Behold, this Dreamer. Charlotte Miller

      They had followed her out into the hallway and directly to the principal’s office. There had been only one brief moment when they had been left alone in the antechamber, one brief moment, and hurriedly whispered words.

      “If we stick together, she can’t do a thing to either of us—” Phyllis Ann had said, clinging to her arm, her fingers biting into the flesh until Elise’s wrist hurt. “She doesn’t know who had the notes—if you don’t talk, and I don’t talk, she can’t prove a thing. She won’t expel both of us, knowing one of us hasn’t done anything wrong—you’ve got to stick with me. It’ll be all right; you’ll see—”

      The door had opened before Elise could say a word, but she knew that Phyllis Ann expected her to remain silent, that Phyllis Ann believed—

      Elise sat now wondering if for once in her life she might not disappoint her friend—but she knew she could not. If she told the truth, if she told that the notes had belonged to Phyllis Ann, then her best friend would be immediately expelled from the school, sent home—and Phyllis Ann would go back to Endicott County to face her father, and her father’s temper, and a hell that Elise could only imagine. But, if she remained silent—

      Elise stared out the window now, at the rain washing away the self-assurance of a world she thought she knew. If Phyllis Ann was wrong, then they both could be expelled, sent home in disgrace—but she could not let herself think about that, about going home now to face her own father should everything go wrong. Damn you—Elise thought. Damn you for putting me in this situation. Something inside of her told her that she should protect herself, that she should tell the truth, that she should make the other choice—

      The door to the principal’s office opened and Phyllis Ann walked out. The girl stopped for a moment, looking at Elise, the fingers of one hand toying at the long strand of beads that hung about her neck, a clear confidence in her eyes that her friend would never betray her—damn you, Elise thought again, staring at her as she rose to her feet. Damn you for knowing me so well.

      Eva Perry sat behind her desk, looking at Elise Whitley as the girl sat with her head lowered, her eyes staring down at the hands folded quietly in her lap—Elise looked frightened, worried, more ill-at-ease than Eva had ever before seen her in all the months she had been at the school, allowing the principal at least the brief hope that she might be able to get the truth out of her. But she knew she would not. She had known that from the moment Elise had walked into the room, had read it in her eyes, and, for once in her life, she wished she did not know girls of that age so well, for she would have liked nothing more now than to hear Elise Whitley speak the truth.

      Phyllis Ann Bennett had been the one to cheat; Eva knew that, just as surely as she also knew she could do nothing without proof. The cheat notes had been so hastily scribbled as to make the handwriting unrecognizable, and their position on the floor could have laid either girl to blame, but Eva knew, of the two girls, that Phyllis Ann would have had to have been the one using the notes. Elise was too good a student to have a need to cheat, and, besides, the girl was not even the type to think of employing such a device. But Phyllis Ann Bennett was another matter altogether. There was not much in this world the principal would put past a girl like Phyllis Ann.

      “Well, Elise?” Eva prompted, hoping against her own instincts that the girl would tell the truth and admit it had been her friend using the notes—but something in the girl’s expression dashed that hope. Elise would remain silent, or she would deny any knowledge of the cheat notes altogether as Phyllis Ann had done—but there had been an underlying nervousness behind Phyllis Ann’s denial, a poorly-concealed fear that had spoken the truth, and a twist to her words that had said she would very much have liked to have laid the blame at Elise’s feet, if she had only known how to do so. But this girl before her now would protect her friend, even at a risk to herself and her position as a student at this school, with all the blind and often misled loyalty of youth. Somehow Eva could respect that loyalty, much as she at the same time pitied the girl who held it.