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“You total losers!” Townsend shouted at Ethan and Zoe, even as blood dripped down over his Branaff tie and white button-down shirt “What a couple of chuuards to protect you!”

“Oh yeah? Tell that to ebra book,” Zoe yelled back “And stay away froer and older than him, you jerk You shithead!”

For his part, Ethan was still hovering by the lockers, half of his stuff scattered on the floor And for a second or two there, he found hi he was part of the crowd — just so all of this craziness happen to someone else

Yeah, Ethan thought Maybe in my next lifetime

AGENT FINDLAY QUICKLY and efficiently hustled Ethan and Zoe away froawkers, and worse, the kids with their iPhones raised: Hello, YouTube! In a matter of seconds, he’d disappeared with therand lecture hall off the main foyer

The Branaff School had once been the Branaff Estate, until ownership had transferred to a Quaker educational trust It was said aood people who had died here, but by the disgruntled Branaff descendants who’d been evicted to make room for the private school

Ethan didn’t buy into any of that crap, but he’d always found the main lecture hall to be supercreepy — with its old-tily on everybody who happened to pass through

“You know, the president’s going to have to hear about this, Zoe The fight, your language back there,” Agent Findlay said “Not to s —”

“No doubt, so just do your job,” Zoe answered with a shrug and a frown She put a hand on top of her brother’s head “You okay, Eth?”

“I’ her off “Physically, anyway” His dignity was another question, but that was too coht now

“In that case, let’s keep this parade uys have assembly in five”

“Got it,” said Zoe with a disht?”

The uest speaker was Isabelle Morris, a senior felloith the DC International Policy Institute and also an alum of the Branaff School Unlikeforward to Ms Morris’s talk about her experiences in the Middle East Someday he hoped to work at the UN hiht?

“Can you give us a teeny-tiny second?” Zoe asked “I want to talk to my brother — alone”

“I said I’m fine It’s cool,” Ethan insisted, but his sister cut hilare

“He tellsFindlay’s skeptical look “And private conversations aren’t exactly easy to come by around here, if you knohat I mean No offense meant”

“None taken” Findlay looked down at his watch “Okay,” he said “Two ive you”

“Two ht out, I promise,” Zoe said, and closed the heavy wooden door behind him as he left

Without a word to Ethan, she cut between the rows of old desk seats and headed to the back of the room

She hopped up on the heating register under the s

Then Zoe reached inside her blue and gray uniform jacket and took out a sht away His sister had bought it in Beijing this past summer, on a trip to China with their parents