Tom is a puzzle. His work is of a consistently high standard, and his comments in class are always incisive and to the point. I only wish he would give a little more of himself, both to his studies and to his fellow students.—Miss Graham, AP English Literature.

Miss Graham was a puzzle too. She was young enough and attractive enough that it sometimes felt a little weird being alone with her, and she’d told Julia this year in a parent–teacher conference that she was “desperate” for Tom to become more involved with his classmates.

She was here now, one of the teachers on the trip, and she was currently doing one last head count before boarding, slowly working her way across the group, her mouth moving as she counted in silence. But she reached Tom and stopped dead, a look of amazement or confusion, followed by a strange smile, as if she still couldn’t quite believe that he was on this trip.

She cursed under her breath then and went back to the beginning, her mouth forming a silent and labored one, two, three… and perhaps that summed up as well as anything how Tom didn’t fit in, how unlikely it was for Tom to be part of a trip like this, that his very presence was enough to leave Miss Graham incapable of counting to forty.

CHAPTER 2

“I’m glad you chose to come on this trip, Tom.” It was Miss Graham, sitting next to him on the plane. “Hopefully it’ll give us all a chance to get to know you better.”

“Miss Graham, it’s only two weeks.”

She laughed, as though he’d made some clever joke, which hadn’t been his intention, then turned to say something to Barney Elliott, who was sitting on the other side of her.

Tom had flown a lot with Julia and, while he had to admit she’d been more like an unreliable roommate than a parent, he could at least say she knew how to travel. They always turned left as soon as they entered the plane, heading for business or first class.

On this trip, though, he was at the back, as were most of them. Mr. Lovejoy and his wife were sitting in the middle section, near the door, with Jack Shaw, who was 6′7″ and needed the legroom, and Maisie McMahon, who was tiny, but who, for some undisclosed health reason, also had to sit up there.

The rest of the party took up two blocks of seats at the back of the cabin. Coach Holdfast, the gym teacher and football coach, sat at the front of the first block with the members of his team who were making the trip—he was laughing and joking and occasionally chanting “Go Hawks!” like he was still a kid himself.