Rhymes With Witches (19 page)

“Hey,” I said. “Once I … you know. Will that mean Alicia's off the hook? She'll go back to the way she was?”

“Back to her usual charming self, you mean?” Mary Bryan said.

I faltered. I got the sense that maybe she was being sarcastic, only I wasn't sure. “Well … yeah. She's really not that bad when you get to know her.”

“Which is why I was the only one who was nice to her, that day at lunch. Which is why you've basically treated her like a leper since the moment you hooked up with us.”

The surprise of it tightened my lungs. “But that's because … I mean, come on. That's because—”

“Because we're all just walking bags of shit, waiting to unload?”

I drew back. Mary Bryan, I was finding, was not all sweetness and light.

Down the hall, the cat leaped nimbly from the locker onto the girl's shoulders. The girl crouched and cried out.

Mary Bryan watched, then pushed her fingers against her forehead. After a moment, she dropped her hands. “But yeah, Alicia will go back to the way she was.” She half laughed. “Cats will stop pissing on her stuff. The world will adore her.”

Our eyes locked. Her expression was weary, despite her glittery eyeshadow and rosy cheeks.

The girl stumbled our way, the cat still lodged on her shoulders, and I had to step to the side to avoid being bumped. Before I could stop myself, I snapped at her to watch where she was going.

She halted and turned around. “Oh god, I'm so sorry,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“You about made me trip,” I said.

The cat meowed, digging its claws into the girl's shirt. The blood drained from her face. She gestured at her back and said, “Do you … do you think you could … ?”

Irritation mounted inside me. I yanked the cat off her shoulders, using my hand to free its claws.

“Thank you,” the girl babbled. “Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. The cat squirmed to the floor with a thump.

I turned to Mary Bryan, but she was gone.

Lunch with the drama kids—no Alicia, where was Alicia?—and then PE. Not my favorite class on the best of days, but today it was horrible. Sure, Coach Shaw exempted me from doing the rope climb, and sure, Anna Maria and Debbie, who were total soccer studs, told me I should try out for the team. Never mind the fact that I sucked at soccer, and that just two weeks ago Anna Maria had shoved me accidentally on purpose with her shoulder during a game of battle ball. I'd gone sprawling, and Anna Maria had hissed, “Stay down, you idiot. Tell the coach you sprained your ankle.”

But today they'd loved me. Great. So really, class itself was fine. It was what happened afterward that screwed with my mind.

Everyone except me was changing out of her gym shirt and shorts. I was still in my normal clothes, since Coach Shaw hadn't made me dress out. But I'd filed into the locker room with the others so they wouldn't think I was a snob.

“Hey, Jane,” Anna Maria said, pulling a blue-and-white rugby down over her head. “You going to the Fall Fling?”

“Yeah,” I said. I lounged against a wooden bench. “You?”

She stepped into her jeans. “Hell, yeah. Jodi's mom is on the planning committee, and she says there's going to be all kinds of cool shit like bungee cords and climbing walls. You
know
I'm going to be there.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Some of the girls will be, ‘Ooo, it's too scary,' ‘Ooo, I'll break a nail,' right? It'll be hilarious. But the people who matter will be, like—” She broke off and turned to Debbie, who'd come up behind her. “What?!”

Debbie jerked her chin toward the end of the locker room. Camilla, a towel wrapped around her waist, was heading from the showers to the nearest row of lockers. Water dripped from her hair onto the back of her T-shirt.

Anna Maria's face hardened. “Whore.”

“Why is she even here?” Debbie said. “She's not in our PE class.”

“Bet she's been using the weight room again, fucking ballerina princess,” Anna Maria said. “Stuart Hill can't use it, noooo. But our fucking little Camilla can.”

I frowned. The girls' weight room was separate from the boys', which meant that Camilla doing her weight training wouldn't take anything away from Stuart. But I, too, felt a surge of repugnance at the sight of Camilla, and it scared me.

Anna Maria caught my expression. “She's the one responsible for getting Stuart kicked off the team, you know. Lying whore.”

I tried to cleanse my impure emotions. “I thought he was just on probation.”

“And the crap she told Mr. Van Housen? Lies. Every single bit of it.”

“Huh?”

Debbie stepped closer. Looking at me significantly, she said, “We heard it from Bitsy.”

My stomach clenched. What had Bitsy told them?

“But, um … how would Bitsy know?” I asked. “She wasn't there, was she?”

“Bitsy knows everything,” Anna Maria said. “And she's not scared of telling the truth.”

“She's not scared of anything,” Anna Maria said. “Especially not a slut in a tutu.” She took a step toward Camilla's locker. “Come on, Little Debs.”

I got a bad taste in the back of my throat, but I followed anyway. It was as if my feet were on some sick sort of auto-pilot.

They caught her unawares. Anna Maria lunged forward and grabbed her towel, leaving Camilla in just her T-shirt and panties.

“Hey!” Camilla cried.

“You think you're so hot,” Anna Maria said. “But you're not. Everyone hates you, you slut.”

“You're such a lesbo,” Debbie contributed. “Prancing around like a freaking ballerina.”

Camilla grabbed for her towel. “I
am
a ballerina, you idiots.”

“So dance for us,” Debbie said. “Show us what you can do.”

I knew I should do something, stop them, but part of me thrummed with desire. Part of me wanted to join in.

“—and don't go running to Mr. Principal, because he doesn't give a fuck,” Anna Maria was saying. “He hates you as much as we do.”

Oh god. Mr. Van Housen. The last thing I needed was to be dragged to his office again, a witness for the second time. What would Bitsy say to that?

I made myself turn away, telling myself it was none of my business. Anyway, it wasn't as if anyone was actually getting hurt. Coach Shaw would come soon to hurry everyone to their next class, and Debbie and Anna Maria would drop the game. Camilla would be fine.

I felt like throwing up.

I returned home to another of Dad's guilt offerings, this time a silver pendant from Macedonia. The pendant hung from a black silk cord, and it was in the shape of a J, for Jane. Because clearly, in Dad's mind, I was still learning my letters—or at least still wearing them around my neck, as the fad had been in elementary school.

I could wear the necklace if I wanted to, and people would see it as a kitschy-cool. Soon every girl in school would have her first initial dangling from a cord. Or, more likely, they'd all have my first initial dangling from cords. An army of glittering Js.

Only that would be way too depressing.

I lowered the pendant onto my dresser. Sometimes I didn't know which was worse: the possibility that Dad would keep sending these inane gifts, when all they did was remind me of what I didn't have, or the possibility that one day he would stop.

Out of nowhere, a memory wormed in. Me, huddled naked in an empty bathtub, because I didn't know how to work the faucets. I must have been about five, and usually Mom ran my bath for me. But that night, Dad was on duty. “You can do it,” he'd said, barely looking up from his magazine. “You're a big girl.”

When he'd come to check on me half an hour later,
still
huddling naked in the empty tub, his face had caved in. “Oh, baby,” he'd said. “Why didn't you call me?”

Remembering, the stupid familiar ache opened up inside me. Did Dad ever feel this ache? No, I didn't think so, or he would be here. So if he didn't care, why did I?

I opened my dresser drawer and scooped the necklace toward me, letting it fall in with the other Dad dross. Then I paused.
Wait a minute, wait just a minute …

Lurl.

Yes. It was perfect.

Excitement swelled inside me. No more stealing, and Alicia would be free. And hey, thanks to Dad I had tons of crap I could give away. A piece of crap a week, no problem. Even non-crap if it came down to it. I could take the loss.

I snatched back the pendant and did a happy dance on my
blue shag carpet, gyrating my hips. It lasted about a minute before I was hit with reality. Because they would have figured it out before, wouldn't they? If it were possible to beat the system, wouldn't Bitsy and Keisha and Mary Bryan all be offering up junk of their own?

Unless I was the only one smart enough to think of it. Unless they liked siphoning off other girls' popularity—which in Bitsy's case seemed almost certainly true.

Or maybe—aha—maybe they
were
putting their own lip balms and clippies on Lurl the Pearl's desk. Maybe I wasn't the only one to think of it; maybe I was just the last to think of it. And they were all cackling secretly to themselves as they waited for me to catch on. Well, hahaha, they wouldn't be laughing for long.

Then the
oh, shit
feeling descended again as I realized the flaw in my logic. If the object I offered Lurl was mine, then it would be my popularity that would be siphoned off. And bestowed upon … me, as the object-giver? Which would mean I'd have the same amount of popularity as I'd started with, no more and no less. Which wasn't
so
bad, really …

Except I wouldn't have the bonus bit from Alicia anymore. I'd return to non-Bitch status, which would totally suck.

I lay back on my bed and groaned.

“Jane?” Mom called. “Everything all right?”

I popped up. Jesus, she was right outside my door. “Everything's fine,” I said. “What are you doing?”

She pushed in and sat down beside me. “Hey, baby,” she said. She pulled me into a sideways hug. Recently she'd been very huggy. “Not to be nosy, but you've seemed kind of stressed the last couple of days. Anything bothering you?”

I relaxed against her, soaking in her Mom-ness. She smelled like leftover Chinese food. “Not really,” I said. “Just, you know, high school.”

“Hmm. Yeah. I remember those days.” She combed my hair with her fingers. “Want to talk about it?”

“Nah.”

“Okay.” She held me for a little while longer, then gave me a parting squeeze and stood up. “You're a good person, Jane. I love you more and more each day.”

I felt a pang.

“Night, doll.” She pulled the door shut behind her.

I flopped back on the bed. The pendant, still in my hand, had grown warm from my touch.

Screw it,
I decided. It wasn't really mine; I'd had it for less than a day. Tomorrow I'd give it to Lurl, and whatever would happen would happen.