AJ may have been green, but Charlie was greener. Her envy was off the charts, so thick she was choking on it.
Allie A may have been a liar and a fraud, but at least she had made an effort to be a good friend, to really get to know the
Jackie O’s, especially Charlie. She was a fraud, and yet she was so much
realer
than AJ would ever be.
But why did she have to lie?
Even though she was in a room packed with people, Charlie felt totally alone.
Bee had always told her that sometimes the only cure for loneliness was being alone.
It’s worth a try
, Charlie thought. If she spent much longer at this party, she might need professional help to fully recover.
Just as she was preparing to bolt for a long walk and a hot bath, her aPod beeped.
SHIRA:
THE CAMERAS ARE STILL OFF—I NEED TO KNOW WHO’S SNEAKING AROUND AFTER LIGHTS-OUT. ANY NAMES FOR ME YET?
Ugh!
Couldn’t Shira ever give it a rest?
Charlie:
No names yet…
When Charlie looked up from her phone, the group had devolved into an impromptu jam session. Everyone but Skye was banging
on something or clapping their hands, and Taz and Dingo had taken over on AJ’s guitar. With the jam session raging, nobody
would even notice she was gone.
She walked across the bouncy dance floor, staring at her gladiator sandals and counting the seconds until she was under a
canopy of trees with nobody to keep her company but some cooing doves and a few chirping crickets. That was the kind of jam
session she needed right now.
“Hey,” AJ murmured, startling Charlie by insinuating her petite frame between Charlie’s hand and the elevator button. “Leaving
already?”
“Yeah,” Charlie answered, taking a cautious step to the side and reaching around AJ’s tiny waist to press the down arrow.
Couldn’t AJ get in someone else’s face for a while? “I’m surprised you noticed.”
AJ looked up at her and leaned in close enough for Charlie to smell her patchouli essential oil perfume.
Gag!
Charlie made a mental note to mouth-breathe exclusively when AJ was within close range of her nostrils.
“Of course I noticed! You’re my roommate. I pay attention to my roommates.” A smile flickered across her rosebud lips and
she picked some invisible lint off Charlie’s sleeve. “Are you going to Shira’s office?”
Huh?
What did this girl
want
? Charlie’s heart began to race. “Why would you ask that?”
“Oh, Shira mentioned the two of you were old friends.” AJ’s cloudy green eyes stared past Charlie and focused on Darwin, who
was now strumming her guitar.
“
Friends
is not the word for what we are,” sighed Charlie.
Not that it should matter to
you. She stared at the indicator light above the elevator. What was taking so long?
“Well, if you’re looking for someone to kick out, pick that girl by the window.” AJ pointed to a willowy Mary-Kate Olsen look-alike
named Helene, a drama-tracked Alpha who was writing a distopian play about the economy called
Blair Waldorf Works at Burger King Now
. “She’s been sneaking cigarettes all night. Did you know they fill the air with many of the same poisons found in the air
around toxic waste dumps? So disgusting. Not to mention secondhand smoke kills over fifty thousand people every year. Smoking
is just like committing murder, if you think about it. Just being around it tears my vocal cords to ribbons.”
“What?” Charlie was shocked. Why was AJ telling her to get someone kicked out? The whole studio began to spin as Charlie’s
panic intensified. “What did you say?”
“Cigarettes fill the air with the same toxins as—”
“No.” Charlie spoke warily. “I
know
about cigarettes being bad. The part about me kicking someone out is what I didn’t understand.” Only the Jackie O’s knew
that Charlie was being forced to spy for Shira. Which one of them told AJ? And who would AJ tell? Had she already written
a song about it?
“I know you’re spying. I heard you guys talking about it at the Jackie O house.”
“When? You just got here!” Charlie’s danger sensors had gone from code orange to code red as she racked her brain trying to
remember when the Jackie O’s had brought up her secret.
“I’m not an idiot, Charlie. I won’t tell anyone. Of course, if she sticks around much longer”—AJ stuck out her pale, pointy
chin to indicate Helene, who was unwrapping a piece of gum and walking back over to join the jam session—“I might
accidentally
leak the information.”
The only smoke in the studio now was coming straight out of Charlie’s ears.
“Thanks for the heads-up.” Charlie hate-smiled,clenching her fists to try to keep them from shaking with rage. “Now if you’ll
excuse me, I’m leaving.”
“Bye!” AJ yelled cheerfully, grabbing a handful of the long silver necklaces she wore draped around her neck and shaking it
like a dog toy. Her eco-ditz persona was firmly reattached, but now Charlie knew the manipulative schemer lurking beneath
AJ’s flaky exterior.
“See you,” Charlie hissed as the elevator doors dinged shut. She wished it could be good-bye forever. AJ might have been used
to getting whatever she wanted in her life as a rock star, but Alpha Island was Charlie’s arena. She resolved to begin planning
her next tactical maneuver in the war to stay on the island.
Operation Destroy AJ was officially under way.
JACKIE O
ALLIE A’S BED
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND
11:57 P.M.
With two pillows beneath her head, one under her knees, and one to clutch in her arms like a feather-filled, squishy version
of Darwin, Allie should have been asleep long ago. She had counted everything she could think of: sheep, birds, stars, boys
she’d crushed on, shoes she’d bought at the Santa Ana mall, states she’d visited, rom-coms she’d seen more than once—but sleep
still eluded her. She listened to Triple’s rhythmic breathing and thought about throwing something at her. A pissed-off Triple
might be more fun than hours of lonely insomnia.
Allie and Triple had the room all to themselves, not that they had much to say to each other. The rest of the Jackie O’s were
at Skye’s party, but Skye hated Triple and now she hated Allie even more. Even if she had been invited, Allie wouldn’t have
gone. Everyone there was still mad at her, and she needed to stay horizontal after an exhausting day of following her new
schedule, where one class was more disastrous than the next.
| Class | |
|---|---|
| BREAKFAST AND MOTIVATIONAL LECTURE | Finally, no wheat-meat! But nine strips of bacon + anxiety = ick. |
| FROM ARISTOTLE TO BERNANKE: FINANCE AND PHILOSOPHY FOR THE SELF-MADE WOMAN | News flash: Plato entirely unrelated to Play-Doh. |
| ROMANCE LANGUAGES | Still ill from breakfast, Allie accidentally claims en français that her B-cups are on fire. (“I meant heart! I have a warm heart!”) |
| PROTEIN BREAK | At the nutritional vending machine, Allie finds a spitball in her hair. Ew! |
| THE ART OF EXCELLENCE | Write a five-year plan? Allie can’t even get through the next five hours! |
| HONE IT: FOR WRITERS | Darwin calls Allie’s poem about forgiveness a bad AJ knockoff. Tears, followed by hyperventilating. |
| LUNCH AND SYMPHONY | Allie tries to zone out and absorb a Brahms concerto, but Darwin and AJ sit directly in front of her and whisper the whole time. She leaves in tears. |
| GREENER PASTURES | Today’s class was on urban composting. Turned out this meant working with a bucket of worms. Allie faints, is sent to the school nurse. |
| SPOTLIGHT TRAINING: POISE IN THE PUBLIC EYE | Asked to recite something she remembers well, Allie does a scene from Ten Things I Hate About You . Skye follows up with an original work: Ten Things I Hate About Fake Roommates . |
| SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR FUTURE MOGULS | Opening her MySpace account for the first time in weeks, she sees it’s been hacked. Her picture has been replaced by a video of her crying onstage with AJ. |
| FIGURE DRAWING | Skipped it. Too busy sobbing. |
| IYENGAR YOGA & MEDITATION | Allie pulls a muscle during crow pose, squeals like a stuck pig. |
Allie tried again to tune out the sound of Triple’s perfectly timed breathing. She stared at the ceiling and wished for sleep
to put her out of today’s misery, but she was too keyed up. Then she heard the glass door slide open downstairs. Allie shut
her eyes tightly, cringing like a soldier in a foxhole, hoping whoever came in wouldn’t hurl any emotional grenades her way.
She heard the rustling of Charlie’s covers in the bed next to hers and hesitantly lifted one eyelid, not sure if she should
be relieved or terrified. Allie missed Charlie so much, but she knew her lies hurt Charlie worst of all. It seemed logical
to assume Charlie would retaliate somehow. Through one slitted eye, she watched her ex-friend kick off her shoes and crawl
into bed without bothering to brush her teeth, wash her face, or even change her clothes.
Probably just doesn’t want Thalia to catch her.
On the other hand, everyone knew Thalia slept like the dead.
Ohmuhgud, is she crying?
Pretending to toss in her sleep, Allie turned to face Charlie’s bed and get a better look. Her former bestie’s shoulders were
shaking as silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Allie’s throat immediately tightened, filling with salty sympathy tears.
She had to try to comfort Charlie somehow, even if her former friend hated her right now. Allie pushed a hand through her
brittle dyed-black hair and racked her brain for a surefire way to cheer anyone up. An instant later, it came to her:
rom-coms!
“Hey Charlie,” she whispered.
Charlie put both hands over her eyes and flipped onto her back. “What?” she whisper-spat flatly.
“Remember what happens at the end of
The Ugly Truth
?”
Charlie took one hand away and stared at Allie like she was a recently escaped mental patient.
“Maybe you missed it. It came out last year and starred Katherine Heigl? Anyway, just, if you haven’t found a happy ending
yet, it means it’s not the end.” Allie smiled in a way she hoped looked reassuring, wishing she could take her own advice
once in a while.
Charlie furrowed her eyebrows and glared at Allie for a beat before flipping over and turning her back on her.
Before Allie could decide what to do next, she heard the sliding glass door open again. Skye teetered up the stairs in high-heeled
booties and headed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Allie could hear Skye’s toiletries being tossed around,
followed by the sounds of an angry face being washed, exfoliated, and moisturized.
“Wha’s going on?” Triple lifted her eye mask to peer out from under swollen, sleep-addled lids.
Skye stomped out of the bathroom, now clad in a shorty nightgown and a
don’t mess with me
expression aimed squarely at Triple.
“Oh, great—everyone’s up!” Skye’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she collapsed onto a corner of Charlie’s bed. “You missed
a great party, Trip. Until our lovely roomie AJ showed up.”
Skye sighed dramatically.
Charlie sat up in bed next to Skye, her eyes swollen not from sleep but from her recent pity party. “She tried to blackmail
me tonight. She said she knew I was Shira’s spy and that if I didn’t get a girl kicked out for smoking that she would tell
the whole school.”
“Ohmuhgud,” Triple moaned, pulling her mask down and settling back into bed. “Will the drama never end? Let’s think about
it quietly and discuss in the morning.”
Skye stared at Charlie, her mouth a perfect
O
of shock and dismay. Allie took a deep breath and decided to try to fill the silence and comfort Charlie.
“She’s toxic. What a waste.” Allie murmured her semi-lame pun in a quiet voice, seeing a chance to earn back some of her friend
status now that AJ was on everyone’s hit list.
Charlie and Skye looked at her and giggled, and Allie felt her ears go hot with relief. At last, the Jackie O ice might be
thawing.
Maybe they’ll forget how much they hate me!
“Quiet!” Triple ordered. “Some of us need our sleep! Some of us actually care about
school
, mmmkay?”
“Speaking of toxic,” Skye giggled, jabbing a thumb in Triple’s direction.
“That’s it!” Triple threw her mask to the floor, leapt out of bed, and sashayed over to Skye like Heidi Klum about to take
down a
Project Runway
contestant. She grabbed Skye’s mesh dance sleeves and pulled them off Skye’s arms, ignoring Skye’s protesting squeals.
“Triple, these have sentimental value!” Skye thrashed, but Triple had three inches on her and pinned her down.
“This is for your own good!” Triple wrapped the sleeves around Skye’s mouth and tied a knot in them before she flounced back
to bed in a mock-huff.
“Ooof!” Skye yanked her sleeves down around her neck, rolling her eyes semi-affectionately.
Triple sat back in her bed and turned to Allie, looking genuinely puzzled. “Are your eyes
blue
? Were they always blue?”
“Well,” stalled Allie. The last thing she wanted was to spoil this bonding session by reminding everyone about her deception.
“Yeah, they’ve always been blue.”
On the other side of her bed, Charlie twirled a brown lock of hair around her fingers the way she did when she was lost in
thought. “We need to figure out how to force AJ out.”
Skye nodded aggressively in agreement, looking up at the glass-domed ceiling as if the stars could provide some guidance.
“But how?” Allie wondered. To get kicked out of Alpha Academy, Shira had to want you gone.
“Put Krazy Glue on her guitar strings?” Skye tried. Charlie and Allie snort-chuckled.