Rhymes With Witches (3 page)

“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.