Bad Girls Don't Die (2 page)

What was it? Where had it come from? Why did it turn off? Neither of us asked the questions out loud.

But we were both thinking them.

We marched silently through the side yard. Fortunately, the October nights were cool enough that the many, many ginormous spiders that usually populated that part of the yard were gone. I walked in front, though, just in case. Kasey was a freaker-outer, and we didn’t need any bloodcurdling screams advertising our location.

I turned back to check on her, stopping so abruptly that she ran right into me.

“Spider?” she asked, panic in her voice.

I shook my head. I was looking past her into the front yard, at the spot where we’d been standing just twenty seconds earlier.

It was lit up by the same faint glow we’d seen in the tree.

And it actually seemed to be . . . growing.

“What?” Kasey whispered.

“Uh . . .” If my sister saw it, she would spaz. I looked right at her and smiled. “Nothing.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I got a sense of the light growing larger—and then I realized it wasn’t getting bigger—

—It was getting
closer
.

It was following us.

“You know, I might have seen a
little
spider,” I said.

“Go. Now. Move,” Kasey said, pushing on my back.

I let her go ahead of me through the back door as I cast one final glance behind us. There was no glow. Either it had disappeared, or it hadn’t rounded the corner yet.

We slipped into stealth mode to climb the stairs from the foyer to the second floor, skipping the third, eighth, and eleventh steps, all of which squeaked loudly enough to wake the dead, and then Kasey waved a little good-bye and ducked into her bedroom.

I set the tripod on the floor and the camera on the dresser, and exhaustion overwhelmed me. I changed into a long T-shirt and crawled into bed, telling myself that it had just been a swarm of curious fireflies.

I mean, it
had
to be. There wasn’t any other explanation.

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was the faintest trace of a glow on the spindly branches of the oak tree outside my window.

Curious fireflies, I told myself sleepily. So curious that they’d found a way to follow us upstairs without actually coming into the house.

B
ACK LEFT CORNER OF THE LIBRARY,
underneath the study desks.

You have to be willing to sit on the floor, but that’s a small price to pay for the perfect instead-of-class hangout: zero student traffic, lots of legroom, and complete invisibility to the librarian.

“Excuse me, Alexis.”

Tragically, it was
not
invisible to the principal.

“What class are you cutting this fine fall day, Miss Warren?”

I stood up out of the library carrel and grabbed my bag. “History. But technically, I’m not cutting a
class
.”

The corner of Mrs. Ames’s mouth twisted up into an almost-smile, and she cleared her throat. This was promising—this was “My day hasn’t taken a nosedive yet, so this is kind of amusing,”
not
“I’ve had it up to here.” When you spend as much time around the principal as I do, you get to know her idiosyncrasies.

“And why does history not qualify as a class?” As she spoke, Mrs. Ames adjusted the straw beach hat she’d worn for Hat Day—day one of the officially most annoying time of the entire school year, Homecoming Week. The hat clashed horribly with her beige blazer, but I knew way better than to comment.

We walked out of the library. As nice as it would be to pretend we were having a pleasant stroll, I knew where we were headed. And I knew what phone number she would be calling when we got there. And I knew what meeting my mother would be pulled out of to talk to her daughter’s principal—again. And I knew exactly which classroom to report to for Saturday detention—and not the fun ’80s-movie kind of Saturday detention—the incredibly boring kind that makes you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil. (At least then you’d get to leave.)

I sighed. “They’re in the gym. Decorating for the banquet.”

If there was a bright side to this whole thing, it was that I still got to miss decorating the stupid gym for the stupid alumni Homecoming banquet. Another detention, big deal. I hadn’t had a free Saturday since August.

But Mrs. Ames is no dummy. “Ah,” she said, and stared right into my eyes. “Well, I’ll tell you what—why don’t we sweep this incident under the rug and get you back to class so you can help out?”

I shot her a look. She gave me an innocent smile.

We started down the hallway that led to the gym.

“How many times is this now, Alexis?”

“This month?”

“This year.”

I puffed air out of my mouth to blow the wispy pink hairs away from my face.

“Twelve, Alexis,” she said. “Twelve skipped classes— that I know of—not to mention a number of other small incidents.”

The way she said
small incidents
was a very clear reminder that some of the incidents weren’t small. I, personally, don’t see what’s so criminal about giving honest feedback to a student teacher who should clearly quit while she’s ahead, or having an anti-fashion show outside the gym during the choir’s annual fashion show. But I guess that’s just me.

“Let me tell you, Miss Warren, there’s been some pressure to avoid handing out Saturday detentions like lollipops. There’s a big trend in the district toward suspension right now.”

Suspension.

I dug my fingernails lightly into the palm of my hand. Somehow
suspension
sounded way worse than
detention
. Detention happens to everybody. Suspension, though—that’s for the sociopaths.

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was ready to take that leap.

She sighed as we started walking again. “You know I think you have a lot of potential, Alexis. Your test scores are very high, and it’s clear that you can do well, if you want to.”

She went off into a lecture about how nobody can make my choices but me. I nodded, but I was only half listening. The word
suspension
was still buzzing around in my head like an angry bee.

We reached the gym.

The entire history class was spread out around the gym working on stupid, meaningless tasks for the stupid, meaningless banquet, and every head turned to look at us. I held my chin high and shot a couple of disdainful looks around. The kids I made eye contact with went back to their work.

Mrs. Anderson, who happens to be the dumbest teacher ever (and I’m not just saying that, it’s true—it took her four tries to pronounce “aborigines”), came hustling over.

“Well, what have we here?” she asked. “Alexis, what a nice surprise. I assume you’re on your way to the main office.”

Mrs. Ames frowned. “No. Miss Warren and I have just been chatting, so I hope you’ll excuse her tardiness.

I’m going to leave her in your capable hands, Mrs. Anderson.”

She said
capable hands
a lot like she’d said
small incidents
.

“Wonderful,” Mrs. Anderson replied.

Mrs. Ames looked down at me. “I’m sure you’ll put your best effort into your work today, Alexis.”

Oh, totally.

But Mrs. Anderson wasn’t ready to let the torment end. She clapped her hands together. “Alexis! You must have forgotten that today is Hat Day! Silly girl, pink hair isn’t a hat! Luckily, we have some backups—” She turned and called over her shoulder. “Jeremy! Bring that box over here!”

A boy who’d been assembling really ugly centerpieces out of fake flowers and wicker baskets reluctantly picked up a medium-size cardboard box and started toward us.

No way.
I would wear a dancing banana fruit basket on my head before I would let one of those disgusting things touch my scalp.

Jeremy tripped and dropped the box. Hats went flying everywhere.

Nice.

“How thoughtful of you, Mrs. Anderson,” Mrs. Ames said, as Jeremy crawled around gathering up baseball caps and colorful sombreros. “But I don’t thint Alexis is the Hat Day type.”

Case closed. Mrs. Ames headed out of the gym.

Mrs. Anderson turned to me, all the peppy rah-rah gone from her voice. “What to do with dear Alexis?” she asked, scanning the room. “Why don’t you . . .”

As long as I was far away from Mrs. Anderson, I’d be fine.

“. . . go help Pepper.”

Pepper?!

“She’s not even
in
this class,” I protested.

Mrs. Anderson looked triumphant. “Well, Alexis,
all
of the cheerleaders are helping out today. So why don’t you check in with Pepper and tell her you’ll be thrilled to do anything she needs.”

Thrilled
is not the word I would choose.

“It’s not straight!” Pepper said. Her flaming orange hair was mostly tucked under a ridiculous floppy magenta beret, but one stray lock looped down and covered her left eye. She glared at me with the right eye.

I heaved a huge sigh. “Pepper. I swear. The banner. Is straight.”

We’d been on opposite sides of a plastic WELCOME HOME, ALUMNI! banner for probably five minutes, and every time we had it in place, Pepper backtracked and decided it wasn’t good enough.

“It doesn’t
look
right,” she whined.

“That’s because you’re looking at it with only one eye,” I said. “You have no depth perception.”

She sniffed and rolled her eye.

Let’s get something clear: Pepper Laird is a cheerleader. As such, she is used to bouncing in place and holding her arms in the air for long periods of time.

I, Alexis, am not a cheerleader. In fact, I’m sort of an anti-cheerleader. So while Pepper is out there working on her biceps and triceps and glutes, I am slumping under the bleachers with the rest of the outcasts.

But no way was I going to admit to Pepper that I couldn’t take it. I dropped my half of the banner. “Forget it,” I said. My arms burned as blood poured back through the veins. “This is moronic. I’m not going to do this.”

“We
have
to!” Pepper said. “And you have to help, or I’ll tell Mrs. Anderson.”

Oh, she definitely would. And then I’d have to face Mrs. Ames for the second time that day. And her goodwill and ability to see a shred of potential in me would probably be all used up.

I settled for doing some arm stretches and making a very angry noise in Pepper’s direction.

“You
freak
,” she said.

This was not a new concept to me.

“You and your stupid pink hair”—not new either— “and your whole freaky family.”

That
part was new.

Because whatever forces separated Pepper and me in the suffocating world of Surrey High School, one thing bound us together, and that was family. Sisters, to be specific. Kasey had been best friends with Pepper’s sister, Mimi, since fourth grade. They were the kind of friends who argue more often than they don’t, but they were still glued together.

“Grow up,” I said. “Leave my family alone.”

Pepper stood up straighter. “As long as your schizoid sister leaves
Mimi
alone, I’m fine with that arrangement.”

Confusion must have overtaken annoyance in my expression.

“Her
arm
,” Pepper said.

Mimi had broken her arm at our house, about a month before, but it was an accident. She’d been running down the hall and slipped on a rug as she turned into Kasey’s room. That kind of thing just happens.

Although, come to think of it, we hadn’t seen much of Mimi lately.

“Yeah, so?”

“
Your
sister broke
my
sister’s arm,” Pepper said.

“Oh, please.”

“Mimi told me the whole story. She won’t tell our mom because she says she feels bad for Kasey. But I think she’s afraid because your little sister is a violent maniac.”

Okay, so I’m not popular and friendly and I don’t have any friends. But I wasn’t about to let someone stand there and talk smack about my baby sister—who, yes, is sensitive, but, no, is not a violent maniac.

I took a step toward Pepper. She flinched, but she didn’t back away.

“Face it, Alexis. Kasey is a whack job.” She narrowed her eyes. “All my sister tried to do was touch one of her stupid dolls. . . .”

Pepper went on ranting, but I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t back down, but suddenly I didn’t feel like fighting about it either.

Because that one word—
dolls
—seemed too right.

A lot of people are avid collectors of things you or I would consider stupid, or at least silly—rocks with googly eyes glued to them and seashells for feet. Candles shaped like animals or mythical creatures.

For Kasey, it was dolls.

I don’t even remember when it started. Years ago. Long enough for Kasey, using her meager allowance, every dime of birthday or Christmas money, and who knows what else, to amass dozens of dolls.

And if my sister were ever capable of hurting someone, it would be to protect her precious collection.

Pepper grabbed her end of the banner. “Let’s just do this so I can get away from you,” she said.