“The thing to keep in mind is that you’re seeing the school at a very unique time,” Tinsley noted as she stabbed a leaf of her Caesar salad. “We’re all just so stressed about the fire.” Tinsley put down her fork, as if the stress had ruined her appetite, and leaned back against the red vinyl cushions of the booth. Her perfect brow was wrinkled in worry.
Callie took a big bite of her burger, not sure if she could keep a straight face as she watched Tinsley’s dramatics. Ever since she and Easy had gotten back together, she’d been ravenous—probably because of all the calories they were burning.
Chloe picked at her tuna melt and Tater Tots. “It’s totally crazy,” she agreed. “But it will all be over soon, won’t it?” She looked back and forth between the two older girls questioningly. Callie narrowed her eyes at the prospective, wondering how much of her apparent innocence was an act. With her shoulder-length pale blond hair and pale skin, and wearing a pale yellow cable-knit sweater, she looked like a giant, undercooked french fry.
“Hopefully,” Callie piped up, setting her burger down. She grabbed a napkin from the chrome holder and wiped her mouth. She fought the urge to ask the waitress for a bib—the last thing she wanted to do was spill on her new ruffly lavender Joie top. “If they catch the right person. But from what I can tell, they’re not going to.”
“Really?” Chloe asked, looking up at Callie. She rolled the sleeves up on her sweater. “Why do you say that?”
Tinsley pulled the long silver spoon from her tall glass of frothy milk shake, licked it clean, and pointed it right between Chloe’s eyes. “Because the real culprit is doe-eyed and innocent-looking, just like you,” she replied matter-of-factly. She placed the spoon down on the Formica countertop. “You may have met her, actually. Her name is Jenny Humphrey.”
Callie scanned the restaurant, hoping no one from Waverly was within earshot. Either nobody had wanted to venture off campus for lunch, or Nocturne was even newer than she’d realized, because she didn’t recognize a single face. Besides, the jukebox was playing a selection of cheesy ’50s songs nonstop—“My Boyfriend’s Back” was currently blaring through the speakers—so she doubted anyone at the next booth could even hear them.
Chloe’s baby blue eyes widened. “Jenny? I met her. She goes out with Julian, right? He’s so cute.”
Tinsley flinched. It was bad enough that Heath knew about her and Julian and was sending her snide IMs throwing it in her face. Now she had to listen to this little prospective talk about the freakishly hot freshman and his gigantic-boobed girlfriend. If she heard Jenny and Julian mentioned in the same breath again, she was going to throw her milk shake clear across the diner. And if she ever saw them together again, she just might start another fire—this time intentionally. Wednesday’s meeting, and Jenny Humphrey’s expulsion from Waverly, could not come quickly enough.
“Did she really start the fire?” Chloe continued, her high-pitched voice sounding almost like a whine.
“Yes.” Callie nodded definitively, turning to the younger girl. “I saw her with a lighter in her hand, by the barn. But I can’t tell the administration that, because then I’ll seem suspicious for having been there. Can you imagine how terrible it feels, to know someone’s guilty but not to be able to tell the truth?” She sighed dramatically and slumped against the red vinyl of the diner’s booth.
Chloe looked like a Tater Tot might have lodged in her esophagus. “But,” she sputtered, “she could be dangerous!” Behind her glasses, her blue eyes looked truly frightened.
“You’re exactly right.” Tinsley leaned forward conspiratorially, pushing her salad aside. She locked her violet eyes on Chloe’s. “Which is why we have to be vigilant, and really watch her today and tomorrow. With the list of suspects released, she’s probably feeling backed against a wall, and who knows what she could do?” Tinsley leaned back in the booth again, patted her neat black ponytail, and straightened her sailor dress. “So maybe we should make a pact that we’ll all keep an eye on Jenny? And that if we see anything suspicious, we’ll make sure to tell each other?”
Chloe put down her tuna melt excitedly. “You want me to help?”
“Of course.” Tinsley nodded briskly. She lowered her voice to a whisper, as if she were entrusting Chloe with CIA secrets. “We need you to help.”
Chloe wiped her hand on a napkin. She took her glasses off, and her eyes, which looked even more enormous without glasses, darted between Callie and Tinsley. “Okay,” she said slowly. “But if I help and, um, keep an eye on Jenny, what’s in it for me?”
“Well,” Tinsley said sweetly, a familiar glint in her eye, “let’s just say that when you start Waverly next fall, you’ll have the two most popular senior girls for best friends.” The jukebox changed to Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel,” and Tinsley smiled her patented Carmichael smile, the one that seemed to say, I’m holding all the cards, but be honored that I’ve let you play.
Chloe straightened in the booth, as if aware of the new responsibility that had been laid upon her shoulders. “That sounds cool.” She nodded, putting her glasses back on and pushing them up against the bridge of her nose. “I’ve always wanted to be popular.”
Callie shook her head and took a sip of Diet Coke. Of course she did—who didn’t? Callie had learned quickly at Waverly never to underestimate the strength of a girl’s—any girl’s—ambitions.
BennyCunningham: So, you coming to the crater tomorrow?
LonBaruzza: To see you off? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
BennyCunningham: Good. Bet you’d be fun to order around.
LonBaruzza: Oh, just try me.
BennyCunningham: How are you at back rubs?
LonBaruzza: Incomparable.
BrandonBuchanan: What do you know about Sage Francis?
RyanReynolds: Why u asking?
BrandonBuchanan: Just answer the question.
RyanReynolds: Well, she’s single . . . and she’s HAWT.
BrandonBuchanan: Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.
RyanReynolds: Only trouble is, she’s hottie for my body. So don’t go there.
BrandonBuchanan: Reynolds, nobody is hottie for your anything. Get ahold of yourself. No one else will.
HeathFerro: Do you have a size small dress shirt?
KaraWhalen: What?
HeathFerro: Come on. Help a Woman of Waverly in need. It’s not like I’m asking to borrow your panties. Tho now that I think about it . . .
KaraWhalen: You’re a nut. Come on over.
11
A RESPONSIBLE OWL KNOWS BETTER THAN TO PESTER THE DEAN’S SECRETARY.
Brett’s face fell when she saw Mr. Tomkins’s bald dome of a head hunched in front of his flat-screen monitor, blocking her path to Marymount’s office. She’d decided to come at lunchtime, when Mr. Tomkins was usually in the dining hall, loading up on beets, asparagus, and chicken breast at the salad bar. She bet his pee smelled like dead cat.
Brett knew something was afoot as soon as Mr. Tomkins looked up from his desk at her and put down his tuna on rye. He straightened his black tie with tiny jack-o’-lanterns all over it. Wasn’t it a little early for Halloween? She shuddered at the idea of him dressed up in the same Headless Horseman costume as last year, which had involved a weird leather hood that looked like it had come from a sex shop. It was actually really scary, especially when she tried not to think about what he did with the costume the rest of the year in the privacy of his own home. The legend of Sleepy Hollow had taken on a whole new, totally pornographic meaning.
“Is he in?” Brett asked, tilting her head to the side so that her fire engine red hair fell like a curtain to her shoulder. In her red-and-black-plaid wool James Perse jumper, worn over a flirty white hippie shirt she’d borrowed from Kara last week, Brett hoped she looked appropriately innocent.
Mr. Tomkins nodded slowly, wiping his lips with a scrunchedup napkin. “That he is.” He’d evidently given up pretending he had any hair left and had gone ahead and shaved the la
st ten hairs completely off. Brett moved toward Marymount’s closed door and Mr. Tomkins flinched. His whole body tensed up, as if he were ready to spring out of his chair and throw himself in front of the door if necessary. “But he can’t be disturbed.”
Disturbed? Since when was a visit from the junior class prefect a disruption? And since when was Mr. Tomkins, who adored Brett, acting all secrety? “Why not?” she demanded, instantly aware of the fact that she should be buttering Tomkins up instead of challenging him. But it was an urgent situation, and Brett was too annoyed, and a little scared, at being named a suspect to waste her time flirting with Mr. Tomkins. She always suspected he just acted effeminate so that the girls would be less self-conscious about bending over or adjusting their bra straps in front of him. Perv.
“He’s busy preparing his speech for the prospective- student welcome dinner tonight,” Mr. Tomkins informed her. She noticed a tiny splotch of mustard on his tie and knew he’d be mortified when he found it. “He left strict instructions not to be disturbed.”
“But it’s an emergency.” Brett felt her ten-year-old whine creeping into her voice and swallowed hard. She wasn’t going to beg Mr. Tomkins. It was humiliating enough having her name associated with the fire—why the hell was she on the list, anyway? “And I’m the junior class prefect,” Brett added desperately, knowing that she was getting on Mr. Tomkins’s nerves. She wondered if she should just compliment him on his shaved skull and be done with it. “I’m here on school business.”
Mr. Tomkins stared at her, leaning back in his antique oak chair. “What business is that?”
“You know.” Brett felt herself grasping for words. So much for two years on the debate team, preparing herself for confrontation. She placed her palms on the bare surface of Mr. Tomkins’s polished oak desk and smiled pleadingly at him. “I just need to speak with him for a minute. Can’t you get me in for one minute? You can time me.”
Mr. Tomkins smiled, amused, and shook his head no. Brett heard a rustling behind the dean’s door and waited with anticipation for it to open, but the rustling died down and the office grew quiet again.
“He simply can’t be disturbed,” Mr. Tomkins repeated, half looking at his computer screen, one hand perched on the mouse. Easy job, Brett thought bitterly. Eating tuna sandwiches at your desk and surfing the Web for Sleepy Hollow porn all day, throwing out a student here and there. “I wish I could help you.”
“I’m a prefect—” Brett ramped up for a second go-round with that approach.
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Mr. Tomkins interrupted. He didn’t look up from his screen this time, and Brett had the feeling that he was completely absorbed in a game of solitaire.
“—and I have a right to know why I’m a suspect.” Brett blushed, a little worried about being overhead dealing in her own self-interest, especially after having pretended to represent the student body as a whole. But there wasn’t anyone else in the office, and if the dean heard her, well, maybe then he’d let her in.
“I’m sorry.” Mr. Tomkins sounded about as unsorry as possible. “I can’t divulge that information.” He had a self- satisfied, I-know-something-you-don’t-know smile on his face, and Brett didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of begging him to “divulge” that “information.” She was about to turn and leave when Mr. Tomkins surprised her by lowering his voice to a whisper. “But I imagine some students are on the list because they haven’t exactly kept a low profile as of late.”
For half a second, she thought he must have meant Heath. Or Tinsley. Or even Jenny, who seemed to be the subject of a million conversations, along with Easy and Callie.
But as she looked at his pointedly raised eyebrows, she realized that Mr. Tomkins meant her. Her stomach plummeted to the toes of her red suede Campers. You have got to be kidding me! Brett wanted to scream at Tomkins, who was pretending not to notice the look of horror on her face. I’m on the list because I don’t lock myself in my room and study all the time? I’m on the list because my classmates have been gossiping about me? I’m on the list because I kissed another girl? How was that even possible? Horrified, her knees shaking, Brett stumbled out of the office, not even bothering to say goodbye.
Out in the hall, she collapsed on the hard wooden bench, where countless numbers of delinquents had been forced to wait while Marymount arbitrarily decided their fate. She imagined Dean Marymount and Mr. Tomkins and a flock of other nosy teachers, gleefully huddled around a Waverly yearbook, pointing their fingers and cheering when they found someone who looked appropriately guilty. She could just see their faces when they reached her picture. Mr. Tomkins would pull on his jack-o’-lantern tie.
“Hmmm, yes.” Dean Marymount would pet his thin sandy comb-over. “Sketchy lesbian pyro. Even if she is the junior class prefect, better put her on the list.” Then he’d nod sagely before writing down her name, in permanent ink, with the word guilty underlined next to it.
KaraWhalen: Want to head over to the prospectives’ dinner together later?
BrettMesserschmidt: I might just order in instead. . . .
KaraWhalen: How come?
BrettMesserschmidt: Yeah, I sort of feel like lying low.
KaraWhalen: Hey, there’s nothing to worry about. We’re on the dean’s list, but we didn’t do anything wrong, right?
BrettMesserschmidt: Depends on who you ask.
12
A WAVERLY OWL NEVER FORFEITS A MATCH.
Tinsley made her way down the gravelly path to Dumbarton, her white leather Prince tennis shoes cushioning each step. Practice today had been more amusing than usual. Ms. Nemerov, the ultra-fit, slightly mannish Russian coach, was unabashedly giving Tinsley special treatment due to the dean’s list of suspects—she was horror-struck at the idea that her star player could be taken away, and had even brought Tinsley aside and offered to put in a good word for her to Dean Mary-mount. Tinsley politely declined. She was doing just fine on her own, thank you very much. With Chloe’s help, the dean would already be convinced Jenny was the culprit by Wednesday’s meeting. Tinsley felt like a puppeteer playing with her marionettes, holding all the strings.
On the lawn, a flock of underclass girls in tank tops were sprawled out on a maroon Waverly stadium blanket, their skinny arms soaking up the last gasps of the summer sunshine before it was gone completely. They all turned, almost imperceptibly, from the books they were pretending to study to watch Tinsley, and she had to stifle a smile. She sliced her racket through the air as she walked, imagining Jenny’s head on the chopping block. She didn’t notice the tall, lanky figure approaching her until she’d nearly run into him.
“Tinsley,” Julian announced abruptly, and she almost jumped.
“Julian,” she replied automatically, unable to think of anything else to say. Faced with his adorable rangy figure and his puppy-dog brown eyes, she felt strangely nervous. Her stomach flip-flopped as she remembered their sexy encounters all over campus—the Dumbarton bathroom, the movie screening room in the basement of Hopkins Hall. She’d turned it into a top secret affair, all because she was afraid of the world finding out she liked a freshman. But really, now that she thought about it, how bad could it have been? She probably would have started a trend, à la Demi Moore.
“Hey, I’m, uh, sorry we never really talked this weekend.” Julian dug a toe into the gravel path. He looked up again, his shaggy blond-brown hair falling messily across his forehead. He wore a yellow plaid button-down, and Tinsley wondered what he had on underneath. “Things just got sort of crazy. But I really did want to talk to you about some stuff.”
Tinsley straightened, feeling like she’d just been slapped in the face. She chastised herself for her moment of weakness. Why did she let this freshman get under her skin? “Some stuff?” she asked icily, narrowing her violet eyes. “And by ‘things got sort of crazy,’ you mean you were too busy with your new girlfriend?”
“What are you talking about?” Julian looked genuinely confused. He ran a hand through his mes
sy hair, probably wondering how she knew about Jenny. Did he really think he could sneak around with that top-heavy little slutbag without her finding out?
“Don’t play dumb with me. I saw you with that midget.” She rested her titanium tennis racket on the ground and leaned on it, feeling like she’d just won match point.
Julian raised his eyebrows. She couldn’t tell if he was surprised or angry. Probably both. “When?”
Tinsley froze, realizing her mistake. If she told him she’d seen them outside the barn, she’d practically be admitting to arson. She stole a glance to her left. The sunbathing girls were still engrossed in their books, though she suspected they were straining to hear every word of her conversation. “It doesn’t matter when,” she hissed. “But I’ll make this easy for you. The next time I see you and your little girlfriend together might be your last timetogether.” She said the last words slowly and carefully. She didn’t want to have to repeat herself.
Julian’s face turned slightly pink. “Are you threatening me?” His voice wavered and he lost his usual easy composure, seeming both shocked and a little scared. Which was exactly how Tinsley wanted her opponents to feel.
“Don’t be silly,” she laughed, tossing her black, silky hair. “I think we both know who I’m threatening.”
She turned on her heel and walked off, swinging her racket daintily. Game, set, match. But the loser here wasn’t Julian. It was someone much, much shorter.
Lucky Page 7
