Lizzie Brown was furious with herself.
So furious that she wished she used swear words, for now would have been the perfect time for a whole slew of them.
Lizzie tromped down the driveway toward the distant wrought-iron gate that welcomed people into the Institute. It was framed by two decidedly disproportionate stone stags, whose antlers were biologically impossible—not to mention gravitationally inconvenient. (Good thing they were stone.) Her fingers, now free of Joseph’s graded papers, relaxed…and tightened…relaxed…and tightened around a new pencil in one hand and her toolbox (which was actually a lunch pail filled with clanking tools) in the other.
No one—no one—should have been able to walk onto the school grounds.
The instant Mr. McIntosh had stepped through the Sheridan Institute’s front gate, the bell in the gatehouse should have clanged. Then, lazy old Herman, the school guard, should have charged out for interception.
That was how things were supposed to have played out…
Except that they hadn’t because, as usual, Lizzie’s invention had failed.
Failed.
She might as well replace “Marie” as her middle name with that awful, inescapable word.
With her breath sawing and her body overheating beneath her navy wool (oh, how Lizzie hated the premade gowns her grandmother always sent), she stomped faster. Louder. She was near enough to the entrance to spot the gatehouse nestled beside it. The gray stone hut slouched against the brick wall surrounding the Institute grounds, and although most of it was hidden beneath a yellowing, autumn oak, Lizzie could just see its leaning chimney poking up—and no smoke chugging out.
Hope lifted in her chest. Perhaps her modifications to Mr. Sheridan’s Dead Alarm hadn’t failed! Perhaps it was simply that lazy old Herman was being lazy and old! In fact, perhaps he was away jabbering with the lazy old gardener in the greenhouse instead of monitoring the series of bells that represented to all the various areas at the Institute.
“Hey, Liz!”
No. Lizzie’s heart shot into her throat, and her feet almost tripped over her skirts. Not him.
It was bad enough that she’d run into Tristan in Professor Fitt’s class—there’d really been no avoiding him—but now this? He was following her?
“Wait up!”
Lizzie absolutely did not wait up. Or look behind her or do anything at all that might convince Tristan she was interested in pausing for him. Instead, she lunged for the gatehouse, thinking that maybe if she ran fast enough, she could duck behind the oak tree before he ever caught up—
No such luck. There was no escaping his long legs—he was more persistent than a Hungry Dead—and gravel crunched at a speed that Lizzie could not outrun.
It would be one thing if she hated him. Hate, she’d found, was one of the greatest balms against hurt feelings, aching hearts, and scraped knees. (All right, not that last one perhaps, but it was amazing how far a big dose of red-hot hatred could get a person.)
But Lizzie didn’t hate Tristan. Quite the opposite in fact.
She was madly in love with him.
Ever since the first day he’d arrived at the Sheridan Institute a year ago, having been kicked out of seven schools prior, she had been utterly smitten. And for some inexplicable reason, he’d become her friend in turn.
A close friend.
Too close, actually, and it had been almost laughable how much Lizzie’s heart had thumped every time she’d tutored Tristan in French or he’d walked her through the rules of football for the ten thousandth time (football being all the rage with the Sheridan Institute’s boys).
In fact, Lizzie’s roommate, Jennifer, had made sure to guffaw at the miserably happy predicament whenever possible.
Yet even Jennifer had stopped laughing lately because…well…because it was only a matter of weeks—days even—before Tristan Lang was kicked out of this school too. After a year of begging him to stop gambling, to stop drinking, to stop going out of his way to break all the school rules, Tristan was one strike away from expulsion.
And so, out of sheer self-preservation, Lizzie had decided a month ago (after strike number seven of the allotted eight) that she had to quash all butterflies residing in her stomach. She had to still all thrills tumbling down her spine. And she had to absolutely abolish her worries over Tristan’s well being.
He would leave, like he always did, for whatever school his family could buy off next, and Lizzie would never see him again.
End of story.
“Seriously…Liz?” Tristan panted, now beside her and glowering. The sun shone on his yellow blond hair. Sparkled on his jog-flushed cheeks. “Slow…down.”
Lizzie absolutely did not slow down. Instead, she pinned her gaze on the gravel and walked all the faster.
Until Tristan’s latched onto her arm. Until her traitorous heart shot into her throat, and Tristan hauled her a stop.
And to think, she was so close to the oak’s safety—the gatehouse was mere paces away now.
“I know you heard me,” Tristan insisted, swiveling in front of her. His forehead wrinkled with a frown, and he flopped his hair from his eyes with a lazy headshake. “I know you heard me yesterday too. And the day before. And the day before that. Am I crazy, or are you avoiding me, Liz?”
Don’t meet his eyes, don’t meet his eyes—
Lizzie met his eyes—and her gut knotted up. Tristan had the most effective woe-is-me stare to have ever graced mankind, and right now, that stare was drooping her way. “I’ve been…busy,” she murmured, heat fanning up her neck.
“Busy,” he repeated, somehow looking all the more like a beaten down puppy—even though Lizzie knew for a fact that he could turn those brown eyes on and off whenever he wished.
“My inventions aren’t working.” She dipped her head toward the toolbox, as if this somehow explained her avoidance tactics—even though her inventions never worked. “I’ve been, uh…running around trying to fix them, and now the Living Alarm isn’t working…so…if you’ll excuse me—”
“Let me help,” Tristan cut in, his voice smooth and unhurried—and all signs of mournful pleading gone. In its place was a familiar pity.
Lizzie hated that look. It was a reminder of why he’d even befriended her in the first place.
Tristan, for all his troublemaking and law-breaking, liked to feel needed. To feel strong. It was why the weaklings of the Institute flocked to his side like moths to the candle. And it was also why he hugged those weaklings close, a seeming night in shining armor…
But Lizzie knew better.
It had taken her almost a full year to realize it wasn’t interest or even affection that kept him glued to her side, but rather pity. Her lack of money, her lack of friends, and her constant, inevitable flub-ups were exactly the sort of sad failures that left Tristan feeling good about himself.
“I don’t need help,” she said quietly. She did need help, but blast if she was going to admit that.
Tristan bit his lip in a way that made all the girls swoon—including Lizzie, once upon a time. Except…that she wasn’t swooning now. In fact, the way Tristan’s lower lip slid between his teeth was only serving to irk her.
Well, thank goodness, then. Perhaps her unrequited interest was finally dimming.
She averted her eyes, twisting primly back toward the gatehouse. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class right now, Mr. Lang?”
He winced—at the formal name or the truth of the question, Lizzie couldn’t say. But it didn’t much matter either way.
Tristan Lang was no longer her problem.
So without another glance his way, Lizzie resumed her march to the gatehouse—determined to finish what she’d come out here to do.