pulled away from the curb. “My next meeting isn’t until two. We could go out for a special lunch. Do you want to call Mitch to see if he’s free? I know he’ll want to celebrate with you, too.”

Annabelle watched out the window as they drove along the school’s winding driveway, past dorms and fields and high school kids who sat on the grass, laughing as they signed each other’s yearbooks. Past the gray-shingled office where they’d come for her admissions interview two years ago—the summer before sixth grade, when she and Mom and Mitch had first moved to Gray Island.

The Academy was a boarding school, mostly, for sixth-to-twelfth-grade students from the mainland. But Mom had read on their website that they “strive to be a community school” and set aside financial aid for “qualified day students” who live on the island. So she’d filled out an application for Annabelle, and somehow Annabelle had gotten in.