am I, the fashion police? Whatever takes the least amount of time. I'm hungry."
Luce hustled into a pair of skinny jeans and a black wraparound sweater. She would have liked to spend a few more minutes on her rst-day-of- school look, but she just grabbed her backpack and followed Shelby out the door.
The dormitory hallway was di erent in the daylight. Everywhere she looked were bright, oversized windows with ocean views, or built-in bookshelves crammed full of thick, colorful hardcover books. The oors, the walls, the recessed ceilings and steep, curving staircases were all made from the same maple wood used to build the furniture inside Luce's room. It should have given the whole place a warm log cabin feel, except that the school's layout was as intricate and bizarre as Sword & Cross's dorm had been boring and straightforward. Every few steps, the hallway seemed to split o into small tributary hallways, with spiral staircases leading further into the dimly lit maze.
Two ights of stairs and what looked like one secret door later, Luce and Shelby stepped through a set of double-paned French windows and into the daylight. The sun was incredibly bright, but the air was cool enough that Luce was glad she'd worn a sweater. It smelled like the ocean, but not really like home. Less briny, more chalky than the East Coast shore.
"Breakfast is served on the terrace." Shelby gestured at a broad green expanse of land. This lawn was bordered on three sides by thick blue hydrangea bushes, and on the fourth by the steep, straight drop into the sea. It was hard for Luce to believe how very beautiful the school's setting was. She couldn't imagine being able to stay inside long enough to make it through a class.
As they approached the terrace, Luce saw another building, a long, rectangular structure with wooden shingles and cheery yellow-trimmed windowpanes. A large hand-carved sign hung over the entrance: "MESS HALL," it read in quotes, like it was trying to be ironic. It was certainly the nicest mess Luce had ever seen.
The terrace was lled with whitewashed iron lawn furniture and about a hundred of the most laid-back-looking students Luce had ever seen. Most of them had their shoes kicked o , their feet propped up on the tables as they dined on elaborate breakfast dishes. Eggs Benedict, fruit- topped Belgian wa es, wedges of rich-looking, aky spinach- ecked quiche. Kids were reading the paper, gabbing on cell phones, playing croquet on the lawn. Luce knew from rich kids at Dover, but East Coast rich kids were pinched and snotty, not sun-kissed and carefree. The whole scene looked more like the rst day of summer than a Tuesday in early November. It was all so pleasant, it was almost hard to begrudge the self- satis ed looks on these kids' faces. Almost.
Luce tried to imagine Arriane here, what she would think of Shelby or this oceanside dining, how she probably wouldn't know what to make fun of rst. Luce wished she could turn to Arriane now. It would be good to be able to laugh.
Looking around, she accidentally caught the eyes of a couple of students. A pretty girl with olive skin, a polka-dot dress, and a green scarf tied in her glossy black hair. A sandy-haired guy with broad shoulders tackling an enormous stack of pancakes.
Luce's instinct was to turn her head away as soon as she made eye contact--always the safest bet at Sword & Cross. But ... neither one of these kids glared at her. The biggest surprise about Shoreline was not the crystal sunshine or the cushy breakfast terrace or the buckets-of-money aura hovering over everyone. It was that the students here were smiling.
Well, most of them were smiling. When Shelby and Luce reached an unoccupied table, Shelby picked up a small placard and ung it to the ground. Luce leaned sideways to see the word RESERVED written on it just as a kid their age in a full-on black-tie waiter suit approached them with a silver tray.
"Um, this table is re--" he began to say, his voice cracking inopportunely.
"Co ee, black," Shelby said, then abruptly asked Luce, "What do you want?"
"Uh, same," Luce said, uncomfortable at being waited on. "Maybe a little milk."
"Scholarship kids. Gotta slave to get by." Shelby rolled her eyes at Luce as the waiter darted away to get their co ees. She picked up the San Francisco Chronicle from the middle of the table and unfolded the front