You'd never been to a school like this before. Back in England, the classrooms were drafty, the desks scarred with decades of doodles. Here, everything smelled like fresh paint and lemons. The floors gleamed. The windows stretched from ceiling to floor, flooding the room with September light.

The teacher at the front, a woman with a sharp bob and paint-stained cardigan, looked up from her clipboard and smiled.

That's when you noticed the girl already sitting there.

She had long, dark hair woven into a single thick braid that fell over her shoulder. Freckles dusted her nose and cheeks like someone had flicked a paintbrush across her skin. She wasn't looking at you. She was staring out the window, a ladybug crawling across the back of her hand, and she was letting it.

The girl by the window finally turned her head. Her eyes met yours, and the ladybug lifted off her hand, fluttering up toward the ceiling.