Interconnected

Chapter Two

If you had told me a year ago that I would be here, having won a full-ride academic scholarship to the most prestigious boarding school in the world, I would have told you you were crazy.

If you had also told me that I would be accompanied by my 9-year old sister, though, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. It would've made sense—I might have even joked that it was far more likely that I was accompanying her.

Rose is short, with long blonde hair and eyes the same shade of blue as mine. No one who looks at us doubts that we're related—but once people get to know us, then they wonder.

Rose is a genius, a true child prodigy. She's going to be studying at a grade 11 level at Robertsons. It's hard to believe she's already caught up to me. Surpassed me, really.

I'm far from a slouch when it comes to schoolwork, but I don't hold a candle to her. No, my thing is sports—basketball, specifically, but I will play almost anything. I'm here on an athletics scholarship. Rose is academic, of course.

Robertsons practically begged her to come—they usually only hand out two full-ride scholarships, and never to someone as young as her, but they made an exception.

I know there's another student here on an academic scholarship—the school thought it would be good for us to know beforehand that there was another girl who might understand a bit more where Rose was coming from, a poor kid amongst the world's wealthiest.

I hope she's nice—secretly, I hope she and Rose hit it off. I want to take care of my kid sister, of course, but there's only so much time I can spend hanging out around the girl's dorm. And then I'll have all of my extracurriculars—sports are still, for the most part, outside the schedule. At least, they are when you're taking as many as I am.

It's only been a couple of hours but I'm already in love with the heat. Rose and I flew in this morning, and luckily for me, she slept through most of the five-hour flight.

Now, I'm clutching her small hand in mine as I attempt to wrangle my carry-on backpack, both of our suitcases, and Rose's violin, without losing anything or running into someone.

Rose's free hand is clutching a stuffed bear, and she has her adorably pink backpack on.

"We only have approximately five minutes until the ferry loads, Ben," she said, her voice serious.

"Yeah, Rose. We'll make it, don't worry."

For some reason, she doesn't look reassured by this. "If we miss this ferry," she pipes up, "there isn't another one all week."

"I know, Rose," I sigh. "It'll be fine, okay? Look, we're almost there."

Our suitcases clatter on the wooden slats of the dock, and we merge with the stream of people heading down the walk-on ramp to the small ferry.