envelope, and handed it to Mistaya. “You are suspended from Carrington effective immediately, Misty. The details of the reasons for this are contained in this letter. Read it over. A copy has been sent to your parents. I have tried calling them, but cannot reach them at the home number. I suppose they are traveling again. I did reach a Mr. Miles Bennett, your father’s attorney, and he promised that he would try to get word to them. But it might be better coming from you. You don’t have to leave until the end of next week, when classes are finished and the Christmas break begins.”
“My parents …,” Mistaya started to say, then forgot the rest and went silent. Suspended? For making Rhonda Masterson see a dragon? This was ridiculous!
“I want you to go home and think about this conversation,” Harriet Appleton continued, refolding her hands on top of the file. “If you can persuade yourself to become a student of the sort that Carrington expects you to be and if you can convince me that you can be one of those students, I will consider reinstating you.” She paused. “Otherwise, I am afraid you will need to find another school. I’m sorry, Misty. I truly am.”
Mistaya stood up, still in shock. “I understand,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s fair.”
“I am certain you don’t,” Miss Appleton agreed. “Go home and think about it. After you’ve done so, maybe you will be of a different mind. I certainly hope so. I would hate to lose you as a student at this school.”
Mistaya turned and walked from the room. All she could think about was how angry her father was going to be.
She stalked out of the building into the midmorning cold, her frustration building incrementally as she replayed the particulars of her meeting with the headmistress and the events leading up to it. She didn’t care all that much about the suspension. In truth, though she would never admit it aloud, she wouldn’t care if she were expelled altogether. She hated Carrington and she hated the other students and she hated this entire world. It was her father’s and not hers, but he had forced her to come to it, anyway. Talk about misguided thinking!
Blah, blah, blah. Her father. Sometimes he was just too thick. She didn’t need anything other than what she had in Landover, and she certainly didn’t need the hassle of living in a world where there was never anything new or interesting happening. She hated the smells, the tastes, and much of the look of it. She hated her classes, which were dull and uninformative. Who chose the subjects they studied there, anyway? Was there a single class on connecting with nature in a meaningful way? Any material on the traits and classification of mythical creatures? Was there any book that smiled on Monarchy as a form of government and suggested there might be more to it than beheadings and adultery?
Still, none of this would be happening, she knew, if she had been able to control herself. It didn’t help that Rhonda Masterson had a building on campus named for her family and that she would be a fourth-generation alumna when she graduated. Carrington valued loyalty and wealth, and the Mastersons had both. She, on the other hand, had neither. At least, not in this world. She was a Princess, but only in Landover, a place no one here even knew about. She had no standing of the sort that Rhonda Masterson had. She was just someone to be brushed aside.
She made up her mind in that instant. If they wanted her to leave, fine, she would leave. But she wasn’t waiting until the end of next week to leave; she was leaving right now. She was going home where she belonged.
She changed directions abruptly, breaking off her trek across campus to her English literature class, and instead turned toward her dorm. A few other students passed by on their way to class, casting furtive glances, but none of them spoke. She stalked on, tightening her determination even in the face of what she knew would be waiting for her when she got home. She could already hear her father. But what could he do about it? She was suspended and she had been told to go home and that was what she was doing. He would have to live with it.
There was no one in her dorm room when she opened the door. Her roommate, Becky, had gone home for the weekend. A tall, athletic girl with a scholarship in basketball, she was always running home to her family in New York. Which was fine. Mistaya liked Becky. She didn’t pretend to be anything she wasn’t, and she wasn’t afraid to let you know how she felt. Becky had been involved in every mishap Mistaya had organized since her arrival, a full accomplice in all her efforts. But Becky never got in trouble for it. She knew how to be a part of things without standing out. She knew how to blend in—something Mistaya knew she had yet to learn.
She sighed. Miss Appleton had pointed to Becky with pride as an example she would do well to emulate—a clear demonstration that the woman didn’t have a clue about Becky’s subversive side.
Mistaya began packing her clothes and her books and her personal effects, and then quit right in the middle of her efforts. Everything she cared about was back in Landover, not here. She left it all where it was and called a cab. While she was waiting, she wrote Becky a short
