第2章 beg

I so shouldn't have worn this thong. It was hiking up my butt, and there was nothing I could do about it because there was no way to subtly reach up and yank it out. "They're comfortable," Mom had said. Then, "Well, they do take some getting used to. But Jane, if you don't want panty lines…"

Thanks, Mom. This was the wedgie from hell.

"I'm thinking maybe board shorts and a red tank top," Alicia said.

I shifted on the hard cafeteria chair. My new dress, the one that demanded no panty lines, wrinkled under my thighs.

"If I can find black board shorts," Alicia went on. "Or board shorts with enough black in them to count as black. We all have to wear black and red, did I tell you?"

"Go Devils," I said.

Alicia speared a spaghetti noodle. She twirled it around her fork. "You're being stupid, you know. They have spots for five freshmen. You could sign up after lunch and still have-"

She was interrupted by a high-pitched yowl as a rangy butterscotch-colored cat bolted from the kitchen. It leaped over one table and skidded down another, sending a plate of spaghetti crashing to the floor. Cries erupted as people jerked out of its way. Chairs screeched.

"Get out! Get out!" one of the cafeteria ladies shrieked, brandishing a spatula. "Filthy overgrown rodent!"

The cat bounded through the wide double doors. The cafeteria lady flung her spatula, and the cat jumped sideways and tore down the hall.

"And stay out!" the cafeteria lady yelled. She stared after it, her face flushed and her hairnet slipping out of place. She stomped back to the kitchen to the applause of the student body.

"Jesus Christ," Alicia said. "You'd think we could have one day-one day-without those cats breaking a frickin' plate. But nooo. The whole damn school is possessed, I'm not even kidding."

"They're cats, Alicia. Not spinning-head girls from The Exorcist."

"They're diseased. Why doesn't someone call the Humane Society?"

I raised my eyebrows. Mr. Van Housen, the principal, had called the Humane Society, as well as Animal Control. He'd sent out e-mail after e-mail explaining the difficulty of capturing feral cats once they've taken over a given territory, e-mails that Alicia had received along with everyone else.

"Whatever," she said. "But it's driving me insane." She stabbed a fresh noodle and demanded, "So will you? Sign up after lunch?"

"I'm not trying out for cheerleading," I said.

"But why? I know you're convinced you're this big loser, but you could at least try out."

My skin grew warm. "I'm not convinced I'm a loser. Who said I'm convinced I'm a loser?"

"Hmm. Would that possibly be you, Jane?" She assumed a hangdog expression. "'I am worthless and alone because my daddy abandoned me. Boo-hoo-hoo.'"

I put down my garlic bread. Alicia was not nearly as clever as she liked to think she was.

"I'm kidding," she said. Her face showed her regret, although only for an instant. Being real with each other wasn't something Alicia and I knew how to do very well. "But how are you going to, like, rise above it if you never even make the effort? I'm serious. Don't you ever just want to be more than who you are?"

A new disruption sent ripples through the crowded cafeteria, saving me from having to answer. It was the Bitches, Crestview's elite, strolling majestically through the doors. They filed in according to rank: first Keisha, who was a senior; then Bitsy, a junior; then Mary Bryan, a sophomore. A lull fell in the hum of eating and talking, and then conversations swelled back up. Brad Johnson's laugh rang out, shouting, Look at me! Look at me! Sukie Karing smiled hard and waved. "Over here!" she called. "I saved you guys seats!"

"They're not cheerleaders," I said. "You don't have to be a cheerleader to be cool."

Alicia snorted. Still, she straightened her spine as Bitsy passed. So aware, all of us, of being in their presence. I watched as they waltzed into the food line, then I gloomily regarded my spaghetti, knowing they'd emerge with fettuccine alfredo.

Alicia sagged into her usual slump. "That's because they're beyond cheerleader-cool," she said. "The usual rules don't apply."

"Well, that's not fair," I said. But it was a half-hearted complaint, because to complain about something, you had to not like that thing, and I liked the Bitches as much as anyone. Liked them-ha. Craved them, yearned for them, wanted to be them. Bought this stupid dress to impress them, for god's sake, not that they'd ever notice. So really, the complaint was less about them and more about me.

Keisha walked out of the food line with her loaded tray, and Tommy Arnez quoted loudly from Casablanca.

"I came for the waters!" he cried. He and Curtis MacKeen started a Casablanca riff, their voices growing louder and their Bogart impressions heavier, and Keisha rewarded them with a smile.

"So will you at least come watch next Monday, when we do our official auditions?" Alicia asked. "I need someone to cheer me on."

I turned back to her. "I thought the cheering was your job."

She scowled, Oh aren't you funny.

"Of course I'll come," I said. "I'll clap like crazy."

Keisha, Bitsy, and Mary Bryan dropped down by Sukie Karing, and Mary Bryan tore open a packet of cheese and sprinkled it onto her carbonara. Not fettuccine alfredo, but carbonara. I could see the pancetta.

"I just hope I can do a split by then," Alicia said. "I am so inflexible it's not even funny." Her eyes drifted to the Bitches, then made their way back to me. She sucked on her Diet Coke. "So what's your big news? Before homeroom you said you had something to tell me."

"I did?" I said. "Huh. I can't remember."

"Liar," she said. "Did it have to do with your dad? I bet it did, didn't it? Did he send you another dippy gift?"

As a matter of fact, he had. He'd mailed me a souvenir from Egypt, the latest stop on his quest to find himself. I wadded up my napkin.

"Because you really can tell me," she said. "I won't say anything mean. I promise."

"I've got to go," I said. I tossed my napkin on my tray and stood up. "I've got to finish my Spanish."

"Nerd," she said.

"Spaz," I said.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder. A lump in the bottom bumped my hip. I took my tray to the conveyor belt, then headed past Mary Bryan and Keisha and Bitsy toward the door. Easy now, I told myself. Stomach in. Chin up. Expression alert, indicating rich inner life. Three, two, one-smile!

Oh god, did I have oregano stuck in my teeth?

Mary Bryan smiled back at me. At me. At easy, breezy me. I floated out of the room as my thong climbed up my butt.

During Spanish, I reached into my backpack and closed my hand around Dad's present. A small brown teddy bear, just right for an eleven-year-old, wearing a shirt that read I LOVE CAIRO.

"We've got spirit, yes we do! We've got spirit-how 'bout you?"

Whoops and cheers assaulted me as I walked across campus after class. Clusters of freshman girls, each group with their own senior leader, bounced and leaped and yelled. I searched for Alicia and spotted her on the courtyard of Askew Hall. With her pale skin and inky black hair, she was an easy target. The other girls were doing a step-cross-step kind of movement, but Alicia crossed when they stepped and stepped when they crossed. Her tongue jammed against her lower lip, making it bulge. She did that when she concentrated.

She rammed the girl beside her, and my face heated up for no good reason. It wasn't me who had rammed Chelsea Olsen. It wasn't me who appeared to be nursing a wad of chew.

Stop it, I scolded myself. Be nice. With Alicia, I was always trying to be a better friend than I was.

Footsteps clipped behind me, and I turned to see a breathless Mary Bryan. Mary Bryan! Her cheeks were pink and her honey-blond hair was slipping from her ponytail. Her striped T-shirt stopped above her belly button, revealing an inch of tummy above her low-slung jeans.

"Jane," she said. "Hey! I was looking for you."

I glanced behind me, even though she'd said my name as clear as could be. "You were?"

"Where are you headed? I'll walk with you."

"Uh, I'm just going to the library. I have a report due for English." This wasn't true. Really I was just going to hide out until three when Mom picked me up. I would hole up in one of the carrels and reread the Ramona books I loved back in sixth grade.

"Ugh," Mary Bryan groaned. "Hate English reports. My last one was on that play Pygmalion, which, I'm sorry, totally sucked."

"That's the one with the 'Rain in Spain' song, right?" I asked. My nerves made me blabber. "Where that professor-what was his name? Oh yeah, Henry Huggins. And he turns a street urchin into a lady and then falls in love with her?"

Mary Bryan's lips came together, and my stupidity hit me like a blow. Mary Bryan was a sophomore. She'd never said more than "hi" to me, and now, when she did, I gave a show-offy speech about a play she probably hadn't even finished.

"Close," she said, "only you're thinking of the musical, which is My Fair Lady. In the play, they don't fall in love."

"Oh."

"And it's Henry Higgins, not Huggins," Mary Bryan said. "For what it's worth." Idly, she dipped one finger under the waist of her jeans and scratched her tummy. "Anyway… you want to hang out sometime?"

Her words barely made it past my embarrassment. And when they did, they made no sense. Again I swiveled my head to see who she was really talking to.

"Gooooo, team!" the wannabe cheerleaders cried.

"Team!" echoed Alicia, one beat late.

"Um," I said. My brain was jammed. "Um…"

"I'll call you," Mary Bryan said. She checked out the cheerleading girls, who pinwheeled their arms and flung themselves in the air. Her eyebrows edged higher as Alicia landed wrong on her ankle. "Shit!" Alicia cried, audible even from here.

Mary Bryan pulled out of it. "Okay," she said. "Got to motor." Over her shoulder she said, "Love the dress, by the way. See ya!"

plainjain: omg, u will not believe who talked 2 me after school. who came up and talked to ME, on purpose. go on, guess.

malicious14: who?

plainjain: mary bryan richardson!!!

malicious14: wtf?

plainjain: and get this: she asked if i want 2 hang out sometime.

malicious14: haha, very funny

plainjain: she did, i swear. it was extremely freaky.

malicious14: did she have u confused w/somebody, u think?

malicious14: jk

plainjain: oh god, maybe she did. except she did use my name, so what's that all about?

malicious14: she probably felt sorry for u. she was probably like, "oh, there's that poor sad freshman who's always slinking off to the library."

plainjain: fyi, i didn't even go to the library. i was going to, but i changed my mind.

malicious14: why, cuz u were in a fog of post-mary bryan delirium? listen, jane, she might have SAID u should hang out, but she didn't really mean it. u know that, right?

plainjain: gee, thanks

malicious14: i'm just saying. anyway, i've g2g. i twisted my ankle during cheerleading practice, and i've gotta put more ice on it. everybody gave me those fake pity looks, when really they were just glad it wasn't them.

plainjain: bastards

plainjain: hey, maybe it was my dress, cuz mb did mention she liked it. u think that's it?

malicious14: mb? ur calling her mb now?

plainjain: i bet it was my dress.

malicious14: ur pathetic. bye!

I shut down the computer and shoved back my chair. It was on wheels, so it rolled back several feet before ramming into the coffee table.

"Jane," Mom warned from the kitchen.

"Sorry," I said.

We went through this at least once a day, all because Mom refused to let me put the computer in my room. She did it for my own good, so that I wouldn't become a raving sex maniac with the screen name "Foxxxie LaRue." This, from my thirty-nine-year-old thong-wearing mother.

She walked barefoot into the den. "All done with your homework?" she asked.

"Didn't have any," I said. "But I found this awesome site called 'jailbait.com.' Grown-ups visit it, not just kids, and I can sign up to be penpals with someone in prison. That would be okay, right? I could, like, give back to the community."

She sat on the worn sofa and patted the cushion beside her. "Come sit with me. Tell me about your day."

I rose from the computer chair and joined her.

"So what's new in Jane Land?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. She scooched over her legs, and I leaned against her. "Alicia's trying out for cheerleading. She really, really, really wants to make it."

"Do you think she will?"

"Um, that would be a big fat no, sadly enough."

"Why not?"

"Because the more you want something, the less likely you are to get it. Anyway, she's kind of a spaz."

Mom stroked my hair. "Jane. You don't truly believe that, do you?"

"I'm not saying it to be mean. She's just not all that coordinated."

"No, that you never get the things you want."

I started to reply, then let my mind drift off as she traced circles on my scalp. It was like being little again, when she used to brush my hair after a bath. I'd smell like my special kid's shampoo that came in the fish-shaped bottle, and after the tangles had been combed out, Dad would wrap me in a hug and call me his mango-tango baby.

Mom kept caressing. After several minutes, she said, "Phil called, by the way. He didn't leave a message. He said it wasn't important."

"Okay," I said. Phil was my best boy bud. My safety date, not that I ever went on dates with him or anyone else. He'd kind of had a crush on me since we met in seventh grade-he tutored me in science for extra credit-but the good thing about Phil was that we could go on being friends and never really deal with it. I knew Phil would always be there for me.

"And your dad called," Mom continued. "He was sorry he missed you." Her fingers slowed in my hair. "He's flying to Zimbabwe tomorrow. He's going to stay in a thatched hut."

"Great," I said.

"Jane…"

"Mom."

She sighed. Now it was her turn not to reply.

I stared at the ceiling with its spiderweb of cracks. I listened to our breaths. Finally, I pushed myself up.

"Guess I better go to bed," I said.

Mom smiled up at me, although her eyes were sad. "Love you, Jane," she said.

"Yeah," I said. "Love you, too."

Upstairs, I pulled the teddy bear from my backpack. I stroked its fur, then lightly touched its nose.

It wasn't true, what Alicia had said about Dad. I didn't feel abandoned, boo-hoo-hoo. Because Dad hadn't abandoned us. That was giving him too much power. He'd just gone on a very long trip.

"Jane, your father needs some space to figure out who he is," Mom had said when Dad left three years ago. "He needs to do a lot of thinking. Nobody can do the work for him."

"But… what about us?" I'd asked.

"We'll be fine," Mom said. As in, case closed.

But another time I'd overheard her talking to her friend Kitty, who'd come over bearing beer and brownies. By that point half a year had gone by, and while Dad sent us checks to cover the bills, he still hadn't come home.

"Carol, you need help," Kitty had said. "Your gutters are in desperate need of cleaning, and the entire house could stand to be painted. Inside and out. Do you want me to send Dan over to take care of it?"

"No, thanks," Mom said. "I can handle it."

"Obviously you can't," Kitty said. "And you shouldn't have to. Honestly, Carol, this is getting ridiculous."

"You think I don't know that?" Mom replied. She was using her "marching bravely onward" voice, meant to keep pity at bay. "Yes, the house is falling apart. And yes, Carl should be here to take care of it-among other things, god knows. But I have to remind myself that things could be worse. At least he's not dead."

"Dead would be worse?"

Big silence. I could imagine the look Mom gave Kitty, because I'd received it often enough myself. But Kitty pressed on.

"Already you're without a husband, and poor Jane is without a father," she said. "Think what kind of damage that does to a kid."

From my spot on the stairs, I'd felt a welling of shame. Damaged goods, was that how Kitty saw me?

"Well, Kitty, life is messy," Mom said brusquely. "We don't always get to choose what happens to us, do we?"

"No, but we do get to choose how to respond."

I'd stood up, because I'd heard enough. Kitty was right: We did get to choose how to respond. And my response was to say screw it. Dad made his decisions, and I'd make mine, and nobody got to say I was damaged goods but me.

I still believed that, although believing it in my mind and believing it in my heart were sometimes two very different things. Because by staying away for so long, Dad didn't exactly make me feel as if I was worth sticking around for.

I turned the teddy bear upside down. It had soft felt pads on the bottoms of its paws, a detail I would have loved if I were still eleven. I opened my dresser drawer and dropped in the bear. I closed the drawer.

In the middle of the night, my eyes flew open. A dream, or a corner of one, had jerked me from sleep. Something about cheerleading. Something about a boy. A boy in a raincoat.

Crap. It was Henry Huggins. Henry Huggins, from the Ramona books. He was Beezus's friend, the one with the paper route and the dog named Ribsy. And when Ramona was in kindergarten, he was the traffic boy that helped her cross the street. One stormy day she trudged into a muddy construction site and got stuck, and Henry lifted her straight out of her boots to safety.

The next day, Bitsy approached me at my locker. She wore a plaid micro-mini and a white Oxford with the sleeves rolled up. Her white knee socks were scrunched around her ankles, and on her feet she wore clunky Doc Martens. Her hair was tied back in doggy-ears.

"Hello, luv," she said.

My head jerked up, and I dropped my math spiral.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," she said. "Can't a girl say hello?"

I bent to retrieve my notebook, cheeks burning. Chatting with Mary Bryan was one thing-and far weird enough to last for several days. But Bitsy? Bitsy was a junior, a full two years older than me. And she was British. She used expressions like "brilliant" and "pet" and "you stupid cow."

"Mary Bryan did talk to you, right?" Bitsy asked.

I nodded, focusing on her Hello Kitty hair elastics so I wouldn't have to meet her eyes. She was scarily hip.

"It's not a done deal, of course," she said. "We do have to test you."

"You do?" I felt like I was going to faint. I had no clue what she was talking about.

Bitsy tilted her head. "We're extremely selective, pet. We have to be. But we think you're the one."

The one what? I wanted to say. But I was too busy hyperventilating. Anyway, where was Alicia? We always met at our lockers first thing in the morning. If Alicia were here, she could tell me if this was really happening. And what it meant. Where was she?

"Wear something semi-nice," Bitsy said. "Not too tarty." She took in my T-shirt and jeans, which I'd worn over my everyday Jockeys for Her. I'd reverted to my pre–shopping spree basics, but I'd chosen my faded Sesame Street shirt with care, thinking it was maybe retro-cool.

"But maybe a little tarty wouldn't be bad, eh?" Bitsy laughed as she headed down the hall. "Friday night, then. Ta!"

Friday night, then? Friday night?! My only plans for Friday night were to curl up with a bag of popcorn and watch Survivor: Senior High. From last week's preview, I knew that the challenge involved a three-legged race to the school's infirmary while real gang members trolled the halls. There was supposed to be a twist, too. Something having to do with the team members' bandanas.

But Bitsy, was she suggesting… ?

I couldn't even say it in my head, that's how ridiculous it was. But if not that, then what? What was Bitsy suggesting?

I felt pressure behind my knees-a swift double nudge-and my legs buckled. I smelled Alicia's Obsession.

"Cute," I said, turning toward her.

"What did Bitsy want?" she asked. "I saw the two of you talking."

"Shit, Alicia, I have no idea. She just came up to me, out of the blue, and was all, 'Hello, luv,' and 'We think you're the one,' and-" I broke off. "What? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"The one what?" Alicia said.

"I have no idea! That's what I'm telling you! I mean, first Mary Bryan, and now Bitsy… it's just strange, that's all."

"I'll say," she said. Her expression wasn't happy. "I mean, last night when you mentioned Mary Bryan… but then I thought, 'No. No way.' Only now, if you're telling the truth…"

"What?!!" I said.

Alicia frowned. "Rae said they'd be picking a freshman. She said they always do."

Rae was Alicia's karaoke-singing sister, who'd graduated from Crestview five years ago. She still lived at home.

"'They' who?" I demanded. "And how would Rae know?"

"Because Rae went to school here before we did," Alicia said. Her tone said, idiot. "And there were Bitches back then, too."

I sighed. I knew what was coming was one of Rae's "back in the olden days" explanations, in which everything sucked because she was never homecoming queen or head cheerleader.

"Yeah, well, there've always been Bitches," I said. "And there will always be Bitches. It's just a fact of life."

"Exactly," Alicia said. "Only I didn't believe it at first."

"Believe what?"

She stared at me like I was a lab rat.

I turned to my locker and yanked out books. I knew it was going to be stupid, whatever Rae had told her, because it always was. Like not to let guys hug us from behind, because it was a sneaky way to cop a feel. Or not to put our hands in the front pockets of our jeans, because it might look like we were trying to cop a feel.

"Of ourselves?" I'd said when Rae laid that one on us.

"Keep your hands out of the cookie jar, that's all I'm saying," Rae had replied. She held up her own to show me, like Hey, I've got nothing to hide.

But stupid or not, I had to hear whatever Bitch-lore Rae had passed on.

"Fine," I said to Alicia. "Whatever it is, will you please just tell me?"

The bell rang for first period. Alicia glanced down the hall.

"I've got a Spanish quiz. I can't be late," she said.

"Alicia," I warned.

She turned back. She knew she had me. "Come over at five, after cheerleading practice. Rae can tell you herself."

I ate lunch in the library. Me and Ramona, age eight. This was the one in which Ramona accidentally broke an egg in her hair and got called a nuisance by her teacher, and as I turned the page, my heart went out to her. My heart did not go out to Alicia, and if she wondered why I wasn't in the cafeteria, it served her right. She could find someone else to eat with today. Like one of the feral cats, and she could go on and on to it about pikes and herkies and toe-touch jumps. I was just fine with Ramona, thanks very much.

A throat-clearing noise broke my concentration. I looked up, and there was Keisha. A senior. My heart started hammering.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," I managed.

She gazed at me with her celery-colored eyes. Contacts, I was pretty sure, although some black people have green eyes. But I'd never seen anyone, black or white, with eyes that shade.

"Me and Mary Bryan and Bitsy, we hang together, right?" she said. "We're tight. Like sisters."

I nodded. My throat was dry.

"But we've got room for one more," she said. "A freshman."

I tried to keep my face blank, but my insides were knotting up because I had no idea what Keisha wanted from me. She wasn't smiling. In fact, she seemed pissed. But why would she be pissed at me? This was the first time I'd ever spoken to her.

She pressed her lips together. "So Friday you'll go to Kyle's party with us. We'll see how you fit in."

My stomach dropped. So did my book.

"Kyle… Kelley?" I asked.

She frowned, like who else?

But my mind refused to accept it. Kyle Kelley was a senior who threw legendary parties whenever his parents went out of town, and afterward there were stories of guys throwing up or girls doing lap dances or couples screwing around in Kyle's parents' bedroom and then passing out with half their clothes off.

Freshmen didn't go to Kyle's parties. Certainly not freshmen like me.

"Are you guys…" I started. "I mean, please don't take this the wrong way, but are you, like, playing a joke on me?"

I was amazed by my nerve. Pricks of sweat dinged under my arms.

"We don't play jokes," Keisha said. "It's not our style."

Ok-a-ay, I wanted to say. But why me? Why, of all the freshman girls, would you possibly want me? I wasn't in the popular crowd. I wasn't in the one-day-might-be-popular crowd. I was a dork who couldn't even pull off wearing a thong. I was Ramona, six years later, only instead of egg in my hair, I had-

Shit. I slapped my hand over the cover of my book, now splayed on the desk, which showed eight-year-old Ramona straddling her bike. Keisha inclined her head to see the title, and I slid Ramona to my lap.

"So," I said. "Uh…"

She straightened up. "Be ready at eight. We'll swing by and pick you up."

I gave her my widest smile. "Great. Fantastic."

"And don't be nervous. Just be yourself."

"Right. Um, thank you so much."

She looked at me funny, then strode from the carrel. My body went limp. They wanted me-maybe-to be one of them. They wanted me to be a Bitch.

"Rae!" Alicia called. She rapped hard on the bathroom door to be heard over the shower. "Jane's here. We want to talk to you."

"What?" Rae said.

"We need to talk to you!" Alicia said.

"I'm in the shower! I'm doing a mayonnaise rinse!"

Alicia scowled. "Come on," she said to me, marching down the hall. In her room, she flopped onto her bed, leaving me the option of the floor or the padded stool pushed under her vanity. I chose the floor.

"So… how was cheerleading practice?" I asked.

"Terrible," she said. "My voice cracked in the middle of 'Our Team Is Red Hot.'"

"Oh. Well, I bet no one noticed."

"Yeah, right. If you'd been there at lunch, you could have helped me practice-"

"In the cafeteria? With everyone watching?"

"-but noooo, you had to pull one of your stupid disappearing tricks because you were being a pouty-pants. I really could have used your support, you know. You're the only person who knows how important this is to me."

I was. It was true. Under Alicia's grouchy demeanor was a great ache of need, and I felt bad for letting her down.

"Anyway, one day you're going to be so busted," she said. "You're not supposed to have food in the library."

I sighed. A Nutrigrain bar here and there was not going to ruin civilization.

"Or maybe you were off being cool with MB," she accused. "Were you?"

"No," I said. "Although if you would hush for a minute, I'll tell you what did happen."

"Okay, tell me."

"Tell you what?" Rae asked, strolling into the room. She wore a T-shirt and panties, the front of which was damp from her pubic hair. I quickly raised my eyes to her face, which was just as startling, but in a different way. Rae was a permanent makeup artist, and as part of her training, she'd had permanent makeup applied to herself so she'd know what it felt like. And because she'd wanted it. So now, even though she'd just stepped out of the shower, her face looked perfectly made up.

Well, not perfectly. That was the startling part. The trainer who'd done the initial application had been too conservative for Rae's taste, so Rae had waited until she had her certificate and then she'd given herself a touch-up. Now her eyeliner was dark and thick, extending past her lids like catwoman. And she'd always thought her lips were too thin, so she'd gone back with the tattoo gun to make them look fuller. Now her lips were super-sized. And very, very red.

"We're talking about the Bitches," Alicia said to Rae. "Tell Jane what you told me."

Rae turned and took me in. It was like being sized up by a damp mannequin. "You don't know?"

"Know what?" I said.

Rae walked across the floor and sat down with her back against Alicia's bed. She flipped her wet hair over her shoulders. "Well," she began, "they've been at Crestview for freaking ever. Not Keisha and Triscuit or whoever-"

"Bitsy," Alicia corrected. "And Mary Bryan Richardson."

"-but other girls. Other Bitches. One from each grade, four total. And always the most popular girls in school."

Inwardly, I groaned. She was acting as if this were privileged information, when anyone at school could have told me the same thing.

"When I was a freshman, the Bitch in my grade was Jennifer Mayfield," Rae said. "We all wanted to be her. We were so jealous we could spit. Although…" She paused dramatically. First she eyed Alicia, then she eyed me. "We never did. Spit, that is, or anything else that wouldn't be considered proper worshipping behavior. And you want to know why?"

I checked Alicia's reaction. Her legs were drawn to her chest, with her arms around her knees. Her black hair hung in bone-straight chunks. She jerked her chin, as if to say, Ask, you fool. Aren't you even paying attention?

"Why?" I said.

Rae tapped her thigh with violent purple nails. "Haven't you noticed that whenever they enter a room-your Bitches, my Bitches, whoever-everything stops and then starts up again, with them at the center of things?"

"Yeah," I said, like so?

"And haven't you noticed that even if you want to, you can't not like them?"

"Because no one would want to. Because they're…" I struggled for the right word, but couldn't find it. "Cool," I finished lamely.

"No," Rae said.

"Yes," I said.

"But that's not why you like them."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

"No, it's not."

I closed my eyes. Conversations with Rae were always like this. They went on and on and when they finally ended, the payoff was zilch. Don't jam your hands in your front pockets, or else.

I opened my eyes. I raised my eyebrows at Alicia, who raised hers right back.

"Fine," I said to Rae. "Then why do I like them, if it's not because they're cool?"

"Because you have to. Because they make you."

"And how do they do that?"

"I don't know. But they do."

"Uh-huh. Mind control? Voodoo? Invisible puppet strings?"

Rae regarded me with disdain. "Crack jokes if it makes you feel better. But the world is a hell of a lot bigger than you think. All sorts of things go on that you know nothing about."

Alicia scooted closer. "Finish telling her about Jennifer Mayfield."

"Oh yeah," I said. "Definitely."

"Well, like I said, Jennifer was tapped to be a Bitch," Rae said. She got to her knees and stretched her body, reaching for the brush on Alicia's dresser. She grasped it and sat back down. "But it fell apart."

"What do you mean, it fell apart?"

Rae tugged at the tangles in her hair. "She pissed them off. Or else she just wasn't good enough. She never figured it out."

"Did she care?"

"Did she care? She only switched schools in the middle of fall semester. She only ran away with her tail between her legs and never came back. Uh, yeah, I'd say she cared."

Okay, I could get that. I was starting to care, too. "So what does that have to do with Bitsy and Mary Bryan and Keisha?"

"Everything," Rae said. "Because Jennifer let things slip before she left. And the Bitches aren't all they appear to be. That's all I'm saying."

"But Bitsy and Keisha and Mary Bryan weren't around when you and Jennifer were in high school. They'd have been in, like, elementary school."

"Have you been listening to anything I've said? They're all the same, year after year after year. They may not start out that way, but then they do something. Something big. And they become."

"Become?" I repeated.

"I don't know how, no one does, but there's more going on than everyone thinks." Rae stopped brushing. She lowered her voice. "Something bad happened a long time ago. Really bad."

"And that would be?"

She tilted her head. "Have you ever heard the saying, 'She sold her soul to the devil'?"

Oh good god. "Rae," I said, "I'm not a little kid straight out of the pumpkin patch. I stopped being scared of ghost stories years ago."

Rae's expression didn't change. Her face was long, and there was nothing in her manner that suggested she was kidding. Despite myself I got a chill.

"The school covered it up, but everyone knows," she said.

"Not me," I said.

Rae gazed at me. "There was a girl. Her name was Sandy. She cared too much what people thought of her, because she was super needy. She really, really, really wanted to be popular."

Yeah, well, who doesn't? I thought. Although the term "needy" made me shift uncomfortably.

"She joined with three others," Rae went on. "One from each grade."

"They were losers, too," Alicia put in. "Right, Rae?"

Rae plowed on. "But Sandy was the one who did it."

"Did what?" I asked. I plucked at my jeans, then made myself stop. I told my body to relax.

"They went to an empty storage room in Hamilton Hall," Rae said. "One of those rooms where no one ever goes-"

"Up on the third floor," Alicia contributed.

"-and performed a ritual in the dead of night." Rae leaned forward. "They offered a sacrifice, and the sacrifice was accepted."

"What… was it?" I said. I couldn't believe I was asking.

"They awakened some weird creepy power-and I'm not making this up," Rae said. "That shit is out there, like when you feel someone watching you, only when you turn around there's no one there. Or like when you do the Ouija board, and it really does work."

"That happened at Lisette's slumber party, in seventh grade," Alicia said. "You remember, Jane. It said that a boy whose name started with a C was going to ask Lisette out, and one week later she was going steady with Casper Langdon."

Rae silenced Alicia with a look of disdain. To me, she said, "I'm telling you, it's out there. Shit that no one sees."

My heart was doing something I didn't like. I swallowed and repeated my question. "What did they sacrifice?"

Rae pressed her oversized lips in a line. "A cat."

"A cat?" My tension broke, and a laugh, or something like it, squeezed out of me. For a second there… all that bullshit about deserted schools and the dead of night… but Rae's whole story was ridiculous. Next she'd be telling me that's why the feral cats had taken over the school. As payback, or because they were spooks, or because they now had to haunt the place where the first had been slain. Demon cats. Devil cats. Ooooo-oooo.

Rae got angry. "They slit its throat. Or rather, Sandy did. You think that's funny?"

"Yes," I said.

"And then she died."

"Well, duh, that's what happens when your throat gets slit." I felt buoyant. My lungs had lost their tightness.

"Not the cat," Rae said sharply. "Sandy."

Nuh-uh, she wasn't getting me again. "Oh, please."

"And her soul… it fed the power. Made it grow stronger."

"You are so full of it," I said.

"And that's what created the Bitches." Rae got to her feet. "That's why you like them, because you have no choice."

"Why wasn't it in the papers?" I asked. "Why wasn't the school shut down?"

She looked at me in a way that was supposed to make me think she felt sorry for me. She huffed out of the room, taking Alicia's brush with her.

"It's not funny, Jane," Alicia said angrily. "It's, like, witchcraft. Real witchcraft."

"Only it's not witchcraft, it's Bitchcraft," I said. I giggled at my wit, but Alicia didn't crack a smile.

"You need to stay clear of them," she said.

I leaned back on my elbows and crossed one foot over the other. I let my head drop back so that the ends of my hair grazed the carpet. "Thanks, Alicia. I'll take it under advisement."

Later that night, I phoned Phil.

"Janie!" he said, his voice all happy. "Hey!"

"Mom said you called last night. Sorry I didn't call back." Which was true, in a general sort of way, but I wasn't worried because I knew Phil wouldn't hold a grudge. "So what's up?"

"Not much," he said. "Just wanted to tell you how hot you looked in that blue dress you wore."

"Ha, ha," I said. This was the kind of thing Phil did, throw out a compliment in a joking way so that it didn't have to mean anything. Because "hot" was such a stud-boy word, and Phil was so not a stud.

"I mean it," he said. "I wanted to tell you at school, only I didn't want the other guys to notice and start slobbering all over you."

"Uh-huh," I said. These days Phil and I were more out-of-school friends, anyway. Partly because our classes didn't overlap, but also because when we were in school, Phil had other stuff to worry about, like guys dumping his lunch and giving him flats. Phil was kind of scrawny, and he liked science more than sports, which made him an obvious target. Plus, he'd never developed that cynical veneer that Crestview guys thought was all important. Phil was an eager beaver in a school that didn't give a damn.

I sat on my bed and kicked off my shoes. I lay back and stared at the ceiling, at the frosted-glass light fixture that had been there since the dawn of time. Dead bugs made dark splotches in its center. "So want to hear something weird?"

"Sure."

"I'm going to a party Friday night. With the Bitches. Isn't that insane?"

"Whoa," Phil said. "Hold on there, filly."

"I know. It's crazy. Unless it's a joke-do you think it's a joke?"

Because that was the angle Alicia had taken, after I failed to be suitably cowed by the Bitchcraft theory. I'd told her about Kyle's party, and she'd shifted tactics, saying, "But what if it's one of those 'ugly' parties, where whoever brings the ugliest date wins?" She bit at a cuticle. "You're not seriously going to go, are you?"

Phil's voice pulled me back. "I hope you're planning on filling me in, because I have zero clue what you're talking about."

"Right. Sorry." I rolled onto my side, switching the phone to my unsquished ear. I told him everything except for Rae's mumbo-jumbo, then said, "But why would they pick me? That's the part that makes no sense. Unless I'm their ugly date. Am I? Am I their ugly date?"

"Geez, Janie, are you blind?" Phil said. "You're so beautiful, you make my teeth ache."

"Be serious. I'm, like, socially retarded. Especially compared to Keisha and Bitsy and Mary Bryan."

He fell silent. He was probably getting a hard-on thinking about them, which was surprisingly depressing. Even though I knew Phil was a boy, and all boys liked the Bitches, I was used to him liking only me.

"Keisha and Bitsy are way beyond hot," he finally said, "and I'd be lying if I said I'd throw them out of my bed. And Mary Bryan's an absolute sweetheart. She's got French at the same time as I have geometry, and our rooms are right across from each other. Sometimes I catch myself just… watching for her, you know?"

I nodded. For some dumb reason I was afraid I was going to cry.

"But none of them holds a candle to you, Janie. Want to know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you're a good person," he said. "Because you try to do the right thing."

"I do? Like when?"

"Come on, don't be so hard on yourself."

I wanted to ask again, because I really wanted to know. But even with Phil, I couldn't be that pathetic.

"I should go," I said. "I should make myself go to bed."

"Yeah, me too. See you tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh. I'll be the one rescuing kitty cats and saving the world."

"Super Janie," he said. "You could wear a T-shirt with a big red J."

"A leotard, like Wonder Woman. With huge red undies."

He laughed, and I pressed the off button on my phone.

In bed, as shadows played on my walls, my thoughts spiraled back to Rae's story about four girls who would do anything to be popular. Silly, stupid story-yet in the dark, even stupid stories misbehaved.

I remembered something Mom told me once, about two girls in her hometown. They'd snuck to a cemetery late at night, because they'd heard that if you stuck a knife into a fresh-laid grave, its ghost would rise from the dead. One of the girls knelt on the grave and plunged the knife deep. She tried to stand up, but she couldn't, and she screamed that the ghost had grabbed her. The other girl fled, and when she returned with her parents, she found her friend collapsed over the grave, no longer breathing. She'd stabbed her nightgown when she'd stabbed the grave, pinning herself to the ground. Her panic overcame her, which meant she'd basically died of fright.

Although, come on. As I replayed the story in my head, I realized that it couldn't have really happened. What teenager has ever died of fright? It was just a story Mom passed on after hearing it from a friend, from someone whose brother's cousin's fiancé had actually known the two girls. Or whatever. It was a story Mom told me for fun, to make goose bumps prick my arms.

But stories couldn't hurt you.

I imagined four girls giggling as they made their way to Crestview's empty storage room, the beams of their flashlights skittering off the walls.

And then, at some point, the giggling would have stopped.

I dreamed of cats, of sharp claws tapping through darkened halls.

Wednesday was a waste. Thursday was a bigger waste. In the daylight hours Rae's story faded to just a whisper, but the fact of the Bitches remained, making me hyperaware of everything I did. How I held myself, how I talked, how I laughed. And all because of the remote possibility that one of the Bitches might be around to notice.

"Could you give it a rest?" Alicia said during study hall. She'd been leaning forward, obsessing out loud about her latest cheerleading drama, but now she flung herself back in her chair. "They're not here, Jane."

"Who's not here?" I asked. When she didn't buy it, I said, "I was listening. I was. You said that for the tryout, you have to be able to do a split or you're eliminated."

"I said you don't have to do a split. You can just squat if you have to, which you would have known if you weren't so busy acting dramatic." She widened her eyes and gave a fake gasp. She drew her hand to her chest. "A split?" she mimicked. "You have to do a split?!"

I felt myself blush. I glanced around, praying the Bitches really weren't here.

"God," Alicia said. "You're embarrassing yourself and you don't even know it."

I twisted the metal wire of my spiral notebook, because I did know it. Other people acted natural in group situations, no problem. But not me. Especially when there was a chance someone might see.

Alicia gathered her books and shoved them into her backpack. "Stupid me, I thought you actually cared about my boring, pathetic life."

"I do," I protested.

"Uh-huh." She glared. "Well, all I can say is that if you do become popular, you have to take me with you. Swear?"

I groaned. "I thought you said to stay clear of them. I thought you said they were evil." I made spooky fingers, which she swatted away.

"I did, and they are," she said. "Do you swear?"

This was so like Alicia, to warn me away from something-saying it was for my own good-and then want that very thing if there was a chance it might really come through. Would I take Alicia, if given the opportunity? Would she take me if the situation were reversed? It sounded so stupid, you have to take me with you. As if it were a prison break.

"Oh my god," Alicia said, and I realized I'd taken too long with my answer.

"I swear, I swear," I said.

"I'm leaving. You've given me a headache."

"Sorry," I said.

"Yeah?" she said. "You should be."

Didn't see the Bitches in the hall. Didn't see the Bitches in the bathroom. Didn't see the Bitches in the library, where I ate lunch in order to avoid pissy Alicia.

I did, however, see Camilla Jones. Camilla was a freshman, like me and Alicia, although she often forgot to act like it. She read battered textbooks on post-modernism, for example, and she used words like "socio-economic" even when teachers weren't around. Today she wore a dusty rose leotard and a wrap-around skirt, and she'd secured her bun with serviceable brown bobby pins. She always wore her hair in a bun, because she was really serious about ballet. Ballet and weird literature theory shit, those were Camilla's things.

Looking at Camilla, what occurred to me was, Huh. She's not obsessed with the Bitches. This was a new thought, and I tested it in my mind to see if it held up. At lunch, Camilla usually sat with the drama kids, although she invariably kept her nose buried in one of her books. Did she get all twittery when the Bitches entered the cafeteria? I didn't think so. I didn't think Camilla got twittery, period. And I couldn't remember her ever complimenting one of the Bitches or getting tongue-tied around them or gazing at them surreptitiously from across the room.

No. I was sure she didn't. Which meant that Rae was a big juicy freak, as of course I'd known all along.

I crumpled my granola bar wrapper and stood up. I walked over to Camilla's carrel.

"Hey," I said. I didn't really know why.

She lifted her head. She seemed surprised that anyone was talking to her.

"Um… what are you reading?" I asked.

She flipped her book so I could see. It was called Artifacts of Popular Culture.

"Huh. Is it any good?"

"It's all right," she said. She paused, then added, "Did you know that Barbie dolls can grasp wine glasses, but not pens?"

"Pens? You mean, like to write with?"

"And Astronaut Barbie's spacesuit is pink, with puffed sleeves."

Her disgust was apparent, so instead of saying, "Well, that's to make her look cute," I kind of laughed and said, "Yeah, that's definitely what I'd wear if I were an astronaut. Well… see you!"

I left, and my brain spun back to the Bitches. Maybe Camilla was impervious to their charms, but I wasn't, especially after they'd lavished me with one-on-one attention. Why had they treated me that way only to leave me in the cold?

See? I told myself. It was a joke. They were stringing you along for their own amusement, and now they're done. What were you thinking-that your life was honestly going to change?

Then I came back with, But who said anything about hanging out together at school? Not Keisha. Not Bitsy. Not Mary Bryan. Maybe the hanging-out part comes later, after you pass the test.

And then my stomach got spazzy and I had a panic attack right there in the hall. Kyle's party was only a day away, and what if the Bitches didn't arrive to pick me up? What if they did?

During my humanities elective on early religions, as Lurl the Pearl tried to explain parthenogenesis to Bob Foskin for the hundredth time, I claimed a vacant research computer and spread out my notes so that it would look like I was working on the day's assignment. The Camilla factor had punched a hole in Rae's "powers from beyond" theory, but I thought I'd Google the Bitches and see what came up. Even though I knew it would be nothing.

"Nossir," Bob Foskin complained from his desk at the front of the room. "Just ain't no way a chick can make a baby on her own, goddess or no goddess."

"Fertility. Creation. Rebirth," Lurl the Pearl droned in her gravelly voice. "There are mysteries in the world that aren't meant to be understood."

"I don't know nothing about that," Bob said. "What I do know is that every mare needs a stallion, if you catch my drift."

A few kids tittered, but I tuned them out. I jiggled the computer's mouse, and the "Lady and the Beast" screen saver disappeared. When I got to Google, I typed in "Sandy," "Crestview Academy," and after a moment of thought, "died." No hits, of course. I tried "Crestview" and "witchcraft," but again got no hits. I cleared the search line and typed in "bitches," just for the hell of it. The list I got filled zillions of pages. First came the obligatory "female dog" stuff, and then the entries got more interesting. Tokyo Bitches, IQ Bitches, Cricket-playing Bitches. I found one site called Mature Bitches, which must have slipped past the school's blocking software, because when I pulled it up, I was bombarded with porn pop-ups. If I ever needed a perverted granny, I knew where to go.

Something brushed my leg, and I jumped. A cat-small and dark with clumpy fur. The feral cats were always prowling around in here, probably because Lurl the Pearl was the sole teacher who didn't seem to mind. And usually I didn't either. Usually I felt sorry for them, because they were so mangy and bedraggled. Other students complained-a girl named Alice was allergic and brought in a note from her doctor-but Lurl the Pearl didn't do anything about it. "Focus, please," she'd said, blankly surveying both the class and the cats.

The cat nudged me again and let out a squeaky mew. Usually I didn't mind-but today I didn't want to touch it. Rae's story had done that if nothing else. But I didn't want to not touch it, either, just because of Rae's malarkey. I gave the cat a quick scratch, then wiped my hand on my jeans and scrolled further down the list on my computer. Chess Bitches, Vegan Bitches, Snarky Bitches… hmm. The description for Snarky Bitches read, "For girls/women who are Bitches, plain and simple." I double clicked on the address. The screen blipped, and a hot pink site logo popped up.

"Have we finished the assignment?" Lurl the Pearl asked from behind me.

I smothered a cry. She was mouth breathing down my neck. Quickly I clicked the back button, and the list of "bitch" sites reappeared. Shit, shit, shit. I clicked again and again to get back to the Google homepage.

"This computer is reserved for research, Miss Goodwin," said Lurl the Pearl. "Not Internet hanky panky."

"Sorry, Ms. Lear," I said. I swiveled to face her, reminding myself not to stare at the bizarre contraption connected to her rose-tinted glasses. But it was extremely difficult. A thick strip of elastic circled her head like a crown, securing a Band-Aid shaped piece of metal that stretched horizontally across her pale forehead. A slimmer piece of metal extended downward from the Band-Aid's center and hooked the bridge of her glasses, preventing them from slipping out of place. All of this to save her the effort of pushing them up every now and then.

She blinked. "In any case, we do not condone the exploration of inappropriate subjects. Let's save the nasty until we're safe at home, shall we?"

The nasty?

"I wasn't… I mean, I was just…" My gaze strayed to the metal T. I wondered if she got tan lines from it, or if it got hot and burned her. I wondered if she ever went out in the sun.

The cat at my feet mewed, and Lurl scooped it up. It immediately began to purr.

"In any case, you won't find what you were looking for on the computer," she said. She did this laugh thing that sounded like a grown man's giggle, and my internal creep-meter dinged in alarm.

"Um, I really don't know what you're talking about. I swear."

She stopped giggling. "Focus, please," she said, fondling the cat as it head-butted her hand. She turned to face the class. "Would anyone care to discuss the cult objects found in the temple of Kali, goddess of death and resurrection?"

Friday night, Bitsy pulled up in front of my house at eight-fifteen.

"My, aren't we looking glam?" she said when she saw me. "Quite a bit of leg on show there, eh?" She and Mary Bryan went into a titter fest, and my insides gummed up. I couldn't move.

"Hi, Jane," Keisha said from the passenger seat of Bitsy's red car. "Get in."

I searched Keisha's face. She didn't seem to be joking.

"Come on, come on," Bitsy said. "You're dead lucky I haven't peeled off by now."

I climbed past Keisha into the back. I squished in with Mary Bryan and tugged at my skirt.

"Don't let Bitsy bother you," Mary Bryan said. "Anyway, I love your blouse."

"Really? It's not too see-through?"

Mary Bryan tucked my bra strap under the strap of the camisole. "There. Fabulous."

"You look fabulous," I told her. I leaned forward to address Bitsy and Keisha. "You guys, too. You look great."

"Thanks, Jane," Keisha said. "You're sweet."

Bitsy accelerated, and I fell back against my seat. Mary Bryan giggled.

"So help us out, will you, luv?" Bitsy said over her shoulder. "I want the truth. Your honest opinion."

"On what?"

"Nose rings. Not a hoop, just a stud. A tiny silver star, for example."

"Oh my god," Mary Bryan moaned. "Bitsy!"

I pushed myself into a more comfortable position. "Uh… in general, or on someone specific?"

"On me," Mary Bryan said. "She's talking about me, because I happened to mention-once!-that I thought it might look cute. But I wasn't going to actually do it."

"Right, now you deny it," Bitsy said. "So what about it, Jane? Yay or nay?"

Mary Bryan hid her face in her hands. "Go on. Just say it, whatever it is."

I hesitated. I could tell they were teasing, but I wasn't sure how to proceed. "Well, I wouldn't judge somebody for getting it done," I hedged. "Because, I mean, it's their body. They can do whatever they want."

"Ha," Mary Bryan said. "See?"

"But would you get it done?" Bitsy said. "Would you even consider it?"

"Personally? Um, probably not?"

"Exactly," Bitsy said. She caught my eye in the rearview mirror. "Good girl, Jane."

"Sorry," I said to Mary Bryan.

"I never said I was actually going to do it," she said.

Keisha turned toward the window, but she was smiling. My chest filled with something balloony and light.

Bitsy tapped her iPod to change the playlist. She punched up the volume and tapped the beat on the steering wheel.

Feeling bold, I fingered the hem of my skirt. "So, what you said about showing a lot of leg. Is that a good thing? Or do I look, you know, too tarty?"

I meant it to be flippant. An I-can-take-it sort of remark, and also to show that I hadn't forgotten what she'd said that day by my locker. But she and Keisha exchanged a look, and my stomach dipped.

"What?" I said.

Keisha twisted in her seat to face me. "Listen, Jane. Don't take this the wrong way, but looks do matter. And if you're going to be one of us, you've got to meet a certain standard. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Mary Bryan found my hand and squeezed it.

Keisha pressed on. "Your skirt's a little short. I'm not going to lie. But for the most part you're cute enough. And you do all right in school, which isn't that important, but it doesn't hurt. All of this is part of why we chose you. But you know what the most important thing is?"

I shook my head.

"You have to want it," Keisha said. "You have to want to be popular more than you've wanted anything in your life."

Her eyes bored into me. Was I supposed to say something? Was I supposed to, like, bounce up and down and do cheerleader jumps?

Without meaning to, I thought of the dead girl, Sandy, who had somehow come to life in my brain even though I knew she had never existed. Sandy, who was super needy. Who really, really, really wanted to be popular.

"And we know you do," Mary Bryan said reassuringly. "Right, Jane?"

"Crikey, here we are," Bitsy said. She turned left into a gated community and pulled up at the guard station. She gave them Kyle's name.

"So… what do I need to do?" I asked. I heard my voice quaver, and I dug my fingernails into my palms.

Keisha's expression softened. "Your wardrobe needs some work-it's true. But you're here at Kyle's party with us. You're pulling up in Bitsy's car, and you're walking in the door with Mary Bryan on one side of you and me on the other. Okay?"

The gate creaked open.

"Just be cool, luv," Bitsy said. "Tonight you're our baby Bitch."

I tried. I did. But my gut cramped up the second I walked in the door, and the whole time I was there I felt like I needed to sprint to the bathroom. Plus, everything was all chichi and ultra fancy. Like, there was a plaque in the entry hall announcing that this was a SHOE-FREE ENVIRONMENT. A shoe-free environment? In all my fourteen years, not once had I seen a plaque announcing a shoe-free environment.

The others slipped off their shoes and put them on a special rack, so I stepped out of my clogs and did the same thing. My toenails were scraggly. I tried to scrunch them out of view.

"Ladies," Kyle said, swooping over to greet us. He put one arm around Bitsy and one arm around Mary Bryan. "Bitsy, I adore that halter. And Keisha! Our queen of the Nile!" He let go of Bitsy and Mary Bryan and air-kissed Keisha's cheek.

"Hi, Kyle," Keisha said. She returned his kiss and made eyes at Bitsy.

Kyle stepped back. He gave me the once over. "Well, what do we have here?"

My face split into a twitchy grin. "Hi," I said. "Thanks for inviting me to your party."

"You're very welcome. Did I invite you to my party?"

My smile hurt the sides of my mouth.

"Kyle, this is Jane," Bitsy said. "Be nice."

"Oh, poo. I'm always nice." He looped his arm through mine and led me toward the kitchen. "Jane. Jane. Can I offer you a quencher, Jane?"

"Uh, sure," I said. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet, cupcake. What'll you have?"

I looked at the blue- and gold-tiled countertops, which were lined with bottles. Dewar's. Grey Goose. Bacardi. I remembered a drink I'd heard mentioned in a movie. "Maybe a mojito?"

"Aren't we sophisticated," Kyle said.

Bitsy choke-laughed. But she said, "Make it two. Better yet, four. I think we could all benefit from a mojito, right, girls?"

She lounged against the counter, as comfortable in her body as I was uncomfortable in mine. I modeled my position after hers. Chill, I told myself. You are here with the Bitches. You are golden.

Kyle handed me my drink. It tasted like mint.

From where I stood I could see the already crowded living room, and out of everyone there-the jocks and the cheerleaders, the honor council kids, the partiers-there wasn't a single person I knew well enough to say hello to. So when Keisha said, "All right, Jane. Time to mingle," I about crapped my pants.

"I'll just hang out here," I said. "But, you know, thanks."

"We need to see you in action," Keisha said.

Panicked, I turned to Mary Bryan.

"You can do it," she said. She smiled anxiously. "It'll be fun."

Bitsy raised her glass. "Go on, luv. Strut your stuff."

Elizabeth Greene, head cheerleader:… and so he called me up out of the blue and was like, "I could really use someone to cuddle with right now." Isn't that too cute?

Amy Skyler, Elizabeth's best friend: No.

Elizabeth: I think he wants to get back together.

Amy: Elizabeth, he was horny. Which, in case you've forgotten, is why he dumped you for Paisley in the first place.

Elizabeth: She totally stole him on purpose. Slut.

Amy: Skank.

Elizabeth: Lying piece of trash.

Me, edging closer: Paisley Karr? The girl who trains Seeing-Eye dogs?

Elizabeth: Who the fuck are you?

Stuart Hill, star quarterback: Dude! I am all about faith. I mean, those Christian girls are hot.

John Rogers, linebacker: Yeah, man. You said it.

Me:

Stuart: I'm like, "You want to pray, sweet thing? Sure, baby, get down on those knees."

John, cackling: Forgive me, O Lord, for I have sinned.

Me:

Stuart: Dude!

Raven Holtzclaw-Fontaine, super-good artist: I'm dying to capture one of them in oil. Those claws. Those yellow eyes. Oh my god, those tails.

Katie Clark, wannabe artist: You should. You totally should.

Raven: "Doomed to Die," I could call it. Or, I know, I know. "Fish out of Water."

Katie, giggling: "Fish" out of water? Not "cat" out of water?

Raven: It's a statement, Katie, not a one-to-one correspondence.

Me: Are you, um, talking about the feral cats?

Katie: Excuse me?

Me: Because even though they're creepy, I kind of feel bad for them. Don't you? I mean, they just want to go about their lives, but they can't, because everybody hates them and throws rocks at them and-

Raven, coldly: Well, that's their own fault. Did anyone force them to make their little love nests on our fucking campus? No.

Me: Oh. That's true, I guess, only-

Katie: Excuse me, but I don't think we asked for your opinion. So if you don't mind… ?

By ten, I was ready to throw myself over a cliff. Here I was supposed to be strutting my stuff, and my stuff was utterly pathetic. Hell, had the Bitches wanted to show how unfit I was for the whole popularity game, they couldn't have picked a better way.

I even made a fool of myself in front of Nate Solomon, a senior I'd had a secret crush on since before the school year started. Nate lived next door to Phil, and all summer long I'd gotten to admire him from Phil's backyard. Polishing the hood of his pickup. Buffing the fenders with his T-shirt, which he'd have conveniently taken off. His arms were such boy arms, strong and muscular. Sometimes I got so mesmerized that I lost track of Phil altogether.

"Janie," Phil would say. "Janie. Anyone there?"

"Ooo, sorry," I'd say, "I just got distracted." I'd flash Phil my most charming smile. "What was that again?"

So when I spotted Nate shuffling through CDs by Kyle's stereo, my heart whomped so hard I thought I would be sick. This is your chance, I coached myself. This is your only, only chance. I swallowed and made myself step forward.

"Um, hi," I said.

His eyes flicked over me. He grunted.

"So… picking out some music?" I blushed the second I said it, because duh, what else did I think he was doing? Strumming a banjo? But it didn't matter, because his attention had already slid elsewhere.

"Ryan!" he called, holding one CD aloft. "Ice bonus, man!"

He brushed past me on the way to the CD player and didn't notice as he knocked my shoulder, because I was absolutely invisible.

Humiliated, I slunk to the kitchen. The tile counters and the top of the island were cluttered with plastic cups and half-full wineglasses, but there were no actual people in the room. It was a party-free zone, at least for the moment. I bit my lip, then crossed to the far side of the island. I slid down behind it, bringing my knees to my chest as my butt reached the floor. I was eye level with the cabinets under the sink. A lone blue M&M rested on the floor by a piece of fluff.

I exhaled. All that was left of my mojito were small ovals of ice, and I sucked a piece into my mouth. I let it drift about my tongue, then leaned slightly forward and let it slip out. I swirled my glass until I couldn't distinguish it from the others.

In the living room, someone shrieked and said, "Turn that thing off! I look terrible!"

"Ah, shut up. You know you love it," a guy said. Stuart Hill, who was apparently making the rounds with his video camera again. I'd seen him with it earlier in the night.

The tension in my chest started to loosen-the party people were there, and I was here-and I had the thought that I could stay hidden behind the island forever. It was clean. It was dry. It was actually quite comfortable. I raised my glass and slurped in another ice oval, then choked as I heard feet pad across the tiled kitchen floor.

"-in common at all," a girl was saying. "I'm just so tired of it."

I swallowed the ice and drew my knees up as far as I could.

There was the hiss of an opened pop top. A second girl said, "Tell me about it. All I think about is what a good girlfriend I would be, if only I got the chance."

I breathed as quietly as I could. The first girl was Sukie Karing, I was pretty sure. And the second girl was Pammy Varlotta, another junior. I could tell by the way she pronounced her Ts, as if her tongue was too big for her mouth.

"I mean, seriously," Pammy went on. "How sad is that?"

A third girl laughed. Even before she spoke, I knew who it was.

"Dead sad," Bitsy said. "If you want a boy, Pammy, you've got to go out and get yourself one. None of this lurking about feeling sorry for yourself."

Shit, shit, shit. Sweat beaded the nape of my neck.

"Easy for you to say," Sukie said. "You've got boys drooling over you every time you turn around."

"Well…" Bitsy said.

"But she's with Brad now," Pammy interjected. "Right, Bitsy? And I'm so happy for you. You're such a great couple."

"Yeah? You don't think he's a bit flash?" Bitsy asked.

"Oh my god, he's the hottest guy in school," Pammy said. "Not to mention the fact that he totally worships you."

Even in my nervousness, I gagged at what a suck-up Pammy was. On the other hand, if I were in her place, I'd probably be licking Bitsy's boots, too. If Bitsy were wearing boots. If it were a shoe-possible environment.

"There is that," Bitsy said. A chip bag rustled. "I suppose I'll keep him a little longer."

"Good, because we don't want you single again, that's for sure," Pammy said. She giggled. "Little Miss Greedy-Guts, stealing all the boys away."

There was a pause. Then, "Little Miss Greedy-Guts?"

"She didn't mean it like that," Sukie interjected. "Right, Pammy? She just meant-"

"What if I want to be Little Miss Greedy-Guts?" Bitsy asked, dangerously smooth.

Pammy's giggles dried up. "I just… it's just that you're so beautiful and funny, and your accent is so adorable. None of us has a chance when you're around."

"Maybe none of you has a chance because you're whining slags," Bitsy said.

Sukie tried to laugh. "Bitsy. Don't be like that."

"Like what? Honest?"

A drip of condensation rolled down my glass.

"Every boy in the school wants to go out with you, that's all," Sukie said. "I mean, not that it's your fault."

"Of course not!" Pammy chimed in. "I never meant it was your fault. Oh my god, is that what you thought?"

"It's just a fact of life," Sukie went on. "You think Payton would be going out with me if he thought he had a shot with you?"

"And Ryan Overturf," Pammy said. "Last year he wouldn't give me a second look. He was all Bitsy, Bitsy, Bitsy. But now that you're with Brad-"

"Enough," Bitsy commanded.

They both shut up. I gripped my glass.

But when Bitsy spoke again, it was in a new voice. "So, Pammy. You fancy Ryan, do you?"

"I don't know," Pammy said hesitantly. "Maybe? And I think-I mean, probably not-but sometimes I think maybe he likes me back?"

"Oh, he likes you. No worries there, luv."

Now Bitsy was being too nice. It worried me.

"Really?" Pammy said. Her hopefulness was excruciating "Has he… has he said something to you?"

Bitsy laughed. "Not just to me. To anyone who'll listen."

"Bitsy…" Sukie said.

Pammy started hyperventilating. "Oh my god, oh my god. You have to tell me!"

"Well, you do know he drives by your house practically every night, right?" Bitsy said. "Sometimes he parks at the corner and just moons up at the house."

"He does?"

"He says you leave your curtains open, you sly dog. He says it's quite the peep show."

"He says-what?"

"Says you've got quite good form, really. The whole innocent school girl act, prancing before the mirror in matching bra and panties…"

Pammy's confusion made her stupid. "What? I don't… I swear, I never-"

"Look, pet, I think it's brilliant," Bitsy soothed. "Give him a taste and make him beg for more. Him and all the other blokes he's told."

"He's lying," Pammy whispered. "I don't leave my curtains open, I swear."

Feet slapped the floor. "Ladies, ladies," a male voice said. Kyle. "Your presence is required. We're starting a game of butt quarters."

"Butt quarters, ooo goody," Bitsy said. "Sukie, Pammy? You in?"

Pammy sniffled. "I… I need to go to the bathroom," she said. She fled the room.

"Good grief," Kyle said, clearly confused. "Was she crying?"

"Here, Kyle," Bitsy said. "Have some chips." The bag rattled. Kyle crunched.

"Did Ryan really say all that?" Sukie asked in an undertone.

"She really should be more careful," Bitsy replied.

"For Christ's sake, these chips are stale," Kyle complained. "That is the last time I buy organic, the environment be damned."

"Abso-bloody-lutely," Bitsy said. "Preservatives or die."

Kyle strode past the island to the pantry, and my blood froze. He stood within feet of my hiding spot. "There must be a bag of Tostitos stashed around here somewhere."

My heart whammed. I trained my gaze on the floor-not on his khakis, not on his pale feet-and prayed he would find the chips and leave. Please, please, please, I prayed.

"Ta-da," he called.

I screwed my eyes shut.

He headed for the living room. "Shall we, then? Butt quarters awaits."

"I better check on Pammy," Sukie said.

"Suit yourself," said Bitsy. "Kyle-hold up!"

The kitchen emptied, except for me. I crawled out from behind the island. Leftover adrenaline pumped through my veins. I felt thick, like I needed fresh air.

I looked into the living room. Bitsy had draped herself over the arm of a sofa, and she laughed as Kyle held up a quarter and wiggled his fanny.

"Demonstration, anyone?" he drawled.

Pammy was nowhere to be seen.

The next morning, I called Phil and told him to meet me at Memorial Park. He showed up with a ratty blanket, two king-sized Cokes, and a milk-carton box of Whoppers, my favorite candy. Obviously I'd sounded more depressed than I'd intended.

"Hey," he said, putting down the food and spreading out the blanket. As usual, the air smelled foul, because sewage run-off had contaminated the bordering creek. But the park itself was lush and green and nearly always deserted.

Phil patted the spot beside him. "Take a load off."

I sat down and accepted one of the Cokes. The rattle told me he'd gotten extra ice, just the way I liked it. "What's better than roses on a piano?" I asked.

"Exsqueeze me?" Phil said.

"Tulips on my organ," I said. "Hysterical, huh?"

Phil wasn't there yet.

"Tulips on my organ," I said again. "Two lips on my-"

He winked and pointed his finger at me. "Clever girl. You make that up yourself?"

"Parker Rylant told it at the party last night, one of many blow-job jokes. You should have been there."

"Wasn't invited," Phil said.

"L'Kardos got steamed, because he said he didn't want Keisha to hear that kind of crap. He said it was sexist and offensive."

"And right he was," Phil said.

"Absolutely," I said. I sucked on my straw, remembering Keisha's expression when I'd laughed, before I realized the joke was in bad taste.

Phil stretched out and propped his head on one elbow. "Tell me more."

"They were like princesses," I said. "Fairies. And everywhere they went, they sprinkled their magic fairy dust and made everyone adore them."

"And 'they' would be… ?"

"Who do you think? Keisha and Bitsy and Mary Bryan." I reached for the Whoppers. "Bitsy told Ryan Overturf she'd have to slap his ass if he didn't give her a foot rub, and Brad, Bitsy's boyfriend, just laughed like Haha, that Bitsy, such a joker. And then Ryan was rubbing his thumb up and down Bitsy's instep, and Bitsy was purring and arching her back, and the whole time Brad was turning redder and redder. So finally Bitsy said, 'Be a doll and get me another mojito, will you, Brad?' And Brad snapped out of it and said, 'Sure, Babe. Anything you want. Ryan, need another Coors, man?'"

"That's so lame," Phil said.

"I know."

"Don't they know that friends shouldn't let friends drink bad beer?"

I shoved him. "Anyway, they were total goddesses, and I was a floundering blob of patheticness."

"You're not a floundering blob of patheticness."

"Yeah, right."

"You only are when you say you are, so stop saying it."

"Whatever." I paused, remembering Nate Solomon's complete obliviousness to my very existence. Except my crush on Nate was one thing I would never bring up in front of Phil. So I told him about my inglorious retreat instead.

"I hid behind the island in Kyle's kitchen, because everyone I tried to talk to ran screaming for the hills," I said. "Now am I a floundering blob of patheticness?"

"Ouch," Phil said. He looked startled. "Did anyone see you?"

"No."

"Well, thank god."

"You think?"

He plucked a piece of grass. He threw it over the edge of the blanket. Then he circled back to the embarrassment at hand and said, "You hid behind the island? Why didn't you-I don't know-camp out in the bathroom or something? Or better yet, why didn't you just leave?"

"And how would have I done that? Bitsy was the one driving, remember?" I fiddled with the Whoppers carton, opening and closing the top like a fish mouth. Inside, the malted milk balls gleamed. "Ohhh, and get this. Bitsy came in while I was hiding there, and I about had a heart attack."

I told him what happened, how she blasted Pammy Varlotta, and he winced at all the right places.

"It was horrible," I finished. "Even when it comes to cut-downs, Bitsy's a notch above."

"And this is a good thing?" Phil asked.

"You say it like it's not."

"Well, is it?"

I put down the Whoppers. I had a feeling I wasn't going to be able to explain this. "Listen. If Pammy had wanted to insult someone, what would she say?"

"I have no idea."

"She'd say something ridiculous, like, 'Ew, where'd you get your shoes-Kmart?'"

Phil waited.

"But Bitsy's more… subtle." I saw what flickered in his eyes, and I said, "All right, so maybe not subtle. More like sophisticated. Smart. I don't know."

"Cruel?" Phil suggested.

"Maybe. I never said she wasn't." I squirmed. "Jesus, will you stop looking at me like that?"

"I just don't get why you'd want to be friends with her, then."

"Hey, better her than Pammy Varlotta."

He arched his eyebrows. I glared.

"You are really annoying me," I said.

"What? I didn't even-"

"Anyway, Rae says we have no choice. She says we have to like them, it's like witchcraft or something. And you yourself said you wouldn't throw Bitsy out of bed, now didn't you?" I jabbed my finger at him. "Ha. Ha!"

"Rae, as in Alicia's sister Rae? She said it's witchcraft?"

"You act like it's so bad, to want to be popular. 'Ooo, she wants to be popular. Ooo, she's so shallow.' But-"

"Hold on. Who said anything about-"

"-but everyone wants to be popular, whether they admit it or not. And fine. I do, too. So hate me, all right?" He protested, but I railroaded over him. "But it's more than that. Because Sukie Karing is popular. Pammy Varlotta, believe it or not, is popular."

"And your point would be?"

"My point is that it's not about being in the 'in group,' which is so stupid I can hardly believe I just said it."

"Then what's it about?"

I started to answer, then at the last instant decided maybe I didn't want to. "I can't explain."

"Try."

"No. It's unexplainable."

"You started it, so you have to finish it," he said. "It's the rule."

I narrowed my eyes. He widened his, like, Hey, this one's not my fault.

"Fine." I lifted my chin defiantly. "It's not about being popular. It's about…"

"Spit it out."

"Being one of them."

"The Bitches."

"That's right. And maybe it's not a good thing, but it's what I want." I re-grabbed the Whoppers and popped one into my mouth. It crunched in a really wrong way, and I tongued it back out. "Ew! Ew! What the fuck?"

The crushed Whopper, which should have been dense with malt, was practically hollow. First came a layer of chocolate, then a layer of pale brown malt, much thinner than it should have been, and then-

Bugs.

Nearly microscopic, except I could see them moving. I screeched and flapped my hand, and the malted milk ball went flying.

"Holy crap," Phil said. "There were bugs in there. Did you see?"

"It was in my mouth!" I cried. "Of course I saw!"

Phil whistled. "Like maggots or something. Holy cannoli."

I licked my arm to scrub my tongue. I took a sip of Coke, swished it furiously, and spit it out.

Phil shook the carton of Whoppers. "Are they all like that?"

"Throw them away," I said. I pointed to the heavy-duty trash-can by the water fountain. "Throw them away now."

He tipped the carton, and a glossy malted milk ball rolled into his palm. "Relax. I'm not going to eat it." With his teeth, he split the Whopper open. He peered at the halves. He leaned closer, then made a strangled sound and flung them into the grass.

"I think I'm going to throw up," I groaned.

"But don't you want to know how they got in there?" Phil asked. He fingered another Whopper, rotating it to study the chocolate glaze. "I don't see any burrow marks or anything." He bit into it and spit the two pieces in his hand. "Hey, hey-we've got a winner!"

The malt core was intact, two pale brown moons. He tossed the halves into his mouth and chewed.

"Phil! Just because you didn't see any bugs… just because…" I whacked him. "They could be dormant, you idiot!"

He shook another Whopper into his hand and split it open. He examined it. Threw it over his shoulder. "Bad," he pronounced.

"Okay, whoa," I said. "You are getting used to this way too quick."

He checked the next Whopper. "Bad again. I swear, I don't know how the little wormy things get in there." He cracked open another. "Ooo, this one's for you."

I swatted his hand and sent the pieces flying.

"What did you do that for? That one was perfectly good!" he exclaimed.

"I thought I was telling you about my night from hell," I said. "About how inadequate I felt."

"You don't feel inadequate around me, do you?" Another Whopper passed his test, and he gobbled it down.

I cradled my head in my hands, because no, I didn't feel inadequate around him. What I couldn't tell him was that no one would ever feel inadequate around him, and that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

He put his hand under my chin. He tilted my head. He looked at me in this serious way, and for a second it was really freaky, because the air pulsed between us and I thought, Shit, is he going to kiss me?

"Here," he said, raising a halved malted milk ball to my mouth. "No bugs."

Later I thought about how it was that Phil, like Camilla, wasn't all ga-ga over the Bitches. He thought they were hot, sure, but he didn't fall under their spell like the rest of us. Camilla, she was above it all. At least that was my take on it. But Phil was immune for a different reason: because he was pure. That was a funny word to use on a boy, but it fit. He was pure of heart.

On Monday, I avoided the Bitches as best I could. I picked different routes when I glimpsed any of them in the hall, and I stayed away from the bathrooms altogether. But I ran into Mary Bryan as I was heading for history, and for a moment we were face to face at the bottom of the stairwell.

"Jane," she said.

My stomach dropped, and I pushed into the crowd. She called after me, but I pretended I didn't hear.

At noon I bought a Nutrigrain bar from the vending machine and snuck to the library. I took the long way past the basement art rooms, because hardly anyone except the art kids went down there. A group of them leaned against the wall by the Ceramics Studio. One of them was Raven Holtzclaw-Fontaine, from Kyle's party. I could tell she didn't have the vaguest clue who I was.

In the library, I chose the farthest back carrel. I slit open my bar and got out my book. Ramona was cross because she had to clean up her room, and Beezus was cross because her mother wouldn't let her spend the night at Mary Jane's. Even Picky-picky, the cat, was cross. Cross, cross, cross.

"God, you are so predictable," Alicia said, clomping across the floor. She dragged over a chair from the next carrel. "And thanks for returning all my calls. Really, it meant a lot to me."

"Sorry," I said. "I was busy."

"Yeah, right. Doing what, hiding beneath your covers? I've seen you today, running around like a scared chicken." She tilted her head. "Guess they didn't pick you, huh?"

"Guess not."

"You must have really bombed at the party."

"Guess so." In my mind, I saw Bitsy's expression when she dropped me off. How her eyes hadn't even registered me.

Alicia blinked. For a moment she seemed uncertain, and then she reclaimed her usual brusqueness. "Well, it's their loss," she said. "Let them have their freaky black magic-we're better off without it." She spotted my paperback and grabbed it by its spine, losing my place. "Ramona books again? Jesus, Jane. When are you going to grow up?"

She meant it as a tease, as in You're so dumb, but I love you anyway. I snatched back my book.

"Hey," she said. "Just because they didn't pick you doesn't mean you can take it out on me."

"Are you done yet? I need to eat my lunch."

She glanced at my untouched Nutrigrain bar. "Yeah, because you're starving, I can tell." But she stood up. "Not to, like, mess up your whole self pity thing, but are you still going to come to cheerleading tryouts this afternoon?"

I sighed. "Yes. I'll be there."

She gnawed on her thumbnail. "I'm not going to make the squad. I don't even know why I'm bothering. But at least we can be losers together."

I felt really, really tired. "You never know," I said. "Maybe there'll be a miracle."

Sadly, Alicia sucked. I wasn't saying that to be mean. But she just wasn't cheerleader material.

Her voice screeched when she yelled, "Go, Devils!" And during a complicated knee-slap-clap combination, her tongue snuck into position under her lower lip. And her final cheer didn't end with a split. It ended with a squat. And no matter what the group leaders had said, it wasn't okay. Of the sixty-five girls who tried out-over half the girls in our freshman class-only Alicia and Tina Burston failed to do a split. And Tina Burston had a broken leg. She auditioned without her crutches, which was actually pretty impressive. She'd painted her cast green and white.

"I sucked," Alicia muttered as everyone exited the gym. "Don't bother lying, because I know I did."

"Results will be posted tomorrow!" called one of the group leaders through cupped hands. "But remember, you're all winners! Way to go!"

"Yeah, right," Alicia said. "Five of us will be winners, and the rest will be big, fat losers." She pushed through one of the heavy double doors. She didn't hold it open for me, and it caught me on the forearm. I jogged to catch up.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she demanded without turning around. "Aren't you going to tell me how terrible I was?"

"You weren't terrible," I said. I struggled for something positive. "Your outfit rocked. You really stood out."

She snorted.

"It did. And you can wear the board shorts at the pool this summer. They'd look great with, like, a white tankini."

"Is that my sympathy prize? 'You didn't make the squad, but at least you can wear your board shorts again'?"

"Come on. You don't know you won't make the squad."

Alicia strode to the bottom of the concrete stairs that led to the gym. Saabs and BMWs lined the campus drive, and car doors slammed as girls climbed into their rides. Alicia wrapped her arms around her ribs.

"What about when I squatted at the end of 'Pump It Up'?" she asked. "Was it totally obvious I didn't do a split?" Her gaze slid sideways to gauge my reaction, and my heart went out to her.

"It looked fine," I lied. "It looked totally natural."

She kicked at the curb. She wanted to believe me, I could tell.

A car horn played "Dixie," and Rae leaned out of the window of her Plymouth Cougar. "Alicia!" she called. "Let's go!"

Alicia grabbed her bag. She almost met my eyes, but not quite. "Well, see you tomorrow."

"See you," I said. I scanned the line of cars for Mom's Volvo, but she wasn't here yet. Out of habit, I checked for the Bitches. No need. Like Alicia had said, they were way beyond cheerleader-cool.

When we got home, Mom threw her keys on the counter. "Chinese?" she suggested.

"Sure," I said. I didn't care.

She dug the menu out of the junk drawer. "Go ahead and chill out for a while," she said. "I'll call you when it gets here." She waited until I was halfway up the stairs, then stepped into the hall. "Oh, and a package came from your dad. I left it on your bed."

I stopped. I turned around.

"He sent me an elephant hair bracelet," she said. "Not exactly my style."

"An elephant hair bracelet? Is that what he sent me, too?"

"You'll have to open it. I have no idea." She hesitated, and for a second I thought she might say something real. Instead, she flashed me a smile and returned to the kitchen. Several seconds later, I heard, "I'd like to place an order to go, please. What? Sure, no problem."

I trudged back downstairs, because no way was I dealing with Dad now, even in the form of a boxed-up gift waiting in my room. Already the mention of him had stirred up the familiar mix of anger and loneliness. Anger that this was what he thought being a dad meant, sending knickknacks from all over the world. Or rather, anger that he thought he could get away with it-or was willing to get away with it-regardless of whatever father truth he actually believed in. That was what made it so bad. Because at some level, he had to know he was hurting me. And yet he did it anyway.

Dad used to love me. He would come to my room when I was scared, and he would turn on the light to show me that everything was okay. "It's the same house in the night as it is in the day," he'd say. Then he'd sit on the edge of my bed and rub my back until I fell asleep. Even if it was the middle of the night, he'd yawn and stick it out.

I couldn't figure out what had happened to that love, and that's where the loneliness came in. Stupid, pointless loneliness. I fought against it, but it came in anyway, carving me out and leaving me empty.

I went into the den and signed on to the Internet. I checked my e-mail. There was a note from Phil about Survivor: Senior High, which he was also addicted to. It would have made me laugh if I'd have been in a better mood. And there was already a moan-and-groan message from Alicia about her cheerleading tryout. "IM me!!!" she wrote.

Maybe later. I could still hear Mom puttering in the kitchen, so I opened a new window and Googled "snarky bitches," since I'd never actually checked the site during my early religions class. At SnarkyBitches.com, I learned that if I ever got a boyfriend-not likely, but just say-and he cheated on me or hit me or got a super bad mullet haircut, I could post the sordid details on the site and my snarky sisters would send me all their love. And if I included his e-mail address, they'd flame him with hate messages, up to a hundred a day.

Good to know, but not related to my Bitches.

"My" Bitches, who were not my Bitches anymore.