Текст книги "Rhymes with Witches"

Автор книги: Lauren Myracle

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

She glanced at me skeptically.

“Plus, now you know to be on the lookout, so she wouldn’t be able to steal from you even if she tried.” I lifted my chin. “So you pretty much owe me.”

She pulled up in front of my house. She gazed out the driver’s side window.

“Why does she hate me so much?” she asked.

“What? She doesn’t hate you. She just …” A prickle of heat spread on my neck. “She doesn’t hate you.”

“You don’t have to lie. Anyway, I hate her, too, so we’re even.”

I fidgeted. They were hardly even.

“When you hate someone, you think about her all the time,” Camilla said. She traced a faint white line of bird shit on the other side of the window pane. “You become obsessed.”

Oh, just shut up, I thought. But what I said was, “Well… that’s all over, because like I said, I’m going to make it stop. It’s all going to stop.”

She turned to face me.

“So do you promise you won’t go tattling to the whole school?” I said. “Not that anyone would believe you.”

An opaque look appeared in her eyes, then slid away. She released her breath in a slow letting go. “I won’t go tattling.”

I felt a tremendous gush of relief. Gratitude, even, despite the fact that she was the one who should feel grateful to me.

That night I dreamed of a mouthless kitten. As in, no mouth where the mouth should be. Just a knob of fur. I reached to pet it—poor little thing—and a mouth yawned into being with a terrific snap. It latched onto my hand with tiny sharp teeth, and I couldn’t shake it off. Its body was warm and pulpy.

I awoke with a gasp and knew I had to go back. I didn’t want to, more than anything I didn’t want to, but I knew I had no choice. I had to return to Lurl’s office and straighten everything up, and hopefully Lurl wouldn’t notice that Camilla’s things were missing, at least not right off the bat. Then I would leave, and it would all be behind me.

So after breakfast—during which Mom asked if I had a good time at the Fall Fling, and I answered, “Uh-huh”—I dumped out the contents of my backpack to find my key. But the key wasn’t there. My pulse accelerated, and I riffled through the contents again. Kleenex, a smushed Mike and Ike box, a couple of tarnished pennies. But where else could it be? I’d unlocked the door, the tomcat had attacked, and—shit.

I must have left the key in Lurl’s lock, where it would be sitting in what was now plain daylight. Yet another reason to get over there before anyone else came along.

I dragged my bike out of the garage and pumped hard all the way to school. I used the basement door, same as before, and rushed up the stairs to the third floor. It was easier with the sun streaming through the windows. It was easier, in the light, to push aside thoughts of cats in the walls.

I opened the heavy door that led to the rarely used corridor, and by the baseboard I spotted my teddy bear. I scooped it up and scanned the floor for the J pendant, but the floor was bare. The cat must have run off with it.

I approached Lurl’s office, and I felt a sudden hollow rush in my chest. No, I prayed. Please, no.

The door was locked. My key was gone.

My first thought was Bitsy. She’d one-upped me again, and now she was going to hold it over me to make me sweat. Or maybe it was Keisha? Maybe she’d sensed something was up and trailed me for the sake of damage control. Good ol’ Keisha, always the worrywart. And in this case it had paid off.

Or shit, maybe it was Lurl. Maybe she’d made a midnight jaunt to her shrine, maybe only minutes after Camilla and I left. I got the heebie-jeebies thinking about it. What if she’d lurched in on us? I couldn’t imagine what she’d have done.

My bike jounced over a bump, and I tried to focus on the road. But my mind was too busy conjuring up possibilities. Lurl with the key. Mary Bryan with the key, which wouldn’t be so bad. Everyone yelling at me. The kittens’ frantic hunger.

Bottom line, I’d screwed up. Bad Jane. Naughty, naughty girl.

But whoever had my key would have to give it back, even if they punished me for it first in some stupid way. Because for the Bitches to exist, there had to be four.

“Keisha!” I called out when I saw her the next morning. I jogged to her locker. “Thank god. I ran into Mary Bryan on the front stairs, and she cruised by me without even saying ‘hi.’ I mean, obviously she must not have seen me, but it made me paranoid. But everything’s good, right?”

Keisha’s eyes flew to mine, then away. She focused on filling her backpack.

“I know I pissed her off,” I said. “I maybe, you know, said some things I shouldn’t have. But she’s not ignoring me, is she?”

“Jane …” Keisha said.

My muscles tightened. Still, I pulled my mouth into a smile shape. “What? Are you pissed, too? I’m sorry, okay? Throw me in the chokey. Feed me to the dogs.”

Keisha closed her locker. The look she gave me was sad, not angry, and she said, “I wouldn’t have let anything happen, you know. At Camilla’s.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “I totally know. And I guess I was, like, overreacting or whatever. But that doesn’t—”

Keisha walked away, leaving me talking to nobody.

After homeroom, I hunted down Mary Bryan. I felt bad about my picnic table comment, and I wanted to apologize. She would try to stay aloof, but she’d relent despite herself. And then she’d give me some answers.

I skipped English to talk to her, because I knew on Mondays she had first period free. I found her on the steps of Hamilton. She was wearing a pale blue sweater that matched her eyes.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

“Me?” she said. She kept her expression neutral. “Why would I be mad?”

Fine, I thought. Let her get it out of her system. “Because I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

She gazed at me. Then, in a voice as bland as her expression, she said, “Okay, thanks.” She returned to her algebra.

I didn’t know quite what to do. Was that it? Was I forgiven? It didn’t feel as if I was forgiven.

“It was just a really bad night,” I said. “I was totally stressed out. Obviously. And then after you guys left, even more stuff happened”—I watched for her reaction—“and now it’s like, whoa, my head is totally spinning, you know?”

Nothing. Not a flicker of an eyelid. But she had to know what I referring to, because somebody had my freaking key.

“Mary Bryan …”

She lifted her head. She smiled her nice-girl smile, the one she gave everyone. “I’m really kind of busy. I’ve got a math test, and I’m so unprepared.” She wrinkled her nose, her cute little show of we’re all in this together, and my chest constricted.

“Mary Bryan, come on,” I said. I heard how my voice sounded, and my heart beat faster. I nudged her toe. “Mary Bryan!”

“Excuse me?” she said. Gone was the buddy act. She looked at me as if I were trash.

My face flamed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? Why are you shutting me out?”

“I have a math test,” she said. “I’m sorry if you’re feeling fragile, and I’m sorry I can’t rub your tummy and make everything all better. But I have to study.”

I backed away.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

With Bitsy, my exchange was as stupid and pointless as I should have known it would be. Which I did know it would be, but which I convinced myself of otherwise, out of sheer desperation.

Me: Bitsy, hold up. We need to talk.

Bitsy: Why, Jane, aren’t you adorable. Is that a new shirt you’re wearing?

Me: What? I’m not … I just need you to … Just listen, okay?

Bitsy: Well, something’s different, I just know it. Is it your hair?

Me: Drop the act, Bitsy. I know you’re all mad or whatever, but I also know that you need me. So play your little game if that’s what you need to do, but get real: You’re nothing without me.

Bitsy, laughing: Oh, pet. I think you’ve got it backward.

Me: You have to have four. You have to.

Bitsy: How sweet of you to care. Ta, now!

As she made her parting remark, she actually patted me on the head. Then she breezed off in her flippy lime-green skirt, her doggy-ears bouncing with every step.

As for Camilla, the one time I saw her was before fourth period, as I was on my way to French. Camilla was on the quad talking to Sukie Karing, which struck me as odd until I remembered that Sukie, like Camilla, was one of them now, at least temporarily. One of the toads.

Still, I paused to stare. Camilla usually kept to herself, her spine ballerina stiff and her nose in a book. But today she had the look of someone wearing a fancy new outfit, both self-conscious and proud. A funny little smile played around her mouth, and real words went back and forth between her and Sukie. At one point Sukie even laughed—and not in a mean way.

Well, whoop-de-do for Camilla, I thought. I guess our midnight jaunt had upped her confidence after all.

I started across the quad, then stopped, a half-formed thought itching at the back of my brain. A thought I never would have had if not for my crappy day, what with the Bitches’ weird behavior. And now Camilla, gesturing with pale hands as she wooed a willing Sukie.

This was not the normal Camilla. There was nothing normal here at all.

I flashed back to the hallway outside Lurl’s office, when Camilla and I had made our hasty escape. Camilla had turned off Lurl’s lights. Camilla had shut the office door.

Nausea slammed into me. It wasn’t Lurl who had taken my key, and it wasn’t any of the Bitches. And it wasn’t the cat who had taken my pendant.

It was Camilla.

“Give it back,” I said. I held out my open hand.

Camilla was still flying high from her success with Sukie, but she slid a mask over her satisfaction.

“No,” she said.

I floundered for a few seconds, then narrowed my eyes. “Yes,” I said. “It’s mine. My dad gave it to me. And you took it. That’s stealing, you know.”

“Oh, please,” Camilla said. She headed toward Hamilton Hall.

“Hey. Hey! I’m talking to you!”

She didn’t turn around.

I ran to catch up. “I stood up for you that night. They were going to … and I stopped them, I told them no, and …” I grabbed her arm. “I’m the only reason you know anything about this in the first place. I did it to help you!”

Camilla’s smile returned. “Believe me, you did.”

The next day, Miriam Fossey told me my neck was dirty. Elizabeth Greene sloshed her Diet Coke down the front of my shirt, and Pammy Varlotta, when I sidled up next to her by the vending machines, blushed and refused to meet my gaze.

“You don’t understand,” I told her. “I’m the same person I used to be, I swear. It’s just that the Bitches, they have this secret power, see? Well, actually, it’s Lurl the Pearl who has the power, but she can’t do it without them, and—”

Pammy bolted. She grabbed her granola bar and ran, while the kids behind me watched and snickered.

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” I cried.

“That’s debatable, I must say,” muttered Rutgers Steiner, shoving quarters into the soft-drink dispenser.

During PE I approached Debbie, since I knew how much she hated Camilla.

“And now I get it,” I explained. “Because I see her for the traitor she really is. And that’s good, right? You believe me, right?”

She slammed an oversized red rubber ball into my chest.

“Don’t go bad-mouthing Camilla,” she warned. She caught the ball on the rebound and bounced it off my head. “Whining loser!”

Coach Shaw blew her whistle. “You’re out, Goodwin! Take the bench!”

During my free period, I marched up to Mary Bryan in the commons area. I stood in front of her, hands on my hips, until she looked up.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “This is absurd.”

“This is life,” she said. She went back to her fingernails, carefully applying lavender flower decals over a pearly pink base coat. When I kept standing there, she said, “Pardon me, but you’re in my light.”

When lunchtime rolled around, I retreated to the library. I needed to be away from everybody. I needed time to figure things out.

“Hello, Jane,” Ms. Cratchett said, looking up from a stack of index cards.

“Hi, Ms. Cratchett,” I said. Was it my imagination, or was even she regarding me a little frostily? I surprised myself by approaching her desk.

“So … are you still having problems with those cats?” I asked.

Her mouth creased in displeasure. “It’s a travesty. Cat hair all over my keyboard, and this morning, excrement by my coffee pot. Excrement! It’s getting so they think they own the place.”

I nodded sympathetically, not knowing exactly where I was going but plunging forward nonetheless. “You should see Ms. Lear’s class—they’re seriously everywhere. Poor Ms. Lear, huh?”

“Lurlene?” Ms. Cratchett said. “Lurlene doesn’t give a damn, pardon my French. I’ve told her, ‘Come see the mess they made of my periodicals. Then try telling me they’re your furry little beasties.’”

“She calls them her furry little beasties?”

Ms. Cratchett pursed her lips. She shuffled her index cards. “Don’t you have work to do? Don’t you need to trot off to your hidey-hole and pretend to be busy?”

I blinked. Her frostiness was not in my imagination. Even so, I made myself push on.

“But about Ms. Lear …”

“Yes?”

I didn’t actually know what I wanted to ask. Is she a madwoman? What does she do in that back room, in that eerie, ghoulish temple? Why does she smell like tuna?

Finally, I said, “How long has she been here, anyway? At Crestview.”

Ms. Cratchett cackled in an on-the-brink kind of way. It occurred to me that she should probably consider new employment. “Since the dawn of time—that’s why she’s got her claws in so deep. She was a student here herself, you know.”

My stomach dipped. “Ms. Lear went to school here? As a student?”

“Not too bright, are you?” Ms. Cratchett said. “I suggest you try studying sometime instead of reading your dog-eared baby books. Now, shoo!” She flapped her hand at me. “Go on!”

I backed away from her desk, then made a beeline for the far bookshelves, over in the “Alma Mater Pride” section. There were old yearbooks there. Rows and rows of them.

How old was Lurl, anyway? It was impossible to tell. I flipped through 1979, then tried 1973, then 1972. Bingo. “Lurlene Lear,” it said in the index. And then a listing of the pages she appeared on.

Dread made my limbs feel heavy. Did I really want to look? Then again, what choice did I have?

I sat on the floor and turned to page forty-eight, where I found Lurl’s class picture in the senior section. If she wasn’t labeled by name, I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was beautiful, with glossy brown hair and glowing skin. She wasn’t wearing glasses, and her eyes were luminous. A strand of creamy pearls circled her neck.

I flipped to another page. “Big Kid!” read the caption, and the picture showed Lurl reclining on one of the benches outside Hamilton Hall. She wore a baseball cap pulled low, and she was grinning at the camera. The print beneath the picture said, “Senior Lurlene Lear relaxes between classes. She’ll always be a kid at heart!”

I looked at one more. This one was a full-page spread of a beaming Lurl wearing a tiara and clutching a bouquet of white roses. She was in Crestview’s gym, I could tell, although it had been transformed by silver icicles and sparkling silver trees. A banner draped behind her said ENCHANTMENT IN THE SNOW.

I read the paragraph beneath the picture. “Lurlene Lear shines as Ice Maiden of the Winter Carnival. ‘I am so blessed!’ gushed Lurlene as she accepted her crown. ‘I will never be happier in my whole entire life!’”

I closed the yearbook. I felt ill. How could Lurl have been … ? And how could she now be … ? What had happened to her? What had she turned into? And what the fuck was the deal with the cats?

I exchanged the ’72 yearbook for the ’71 one and checked out Lurl as a junior. Younger, and with shorter hair, but just as pretty and just as busy. One picture showed her on a hayride. “Yehaw!” read the caption.

In the ’70 yearbook, Lurl as a sophomore cuddled a fluffy white cat, their cheeks pressed together. The cat looked vaguely panicked in that way animals do when they’re held too tight. “Awww, how sweet!” were the words underneath, and then a bit about Lurl’s volunteer work for the Humane Society. I didn’t like looking at that one, and I shut the yearbook right away.

I pulled down the yearbook from 1969. In this one Lurl would be a freshman, just like me. Only when I checked the index, there was no “Lurlene Lear.” There was a “Sandra L. Lear” listed, but no “Lurlene.”

Something stilled within me, and the page numbers went out of focus. Sandra L. Lear. Sandy. The girl who had died?

My stomach turned upside down. I blinked to get my eyes working again and flipped to page twenty-three, the sole listing for Sandra L. Lear. And there she was, in the small rectangular box that framed her class photo. She stared out blankly, with no expression giving life to her features. Her eyes were dark empty holes.

Sand in the oyster—the thought came unbidden. And what had Lurl said? “Because I’m such a gem.”

The stillness inside me broke into a million pieces, because Sandy hadn’t died after all. She had just … changed. And come back as Lurl.

I stood up, letting the yearbook spill to the floor. I walked quickly out of the library and headed for the cafeteria. I broke into a run. I had the sense that someone was following me, and my nerve endings jangled with adrenaline. I had to tell people about this. I had to let them know.

But when I got to the lunchroom, I stopped at the door and stood there, panting. Because there was Camilla, sitting with the Bitches at the soccer jocks’ table. Her face was glowing. Her eyes were luminous. She said something that I couldn’t hear, and Anna Maria punched her on the shoulder. Debbie gave her an affectionate noogie, and everyone laughed.

Okay, I thought that afternoon. Fine. There was a whole lot of wrongness going on, things that were sick and creepy and unnatural, but the past was the past and the future was now. And I wasn’t about to roll over and play dead just because the Bitches wanted me to—no way. They didn’t get to decide who I was. Only I got to decide that. And I was not going to be a freaking toad.

I went to the mall and bought a pair of shit-kicking black boots. They cost a fortune, and they were even cooler than Bitsy’s. I wore them the next morning along with the denim mini-skirt from my coming-out party and a fuzzy white V-necked sweater. I looked hotter than hot.

I waited for Nate at his locker, because what had Mary Bryan said? He’s yours if you want him. He wants to be your prince. Well, today was Nate’s lucky day. I was finally going to make it easy on the poor guy.

I leaned sideways against the locker, my hip cocked and one arm up so that my sweater stretched over my chest. Then I decided that was a little too come-hither, so I switched positions and propped my back against the locker’s metal grates, my arms folded over my ribs. I saw Nate come in through the front entrance, and a sick, zingy feeling started up inside me.

Relax, I coached myself. Feel the power.

“Hi,” I said as he approached. “What’s up?”

He seemed surprised to see me, but he didn’t shut me out.

“Not much,” he said. “You?”

“Oh, you know, just life as normal.”

His eyes darted down the hall, which could have been wariness or could just have been nerves. I tried to remember to breathe.

“So anyway,” I said, “I was just wondering … I mean, if you aren’t busy or anything …”

He stepped nearer, his body this close.

“Hey,” he said. He leaned in.

My pulse accelerated. I’d never been a fan of public displays of affection, but maybe that was because they’d never been directed at me. I wet my lips and tilted my head. “Yeah?”

“You’re blocking my locker. Can you move?”

“Oh! Right. Sure.” Heat spread through my body as I scooted out of the way. “So do you want to do something sometime?”

He shook his head. “Nah.”

“But … I thought you liked me.”

He shoved his books into his backpack and turned to leave.

No. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. I grabbed his shoulders and aimed for his lips.

“Sick!” he yelped, pushing me off.

I sprawled to the floor, and my mini-skirt slid high on my thighs. Some sophomore almost wet himself in delight.

“Nice crotch shot,” he crowed. “Not!”

My humiliation that day included, but was not limited to, the following:

• my chair was pulled out from under me not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions;

• Miriam Fossey upended my backpack and kicked the contents across the floor;

• Ryan Overturf announced to the whole cafeteria that I’d be giving free blow jobs in front of Nate’s locker, after which Nate shoved his shoulder and said, “Shut up, man. Don’t give her any ideas.”;

• and a cat pissed on my locker.

Oh, and in my early religions class, Lurl couldn’t stop giggling. She’d teach a little, look at me, and let out her low, throaty man giggle. And I wasn’t the only one freaked out by it. Everybody was.

“God dang,” Bob Foskin stage whispered from the front row. “Stop setting her off, girl. Are you in heat or something?”

I sank lower in my seat. My foot hit something soft, and I jerked it back. A white cat hissed and swiped at my ankle, and my heart knocked against my ribs.

I drew my legs all the way up in my chair. I tried very hard not to think about kittens. But Lurl was right there, not ten feet away, and I searched her face for any clue about how she got to be who she was today. From the hollow-eyed freshman to the radiant Ice Maiden to … this. What unseen power had transformed her so completely?

She caught me looking, and she broke off her explanation of fertility and the blood of life.

“The devil’s in the details, dearie,” she said, pitching her words at me. She covered her mouth and dissolved into giggles.

As I was walking home from school, Alicia’s sister Rae pulled up beside me in her Plymouth Cougar. She rolled down her window and called, “Hey. Jane.”

I looked at her warily, and she threw a brush at me. A pink plastic Goody. She sped away, her horn blaring “Dixie.”

On Thursday, I told Mom I was sick. I also told her that I needed to switch schools, because I didn’t fit in at Crestview and I never would. I didn’t mention the fact that my humanities teacher had sold her soul to the devil.

“Oh, honey,” Mom said. She sat down beside me. “What’s going on?”

“Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me.”

“Guess you’ll go eat worms?” she said, quoting a song she used to sing when I was little. She saw my death look. “Sorry. But, Jane, you’ve got tons of friends.”

I pushed my Cheerios with my spoon.

“Don’t you?” Mom asked. I snuck a look at her face and saw that she had grown uncertain. She started to rub my neck, then drew back her hand. “Surely things aren’t as bad as you think.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Sweetie …”

I released my spoon handle. I watched it slide sideways under the milk.

Mom frowned. She glanced at her watch, then stood up. “Well, if you’re really sick, you can stay home. But why don’t you think about calling Alicia? Or Phil. Maybe they could cheer you up.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s a great idea.”

Last week, Mom would have held my face in her hands and told me how much she loved me. Today, even she couldn’t bear to touch me. I dumped my cereal into the sink and went back to bed.

I didn’t go to school on Friday, either. What was the point?

No one called to check on me. No one brought me chicken soup.

In a fit of furious self pity, I threw away the teddy bear, the jade hair comb, and the Polynesian vest, as well as every other Dad-related knickknack I could find. I purged myself of everything Dad, because what good had he done for me? He’d left on a three-year trek to find himself, and now, because of him, I was as lost as he was.

But I went back once my blood had cooled and dug out the teddy bear. I touched his stupid shirt, the one that said, “I Love Cairo.” I hugged him tight, closing my eyes and resting my chin on his head.

That night, Mom went out with her friend Kitty. They were going to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a boutique called “Essentials.” There were going to be fabulous giveaways.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Mom asked. “I’d be happy to stay home. We could order a pizza.”

She would have, if I let her. I saw that now. But I said, “Go, I’ll be fine. Really.”

I watched Mom climb onto the back of Kitty’s motorcycle, and I felt as if I were looking at her from a far back place inside of me. As if there were a gap between me and the rest of the world. Everything looked so fragile.

Kitty’s voice rang out, and Mom laughed. She tightened the strap on her helmet.

Who are those people? I asked myself. Who am I?

Kitty’s Harley purred to life, and I stood there until I could no longer see the taillights. I went back inside and picked up the phone.

First, I called Alicia. I was worried that Rae might answer, but she didn’t.

“This is me,” I said to the machine. “Jane. I need to talk to you, okay? Call me.”

Next I called Camilla, but when Camilla’s mom answered, she said Camilla was out for the evening.

“Oh,” I said. “Uh … where?”

“A party,” said Camilla’s mom. I could hear the pride in her voice, the still surprise of it. “She dressed up as Dorothy from that movie with the munchkins. One of her new friends came by and helped her get ready.”

“Right,” I said, as if I’d simply forgotten. “Thanks so much.”

On a hunch, I looked up Kyle Kelley’s number and punched it in. I switched the phone to my other ear, wiped my palm on my jeans, and switched back. My pulse thrummed in my temples.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Kyle said in a sultry tone. I heard voices and laughter in the background.

“Uh, hi,” I said. Did he have caller ID? Did he know it was me? Just in case, I said, “This is Jane. What’s up?”

“Who?” he said. The party noises were really loud.

“Jane,” I said again.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” he asked. There was a splintering crash, and he said, “For God’s sake, Stuart, you’re the tin man, not the terminator. Will someone please give this man some lubrication?” He came back to me full strength. “Who’s this again?”

“It’s Jane Goodwin. And I—”

“Nevermind sweets. This really isn’t the best time. Bye now!”

The line went dead. I hit the off button and threw the phone onto the couch. It bounced off a cushion and landed on the floor, where it trilled its shrill ring.

I lunged for it. “Hello? Kyle?”

“No, it’s Alicia,” Alicia said. “Kyle who? Kyle Kelley?”

“Alicia, hi,” I said. My chest opened with a rush of relief. “I’m so glad you called. It’s been the most crappy week, I’m so not kidding.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “What happened?”

“Well, your sister threw a hairbrush at me, for one. Can you believe it?”

Alicia didn’t answer.

I quickly switched gears. “But the real thing is that they ditched me. The Bitches.” I decided to lay it out for her, the whole of my shame, to make up for what I’d put her through. “They, like, totally dropped me, just like that, and now Camilla Jones is their new darling. Because she stole from me, can you believe it? So now she’s a Bitch instead of me.”

“Ha,” Alicia said. “That’s hysterical.”

I laughed uncertainly. “Well, I wouldn’t say hysterical, but—”

“And now you’ve gone from the top of the heap to the bottom. Lower than me, even, is that right?”

“What? You were never at the bottom of the heap. I mean, I’m sorry if you felt that way, but—”

“And where were you when I was so miserable? Were you there, holding my hand like a good friend should? No.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

Alicia snorted. “That’s for sure.”

I wrapped my fingers tighter around the phone.

“Anyway, Tommy Arnez doesn’t hate me anymore,” she said. “We worked things out, just in case you were curious. He’s picking me up in twenty minutes to go to a movie.”

“Alicia, that’s terrific,” I said. I even meant it, figuring that the more she had on her side, the more likely she was to forgive me.

“Yeah. So I’ve got to go get ready.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Sure.” I paused. “So … are we friends again? Not that we ever weren’t, but you know what I mean.”

For a few seconds, she didn’t respond. Then she said, “Are you begging?”

“Am I … ? Alicia.”

“Are you?”

“Do you seriously want me to?”

“Yes, actually. Very much.”

I groaned. “Fine. I’m begging.”

“Good,” she said. “Now you know how it feels. And no, I’m not your friend, because even over the phone you make me want to vomit. I hope you rot in hell.”

She hung up on me, making it twice in one night.

There was no point to living. There really wasn’t. I spent all weekend attempting to convince myself I was better off without the Bitches, blah, blah, blah, and finally on Sunday morning I grabbed a jacket and headed for the park, just to escape my own stupid thoughts. The air was crisp, I could hear kids playing from a block away, and still my brain went around and around, obsessing over every last aspect of my downfall and trying to come up with reasons it was all for the best.

Such as:

I would no longer have to siphon off another girl’s popularity to add to my own. No more stealing. And no more creepy Lurl and her cats.

I’d no longer have to watch Bitsy (or her thugs) bully Camilla, although any sympathy I’d had for Camilla was gone with the wind. Anyway, Bitsy would no doubt pick someone else to bully—probably me. And lucky Camilla would get to join in the fun.

As long as I was physically away from Mary Bryan and Keisha, I could tell myself—and even believe—that I wouldn’t miss their two-facedness, their bright outer shells hiding the brokeness inside. But I knew, I knew, that as soon as I was around them, I’d fall back under their spell. Because that was how it worked. You got near them, and it was like being stroked. All you wanted was to please them, and have them like you, and it was like an ache, that’s how bad you wanted it.

Tomorrow I should pin a card to my T-shirt, something only I could see. And it would say DON’T LIKE THE BITCHES! DON’T SMILE AND GIGGLE AND WAG YOUR TAIL! THEY ARE EVIL!

I’d have to steel myself against them. That’s what Camilla must have done. All that time I thought she was immune, but she wasn’t, because nobody was. She was just strong, that’s all. And yet like an idiot I tried to rescue her, safe in her house with the changed lock that even Bitsy couldn’t have opened.