The Aristobrats (3 page)

Kiki's mother, Bunny, had once been married to a Bulgarian Count. She still made her dinner reservations under the name “the Countess of Battenberg” even though the marriage had lasted only eleven days.

Her great-great-grandmother on her father's side was Eugenie Singer of the Alexandria Island Singers, and her great-grandfather was Thomas L. Allen, heir to the Allen Railroad fortune. Dr. Allen didn't seem to be a
doctor
of anything. And although he was always dressed in a custom-made suit and tie, read the
Wall Street Journal
cover to cover every morning, and had his own full-time driver, he never went anywhere in particular. He'd never had a job in his life.

Kiki even had her own Centurion Card, which meant she could've charged a small island if she wanted to: the best kind of situation for a shopaholic. She could've paid everyone's tuition and then some (not that Parker would ever ask).

“You bagsied the comfy couch during coffee hour?” Kiki asked, sliding in beside Parker with a cup of English Breakfast tea. “How smashing!” She checked her lipstick in the reflection of her phone.

“Ikea saved the couch,” Plum said, “with her enormously
smashing
booty.” She sipped and grinned wickedly, twirling her Cherry Bomb highlight around her finger.

“My booty is not smashing,” Ikea protested. “I'm so not-fat, you guys…” She tried to turn around again to have another look at her rear end. “…Am I?”

“Not if your scale is metric,” Kiki said.

Ikea smirked. “Women shouldn't be so obsessed with their weight,” she offered, suddenly super-serious. “Girls already face so many pressures in today's media-saturated society.” Ikea was a recent graduate of the GirlPower Self-Empowerment Program and believed in all this type of stuff now. (Ikea believed in a lot of things, Parker noted, none of which made her butt look as thin as it was at the beginning of the summer.)

“We all admire your fat activism, Ikea,” Kiki said. “It's one of your most fattractive traits.”

Ikea laughed in spite of herself. Plum pulled her notebook out and starting sketching Kiki and her cup of English tea. She tilted her head and crinkled her nose as she drew.

“I saw these boots on Bond Street,” Kiki stated, turning the pages of
British Vogue
around for the group to see. “The Brits do everything first,” she proclaimed. “Liam Davies is a legend. He
invented
style.” She pointed to a picture of a pale, super-skinny English rock star and the glamboyant boots she'd apparently almost bought. “He's an immense ledge. Immense.”

Ikea peered closer at the photograph. “I'm sure Liam Davies would want to be known for his
music
more than a pair of purple boots and black nail polish,” she said.

“You don't wear purple suede platforms if you don't want to be known for them,” Kiki responded.

“I just don't think you should judge people by what's on the outside. That's all,” Ikea argued. “Clothes aren't that important.”

Alarm bells started going off in Parker's brain.

“Well thank you very much for the fashion update, Lilly Pulitzer.” Kiki eyeballed Ikea's splashy Jubilee print top.

Parker quickly closed Kiki's magazine before things turned ugly. Everyone was completely stressing out about tomorrow even if no one was saying so.

“We're not here to focus on anyone's fashion felonies,” Parker reminded them. “Tomorrow is a very
big day. There are a lot of great opportunities for us.” Saying the words out loud made Parker's stomach flip-flop. Ikea nodded. “We need to focus on the things that really matter. Remember?”

“Like planning for dresses for Fall Sosh,” Kiki proposed.

“Fall Social is
two months
away, Keek,” Parker said.
Some people may not even be here by then.
“I mean…we're the leaders of the school now.
Noblesse oblige
and everything.”

“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required,” Ikea quoted, looking like she might break into some song from the spring play.

“I just want to eat lunch in the West Alcove,” Plum said, concentrating on the details of her sketch, “finally.”

“It's like our destiny,” Ikea agreed.

“Just like
my
destiny is these completely
to-die-for
pair of open-toe snakeskin D'Orsay slouchies.” Kiki couldn't help but look at the back of her magazine. “Total must-haves.”

There was an awkward silence as everyone stared at the slouchy boots on the back cover. Having just commented on all thirty photos in Kiki's new album “The Shoes I Bought in London,” it was difficult for everybody to drool all over yet another pair.

Kiki looked up from her dream booties. “What?” she asked the group.

“Oh…
nothing
.” Plum said, flashing the Hairy Eyeball over at Parker. (Plum's shockingly glamorous Hairy Eyeball was famous the world over. She could catch a bank robber with that thing.)

“They're great boots, Keek,” Ikea said. “Must-haves all the way.”

“So Lylas, let's review the rules,” Parker brought the conversation back to the key issue of the day. “Eighth grade is…” she began.

“The most important year of school,” Ikea answered correctly. “Possibly of our whole lives.”

Plum turned the page in her notebook, sat up as tall as she could, and read some of the new policies they'd come up with over the summer. “We will set an example…” Plum began.

“For the whole school to follow…” Ikea added.

“We won't snub anyone,” Plum recited. “At least not in public,” she clarified.

“We will be nice to the noofs,” Parker said
.

“Because it can be super-intimidating being a new person at a new school,
especially
Wallingford,” Ikea continued.

Plum turned the page. “We will not let petty problems…”

“Or parental expectations…” Parker put her hand on Ikea's.

“Or polyblend fibers…” Kiki shivered.

“…get in the way of our goals,” Plum read.

“We will never be tempted to wear Vamp nail polish again.”

“Vamp is so over.”

“Clear is the new Vamp.”

“We will not commit Facebook faux pas.”

“Or Tweet uncontrollably.”

“And require a Twittervention.”

“We will blow-dry or flat-iron every morning, even if it all looked fine the night before.”

“And we will condition.”

“And exfoliate.”

“And we won't make anyone feel unworthy just because of their underpopularity but we will still assume the best seats in the auditorium and the Good Table at lunch because we've earned them.”

“And the number one, never-broken rule…”

“Friends first,” they said all together and clinked friendship rings.

Parker tucked her feet happily back up on the couch. “Eighth grade is going to be great,” she said. “The best.”

The Lylas finished their drinks and walked out onto the street in front of La Coppa Coffee. The sun was shining on the square. It still smelled like summer: honeysuckle and fresh cut grass and swimming pools and suntan lotion. Parker smiled.

Facebook had not lied. Parker Bell
was
ready.

The massive doors of Wallingford Academy were propped open for the first day of school. Herds of younger students brushed by Parker as they raced through. Fifth graders. Sixth graders. Seventh. Even the little Wally munchkins. There was so much they didn't know yet. The weight of her responsibility had never felt so real. She couldn't leave. Not now. There was too much to do.

The original Wallingford seal hung above the archway in the foyer. It was a royal blue crest with a gold griffin wielding a broken sword. The motto was written below:
Semp
er Veritas.
Stay true.

The school was over one hundred years old. Every hallway, water fountain, bench, room and patch of grass was named after the person who paid for it. It was impossible to remember whose stuff was whose—they all just blended together in one Ellis-Collier-Whitney-Frick-Danforth-Elodie-Smythe Memorial mess. The only name anyone remembered was J. Fitzgerald Orion II, and that's because the computer billionaire's advertising was in every high-end shopping center, and Orion computers, media players and smartphones were on everybody's desks and in everybody's pockets.

Everyone knew Fitz Orion, especially if you were a Wally. If it wasn't for Fitz, Wallingford Academy would have looked exactly like any other private school: the glossy walnut floors, the gi-normous chandelier in the foyer, the grand ballroom on the upper floor, and the three-story main auditorium with thirty rows of plush velvet seats.

But Fitz had something special in mind for the countless millions he'd donated: he made Wallingford the first “Smart School” in the world.

With the touch of a button, the headmistress could dim all the lights or play music everywhere or instantly change the temperature of the building. But that was just the beginning. Throughout the building there were hundreds of hi-def, 3-D Orion Super-Screens. The Super-Screens could change depending on the theme of the week: Ancient Greece or Biodiversity or Planet Earth. They could also be set to Waterfall or Christmas Scene or Fall Social Decorative for less bookish events.

Orion kiosks had strategically been put up throughout the premises. You could check your homework assignments on them, see Live Feeds from any classroom (“Spy Feeds” as Parker and the Lylas called them), or watch a previous webisode from the eighth grade webcast,
Wallingford Academy Today
(which everyone did for a laugh even though nobody admitted it).

Chalkboards and whiteboards didn't exist anymore—instead the teachers used Orion Genius Tablets. No bigger than a paperback book, a Genius Tablet was the “control board” of the classroom. With the flourish of a Genius Pen, the teacher could project his or her notes on the Super-Screens, tests could be administered, and information logged and stored for years to come.

Wallingford was like the Home of the Future in Tomorrowland at Disney World. Sometimes it was pretty cool. Sometimes it made you nauseous. (Particularly if your own personal Tomorrowland was in limbo like Parker's.)

***

Parker darted through the foyer and headed straight for the first floor girls' bathroom, aka “La Cachette”—the hideaway, dubbed so by Kiki during last year's aren't-the-French-so-completely-fantabulous phase. Hardly anybody went into La Cachette because it was next to the Wally Munchkin classrooms and it didn't have an Orion kiosk in it to Spy Feed on people. (The Lylas didn't Spy Feed unless it was a serious life or death kind of sitch.) It was also the least user-friendly bathroom in Wallingford with only two stalls, neither of the locks functioning (possibly the work of Plum Petrovsky, an Allen wrench, four bobby pins and a drop of Elmer's glue, but nobody could say for sure).

Plum was fixing Ikea's lip liner.

“Your vermilion margin is all wrong,” Plum insisted as she artfully lined Ikea's mouth in pale mauve. “It takes away from your eyes, Ike. Your eyes are your main feature.”

Parker sat down on the dainty chair beside the sink and stared at Plum's steady hand until her nerves settled. (Who knew that lip liner could be so relaxing?)

“I yove your yew yweater, 'arker!” Ikea said without moving her lips. “It's yrès yute.”

“Yours is yrès yuter!” Parker joked back as she checked out her no-makeup-look in the mirror. She wondered how
her
vermilion margin looked, whatever that was.

“OMGasp!” Kiki flew into La Cachette, went right for a stall and didn't even shut the door. “I just saw Tinsley who just saw Cosima who heard from Brie who just heard from her brother…” Kiki flushed the toilet with a push of her foot. “That Tribb is totally asking Parker to Fall Sosh…” She washed her hands, fluffed her hair, and sat up on the counter. “Which means we need to start shopping for a dress—like
yesterday
.”

Kiki's hands were flapping up and down by her shoulders so fast that she looked like she might take off. It was a move the Lylas (including Kiki herself) called “the Birdie.” Just the mention of Tribb's name made Parker's face turn bright red.

“Guys don't think about that kind of stuff until like the day before,” Plum said, pulling a linen hand cloth off the neat stack by the sink. “That's just the Gossip Vultures circling around their next meal.” She dabbed the corner over Ikea's lips.

“Maybe he's pre-planning,” Ikea said. “Which is super-cute.”

Parker was barely listening. She was thinking about Tribb and the first kiss and the coordinated outfits and the gardenia corsage. She was crossing her fingers and toes. She was making a secret wish.

“You okay, Park?” Plum asked as she put away her beauty tools.

Parker gulped down and tried to say something that might make sense but nothing came out.

“She's okay,” Kiki said pulling out her sunglasses and fitting them snugly on her face. “Aren't you?”

“But of course.” Parker spiraled her hand in the air and smiled. “It's me, remember?” The Lylas stood side by side in front of the mirror and took a moment to breathe. “Okay,” Parker said. “Let's do this thing.”

Parker adjusted her tote high on her shoulder so she could walk down the hallway toward the eighth grade lockers without ruining the full effect of her outfit. She walked first (kind of a rule but not really official or anything), Kiki second, Plum third, and Ikea last.

Friends were everywhere.

“Parker! Kiki! Plum! Ikea!”

Everyone shouted their names in unison. Parker's head turned left and right. The syllables started sounding like something you could dance to—the chorus of a Gwen Stefani song.

Avery Bitterman came up and threw her arms around Parker. “Love the tan!
Real
…of course!”

“Great new backpack, Aves!” Parker made sure to sound really excited even though she and Avery weren't exactly best friends or anything. “Très cute.”

“Double smiley-face,” Ikea added.

“Really?” Avery's own smiley-face brightened. She'd gone up a notch on the ladder just from that. “Thanks, you guys.”

Duncan Middlestat didn't say hello even though he clearly wanted to. After getting his braces off at the end of last year, Duncan was poised to move into the upper third of the populadder, although he didn't know it yet. He still thought of himself in a lower tier; it would take him a while to mentally catch up to the physical improvements. But he was definitely headed in the right direction.

“Dunkers!” Plum said. “Hawt new jacket!”

“It's
smashing
.” Kiki's compliment sounded like it was delivered by Buckingham Palace.

“Really?” Duncan looked down at his sleeves, clearly baffled. (Boys were slow: an unfortunate fact of life.) “This is the same jacket I had last year.”

“Must be just
you
then, Dunk,” Parker said.

“Courtney! Tins! Natalie!”

“OMG!” Parker's fourth best friend, Courtney Wallace, her fifth best friend, Tinsley Reardon, and her sixth best friend, Natalie Taylor came over: hugs all around.

Courtney gave Parker the limpest squeeze of the bunch. “I am
so
completely embarrassed I forgot to tag you in that photo from my party last year, I'm really glad you picked up on it,” she said, her voice sadly dripping with fakeness. “My bad.”

“No biggie.” Parker forgave her. “It wasn't the best photo of me anyway.”

“That's what I thought.” Courtney smiled.

“Great 'do, Tins!” Parker remarked.

Tinsley's hair was looking even more volumized than usual.

Tinsley tightened the fancy barrette in the back of the pouf on top of her head. “It's a Hollywood Hair Bumpit.” She let the Lylas have a peek of the plastic insert underneath her hair. “
Way
more volume than just the regular Bumpit.”

“Nice,” they agreed.

“
Pouffy
.”

“Sweet bangs, Keek!” The Hyphenators, Cosima Adrianzen-Fonseca and Emily Crawford-Green, admired Kiki's new hair—the must-have haircut that every girl at Wallingford would soon get, according to Kiki.

“Yummy sweater! Fabulouz glasses! Loving the turtleneck! Cute scrunchy!”

Per the Rules, the Lylas found something to like about everyone. The walk to the lockers was going even better than Parker had imagined.

Plum tugged on Parker's tote and nodded her head toward an unfamiliar girl standing by the water fountain. It was a Wally noof, nearly unheard of in eighth grade. Most people changed schools earlier on or waited to be freshman—eighth was
the
harshest year to change schools.

Parker gulped.

The new girl had a quilted Coral Vines tote dangling from the crook of her arm and a matching headband holding back her long curtain of baby-blond hair. Her eyebrows were a deep shade of brown, though, and still in their natural state, enough to make Plum's fingers twitch for tweezers and some eyebrow gel. She bent down and took a drink from the fountain. Parker could see the colorful macramé bracelet that fit loosely around her slim wrist. It was just like the ones the Lylas didn't wear anymore.

“Who's that?” Ikea whispered.

Kiki peered over her sunglasses. Parker averted her eyes.

“That's Cricket Von Wielding,” Tinsley Reardon answered loudly. She took out a Lipglass and twisted it open, smoothing on a fresh shiny layer. “We're loving the Coral Vines tote, right?”

“As in
Governor
Von Wielding?” Ikea gasped.

“Apparently the family wanted to find a school closer to the Governor's Mansion.” Tinsley doled out the tidbit of insider info about Cricket like it was just the beginning of all that she knew. “Plus Swiss boarding school is so politically incorrect.”

“I totally would have voted for Governor Von Wielding if I was eighteen,” Ikea said. “The governor's platform really supports the African American and Hispanic agendas.”

“My father doesn't trust the Democrats,” Tinsley said. “But Cricket seems super-sweet. Don't you think?”

They all stared at the girl at the water fountain even as they tried not to.

Plum squinted. “Somebody should tell her about those eyebrows.” She caught Parker glaring at her. “You know…” she added, “to be helpful.”

Cricket Von Wielding hoisted her Coral Vines tote up over her shoulder. Parker waited to introduce herself but the new girl didn't look their way. She walked right past them, coolly pretending as if she hadn't heard a word or noticed them noticing her.

“So who do you guys think will get stuck with producing this year's webcast?” Tinsley asked, changing the subject.

Parker had actually forgotten completely about it. She never wasted energy thinking about completely lame-o things like the eighth grade webcast. It was like toothpaste or something—it was right there in front of your face all the time but who gave it much thought?

“Allegra Elephant and the Einsteins,” Kiki speculated. “Obvz.”

“Everyone knows it'll be Allegra Oliphant,” Plum concurred. “She's been taking communication classes for
two years
.”

“And she has absolutely no profile,” Tinsley commented. “No Friends whatsoever.”

“Except the Einsteins,” Plum said.

Tinsley tried to contain her snicker.

“It will give Allegra something meaningful to do with her year,” Ikea said.

“It's not like she has anything else to shoot for,” Tinsley added.

“Except the National Debatathon Championship finals,” Kiki muttered.

“I'm actually
psyched
for Allegra,” Parker said.

Everyone except Tinsley smiled. “Totally,” the Lylas agreed.

***

The eighth grade locker area was perched above Wallingford's north campus. It was easy to gaze out the windows to see last year's eighth graders starting their lives out as Wallingford High School freshman—a glimpse into what Parker's future wouldn't be. It was close enough to make anyone forget their combination.

Parker found her new locker and opened it up. The eighth graders got double-deckers instead of the pointless half-lockers that barely fit anything. It was an administrative acknowledgment, Parker thought, that eighth graders had more stuff (which they did). Her locker would need some serious accessorizing ASAP. She envisioned some super-cute magnetic hang-ups, colorful basket organizers, a little mirror and corkboard, and multi-level shelving. A well-organized locker mattered—she didn't care what anyone else thought.

“Hey.”

Even though Parker's locker door was blocking her view, she would recognize Tribb's voice anywhere. It was deep and the tiniest bit hoarse, like there was something a little bit bad behind all that good.

She shut the locker door and there he was. Taller and more muscular than last year…which made sense, as he was the oldest boy in class: nearly a year older than everyone else. He was beautiful in the most guy-like sense of the word. Parker wished she had a pause button so she could linger on him for a while.

“Hey.” Parker leaned back against the locker, flashed a little smile, and made a swift scoop of the hair so that it fell gracefully back down on the face. (Full disclosure: she had practiced her “Hey” routine a dozen different ways in the mirror and this one seemed like the best.) She tried to ignore the chills creeping up from her toes. Parker wanted Tribb like some people wanted to be first in line to buy the latest Orion gizmo. It
had
to happen between them this year.

Tribb checked to make sure the collar of his polo was popped up. It was.

Parker could see the Lylas out of the corner of her eye. Ikea had the Birdie going and Plum had her arms wrapped around her own body and was smooching the air romantically. Meanwhile Tribb's teammates, Beaver Krieger and Kirby Vanderbilt, were standing directly behind Tribb acting cool. Kirby wasn't nearly as cute as Tribb. He looked kind of like a big bird. A big bird with hair and teeth…and a popped up collar. But Kirby was nicer than most of the Tigers and he always got a good part in the spring play, which meant a lot of girls liked him. And Beaver was, well,
Beaver
. It wasn't his nickname for nothing.

Kirby caught Plum's make-out sesh with herself and started giggling. Plum quickly stopped.

“So…” Tribb nodded.

She waited.

“So…” Parker said coolly.

“Really big lockers this year,” Tribb said.

“Yeah.” Parker looked inside the tall metal box and twirled a piece of her hair. “Crazy-spacious.”

“You could practically live in there.” Tribb laughed.
He was so ridiculously cute when he laughed. Serious faint alert.

“It's like nearly an apartment!” The comment came out oddly high-pitched. Parker tried to keep breathing. They both stared into the empty locker for a while until it seemed like that particular bit of conversation had run its course. She let Tribb make the next move.

“So—the
big year
…” Tribb said. “Eighth grade. Pre
tt
y weird.”

“The
big year
…” Parker answered. “Really w
ei
rd.”

“So we should, you know,” Tribb said, “like hang out sometime.”

“Yeah. No,
totally
,” Parker agreed. “Hang out. Definitely.”

“Sweet.” Tribb nodded.

“Completely.” Parker smiled and batted her eyelashes twice. (Twice was the perfect number for a moment like this.)
Am I breathing? I can't actually tell.

Tribb motioned to his friends that it was time to go. “So see ya around…Parker.”

The three of them walked down the hall toward the classrooms.

“You too…” She answered back cutely. “Tribb.”

By the time Tribb and his friends had disappeared, Parker had no air left in her lungs to make sound. The whole conversation just echoed in her head. She tried to replay all the best parts so she'd remember them.

The Lylas had gathered around Parker's locker.

“Your first EGB moment,” Ikea swooned. “That was
so
unbelievably romantic.”

“That was
so
unbelievably ridiculous,” Plum mumbled.

“Was I too primpy?” Parker looked at her reflection in Kiki's sunglasses and fixed the front part of her hair. “I mean, you guys would tell me, right?”

“You were immense,” Kiki said. “
I
wanted to go out with you.”

“Like, if you were Tribb and I was me,” Parker adjusted her sweater, “you wouldn't think I was a total idiot?”

“Not at all,” they agreed.

“You were great, Park,” Ikea assured her.

“And the hair scoop thing was really well executed,” Plum added. “Sweet.”

“But not too
too
,” Kiki agreed.

Parker shut her eyes and tried to shake out her nervousness.
Through the fall—I can make it all happen by then.

The first bell rang. Parker smiled. She and Tribb were now officially a couple. All was going according to plan. Now if she could just use this nice bit of information to convince her mom that this made it absolutely
impossible
to move, she would be set.