Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) by Kara Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

oversized bow tie—even though I’m pretty sure he’s only drawing it to make me laugh.
    Fowler has this thing where he insists on doing all of the reading himself and randomly calling on people to see who’s listening. I guess I’m on his shit list today, because I’m the first person he locks eyes with. “Ms. Dowling. What is your reading of these lines?”
    I glance down and quickly reread the passage he’s talking about. Jackpot: One of the people who had this textbook before me highlighted it.
    … do they only stand
    By ignorance? Is that their happy state,
    The proof of their obedience and their faith?
    Then, scrawled in the margins: Ignorance is blind faith. The fall = a metaphor for subverting authority.
    I clear my throat, look up so it doesn’t seem like I’m reading from notes, and say as much. The atmosphere in the room stiffens, and I wonder what it is I’ve said that’s wrong.
    A wry smile spreads across Fowler’s lips. “That is a very astute observation, Ms. Dowling. If only it were about the passage to which I was referring.”
    Brent nudges me and points to the right passage, but Fowler has already moved on to someone else. I silently curse whoever highlighted the passage, because apparently Fowler doesn’t even care about it.
    To make myself feel better, I flip to the inside cover in the book. There are a list of names scrawled beneath the THIS BOOK BELONGS TO sticker. I match the handwritten notes in Paradise Lost to one of them: Matthew Weaver.
    “Don’t feel too bad,” Brent tells me after class. “Fowler humiliates everyone at least once a semester. And I thought what you said was pretty smart.”
    I wrap my scarf around my neck and follow Brent out of the building. “Yeah, well, I didn’t even come up with it. Matthew Weaver did.”
    Brent raises an eyebrow at me. “Hah. Funny. Where’d you hear about Matt Weaver?”
    “My textbook. Why, you know him?”
    Brent opens his mouth, then closes it. After a beat, he says, “Matt Weaver went here more than thirty years ago. He disappeared during his junior year. They never found his body.”
    The textbook in my arms suddenly feels different. “How is anyone even sure he’s dead?”
    Brent shrugs. “There’s a ton of rumors about what happened to him. People like to mess around with the freshmen and say he got lost in the forest and eaten by wolves.”
    “That’s ridiculous. There are no wolves in Wheatley, right?” Brent is silent. “Right?”
    “Right.” Brent laughs. “A lot of people say Matt was tripping on acid or something and died of hypothermia. A woman who lived across from there said she saw a young guy go into the forest the night he disappeared.”
    A chill passes through me. We’re on the path that loops around the outer edge of the forest instead of zigzagging through campus. “And they never found his body?”
    “Nope,” Brent says. “Hey, about that thing I was going to ask you … There’s a party in my dorm this weekend. You should come.”
    I’m trying to picture what a party at a Massachusetts prep school entails. I picture a bunch of people in Boston College T-shirts playing beer pong and talking about elections and baseball and other crap I don’t care about.
    “I don’t know,” I say. “Can Isabella come?”
    Brent hesitates. I don’t think it’s meant to be mean. Probably he just doesn’t get why, of everyone I’ve met here, I prefer to hang out with a nerd like Isabella.
    “She’s actually really cool,” I tell him.
    “Yeah, sure she can come.” Brent looks like he’s going to say something else, but he smiles. “Especially if it gets you there.”
    Okay, so, going to a party and risking getting in trouble two weeks after getting kicked out of St. Bernadette’s probably isn’t in my best interest. But I never was good at staying away from boys who look really good in ties.
    *   *   *
    Remy practically tackles me as she opens the door to her room Saturday night.