For a moment there was no response, but then Alice smiled warmly and said, “The way you are in English, that’s the real you. It amazes me the way you’ll argue something really passionately in English, then I see you outside and just get a blank. Seriously, I think today’s the first time you’ve ever spoken to me outside of class.” She shook her head and laughed a little. “I was even a bit nervous walking up the hill. I thought you might not speak to me.” He was amazed, because he’d seen no sign of her unease as she’d walked up the hill to him. But he was shocked too, that people thought of him as being that hostile. “So, yeah, AP Lit—I like to think that’s who you really are.”

Tom was touched in some way. But he was also thinking, hoping, that she might be right, that a bit of the happy-go-lucky little kid he’d been was still there, and that books brought it out of him, even if people didn’t—or hadn’t, until now.

Then George said, “While we’re on the subject of envy… I’ve always envied you guys who take AP Lit.” They both looked at him and George shrugged. “I don’t know, you seem to have all these amazing discussions about books. It’s like you’re all sitting in some café in Paris being really cool.”

Alice laughed too loudly, shushing herself, and Tom laughed too, because only someone who’d never set foot in an AP Literature class could think it was cool.

CHAPTER 19

It had started slowly enough, but they kept talking through the night. They sat in silence too, at times, comfortable enough in each other’s company, tending the fire, listening to the jungle. Tom didn’t talk as much as the other two, but he talked more than he usually did.

And when Alice first asked him the time, they realized they’d already been on watch for five hours, and still they weren’t tired, so they stayed. At some point in the early hours they made the decision that they wouldn’t wake the next watch but would remain until daybreak.

Occasionally someone stirred in the cabin above them. Once or twice people got up, sometimes turning on a flashlight, stumbling into one of the bathrooms. Several times during the night there were sounds of disturbed sleep too, maybe even nightmares.

As one person mumbled in their sleep, a distressed litany that sounded like a plea for help, Alice said, “That’s Lara. She has nightmares even when she’s not in plane crashes.”