Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) - Maureen Johnson Page 0,18

on,” Janelle said, “but I think I can use that table in the common room. Pix said I could solder out there. Can you believe we’re here?”

“I know,” Stevie said. “I feel kind of dizzy.”

“I think that might be altitude,” Janelle said. “We’re not super high. The highest point in Vermont is only forty-three hundred feet, and altitude should really become an issue at five thousand, but you may still need to compensate for the lower oxygen levels by drinking a little extra water. Here.”

She opened her bag and removed a fresh bottle of water, which she pressed into Stevie’s hand.

“I think I’m just nervous,” Stevie said.

“Also possible. Water is still the answer. And deep, slow breathing. Drink.”

Stevie opened the bottle and took a long sip, as instructed. Water never hurt.

“Is Nate here?” Janelle asked.

“He was. I guess he went upstairs.”

“How is he in person?”

“Kind of like he seemed in his messages,” Stevie said.

“Well, we’re here in person now. Come on. Let’s go see him.”

Janelle had entirely changed the energy of the place. She was movement, she was action. Stevie found herself carried along in Janelle’s wake as she hurried down the hall and up the tight circular stairs. Nate was in Minerva Four, the first one along the hall. The door was shut but he could be heard moving inside.

Janelle knocked. When there was no immediate answer, she texted.

A moment later, the door opened a bit and Nate’s long face appeared. He didn’t do anything for a moment, and then, with a barely audible sigh, he opened the door enough to let them in.

“Do you do hugs?” Janelle said.

“Not really,” Nate replied, moving back.

“Then no hug it is,” Janelle said.

“How about salutes?” Stevie said.

“Those are tolerable.”

Stevie gave him a salute.

Nate’s room was more or less identical to theirs, except it was already a mess. There was a rat’s nest of cables on the floor, and a pile of books. He’d been organizing his books, just like Stevie had.

“The Wi-Fi here sucks,” he said, by means of a greeting. “Cell signal too.”

He kicked at the pile of cords with a Converse-clad foot.

“I haven’t tried yet,” Stevie said.

“Well, it sucks.”

The box nearest to Stevie looked to be full of . . . parts. Just parts of things. Chair legs. Some kind of metal disk. Janelle went over and had a look at it.

“What’s this?” she asked. “Do you build too?”

Nate swooped down on the box defensively.

“I go to . . . flea markets,” he said, waving his hand as if this was just something that needed to be dealt with. “I collect things. I like clocks. And stuff.”

He closed the box lid, and with it, any invitation for further comment.

Stevie enjoyed Janelle’s brisk, confident positivity and she also liked Nate’s grumpy demeanor. She had a little bit of both of these qualities, and she fit between them very comfortably.

“Tour’s starting!” Pix called up the stairs. “They’re waiting outside! Come on, you guys!”

Nate looked hesitant, but Janelle was not giving up.

“I think it’s mandatory,” she said.

Janelle, Nate, and Stevie made their way outside where a large group of people was milling around in wait. Hayes and Ellie, being second years, obviously did not have to go.

It looked like the group went from house to house collecting members, and Minerva may have been the last stop. Stevie looked at her fellow first years. She wasn’t quite sure what she had expected—if she thought the students at Ellingham would all show up wearing lab coats, or they would all look like Ellie.

In general, they looked like any assortment of people from any high school. There were a few people with glossy, perfect hair who had already clumped together through that strange alchemy that joins all people with perfect, glossy hair. There was one girl in a bright red-and-white-check vintage dress with cat-eye glasses, winged eyeliner, a red vintage purse, and a tiny red fascinator. She was the most dressed up, and her heels sank into the grass as they walked. There was another girl with green hair and a NASA T-shirt who handled the grassy terrain in her wheelchair with deftness. There was a girl with a sharply cut black bob, pale skin, and vibrant red lipstick who looked like some kind of silent movie star dressed in a formless but somehow unmistakably fashionable gray dress and thick black belt. There was a girl in a stunning floral hijab who took a lot of pictures of the campus on her phone. There was a