Doug drove Trudy and Juliet to the campus the next day in his car. They had been up bright and early with Bella, deciding what to wear on their first day of school, and he had been woken up and dragged in to give his opinion on what it was that college girls were wearing. Trudy had decided on a green dress and little shoes with the most enchanting buckles. Or so the girls all seemed to think. They were just buckles to Doug. Although Trudy did look well. And Juliet glowed in her white angora sweater and navy skirt. Both girls had bits of red and yellow ribbon--the college colors--pinned to their jackets.

Doug pointed out the important features of the university to the girls, who thrilled at them. Trudy had a little Kodachrome and insisted on taking pictures of everything she saw. "I told Mother I'd tell her about everything," Trudy said staunchly when they laughed at her.

"Well get your camera ready," Doug said, pointed out a tall, turreted building. 'That's the library."

Snap! went the camera. Then Trudy, who was doing a course in literature, groaned. "I suppose I'll be spending a lot of time there."

"And on your right, Juliet, is the history building," said Doug.

Juliet looked at it--just a plain brown-brick building to everyone else, but to her it was the doorway to a new realm of possibility. She touched the glass and smiled a secret little smile. She could already see herself there, bent over her books, reading about a war that had already been fought or a life that had already been lived. She shivered with excitement and anticipation.

"And there," Doug said, turning onto Watson Lane, "is Watson Hall--the most prestigious dorm on campus. "Students fight over who gets to live there--it has the best view of the city. Sorry girls--freshies almost never get to live there."

It was an old, old building, made of the same brown brick as the library and history building, but so covered with ivy that it looked as if it had grown up out of the ground. Juliet smiled.

"We're going to live there," she said. "I can feel it in my bones--that old place looks like home."

"Really?" Trudy squealed.

Doug laughed. "Oh, Juliet! Sure you are."

She just smiled, and when the girls got their room assignments Juliet waved hers triumphantly like a flag. She was in room 414 in Watson Hall. 'The tower room!" said the girl who handed Juliet her schedule. "Freshmen almost never get to live in Watson, much less the tower room! You're a lucky girl, Miss Kent!"

But even better was the name of her roommate! Juliet would be sharing a suite with two girls with the last name of Burns and--

"Gertrude Olivia Ford!" she cried and she and Trudy jumped up and down. "What are the odds?"

"I am going to love college," Juliet murmured as she accepted her key and crossed the campus toward her dorm. "I am going to love it!"

* * *

and oh, Allan, our room is so light and airy! It's got windows on both sides so its flooded with light all day. There's a little black heater with a chimney going up through the roof that looks like a small black terrier, so jaunty and ready to pounce. I almost expect it to wag its tail. Without thinking I reached over and gave it a pat--and burnt my hand horribly! I hardly noticed, though, I'm so excited.

Trudy claimed the bed by the door, and I chose the one by the window. None of the other girls wanted it because there is a slight draft--but I don't mind. A draft in the night is such a ghostly, mysterious thing, and I'll be warm as a bug in a rug with all the blankets I brought with me! Mother gave me one--so did Aunt Ilse--and Aunt Elizabeth a third. So let all the drafts in the world blow around me--I'll be warm. Alice said that she didn't mind drafts but that a student who'd pushed her bed up to the window fell out in the night years and years ago-- went right through the glass--and tumbled to the ground. And died, apparently! I just fixed her with a scornful look when she said that and told her it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. I may not have known Alice for more than a day, but already I can tell when she's lying--she's rather like Rhonda Perlman from home, who'll say anything to get a rise out of people.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! You don't even know who Alice is, yet.

When Trudy and I came up to our room we stood and gawked for a while--and admired the view--and gazed out of our windows and waved to people passing below. A placard on the door said, MISS JULIET KENT, MISS GERTRUDE FORD, MISS ALICE BURNS, and MISS GRETA BURNS. We only could assume that the Burns girls were sisters. It's not that common a name. They hadn't shown up yet so Trudy and I set to work cleaning the room and unpacking our things.

(Oh, Allan, darling, Trudy got so mad to see 'Gertrude' on the placard on the door. She hates her name though she loves her aunt Gertrude Oliver Grant, whom she is named for. She took a penknife and scratched through 'Gertrude' and then put up 'Trudy.' I know we will probably get in trouble for it later, but I have been itching to scratch out 'Juliet' and put up 'Julie.' No one knows me here--I could take a whole new name and people would never know the difference. Although I like my name and I don't know if I feel like a Julie. What do you think, darling? Would you like that as a nickname for me?)

The Burns girls hadn't shown up by dinnertime so Trudy and I locked the room and ventured across campus to the dining hall. The food isn't nearly as terrible as I thought it would be, but I did think of the well-stocked kitchen at New Moon with a pang. When we came back to Watson we looked up and saw a golden light shining out of our tower and people moving around up there--the Burns girls had arrived!

Trudy and I burst in the room and then stopped dead. On one of the unoccupied beds lay a girl reading, a stack of boxes untouched around her. Another girl was stripping my just-made bed by the window of its blankets and tossing them onto the floor. A record player was blaring swing music so loudly that the people from downstairs were banging on the ceiling for us to turn it off.

"What is going on here?" I said to the girl who was rearranging my things in my best imitation of the Murray tone of voice.

"Oh, hi," said the girl. "I'm Alice. Alice Burns. I'm just situating my things. And you are?" The terrible creature actually had the nerve to offer me her hand!

"I'm Juliet Kent," I said through gritted teeth. "And perhaps you haven't noticed, but someone else's things were already set up on this bed?"

"Yeah," the girl--Alice--said. "But you see, I've got to have the bed by the window."

She kept right on replacing my things with her own. Although she did pick my bed linens up off the floor and dumped them unceremoniously on the other bed. If Alice had had a valid reason for sleeping near the window, I might have listened to her. But she didn't offer one so I hardened my heart and stared at her like one would an insect. She reached down and picked up a framed snapshot of you, Allan dearest, that I'd put on my nightstand.

"Cute," she said. "But I bet I can take him from you."

She gave me a saucy smile at that. I was so red with anger that I could hear the blood zinging through my ears. Before I knew what I was doing I reached down and grabbed her wrist--I didn't hurt her--but I held it firmly enough so that she would know I meant business.

"I'm sorry, Alice," I said politely--but coldly, and Trudy says, a deadly look in my eyes. "But these are my things. This is my bed. Check-in time was at two o'clock. Trudy and I were here then and you and Greta were not, so we got first pick of the beds. I'm sorry but that's only fair. Now, if you please, I'd appreciate it if you remade my bed for me."

Alice looked at me, and it was then I noticed how beautiful she really is. She has hair like cornsilk down to her waist, and eyes the color of violets--but her mouth was twisted into an ugly sneer. She did remake my bed for me, though, and moved her own things to an empty one with a very unladylike 'harrumph.'

The other girl--the one who had been reading on the bed--watched the whole exchange with worried eyes. "I'm Greta," she whispered, looking up at me.

I could tell she was afraid of Alice. How terrible, to be afraid of your own sister!

Tthen it struck me--it seemed to strike me and Trudy at the same time. Greta's hair was the same color blond but it was bobbed--her eyes were the same color blue, behind her spectacles. "You're twins!" Trudy cried delightedly. "Identical twins, how fun! Juliet is a twin, too!"

"Really?" Greta smiled. She really does have the most bewitching, husky little voice--Alice's is shrill and she has flat vowels like a Yankee even though she and her sister are from Toronto.

"You mean there are two of you?" Alice asked meanly. "My, my!"

"Actually, I have a twin brother," I corrected her. "His name is Douglas. He teaches here."

"Oh, you're fraternal twins." Alice shook her head. "That doesn't count at all."

I honestly don't know if I can get through the semester without killing her.

But Greta is wonderful. Trudy and I took her to the canteen later for a party with the rest of the freshies. Greta is going to be studying botany--she's already signed up for Doug's Introduction to Agricultural Theory class--and is excited about it! I only signed up for it because Doug is teaching, and because I need a class to fill the science prerequisite.

We met some very lovely people: Evelyn, who plays the flute and has the most gorgeous green eyes I have ever seen, Carolina, a Yankee, from the Deep South, with the thickest accent I've ever heard, and Sabrine, from Montreal, who's studying to be an actress. Oh, and so many more, Allan, but I'm too tired to write all about that now. It's past midnight--I have my first class in eight hours--I'm so tired right now that I'm even thinking of giving Alice a chance. She does look sweet now, asleep. But I have the most unholy urge to draw a thick moustache on her upper lip with my eye pencil!

Goodnight, darling! I'm looking out at the moon--somehow when I think that the same moon is shining down on you--and New Moon--I don't feel so far away from home at all.

Love,

Your Juliet

P.S. Allan, of course I met some boys tonight at the party too, but they were nothing compared to you! I thought so little of them--romantically, anyway--that I didn't want to even mention them! Although several of them were awfully jolly--and would be awfully nice to have as friends. xoxoxoxo.