Chapter 4: The Principal

I didn't sleep.

Freja didn't either.

We lay in separate bags in Tent Four with the lantern off, and every few minutes one of us shifted and the nylon rustled.

"Tell me about him," I said at last. "The real him. Not the man at the staff party."

"The real one?"

"Whichever one is lying to you."

She was quiet for a while.

"He's the man who brings me coffee in bed," she said. "He remembers my mother's birthday. He cried at my father's funeral harder than I did."

"That sounds like the staff party one."

"It's the same one, Cal. That's the whole trick. He isn't pretending most of the time."

I stared at the dark ceiling.

"He's up for Principal of the Year," I said. "The district gala is February tenth. He's giving a speech."

"Of course he is."

"Lindsay is going. She bought a dress."

Freja turned her head toward me.

"Then February tenth is where it happens," she said. "Not out here, with forty strangers who'll forget by Tuesday."

"You want to wait six weeks?"

"I want to be sure they can't wriggle out. Everyone he works with in one room. Everyone who loves him."

I thought about it.

Every part of me wanted to walk down to Tent Three right now.

But I also thought about what Dean had said about the breakdown, and the look on Freja's face when she told me.

"Okay," I said. "We gather everything. We go home. We say nothing."

"Can you do that?"

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