He reached for his Acqua di Gio deodorant and swiped some under each armpit. He hadn’t been able to stop obsessing over Elizabeth since yesterday—he’d begun to doubt that he’d made the right decision in telling her off—and had gone to the squash courts this afternoon to try to burn off some of his nervous energy. He knew that as soon as he met someone new, Elizabeth would be a thing of the past. But given the drought of decent girls at Waverly, he might be subjected to a fate of over-thinking and furious squash playing, at least for the foreseeable future.
There was a timid knock on the door, and Brandon walked over to the wooden dresser. He hoped he could get a fresh shirt on before Sam burst in and started teasing him, Ferro style, about shaving his chest. “Come in,” he said, and before he could even choose a shirt from the drawer, the door opened.
“Are you Alan’s roommate?” A smallish blond girl with wide-set blue eyes stood in Brandon’s doorway, looking around. When her eyes caught Brandon’s bare, sweaty chest, they widened slightly.
Brandon automatically held the T-shirt in front of his body. He wasn’t exactly modest—he’d started lifting regularly, in an attempt to outmuscle Julian McCafferty, the squash team’s newest member and the first threat to Brandon’s reign in three years. He was looking pretty muscled of late, if he said so himself, and even Elizabeth had noticed. But this girl couldn’t have been more than thirteen, and it seemed sort of wrong to be half naked in front of her.
“You mean Alan St. Girard? He lives with Easy Walsh, down the hall. Why are you—” But before Brandon could finish his sentence, a loud whooping noise interrupted from behind the girl.
“Brandon, my man, getting on that fresh meat!” Heath stormed into the room with Sam on his heels and put a hand up in the air for Brandon to slap. Brandon kept his hands on the clean T-shirt, and Heath slapped hands with Sam instead.
“She’s looking for Alan,” Brandon grumbled. “Christ, she’s probably not even thirteen yet,” he added under his breath. “Why are you looking for Alan, anyway?” He turned to the girl, who was fidgeting with the hem of her dark green turtleneck sweater and seemed to have fixed her gaze on Sam. Not that Sam noticed. The prospective had plopped down on Heath’s messy bed and was already tuned into the
PSP
.
“I’m staying with Alison Quentin, but I went to her room and she wasn’t there, so her roommate told me to try the boys’ dorm. She’s studying with Alan.”
“Studying, huh?” Heath cackled, popping up the collar of his red Polo shirt in amusement. Sam was wearing an identical one, though it looked about three sizes too big. “I’ve done a lot of
studying
in my day.” He reached out to slap another high five with Sam, but the boy was too engrossed in his game to notice.
“I’m Chloe, by the way,” the girl piped up, taking a step farther into the room. She stole a glance at Sam again, but he still hadn’t seemed to notice her. Probably because of Heath’s programming, Brandon thought—he’d told the kid not to waste time with freshman girls, and no doubt he’d ruled out prospectives unilaterally.
“Listen, Chloe.” Brandon felt a bit bad for the girl. She was probably totally lost on campus and didn’t need Ferro teasing her. He’d be amazed if any of the prospectives decided to come to Waverly after meeting his abrasive roommate. “Maybe it would be best if you—”
“If you took your shirt off!” Heath cried. “Has Brandon told you about the naked rule? Or is he just trying to teach by example?” Heath quickly ripped his polo off over the top of his head, exposing his muscled, fake ’n’ bake chest.
Brandon was sure Chloe was going to gasp and then make a break for it, but she held her ground in the doorway, seemingly unfazed by Heath’s sudden half-naked state.
“You see, my dear,” Heath continued, grabbing at Sam’s shirt and trying to pull it off, “We have a no-shirts policy in this room, and if you don’t comply with it, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.” His eyes gleamed devilishly, and he continued to yank at Sam’s shirt while Sam mumbled, “Quit it,” and stared down at the game.
Chloe narrowed her eyes at Heath. “I don’t think that’s in the Waverly handbook,” she said challengingly. She put her hands on her hips, and Brandon was momentarily reminded of Callie when she was annoyed and didn’t want to take any bullshit. Who would have guessed this girl had that kind of spunk?
“It’s not.” Heath shrugged in a you-can’t-fight-city-hall kind of way. “But Brandon here feels
very
strongly about it. Don’t you, Brandon?” With sudden inspiration, Heath stuck his head out the open window and cried, “Naked party in Heath and Brandon’s room!” at the top of his lungs.
Chloe just shook her head. “You guys are so immature. I can’t believe such pretty girls have crushes on you.”
Heath turned, taking a sudden interest in Chloe. “What girls? What girls, what girls,
what girls
?” He leaped across the room and lay prostrate at Chloe’s feet, tugging at the hem of her sweater. “You have to tell me!”
The prospective just rolled her eyes and batted Heath’s hands off of her. “Well, I overheard Sage Francis saying she thought Brandon was cute,” she said, looking at Brandon disapprovingly. “But God, I’m going to tell her not to bother!” And with that, she turned on her heel and stormed out. As she clomped off down the hall, Brandon thought he heard her mutter, “And I thought eighth-grade boys were bad!” Poor girl. She still didn’t know what room Alan lived in, and who knew what awaited her behind any of the doors in a dorm full of teenage boys.
Brandon pulled his clean shirt on over his head thoughtfully. Sage Francis? She was pretty cute, although he’d never really thought of her that way before.
Heath was rolling on the floor like a dog, laughing, and Sam, now shirtless, was still engrossed in his game of Spider-Man. Maybe he should try talking to Sage Francis, Brandon thought. It had to be better than hanging out here.
Email Inbox
From:
[email protected]
Date:
Monday, October 14, 8:46 A.M.
Subject:
Disciplinary Meeting
Dear Students,
If you are receiving this e-mail, that means you have been placed on a short list of suspects responsible for Friday night’s reckless and dangerous barn fire. Your attendance is required at a mandatory meeting in my office in Stansfield Hall on Wednesday at 8 A.M.
No exceptions.
Dean Marymount
Instant Message Inbox
SageFrancis:
Shit has hit the fan!
BennyCunningham:
Since when are we as suspicious as Easy and Callie? Or Tinsley? And Julian? Hello, lighter?
SageFrancis:
Whatevah. Looking forward to being locked in the DC room with Brandon …
BennyCunningham:
Uh, yeah. And the 11 other suspects. Très romantic.
SageFrancis:
If we go to prison, there are always conjugal visits!
Instant Message Inbox
KaraWhalen:
Ohmigod, how did we end up on the list?
BrettMesserschmidt:
No clue. Guilty by association??
KaraWhalen:
Since when did Waverly become a totalitarian regime? And can our junior prefect really be a suspect?
9BrettMesserschmidt:
Dunno, but I’m about to find out.
Jenny made her way through the coffee bar inside Maxwell Hall on Monday morning, her attention locked on the close-to-spilling mocha cappuccino in her hands. She turned away from the counter and scanned the crowded café area for an empty table. The main entryway of Maxwell was like that of a castle, with Romanesque arches cut out of its tall stone walls. Jenny loved to sit in the dark alcoves on the upper tier, where you could quietly read a book or watch everyone who came in and out of the café area. But as she scanned around for a seat, she had the distinct impression that everyone was staring at her. She blinked hard, wondering if she was being paranoid. Her thick gray cable-knit J.Crew stockings and brown cord skirt were totally Monday A.M. appropriate. And she’d just woken up, so there was nothing in her teeth. She sighed. In her month at Waverly, people had found some new reason to stare at her almost every day. For being new and clueless, for being big-chested, for stupidly making out with Heath Ferro, for getting caught with Easy in her bed (innocently), for hooking up with Easy (less innocently), for getting dumped by Easy (totally innocently), and now … for
what
?
She spotted Sage and Benny at a round wooden table against the wall, near one of the large fireplaces. Jenny moved toward them, but they were so engrossed in conversation they didn’t seem to notice her.
“No matter what?” Sage asked, her hand clutching at the sleeve of Benny’s navy-striped Le Tigre hoodie.
“No matter what.” Benny flicked at Sage’s wrist. “Don’t get all clutchy on me.”
“No matter what, what?” Jenny asked as she pulled out a cushy armchair at their table, careful not to spill her coffee.
Sage and Benny froze.
“What’s going on?” Jenny set her giant mug down on the table, which was littered with napkins and a field of pale blue Equal packets.
“The e-mail,” Sage whispered dramatically. Wearing a black Ella Moss wrap dress, with gigantic Bottega Veneta sunglasses perched on her head, she looked like a starlet hiding out from the paparazzi. She glanced over her shoulder, but life seemed to be going on as usual in the coffee bar.
“What e-mail?” Jenny took a small sip of her mocha, confused. Had she missed another mildly pornographic e-mail from Heath? Her heart sank a little. Not that she wanted any pornographic e-mail from Heath, but she didn’t want to be the only one not included.
“Your name was on it.” Benny’s aubergine-lined eyes narrowed at Jenny, as if she were trying to catch her in a lie.
“I didn’t check my e-mail this morning.” Jenny shrugged her small shoulders, glancing at the red plastic wristwatch she’d bought in Chinatown. The numbers were in Chinese. What was with everyone this morning? “What was it, some kind of joke?”
“It’s not a joke,” Sage answered, pulling a lock of her pale blond hair up to her mouth and looking like she wanted to chew on it. “Someone is going to get kicked out. It could be any of us.”
“Wait.”
Jenny focused on what Sage and Benny were trying to tell her. “Start from the beginning.” Benny laid out the gist of Marymount’s e-mail, sounding like she knew it by heart, while Sage ticked off the list of Marymount’s suspects. Jenny held her stomach when Sage pointed at her and said, “And you, too.”
“Probably because they found Julian’s lighter,” Benny pointed out, stuffing a burgundy Moleskine-bound notebook back into her Fendi tote bag. “And everyone knows about you and Julian.”
Jenny put her mug down on the table. They
did
? That was news to Jenny, though she didn’t know why she should be surprised, even if there was barely anything to know. Yet.
Benny continued, tapping her chewed-off nails against the oak tabletop. “Which means Marymount probably knows, too. So that’s probably why you’re on it.”
Jenny nodded, staring out the enormous glass windows at the brightly colored treetops, wondering if all other boarding schools had this much drama, or if she was just lucky. Or rather, unlucky.
“Marymount has it in for us because of the candles,” Sage explained, flicking invisible dots of Equal off the bell sleeve of her dress.
Benny nodded. “We have a stack of violations. What’s the big deal? I smelled someone burning a strawberry candle yesterday. It stank up the entire dorm. These days, everyone has candles but us.” She leaned back in the giant armchair and shook her head at the injustice.
Jenny sipped her mochaccino, hoping Benny and Sage’s blasé attitude would rub off on her. She wasn’t sure this had anything to do with Julian. On Friday night, when she’d confronted Callie about sneaking around with Easy, Callie had snapped back that Jenny had probably started the fire herself. After all, Jenny had more motive than anyone, at least according to Callie’s twisted logic. But even if Callie were to go to the dean with that theory, he’d never believe her. Right?
She suddenly remembered how Miss Rosovsky, her American history teacher at Constance Billard, had shown them the historical inaccuracies in the movie
JFK
, but pointed out that most people chose to believe the conspiracy theories anyway. People preferred the more intricate, juicier explanation to the simpler, more logical one. Jenny had a feeling Dean Mary-mount was one of those people who believed the conspiracies. He didn’t want the truth—that the fire was probably an accident. He wanted someone with a motive. He’d prefer to believe that innocent, boarding-school-loving Jenny Humphrey had started it because she was a woman scorned.
“Where are you going?” Benny called out, but Jenny was already exiting the coffee bar door, her kids’ size destroyed red Vans heavy and solid against the marble floor of Maxwell Hall.
Instant Message Inbox
JennyHumphrey:
Hey there … just got Dean M’s e-mail. Isn’t it crazy?