Four Truths and a Lie (10 page)

I'd been up until two in the morning doing homework,
and even then I didn't get all of it finished. I was hoping I'd be able to work a little bit more on my math this morning, but it doesn't seem like I'm going to get a chance, now that I'm wanted in the office.

When I get there, the secretary, Jill, ushers me into the headmistress's office. The headmistress looks up from the papers she's going over, and gestures at me to take a seat at one of the chairs in front of her desk. Jill sets a glass of water down for me on the table next to my chair and then slips back out the door.

Wait a minute. Maybe I'm not in trouble at all. Maybe this is just one of those
I want to make sure you're doing okay in your new school, Scarlett, since I'm friends with your mother
kind of things. And then I'll be all, “Well, there's a little problem with Crissa Bacon” and Headmistress O'Neal will be all, “Well, she's probably threatened by your good looks and your obvious ability to adapt to any social situation.” And then—

“Scarlett, I know this must be a very big transition for you, moving from your old school to an environment that you're not used to,” Headmistress O'Neal is saying. It's kind of scary, her being behind that big desk like that. Very regal, with her gray suit and wire-rimmed spectacles and a big, important-looking painting hanging on the wall behind her. Some kind of abstract art.

“It is,” I say, nodding and putting a sad look on my face. She's obviously setting it up to tell me what a fab job I'm doing here.

“And that's why I'm going to go easy on you,” she says. Go easy on me? What is she talking about? She leans back in her swivel chair, removes her glasses, and sighs. “Scarlett, here at Brookline we keep the focus on academics. Do you know what I mean by that?”

“Not really,” I say. I want to ask her if she thinks Crissa being so mean to me makes me able to really focus on my academics, but I realize now's not the time.

“What I mean is, we try to make sure the girls don't get distracted from their studies by frivolous things.” She raises her eyebrows at me. They're perfectly plucked. I wonder if it would be inappropriate to ask her where she gets them done. My mom's coming to visit soon, and I could definitely use a trip to the salon.

“Right,” I say, not sure what this has to do with me.

“Scarlett, we've had some reports of you …” she trails off. “Well, let me see.” She picks up a sheet of paper sitting on the desk in front of her, and slides her glasses back onto her nose. “For example, it says here you shared your shampoo with someone the other day? In the shower?”

“Right,” I say. “Someone on the other side of the shower
forgot their shampoo, and asked if they could borrow it, so I threw mine over.” I'm in trouble for sharing my shampoo? No wonder people at this place aren't so friendly. They get in trouble for being nice.

“Which is great,” she says. “Except your shampoo was something that cost at least sixty dollars a bottle.”

“Well, I wouldn't go that far,” I say. “Maybe like thirty. Although I'm not really sure; my mom buys it for me.” I don't mention that maybe after this thing with my dad plays out, I might not be able to have that thirty-dollar shampoo anymore anyway. I'm sure she's aware of my financial situation.

“And,” Headmistress O'Neal says, looking back down at her sheet. “It seems like you've also been giving some of the students here makeovers?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Well, we've had a complaint from a student that these makeovers are very distracting. That students are coming in to class all made up, and causing quite a stir.” A complaint from a student? She's got to be kidding me. Since when does a little eye shadow equal distraction? And then I remember the look on Crissa's face when she realized I'd made over Rachel. Of course she would complain about it. She doesn't want me having anything that's going to help me make friends.

“Well, I wouldn't call it a stir exactly, it's more like a little ripple of interest.” I pull on the bottom of my uniform nervously.
Please don't ask me to stop, please don't ask me to stop, please don't—

“Scarlett, I'm going to have to ask you to stop with the makeovers.”

“But—”

“I'm sorry,” she says. “But my decision's final.”

In English, I write back to Number Seventeen.

Dear Number Seventeen,

I think you might be a little mental. (Of course, my judgment could be clouded by the fact that I just got in trouble for giving people makeovers here, and so I'm kind of in a “glass is half empty” kind of mood, but probably not.) However, my friend Amber (are we allowed to use names, even for our friends?) thinks that it's kind of cute and charming what you are doing. She's not really the best judge, since she got a very ridiculous letter from her pen pal, which
was full of boringness. So I'm going to go along with your little game.

But like I said, I would still like the record to show that I think you are crazy. Which is fine. I'm used to being the sane one in my interpersonal relationships. I will mail you back on Monday with anything I've discovered about Miss Cardanelli and Mr. Lang.

In the meantime, would you like to tell me anything else about yourself? I'm surprised you don't have that many secrets.
I have lots.

Talk to you soon,
Number Seventeen

P.S. I think you should tell your friend the
truth about his shirt.

Before basketball practice that day, I realize that Juicy tracksuits should definitely not be used for running. They get way too sweaty. They're more for airplane rides or, like,
has-been celebrities who are going to be photographed by the paparazzi.

But I don't have anything else to wear. Amber's at newspaper, so I can't borrow anything from her, and I don't really feel comfortable enough with anyone else here to ask them to borrow their clothes. I'm rummaging through my drawer, hoping that something appropriate will appear, even though the chances of that are zero. It's like when you're hungry and there's no food in the house, but you keep staring into the refrigerator for, like, half an hour before you resign yourself to ordering Chinese.

Crissa's on her bed, talking on her cell to someone. Sounds like maybe to her old roommate, Marissa. They talk on the phone a lot. And text. Crissa has a special ringtone for her and everything. I weigh the options—interacting with Crissa, or getting in trouble with Coach Crazy.

“Um, Crissa?” I ask sweetly. “Is there any way you'd let me borrow some of your clothes?”

“My clothes?” she asks, throwing her head back and laughing. “Why would you want to borrow something of mine?”

“I need them for basketball,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “Second drawer.” She turns immediately back to her conversation, something about
how she hopes next year she gets to pick her own roommate.

I open her drawer, which is filled with brightly colored T-shirts and shorts, all folded neatly and sorted by colors. Hmm. I select a pink T-shirt and a pair of black cotton shorts. I push them into my bag, and sprint over to the gym. Everyone is dressed and ready. Except for me. “Nice of you to join us, Northon,” Coach Crazy says. “Extra suicides since you're late.” Great.

“It's just something I overheard Miss Cardanelli saying today,” Amber says. We're in the newspaper office after dinner. I'm doing my math homework, and Amber's working on a story about school lunches for the paper. Why are there always stories in the paper about school lunches? There should totally be a gossip column. But when I brought this idea up to Amber, she said they tried that once, but Crissa's mom and the board shut it down because it distracted from the academics. Figures.

“What was she saying?” I ask, wondering if it has anything to do with my English grade. We haven't had any real English assignments, but maybe I'm getting behind anyway. I wouldn't be surprised.

“Well, this morning I was in here before school, because
we had this story I wanted to finish up, and Miss Cardanelli was there, because she's the advisor, right?”

“Right.” I definitely should have joined newspaper. Much better. Sitting in a nice office at a nice computer all day, instead of spending your afternoons running around practically killing yourself. I feel like my legs are going to fall off. After Coach made me run extra suicides, I had to do the mile run with everyone else, and then shooting drills until I felt like my arms were two strands of spaghetti. To add insult to injury, Coach kept saying, “Northon, keep your arms up!” and “Northon, that's not the way to hustle!” And “Northon, you're not in elementary school anymore!” Every time she'd shout something, I'd get more and more nervous, and I'd drop the ball. And the girl who yelled at me at lunch the other day, Andrea Rice, kept slamming into me when I'd go and try to take a shot, and then Rory or Nikki would jump in the air and yell, “THAT'S DEFENSE, BABY!” I don't understand. Defense against your own team? Why do we play
against
each other in practice? That makes no sense whatsoever.

“So I'm sitting here at the computer,” Amber says, “and Miss Cardanelli gets a call on her cell phone, and she goes, ‘Excuse me, Amber, I have to take this' and I said no problem, even though teachers are
totally not supposed to have cell phones in front of the students, much less be taking calls on them during school hours.”

“They're not?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it's in the Brookline Academy Handbook, Rules of Teacher Conduct, Article six.” She looks at me as if it's totally obvious. I have a vague memory of a blue paperbound book that was mailed to me a few weeks before school started. I think I threw it in my desk at home, which is where it is now.

“Oh, right,” I say. “Article seven, totally.”

“Six,” she says.

“What?”

“It's article six, not seven.”

“Right, article six, I must have been confused for a minute.”

“Right,” she says, giving me a weird look. “Anyway, so she says, ‘I have to take this' and then she goes out in the hall, which really was kind of silly since the door was open and I could hear everything she was saying.”

“Who gets phone calls at seven in the morning?” I say. “Although I guess teachers do, since they have to
be up so early. And since they're older and everything. Older people are always getting up early when they don't have to. Sometimes my mom meets her friends at—”

“Scarlett!”

“Oh, right, sorry, go ahead.”

But we're interrupted by two girls who are approaching our table. Until now they've been in the back of the room, working on something Amber said was the layout. “Are you Scarlett Northon?” one of them asks.

“Who wants to know?” Amber asks, all toughlike. Which is kind of funny, since Amber's probably the smallest girl in our class, and because since these girls are on newspaper with her, she probably already knows them. It's cute that she's sticking up for me, though. I throw her a grateful smile, even though saying “Who wants to know?” is pretty much like admitting you are the person they're looking for; otherwise, why wouldn't you just say “no”?

“We want makeovers,” the girls say.

“Sorry,” I say, “but I'm not doing them anymore.”

The girls walk sadly back to their station. One of them has the craziest curly hair, and I'll bet with a straightening iron, it would have looked fab. And some smoky blue eye shadow on the other one would have really made her eyes look amazing.

“What do you mean, you're not doing them anymore?” Amber asks.

“I got in trouble this morning,” I say. “Because Headmistress O'Neal thinks I'm distracting the students by giving them something that focuses on their looks.”

“That's ridiculous,” Amber says.

“I know. So, anyway, back to your story. So Miss Cardanelli goes out into the hall with her phone.”

“Oh, right. So she goes out into the hall with her phone, but I can obviously hear everything she's saying.”

“Obviously.”

“And she says to whoever she's talking to, ‘Well, I have to chaperone the off-academy this weekend, so maybe you could meet up with me.'” Amber raises her eyebrows, as if this should impress me somehow.

“What's the off-academy?” I ask, my stomach dropping. It probably has to do with school. Or grades. That sucks. I was really looking forward to this weekend. Sleeping in. Lounging in bed. Maybe doing some online shopping …

“Didn't someone tell you about the off-academy?” Amber asks, looking shocked.

“No.” I guess you'd probably learn things like that from your roommate, and since mine hates me, I don't know any of the lingo around here.

“Sometimes on the weekend there's an off-academy,” Amber says. “It's basically like a field trip, to a different location every time. Like, sometimes we get to go out to lunch, sometimes we walk around at the mall, that kind of thing.”

“Oh,” I say. “Sounds fun.” I'm not sure what Miss Cardanelli and her phone call have to do with all this.

“So Miss Cardanelli is chaperoning tomorrow,” she says. “And she was on the phone, telling someone she'd meet up with them.”

“Okay …”

“And she was saying it all flirtylike, like it was a guy on the other end.”

“So you think she's meeting up with Mr. Lang?”

“I think she's meeting up with someone, and it's definitely a boyfriend-type person. I can't imagine she'd talk to her girlfriends like that.” Amber's hands are flying over the keyboard. I have no idea how she can keep her mind on school lunches enough to type about them while she's talking to me at the same time. Very talented, that Amber.