Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute

“Celine”

Celine is unsurprised to be accepted to BEP; she is proud of her application. She is annoyed that Brad is also accepted. Neneh urges her to “stick with Brad” (86), which Celine privately considers unlikely; Brad made friends on the bus ride to the expedition. Celine is paired with a roommate named Aurora whom Celine likes. When Brad approaches Celine, however, shy Aurora flees. Celine proposes they pretend not to know one another; Brad counters he already told his roommate, Thomas, that he and Celine were cousins, in an effort to dissuade Thomas from asking Celine on a date. She protests this even as she privately agrees with Brad’s logic that she doesn’t want the distraction of a romance while trying to impress Katharine.

As she and Brad attend the introductory meeting, Celine reflects on the last time she visited Sherwood Forest: She took a trip with Giselle and her father shortly before her ninth birthday (and shortly before her father’s abandonment). A program staff member named Victor castigates Brad and Celine for their tardiness before dividing the group into two teams for an activity in which they have to find hidden booklets in the woods.