Wuthering high: a bard academy novel by Cara Lockwood

explains. “Don’t worry about it.”
    “I’m what you call desperate,” Samir says.
    “His parents want to arrange his marriage for him,” Hana says. “They sent him here because he refuses to get married to the girl of their choice when he turns nineteen.”
    “That’s a little young to get married, isn’t it?”
    “My parents grew up in India in a very traditional family. They have a different way of thinking about things,” Samir says. “So why are you here? Did your parents send you away for telling them you won’t have an arranged marriage, too?”
    “No, but they could have. My parents are dorks,” I say.
    “And?”
    “And what?”
    “What did you do?”
    “Samir! Stop being so nosy. Miranda, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”
    “She’s right, you know,” Samir says. “We can just look it up in your file when you aren’t around.”
    “Ignore him, seriously,” Hana says.
    “So? Come on. Can’t be that bad. You look too goody-goody for it to be that bad. Wait, let me guess. Eating disorder?”
    “Just what are you trying to say?”
    “Shoplifting. Must be.”
    “Not even close.”
    Hana and Samir stare at me. I sigh. I’ve never been good at doing the whole mysterious thing. “Fine. I wrecked my dad’s car. Maxed-out my stepmom’s credit card.”
    “Sweet, right here,” Samir says, putting up his hand for a high five. Despite myself, I smile and slap his palm. Samir has a kind of contagious energy. He makes everything seem like a game. “That’s almost as good as Hana’s story. She wrecked her mother’s car, too. But you know all about Asian drivers.”
    “First off, I’m only half-Japanese,” Hana says, flinging her soggy roll at him. “And second, by that logic, you should be driving a cab.”
    “Maybe I will,” Samir says.
    “And anyway, I didn’t wreck her car. My boyfriend did.”
    “You mean your felon boyfriend did.”
    “He wasn’t a felon when I was dating him. That was after,” Hana clarifies.
    I try cutting the mystery meat, but I’m not getting anywhere with this plastic fork. I’d be better off using chopsticks.
    “What’s with the plastic utensils?” I ask, holding up a fork.
    “Someone got stabbed last year,” Samir says, unperturbed.
    “Stabbed? Seriously?”
    “It wasn’t very deep,” Hana says. “Some guy went ballistic on his roommate. Stabbed him in the arm with his fork. He tried to stab Ms. W, too, but missed.”
    “He didn’t miss,” Samir says. “He hit Ms. W right in the forearm, but she didn’t bleed. Everybody knows that story. She’s an alien. Everybody knows it.”
    “That is totally just a campus legend,” Hana says.
    “Campus legend?”
    “Bard’s version of urban legends,” Samir says. “Like the faculty don’t eat or sleep.”
    “Or like the one about the UFO that crashed in the forest that keeps giving out that weird magnetic pulse, which makes people walk in circles out there.”
    “That’s funny you should say that, because I went into the woods, and…”
    Both Samir and Hana drop their forks and their mouths hang open.
    “You went into the woods!” they both cry at once in raised voices. A couple of other people look at us, and two Guardians standing by the mashed potatoes line glare in our direction.
    Hana lowers her voice. “Baring the fact that if you were caught,” Hana says, looking from one direction to the other to make sure she’s not overheard, “you’d get grounded here for Thanksgiving and Christmas, not to mention dish duty for the semester, there’s the problem of…”
    “Bears,” Samir says.
    “And…” Hana starts.
    “And wolves, don’t forget the wolves,” Samir adds.
    “And…”
    “And the ghost of Kate Shaw.”
    “Would you let me finish my story?” Hana shouts.
    “Who’s Kate Shaw?”
    “The best campus legend,” Samir asks.
    “I’m telling the story,” Hana says, giving him a stern look. “Kate Shaw,” she continues, “was a