THE NEXT EVENING

Amy smiled at the feeling of deja vu, as she sat with Megan in Wendy's and Lucy's room, hearing the tapping at the door. Once again, Lucy called, "Come in."

Tasha, Holly's roommate, peeked in through the doorway, the uncertain look on her face identical to Holly's the previous night.

Wendy invited her in with a friendly wave. "Come in, Tasha. Have you met Amy and Megan?"

Tasha's eyes grew wide. "I haven't met them, no. I know who they are, of course." She cautiously came forward to shake Amy's and Megan's offered hands, and took a seat, looking very puzzled.

Lucy took it upon herself to start the discussion. "I want you to know, first thing, that this isn't about you, or anything you've done. But we're in a situation where we want to try shifting some roommate assignments around. This kind of thing is always a little tricky, because even in just two weeks, some roommates have developed a strong bond already, and they'd be upset if they had to change partners. Now, whatever you say won't go beyond this room. What we need to know is whether you'd consider rooming with someone else."

Tasha looked very taken aback. Amy could read in her face that, despite Lucy's assurance, Tasha's immediate thought was that she must have made Holly mad somehow. Amy decided she needed to clarify. "The reason this is coming up is that we want Holly to start working on a special project, with some individualized instruction, and we'd like her to room with a couple of Second Year girls. Those girls and Holly already know we're trying to work this out, and it's fine with them. If you say no, none of them will find out the arrangement fell through because of anything you said. We'll tell them the dean didn't approve it, which is sort of true, because he won't approve any move that isn't okay with everybody. So I just want you to understand, you can decide either way and it won't make Holly mad at you. Okay?" She smiled at Tasha encouragingly.

Tasha sat back with a sigh of relief, and a small smile. "I wouldn't mind rooming with someone else. I really like Holly a lot, and she is so sweet, and fun to talk to, but... to tell you the truth, she scares me a little."

Amy blinked in surprise. "Holly scares you?" Before Tasha said another word, Amy's feeling of surprise dissolved. I know why, she told herself. I know exactly.

Tasha responded, "Well, of course, the last few nights we've started practicing hanging, in our room. And when I watch her, I just think, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do what she's doing? I've tried to imitate it, but as soon as I start, then I can't breathe, and everything gets out of whack, and I try to get the rhythm back, like our teachers have been showing us, but it's just totally gone. Holly's tried to help, and I do feel like I'm getting somewhere, but... Anyway, I do feel better about it in class, in the gym, because I can see everybody else is kind of like me. But then as soon as I watch Holly again up close, and then I have to hang with her watching me..."

Amy smiled at her. "You don't need to explain. I know all about it."

Tasha needed to finish her thought. "I just feel so... inadequate. I've started worrying I don't have what it takes, and I'm having a hard time concentrating on studying..."

Amy waved her arms, again smiling. "Okay, stop, stop." She sat forward. "Tasha, there's no reason to think you're inadequate. You're just... well, you may be looking to the wrong person for a standard."

Tasha smiled, as if Amy had confirmed what she had been hoping. "There is something special about her, isn't there?"

Amy nodded. "We think so, anyway. If there is, we want to draw it out, help her work with it. Oh, I was going to tell you, she said she likes you a lot too. I know you two haven't had sex yet, but it's not anything about you."

Tasha laughed. "Oh, I do know that much. We did kiss once, when we got back to the room after our first hanging class and were really excited, but... well, I get a feeling she's a little too attached to her sister to be ready to sleep with somebody else yet." Tasha shook her head in wonder. "She's already filled up one entire notebook with that diary she's keeping."

Wendy joined in the discussion. "What we need to figure out now is who you might room with. I've been..."

Tasha's eyes shot wide open. "Oh! Could I get in with Samantha and Caryn? I've been eating lunch with them a lot. I think they'd be willing. Or then there's that one room that already has three. I like Emily, and I've been getting a feeling her other roommates are kind of closer to each other than they are to her."

Wendy beamed at her. "Thank you! That saves us a lot of trouble, if one of those matchups works out. Okay, we know Holly is in the library right now. We'll try to get back to you later this evening, but if she gets back to the room before you hear from us, don't say anything to her yet, okay? This still isn't a done deal yet."

"Okay." Tasha stood and gave them all a cheery wave as she left.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON

Amy sat, a little nervously, in one of the chairs in the dean's outer office, holding the yearbook, trying to make sure she had the outline in her head of what she wanted to say. She had earned a lot of concessions from the dean recently, but this, she suspected, would be a lot harder than those.

There was no doubt in Amy's mind about the need for what she would be proposing. Holly and Haley were going to be outstanding Hanging Girls, no matter what. But if their training were handled the right way, Amy was convinced, these two girls were going to be the most important thing ever to happen to the Academy. And Amy loved the Academy with all her heart.

At present, Megan was with Melissa, Jana, and Holly in their room, supervising their practice, and at this moment likely working with Jana on a new idea Jana had mentioned for bound-feet hanging. Amy had been with them for two hours this morning, until the time of her requested appointment with the dean had approached. Holly had done a short practice session in the noose. Melissa's and Jana's eyes had nearly popped out of their heads. Amy could read it all on Melissa's face: Two weeks, this girl has been here two weeks, and I've been here a year, and I can't even do what she's doing!

Amy had also seen in Melissa's eyes: I will do it. I'll learn to do anything she can do.

Amy jumped slightly as Tina, the dean's secretary, answered the buzz on her intercom, looked at Amy and told her she could go in.

In the dean's office, Amy took a seat as the dean smiled at her across his desk, leaning back in his chair, holding a pen he had probably been using before she came in. She returned the smile. "Thank you for seeing me, Sir. I was just now thinking about my first time in here, more than three years ago."

The dean chuckled, rolling the pen between his fingers. "Little did I know, right?"

Amy felt her face coloring a little. "Well, you knew I had the potential to make it. I'm really grateful you did."

The dean gave her an ironic smile. "But enough about me. I know that look. You have a grand idea you want approval for." He had given the book she was holding a passing glance, but seemed to know she was not simply here to show him something.

Amy tried hard not to react. The dean had an ability to read people that was very much like a Hanging Girl's. Amy wondered where he had come by it, but was determined not to let it fluster her. "Sir, you can probably also tell that I wouldn't be here if I didn't think you'd end up liking it, once you hear it all the way through."

The dean raised an eyebrow. "So my first instinct will be to say no?"

Amy sighed. "Yes, Sir. But I know you'll listen. You always do."

"Ah." He smiled again. "Flattery." He sat up straighter, closing his fingers around the pen. "Okay. Listening."

Amy took a deep breath. "I want to start just by reporting that the roommate switch has gone smoothly. Holly has already moved her things to Melissa's and Jana's room, Emily has moved in with Tasha, and everybody's happy all around."

The dean frowned slightly. "And now I'm getting the feeling that was just the first step in an agenda. I hadn't realized that."

Amy waved the suggestion off. "Oh, no, Sir, it's not like that. Yes, I'm going to ask for some things, but it's not related to switching roommates. I want to talk about some things that hadn't even occurred to me when we started thinking about trying to change room assignments."

The dean raised the eyebrow again, and gestured with the pen. "Proceed."

Amy had tentatively worked out her opening. "Well, to begin with, I'm sure Melissa and Jana will be able to handle the extra work without it disrupting their other studies. We'll never ask for them to be taken out of class or excused from any assignments."

The dean gave her a deeper frown. "But why shouldn't that apply to Holly too?"

Damn him, Amy thought. He's already arguing with a point I haven't even made yet. She decided to try a little humor. With a smile, she said in an I'm-giving-you-a-little-dig voice, "Listening."

He laughed. "Okay. Doing so."

She got back on track. "Sir, what I hope you'll approve is taking Holly altogether out of the First Year class, and letting her start as a new First Year student with the entering class next Fall."

The dean suddenly let his reclining chair come forward with a thump. With an astonished expression, he said, "You were right. Immediately the word 'no' comes to mind."

"Yes, Sir. And remember the part about how I think you'll end up liking this?"

Reluctantly, he leaned back again. "Go on... Oh!!" His eyes shot open. "Does this relate to her sister somehow?"

Amy heaved a tentative sigh of relief. Since he'd now made the connection himself, this might make the rest of it easier. "Very much so, Sir. Of course, I've never met Haley, but I've talked with Holly enough to know that the two of them have sort of a... pipeline into each other's heads. Now, Holly has some amazing abilities, but she is still just an entering student, and she has so much left to learn, and of course her sister will be in that same state when she gets here, just a very talented neophyte. They are both excellent students, and they can succeed anywhere, but in the context of the Academy, they'll learn the most when they're... well, literally on the same page, studying together. It will just be such a huge benefit for both of them to be in the same class." That was an understatement. Amy could tell that Holly and Haley were, in a strong sense, two halves of a single person, united by their love of hanging. Holly was unable, now that she was at the Academy, to let the tiniest detail of her life go by without recording it, in her diary, for delayed transmission to Haley. Ordinary schoolwork, through high school, had been so easy for them that it was only a remote distraction from their concentration on hanging, but once they were both here, at the very center of the art and science of hanging, it was crucial that they become one, in their studies. Yes, Amy knew, each of them could be an outstanding Academy student by herself. But the Academy may never before have seen students of their unique potential, and that potential might never be fully realized if they were forced into unsynchronized studies.

"Amy, we're talking about waiting for a student who hasn't been admitted yet -- who hasn't even applied for admission -- for whom we don't have any high school grades because she hasn't sent a transcript, which wouldn't include senior grades anyway because they don't even exist yet. You're asking me to assume she's going to be admitted to an institution whose selectivity you very well know."

"Yes, Sir, but you know Holly. You know she was a straight-A student in high school, and I'm sure she wowed you in the interview. When she left this room, did you seriously have any doubts you were going to admit her?"

The dean was quiet for a moment. He looked at the ceiling, suddenly reminiscent. "You know... well, you wouldn't know... when I did the choking test in her interview, she said right afterward that she'd noticed I'd only cut off her air, not her arterial flow, and that I was probably really looking for her emotional reaction to asphyxia rather than her physical one. Of course, I know what I'm doing, but I never had an applicant sit there and explain it to me before."

Amy nodded, as if she'd been there. And she recalled her own interview, in which she'd come to the same conclusion, for a different reason, though she hadn't said anything about it at the time. "Yes, Sir. And her sister is exactly the same. Straight A's and all that. You know, I can't even get Holly to say which one of them is better at hanging. All Holly ever says is that they both feel challenged to keep up with the other."

The dean still wore a skeptical look. "Okay, accepting, for now, that Haley has a good chance of being admitted... I'm sure you're right about it benefitting them, to be in the same class. I'm waiting to hear how it would benefit the Academy. All I can see is that I'll need to house, feed and entertain a student for an entire year without her getting any closer to graduating."

"Well, Sir, right now one thing Holly is really excited about is that she wants Haley and herself to take over for Megan and me, doing the performances at the parties. I can see Holly has the potential for that, more than any student I've ever seen other than Megan, and Holly swears to me she and Haley can do it." She laughed. "Oh, it would have kind of an extra dimension that Megan and I don't have. I brought this to show you."

Amy opened the book she was holding to the page she had marked, turned the book towards the dean and set it on his desk in front of him.

Amy had found it in the library, in a collection of yearbooks from the two dozen local high schools from which most of the Academy's students had graduated. She had sought it out after her first talk with Holly. "You already know Holly was in the school glee club. Haley was too. Here's the group picture."

In the photograph, a dozen girls and a couple of boys beamed at the camera. At the left end of the second row, two redhaired girls sat beside each other, holding hands, their faces wearing sunburst grins. The caption below the picture said, not entirely helpfully, "Second row: H. Maitland, H. Maitland, R. Sellers..."

Amy smiled at the dean. "You know Holly, of course, Sir. Which one is she?"

The dean sat with his chin resting on the knuckles of one closed hand. Amy could see the small movements of his eyes as they looked back and forth between the two girls. "I don't understand. I know they aren't twins. They aren't even the same age."

"No, Sir, but they managed to get an awful lot of the same genes. It does happen."

The dean murmured, "So it seems."

Amy knew that the importance of showing the dean this picture went far beyond suggesting that the Academy could have two seemingly identical twins performing Amy/Megan shows at parties. She needed to be able to persuade the dean to assume that any physical ability that Holly possessed relative to hanging was shared with Haley. The picture went a long way towards making the case for that.

"And, Sir..." Amy rushed ahead as the dean opened his mouth to speak, "Before you ask what all this has to do with them needing to be in the same class, think about the fact that, normally, starting from the time Haley gets here, if Holly were starting her Second Year then, she and Holly would have two, maybe two and a half years together before Holly's hanging. They'd have to train for months before they could even start doing the party shows, so let's say at most two years of parties, assuming Holly hangs a few months after she graduates. But think about the benefit to the Academy if they could do party performances -- followed, of course, by auctioning off their services, like you do with Megan and me -- for an entire additional year. Three years of shows, and auctions, instead of two."

Amy knew it was obviously time, for the moment, to stop talking. She looked at the dean, who sat looking back at her, silent himself for at least twenty seconds before he finally softly let out a long, drawn out, "Ohhhhhh."

Once she saw he understood exactly what she was saying, she went on, "There's one more part to the idea."

The dean, leaning his head on his upraised hand, choked back a laugh, and twirled the pen in a go-ahead gesture.

Amy launched into Point 2, which she suspected might be just as hard to sell as Point 1, though she did feel she had momentum on her side. "I was wondering if you might consider... well, it's something the big universities do. An early admission, for Haley. Right after she finishes high school -- I don't know the date, but end of May, early June, somewhere in there. As soon as Haley gets her final grades in to you. And does an interview, of course. I'd never ask you to think about skipping that. So she could come here, three months early, before she and Holly both start First Year classes in fall."

The dean was shaking his head slightly, but Amy sensed that it implied only resistance, not a final negation. "What would be the purpose of having her here three months before classes start?"

"Sir, it's unavoidable that Holly is going to be learning a lot of new things that Haley isn't seeing, even outside of the First Year structure, during the next eight or nine months. In fact, of course, that's what Megan and I will be trying for -- to teach her as much as we can while we're here. We'll do a lot to get her started in the right direction, and she's going to be busy, even after Megan and I are gone. We'll be leaving her assignments, and a timeline that tells her what we want her to be able to do at various stages in her development. When Haley gets here, Holly will need some time to get her caught up. I think she can teach Haley faster than she learned it herself -- that's how strong their connection is. But I think it would take Holly at least three months, full time, to pass along to Haley what she's learned, and they'd need to be free from classes because..." Amy smiled. "Well, sir, classes and assignments here do take up a lot of our time."

Frowning, the dean said, "We don't have any precedent for admitting students early..."

Amy was ready for that, in case, as appeared to be the case, a similar situation along those lines had slipped his mind. "Remember, Sir, I was here a whole month before my classes got started."

The dean nodded. "Yes, but we admitted you at the normal time."

"Yes, Sir. That's your own rule, though. You could break it if you wanted to."

"And I would want to because...?"

"Earlier start on parties."

The dean, his head still resting on his hand, smiled. "I should have realized you'd given this a little thought."

He was silent for a minute, and Amy knew she needed to let a little mulling go on. She had given him every argument she could think of.

At last the dean sat forward again, but again rested his head against his hand, his elbow planted on his desk. With his other hand he traced aimless circles on the desk with the inkless end of the pen. "Have you discussed any of this with Holly? Her dropping her classes in favor of special training while waiting for her sister, who would then get here early?"

"Oh, no, Sir! I'd never get her hopes up like that. Not before you approved it. I don't even know for sure that she'll go for it, but I really believe she will."

He sat back once more, his eyes focused on the ceiling. Amy wondered if he was seeing dollar signs up there. Amy hoped they added up to the right sum.

He sat forward once more, and Amy searched his eyes for any sign of what he was thinking. Thumbs up or thumbs down. A yes or a no. That was all she needed to see.

Her heart sank as he said, "There's really one flaw in all of this."

Whatever it was, she vowed to find a way around it. "Sir?"

"The advantage to the Academy is all based on Holly and Haley being able to do the sort of performances you and Megan have been doing for the last two years."

Amy nodded as emphatically as she could. "Yes, Sir! Megan and I have watched Holly several times now. We're both positive she can learn to do our kind of hanging show, and she really wants to very much."

The dean tapped the end of the pen on his desk. "But, assuming for the moment I do allow Haley to come here as soon as she finishes high school, then, at that point, we're talking about these two relatively inexperienced girls organizing such a performance on their own, without any direct help from the only two students who have ever done it, and without Haley ever having even seen it, since both you and Megan anticipate being gone before then. You've said Holly can teach it to Haley, but this still seems to be a very weak point in the proposal. The whole plan hinges on these two girls being able to coordinate, a year from now, without your assistance, a performance of which we can't yet know they are capable."

Somehow the word "year" clicked in Amy's head. It occurred to her that Holly and Haley, both of them, had made a sacrifice almost beyond Amy's imagining in order to realize their own Academy dreams -- they had agreed to separate from each other, each of them apart from the other half of herself, for a full year. A year. Every time Holly mentioned Haley, Amy could read in her face the pain of that separation. But they did it because they loved hanging that much, and wanted so badly what only the Academy could give them.

Nobody, Amy told herself, loves the Academy more than I do. Not even Holly. If they can make such a sacrifice, I can too.

She opened her mouth, and blurted out before second thoughts could stop her, "Sir, I'll stay and help them."

The pen dropped out of the dean's hand to clatter on the desk. His jaw dropped open. "What?"

"Sir, I can... I could stay for a while after Haley gets here, and train them both together." As the offer hung in the air, Amy became more convinced by the second that it was necessary, and that it was right.

In a voice of wonder, the dean asked, "How long are you proposing staying?"

Amy sat up as straight as she could, her hands folded in her lap. Projecting certainty. "Until Holly and Haley can prove to you that they're capable of doing a show. I don't think that requires getting all the way to actually doing one. I think that, at some point in their training, it will be obvious that they are up to the job."

"Amy..." He picked up the pen again, and slipped it into his pocket. "I know what your own hanging means to you. Do you really feel this strongly about this project, that you'd put your hanging off for... well, an entire year?"

Amy nodded vigorously. "Yes, Sir. Sir, you have to understand -- the Academy means everything to me. Everything that has ever been important to me, the Academy has made it available to me, has put it there within my reach. Before I hang, before I do this one last big thing for myself, I want to do one last big thing for the Academy. And I can't leave it half-done."

The dean looked at her for what seemed to Amy a full minute, then nodded. "If Holly agrees, I'll put the appropriate paperwork in her file, changing her status to..." he frowned in thought. "What should I call her? An 'unclassified student.' Will you tell me her decision by the end of the day?"

"Yes, Sir. I'll get right on that." I've got, she reminded herself, a lot to do in the next year.

Holly somehow managed to jump up and down despite having her arms wrapped tightly around Amy, almost bouncing Amy herself on the floor. "Yes!! Yes!! Yes!! Thank you, Amy! Oh! I've got to go write this down!" Instantly she was out the door, pounding down the hallway headed towards her new room shared with Melissa and Jana. The prospect, for Holly, of spending an additional year with Haley, and being her study partner in shared classes had, as Amy had expected, far outweighed the downside of delaying her graduation for a year.

Amy looked at the open door Holly had left behind. She closed it, and heard Megan laughing from the bed. "Talk about making somebody's day."

Amy turned towards her and smiled. "Want to work on the next set of lesson plans for our girls?"

"Sure." Megan pulled a notebook down from the shelf and took out a pen.