Sunlight.

It was so bright as Jake sat looking at the lake, she almost couldn't see anything. She had a strange feeling that there was somewhere else she was supposed to be. Where she was at that moment was wrong . . . but she needed to be there.

Scout handed her a pinwheel. Its bright colors whirled in the wind and sparkled as they caught the light.

"Don't you need it?" asked Jake.

"You need it more. I have hot dogs and apple pie."

Jake didn't smile. It was sweet of Scout, but she didn't want anyone feeling sorry for her.

"Where's Hamilton?" Scout inquired.

Jake looked at the lake. "He's out there." And she knew he was, even though she couldn't see him. But at that moment, Hamilton flew up from the middle of the lake and arced over in a dive like a dolphin. Or maybe it really was a dolphin. "He knocked," Jake explained, "but I told him he couldn't come in."

"Some people don't need to knock." But this wasn't Scout – it was her mother.

"Mom!" Jake cried. "What are you doing here?"

"I shouldn't have let you come here alone, Jacqueline. I'm sorry I've been so far away."

"You're not mad at me for enrolling at a boys' school?"

"No, I know you did it because you were angry with me, because I neglected you. But that's all going to change. I love you, and from now on we'll always be together, just the two of us."

"But how?"

"I'm going to go to Rawley Girls. I'll just pretend I'm 15. We'll paint our toenails and braid our hair. From now on, I'll never miss a thing."

"Oh, Mom! Mom, I love you!" Jake threw her arms around her mother.

"I want to come in, Jacqueline. Into your world."

"Come in. You don't have to knock." And yet she could hear the knocking, and it wouldn't stop. "Mom!"

"Jacqueline – "

"Jake!" This was Hamilton's voice, filtered through the door of Jake's room and the door of unconsciousness.

Jake's eyes flew open and a horrible feeling gripped her chest. She sat up, and the dream disappeared as she looked at the bedside clock. 7:45. The first exam was at 8:00.

"Oh, God, no!" she cried. "Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!"

Hamilton was still knocking on the door. Jake tossed aside the pillow she was hugging and jumped out of bed to unlock the door and open it.

"What took you so long?" Hamilton grumbled as he stormed in and closed the door with his foot. He held a styrofoam cup in one hand and something wrapped in a napkin in the other, both of which he set down on the dresser. Only then did he notice that Jake wore nothing but a T-shirt and boxers. And she had serious bed hair. "Oh, God. Tell me you didn't oversleep!"

"Fine, then tell me it's not really 7:45." She rubbed her eyes.

"Jake, how could you oversleep the morning of finals?!"

"Gee, I don't know. Maybe if someone hadn't kept me up playing 'Things We Can Do to Jake When She Doesn't Have a Shirt On,' I could've gone to sleep at a decent hour."

Too rushed to be self-conscious, Jake pulled off her shirt and walked half-naked to her dresser. Hamilton smiled at the memory of last night and instinctively moved closer to her, but she shot him a look that warned him to back off. Hamilton crossed his arms to keep his hands to himself.

"Well, at least you got to sleep in," he said wryly. All this got from Jake was another dirty look.

Not even bothering with a bra, Jake picked up her corset, wrapped it around her chest and pulled tight to overlap the velcro. Hamilton still winced every time he saw her strap herself in, but he was getting used to it.

"Relax," he said. "We'll get there in time."

Jake grabbed a shirt from the closet. "So, not that I'm not grateful you showed up, but why are you here?"

"I stopped by the dining hall to get some coffee. And you'll never guess what they had."

"What?"

"Scones."

Jake stopped buttoning her shirt and looked at him. They both smiled.

Hamilton picked up the crumbly goodies he had carefully wrapped up for her. "They always have special treats for finals day. Usually it's blueberry muffins, but I guess this year they got trendy."

Jake grabbed a pair of slacks and stepped into them, longing for summer session when they didn't have to worry about a dress code. She would've given anything to slide into a crumpled pair of jeans. She pulled on a thick wool sweater, then saw herself in the mirror and sighed. "I'm a mess."

"No, you're not."

She grabbed a tube of toothpaste off the dresser and squeezed a dab on her finger and sucked on it. Hamilton turned her around to face him. He licked his palms and ran his hands over her hair, smoothing it back and down. She smiled at him, and he leaned into her lips.

"No, Hamilton, we don't have time."

"One kiss. Please, just one."

She gave in. She never really had a chance. But when was one kiss ever enough? One melted into two, two boiled over into three, three desperately sought out four, and four completely surrendered to five. Jake never would have let go had Hamilton not pulled away.

"Exams," he said breathlessly, trying to be the strong one.

"Right."

When they stepped outside into the chilled winter air, a fine layer of white covered the ground and frosted the trees. Jake stopped and looked all around, her jaw dropping as she took in the beauty of it all.

"Hamilton! It snowed!"

She was so entranced, Hamilton had to grab her arm and pull her after him. They took off toward the main classroom building across the empty quad.

"Yeah, it started last night when I was walking home. I almost called you, actually I almost went back to your room so we could watch the first Rawley snowfall together. But I knew you wanted to study."

"What about you?" Jake asked. "Did you finish reading Tess?"

"Nope. I got home and went straight to sleep. Almost."

"Almost?"

"Well, I was thinking about you, so I did one thing before I went to bed . . ."

"You did?"

"I wrapped your Christmas present."

Jake grinned. He got her on that one. "So where is it?"

"I'll give it to you tomorrow, before you leave for the airport." As they rushed through the snow, Hamilton broke off a chunk of scone and handed it to Jake.

"So you didn't do any reading last night?" she asked. "Aren't you worried about English?"

"It'll be a breeze. Finn's being nice, throwing in some short answer questions along with the essays."

"Somebody's got to introduce that guy to the concept of multiple choice."

"Finn? Multiple choice? No way. He'd never give us the opportunity to guess. That wouldn't require enough deep thinking."

"I was totally psyched when I heard the history final was all true-or-false, until I found out we had to explain our answers. I only got halfway through The Federalist Papers, and –"

"Don't worry about The Federalist Papers. Mr. Tibbets is obsessed with war. As far as he's concerned, there's the Revolution, 1812, and the Civil War, and not much in between."

"But I only went through my study questions once."

"OK, true or false: The Boston Massacre incited the Revolutionary War."

"Um . . . yikes. I know it pissed a lot of people off, so . . . true?"

"Wrong! It's false. The massacre was mainly colonist propaganda spread after the war was inevitable." He handed her another piece of scone.

Jake looked perplexed as she chewed. "That wasn't in the study questions."

"No. But I happen to know that Mr. Tibbets uses that question on the final every year."

Jake looked at Hamilton as it finally dawned on her the advantage that he had, being so familiar with the curriculum.

"You're going to ace every exam, aren't you?" she asked.

A guilty grin spread over Hamilton's face. "I'll tell you this much; I never so much as touched The Federalist Papers. Or the study questions."

They had already reached the steps of the classroom building, but instead of going up, Jake bent down to scoop up a handful of snow. "You know what, Fleming? I think it's time for the first snowball of the year."

And with that, she smashed the snow against his head.

Finn watched his students hunched over their exams. He met another gaze from Will, who was the first one done, of course, and had already been sitting twiddling his thumbs for five minutes. Finn continued to survey the room, and his eyes rested on Hamilton, who was still scribbling away.

Finn looked up at the clock. It was already two minutes past four. He knew how much the other teachers, especially the tweedy old-school Rawley types, would disapprove if they knew that he gave his students extra time. But he really wanted to read everything they had to say, and that made it hard to cut them off.

"OK, gentlemen, that's it! Pencils down, essay books closed. Congratulations, you have completed fall semester at Rawley Academy. Have a great holiday, everybody. And before you go, don't forget to pick up a copy of your winter break reading assignments."

The students collectively groaned.

"Just kidding," Finn said with a crooked grin.

As Hamilton finally closed his booklet, Jake smiled knowingly. The shell-shocked look on his face was adorable. She leaned over and whispered, "Not so easy, huh?"

Hamilton scowled. "I hate short answer questions. They require you to know details. At least with essay questions you can bullshit if you haven't finished the book."

The other students handed in their exams and began filing out. Will and Scout lingered at Finn's desk.

"Mr. Krudski, you excited to go back to the nest for break?" Finn probed.

"About as excited as my dad is to have me. He's already turned my room into a museum for his foreign beer can collection."

"You know, Will, Christmas can be a healing time for family," Finn said.

Jake walked up followed by Hamilton, who took this opportunity to punch Will in the arm. Finn raised his eyebrows and started to say something, but Will just grinned good-naturedly and rubbed the spot.

"What about you, Finn?" Will asked. "You seeing family?"

"No, for some of us it really is too late. But that's why we've got Moosehead. I'll be on the slopes."

"Skiing for me, too," said Scout. "The Calhouns are doing Christmas in Aspen this year."

"What about you, Jake?"

"Paris. That's where my mom's show is right now. Which reminds me, she left me a message, so I'd better go call her. You guys have a great break." She gave Will and Scout each a pinch on the back of the neck.

"Ow!" they cried in unison.

Jake waved to Finn and took off. Hamilton started to protest, and Jake turned back, remembering. "I'll meet you there!" she called as she disappeared into the hallway.

"Gearing up for your last night together?" Will asked.

"Not that it's any of your business," Hamilton snapped.

"Just because we're jealous doesn't mean we're not curious."

Finn knew where this was going. "Gentlemen, if you're going to talk shop, please don't do it in here. I shouldn't even know about any of this."

Hamilton looked at Finn, and a tiny smile lifted his lips. "Thanks, Finn. I really mean it. Thanks to you, I've had the best semester of my life." He held out his hand, and Finn shook it. "I hope you have a fantastic Christmas, Finn."

"You, too, Hamilton."

"Mom, it's me," Jake said into her cell phone.

"Jacqueline, sweetie. -- No, you can't do my lips now, I'm talking to my daughter."

"Huh? What are you doing?"

"Sorry, honey, I'm in the make-up chair."

"OK. I got your message. What's up?"

"Oh, sweetie, I'm afraid we might have to postpone the whole Christmas thing."

"Mom, you can't postpone Christmas. It kind of is when it is."

"I know, but I'm just not going to have as much time to spend with you as I'd hoped. We had to reschedule two performances when I made the huge mistake of telling my dimwitted co-star about my cure for jet lag, and she got it backwards and took two melatonin and four Valium, all of which, mind you, she washed down with champagne. What a moron! They found her passed out in the first class lounge." Suddenly Monica shouted, "Would you stop with the blush! You're making me look like a French whore!"

Jake could hear the voice of a rather perturbed make-up artist reply, "I'm trying to make you look twenty-five, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the age of your character."

"Oh, yeah, you're right," Monica conceded. "OK, blush me." She turned her attention back to the phone. "Anyway, Jacqueline, I hate to make you fly all the way to Paris when I only get one day off. I mean, you're welcome to come hang out at the hotel, do some shopping, see the show, but wouldn't you rather have a real Christmas with your cousins in Palm Springs?"

Jake rolled her eyes. "Yeaaah… right. Because nothing says 'Christmas' like palm trees and golf."

Monica wasn't really listening. "Fine, fine," she said to the make-up artist. "OK, honey, they have to do my lips now. You talk for a minute. How's school?"

"Yeah, speaking of school, Mom, I've got to get to class. Let me think about this, and I'll call you later."

"OK, honey. I love you!"

"Yeah. Me too."