Ruined

by Paula Morris

  "What are you talking about?" Rebecca was confused.

  "Well," said Claire, dumping her schoolbag on the ground. "In Roman society, there were various classes, right? At the top were the patricians, who ran everything and got to be emperor. At Temple Mead, that's Them."

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  "Oh." Rebecca nodded. "I heard about 'Them' today. Helena Bowman, right? And Marianne ... is it Sutton? Those are the names I remember."

  "Not bad," Aurelia said approvingly. "Who told you about Them?"

  "I had lunch with two girls from my homeroom. Amy and Jessica."

  "Jessica Frobisher? She's my cousin!" Claire rolled her eyes. "She's a Pleb."

  "Totally," agreed Aurelia.

  "OK, so it's the Patricians and then the Plebs ..."

  "No. Between them there are two other classes. First, the senatorial class, who were all really ambitious and got to wear special togas."

  "With purple stripes," added Aurelia, and Claire nodded. They were so in earnest that Rebecca couldn't help laughing.

  "They're the Debs, see? They want to be Patricians, but they can't make it in. So instead they laud it over everyone else. They're on all the committees and boring stuff like that. And they're all obsessed with balls and parties. The thing they want most is to be queen of a carnival krewe the year they're debutantes."

  "So that's why they're Debs and not ... Sens?" Rebecca ventured.

  "Exactly." Aurelia nodded. "And then there's the equestrian class. They're the girls who represent the school in sports."

  "Tennis, volleyball, soccer," said Claire, sniffing. "Though they're not very good at any of them. We always get our butts kicked by Country Day and St. Louisa's."

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  "But the school loves them and gives them prizes and things all the time."

  "And they wear those ugly bandages on their knees and elbows."

  "So you call them ... ?" The complexities of all this were overwhelming.

  "The Cavalry," Aurelia and Claire said together.

  "And then there are the Plebs, right?" Rebecca was starting to make some sense of their "class" system.

  "They were the workers of Rome," Claire explained, scratching her messy blonde hair ferociously until a stray bobby pin tumbled onto the ground.

  "The mob," sang Aurelia.

  "The emperor made sure they stayed happy by arranging chariot races and gladiator fights. In return, the Plebs did their work and stayed in the background and didn't rebel or anything."

  "And that's what Amy and Jessica are -- Plebs?" Rebecca tried to suppress her smile.

  "Practically everyone is," sighed Claire. "Except us, of course."

  "What are you two?"

  "Goddesses!" grinned Aurelia.

  "Can I be a goddess as well?" Rebecca asked. She'd played some basketball at school, but doubted that she could make it into the Cavalry: She wasn't sure that Temple Mead even had a basketball team. The Debs wouldn't have her, and being a Pleb didn't sound very appealing.

  "Hmmm." Claire screwed up her face. "You're from

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  somewhere else, so maybe you could be a goddess in another religion. Or -- I know! You could be Cleopatra."

  "I don't know about that," Rebecca laughed. "She ended up dying tragically, remember?"

  "But she was glamorous and fascinating," said Claire, picking up her bag. "And Marc Antony gave up everything to be with her."

  "Didn't do him much good," Rebecca said wryly, and both Claire and Aurelia looked sad, as though Marc Antony was a personal friend of theirs. "Humiliated in battle and then forced to kill himself."

  "So romantic, right? Oh, no -- I'm going to be late for ballet!" Claire sped away down Third Street, and with that Rebecca's Latin lesson came to an end.

  But during lunchtimes the rest of that first week, when Rebecca either sat alone or managed to find a seat with Jessica and Amy -- who made little effort to include her in any conversations -- she realized that Claire and Aurelia might be onto something. A few members of the Cavalry stomped around the lunchroom, wearing their elastic bandages; a tableful of Debs conducted an overloud conversation on Who Was Wearing What to the first debutante ball of the season. The vast majority seemed to be Plebs -- girls like Jessica and Amy who weren't going to win too many academic prizes, sporting accolades, or popularity contests, but were happy to cheer everyone else on. These were the girls who filled the ranks of what was known as the school's dance troupe, though

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  Rebecca quickly learned that "dancer" here meant a majorette without a baton who marched in a dozen parades during carnival season, accompanied -- of course -- by the St. Simeon's school band. And instead of gladiator fights and chariot races, the Plebs looked forward to the Spring Dance.

  That Friday, Rebecca left the lunchroom early: She wanted to find the library and maybe take out a book or two on the Roman Empire. She thought she knew the way but, after several wrong turns, she was completely disoriented. Maybe her good sense of direction only applied in the streets of New York, where everything was on a grid: The long, dark hallways of Temple Mead made no sense to her. And then the bell was ringing, and the corridors and stairs filled with girls hurrying to class. The library trip had to be abandoned.

  Climbing the stairs to the third floor, Rebecca heard someone calling her name. She turned her head to look, but couldn't see anyone in the sea of plaid uniforms that she recognized. Then she felt a hand on her elbow, drawing her away to the side. The girl pulling Rebecca over was a willowy blonde with wide, penetrating blue eyes: Marianne Sutton. And behind her, leaning against the banister and looking bored, as though she were waiting for a bus, was Helena Bowman.

  "It is Rebecca, isn't it?" Marianne asked her in an imperious tone, and Rebecca nodded. "You're new here, aren't you?"

  Rebecca nodded again. She couldn't quite bring herself to speak -- not because she was intimidated by Marianne and Helena, but because she didn't want to act like she was yet another of their humble servants.

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  "And your last name is Brown?" Marianne asked, frowning.

  "Yes." Rebecca figured she should speak rather than keep nodding, though she couldn't believe the rudeness of this girl. Marianne hadn't bothered to introduce herself-- she'd just assumed that Rebecca would know who she was. She probably thought Rebecca would be honored by the attention.

  "Do you have a middle name?" This wasn't the first time Rebecca had been asked this question. Some of her classmates had very strange first and middle names: There was a girl in biology whose first name was Buchanan, and Amy's middle name was Claiborne. Both Buchanan and Claiborne were family names -- a mother or grandmother's maiden name. Amy explained that it let everyone else know where you came from, who your "people" were. It seemed really important to these girls that they were part of the history of the city and that everybody knew it.

  "So?" Marianne sounded impatient. "What is it?"

  Rebecca was tempted to say "Cleopatra," but she knew they'd never believe her. Helena, who had been staring off into the distance up until now, turned her cool gaze onto Rebecca. This look, combined with the tone of Marianne's voice, made Rebecca's blood boil. They weren't even pretending to be friendly: They were just being blatantly rude and nosy. Whoever Rebecca's "people" were, she knew they wouldn't be good enough for these girls.

  "Actually, I have two," she said, trying to sound as frosty as Marianne. This was a lie: Rebecca didn't have a middle name at all. "Maria Annunciata."

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  "You're kidding." Marianne looked confused. Helena's pretty face hardened into a sneer.

  "I'm named after my grandmother. My mother's from El Salvador," Rebecca continued, deciding to make her lie even more brazen. "She used to be a maid. That's how she met my father -- he was a doorman at the same hotel."

  Marianne said nothing, but dropped the hand on Rebecca's elbow. Rebecca knew this would happen: Both Marianne and Helena were huge snobs, just as she suspected. How dare they look down at her! />
  Rebecca hurried up the stairs away from them, her face hot with anger. But she couldn't help laughing when she thought about Marianne's amazed expression. At least, she thought, neither of them would ever bother her again. And she wouldn't have to worry about the pyromaniac Toby Sutton asking her to the Spring Dance, either.

  The sooner the word got out at Temple Mead about her humble -- if invented -- Hispanic origins, the better. Rebecca didn't care what any of them thought of her. And she planned to spend as little time as possible thinking about Them.

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  ***

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ***

  WHEN REBECCA AND AURELIA ARRIVED HOME from school that day, Aunt Claudia was still out, reading tarot cards down in the French Quarter. Rebecca was glad: She wasn't in the mood to answer any "how was your first week at school?" questions. Amy and Jessica sat with her at lunchtime because they'd been told to, but they were never going to be real friends. Nobody else talked to her much. And in all her classes, Rebecca felt out of step: The curriculum in Louisiana was completely different from the one she'd been following in New York. In every subject she was either way ahead and bored -- or way behind and confused.

  It wasn't hot -- more like a mild day in spring rather than a late fall afternoon, something else to confuse and frustrate her -- but Rebecca's school uniform felt as though it was stifling and scratching her half to death. Hanging up her blazer, she accidentally jostled one of the voodoo decorations on her bedroom wall, almost knocking the stick doll to the floor. These stupid things were just one more irritation. "Right," she said aloud. "That's it."

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  Aurelia's curly head poked around the bedroom door.

  "Were you talking to me?" she asked, wide-eyed.

  "I want to clear these things out of here," Rebecca told her, pointing at the gaping mask and a rough-edged hanging box added by Aunt Claudia just this week. "I'm sick of bumping into them, and they creep me out, anyway."

  "We could put them up in the attic," suggested Aurelia. At least she was always friendly. "If you can help me get the ladder out."

  Rebecca was surprised to hear a house this small had an attic, but once they'd climbed the stepladder, moved aside a panel in the hallway ceiling, and hauled themselves up into the triangle below the roof, she realized that "attic" was a slight exaggeration. This was an unfinished crawl space: Aurelia was small enough to walk around hunch-shouldered, teetering on the narrow beams, but Rebecca had to stay on her hands and knees, careful to stick to the grid of rafters so she didn't plummet through the insulation tiles into the room below.

  The small space was already crowded with boxes and suitcases and a dusty trunk. With some difficulty, Aurelia held up an axe with a wooden handle to show Rebecca: This, she said, was there in case the Mississippi ever burst its banks and they had to escape into the attic and hack their way onto the roof to be rescued. As far as Rebecca knew, this was their one concession to a "hurricane preparedness" kit.

  Rebecca pushed the cardboard box packed with the relics into one corner, getting more grumpy by the second. It was so stuffy up here, and her knees ached, crawling over the

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  wooden rafters. Her fingertips brushed the spiky legs of a dead cockroach: It was all she could do not to cry out.

  When the box was stashed in the corner, next to a dusty plaid suitcase that looked as though it had been there since 1962, Rebecca lay on her back for a moment, worn out. Aurelia sat down, too, picking at the fluff of an insulation pad.

  "Guess what?" She looked at Rebecca and then glanced away again. "I know where Helena and her friends are going tonight."

  Rebecca closed her eyes.

  "I don't care about them, Relia. They're just mean snobs who need to get out of this town and get a clue." What was the point in knowing where Helena conducted her social life? It would just be another place for Rebecca to get snubbed or looked down on. She'd had enough of "Them" at school today.

  "Not just Helena -- boys as well. The ones from St. Simeon's." Aurelia lowered her voice and leaned toward Rebecca. "They go to the cemetery."

  "Really?" This wasn't what Rebecca was expecting to hear.

  "Last Friday, I woke up in the middle of the night because I could hear people laughing outside. And then I thought I heard Marilyn cry, the way she does when she's caught something she wants to show me. Sometimes it's a bird, sometimes a rat. So I got up to look for her and ... and ..."

  Rebecca opened her eyes and gazed up at Aurelia: Her cousin was almost too excited to speak.

  "And what happened?"

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  "I went to the front parlor and looked out the window. They were at the cemetery gates -- Helena and some other girls and all these boys. They had a key for the gates. Helena was acting like a big phony, because she was pretending it was cold when it wasn't cold at all. She was shivering and jumping up and down until one of the boys put his school blazer around her shoulders. I don't know why she did that."

  "She's a fake," said Rebecca, wondering how they got a key for the cemetery gate and what they got up to inside -- drinking, probably.

  "I think it was Anton Grey," Aurelia continued. "Everyone loves him the best. Claire wants to marry him, and I bet Helena does, too."

  "Come on," said Rebecca, smiling at her. Presumably this Anton Grey was Claire's local Marc Antony substitute. "Let's go back downstairs before your mother gets home."

  "Maybe they'll be back tonight," Aurelia whispered. "You can see for yourself, if you don't mind staying up really late and sneaking around the house in the dark."

  That night, after everyone was in bed, Rebecca lay wide awake. It should be cold this time of year, she thought, but instead the night was almost sultry, too warm for sleeping. Her mind was whirring: She'd told Aurelia she wasn't interested in what Helena and her gang got up to in the cemetery, but Rebecca couldn't help wondering why the group chose there, of all places, to hang out. Her aunt had told her that the cemetery was dangerous and that it was locked every night, but rules didn't seem to apply to Helena, Marianne, and the other Patricians.

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  Rebecca tried closing her eyes and willing herself to go to sleep, and then she heard something outside the house -- a surge of voices, the sound of not-too-distant laughter. She pushed off her bedclothes and glanced at her bedside clock: It was nearly midnight. Maybe the noise was just some neighbors coming home from a party, but there was no harm in checking. She opened her door carefully, so it didn't squeak, and tiptoed down the hallway to the room they called the parlor.

  Aunt Claudia had been in bed for over an hour -- Rebecca had heard her shuffle around as usual and the click of her door closing. Rebecca didn't want to wake up her aunt and have to answer questions about what she was up to. Not that her aunt was mean in any way: She'd been nothing but warm and kind all week, and Rebecca was already feeling guilty about removing the voodoo ornaments from her walls. Aunt Claudia seemed to be a good-hearted person, despite her many eccentricities, her odd choice in home furnishings, and her paranoia about unseen dangers.

  In the parlor, transformed by the darkness into an obstacle course of sharp-edged furniture and dangerously teetering knickknacks, Rebecca pulled one curtain back far enough to peep out. She caught her breath: Just as Aurelia had said, a group of teenagers was gathered by the Sixth Street cemetery gate. Although none of them was wearing the school uniform, she recognized the four girls in the group from school -- Helena, Marianne, and two other junior girls who were part of Helena's "Them" coterie.

  Three boys were there, too, one of whom was already at the gate, rattling its bars and making the others laugh;

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  another balanced a carton of beer on his head. The third boy, the tallest of them all, seemed to be the one with the key. He waited until the others moved out of the way, then he clicked open the padlock and dragged out the chain holding the gates together. The group disappeared into the walled confines of the cemetery.

  T
hey'd left the gate ajar, Rebecca noticed, and in an instant made up her mind: She was going to sneak in and spy on them. Why not? She'd never been someone who scared easily, and anyway, if the cemetery was full of real dangers or horrific sights, snooty girls like Helena and Marianne would keep a mile away from it. Back in her bedroom, Rebecca pulled on sweatpants and her hoodie, quietly digging out her running shoes and slipping her house key into her pocket. It would be better if she had a flashlight, but her eyes would adjust to the gloom, she decided.

  As Rebecca drew open the front door, Marilyn whooshed past her, streaking down the porch steps and out the front gate. The night was cloudy: It was hard to make out the moon and the stars, and Rebecca had to squint to see where Marilyn was headed. No surprise -- the cat was darting through the open gates of the cemetery. All Rebecca had to do was follow her lead.