Mrs. Sloane kept going: about test scores and Annabelle’s processing speed and working memory.

Then she leaned back, and the shiny pink stone bounced once against her rib cage before settling on top of her blouse. Mom was scribbling in her notebook, nodding as she wrote. The worry line between her eyebrows stretched down all the way to the bridge of her nose.

Annabelle wanted to grab Mom’s pen and snap it in half so the ink would leak all over that not-overly-cheerful gray and white rug.

Mrs. Sloane picked up a marked-up copy of Annabelle’s fourth-quarter report card with the C in Spanish circled in blue.

“We could consult with the educational psychologist who did Annabelle’s testing. At the time, he didn’t recommend a Spanish waiver, but based on Annabelle’s recent report card, it wouldn’t be unusual for her to be excused from a foreign language.”

“Wait. You want to kick me out of Spanish?” Annabelle asked.

She actually liked Spanish, even though it was hard. They sang songs to remember new words and watched videos to learn about Spanish culture, and Señora Melkoff once said that learning Spanish had been hard for her, too, but then everything had clicked when she spent a summer in Chile in high school. Annabelle thought things might still click for her, too.

“No one’s kicking you out of anything,” Mrs. Sloane said. “But your particular learning profile means that the skills you need to master a foreign language are still . . .”

“Developing?” Annabelle suggested.

“Exactly,” Mrs. Sloane agreed. “Ms. Ames wouldn’t be free every language period to meet with you, but sometimes you’d be able to work together during that time, and on other days you would have your own individual study hall. You could do your homework right on the bench outside my office, and I could keep an eye on you.”

On the bad-kid bench? Where every single person in the seventh and eighth grades could see her?

Mom was nodding. “It does sound like that could take some of the pressure off.” She turned to Annabelle. “You could get your math and science homework done during that free period sometimes, and then you’d have more time for history and English at night.”

Mrs. Sloane set down the report card, took off the glasses she’d had perched halfway down her nose, and folded them up. “Annabelle, do you think you could give your mom and me a moment?”

Annabelle’s throat went dry. Was this when Mrs. Sloane was going to say it? That the “qualified day student” financial aid wasn’t for students who could only get Cs? That maybe Annabelle didn’t belong at the Academy at all?

She nodded and walked out into the hallway, where she sat down on the bench and stared at those bare bulletin boards. For the first time in ages, she thought of the room that was supposed to be hers at Dad’s old apartment in New Jersey.

The room had a twin bed with a white wicker frame, but Dad had never gotten sheets or a comforter, so the shiny blue mattress had stayed bare. The bed had belonged to his friend’s daughter, and so had the other things he’d gotten for the room: an empty dresser and a little white desk with a lavender-painted bulletin board hanging on the wall. She’d forgotten about the bulletin board until this very moment.