Invitation Only by Kate Brian

  “Girl­friends?”

  Ki­ran tucked her chin and looked at me over the top of her sun­glass­es. “Please. You thought you were the first? What Grey­hound bus did you fall off of?”

  Wha--who? Had I met them? Were they here at Eas­ton? Who were they? “No,” I said, and scoffed. “It's just... he didn't have that prob­lem with me, that's all.”

  “So you think,” Ki­ran said.

  We ar­rived at the li­brary door. Ki­ran paused and took off her sun­glass­es. She looked at me with those stun­ning eyes and I ac­tu­al­ly felt hon­ored that she deigned to train them on me.

  “Lis­ten, don't wor­ry about the po­lice,” she said. “At least it's over. You told them ev­ery­thing you know and now you don't have to wor­ry about it any­more.”

  I felt com­fort­ed for a split sec­ond, prob­ably be­cause Ki­ran was both­er­ing to try to com­fort me. That ges­ture in and of it­self made me feel bet­ter. Maybe we were ac­tu­al­ly be­com­ing friends. But what she didn't know was that I hadn't told the po­lice ev­ery­thing. Not re­mote­ly.

  “I mean, it's not like you did any­thing,” she added.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Re­al­ly. Thanks for com­ing to meet me.”

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  Ki­ran clucked her tongue. “Don't do that. I don't do sap­py.”

  I smirked. “Got it.”

  Ki­ran slipped her sun­glass­es back on, whipped open the li­brary door, and slipped in­to the com­fort­ing, musty si­lence ahead of me.

  “Love the li­brary,” she said sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

  'Yeah," I replied with a scoff.

  Per­son­al­ly, I was look­ing for­ward to the next hour of peace and qui­et more than I'd looked for­ward to any­thing else all year.

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  THE PER­FECT WEAPON

  Af­ter Ki­ran's sur­pris­ing ges­ture, I re­al­ized there was no way I could spy on her and the oth­er girls. No way in hell. These were my friends we were talk­ing about here. Natasha had to un­der­stand that. She just had to.

  Af­ter an­oth­er round of chores, I trudged back to my room, de­ter­mined to put an end to the in­san­ity. I paused in front of my dorm-​room door and took a deep breath. I could hear Natasha mov­ing around in­side. This was it. I was just go­ing to have to tell her to for­get it. I'd just have to ap­peal to her con­science. She had to have one in there some­where, or she wouldn't care so much about Leanne--about bring­ing wrong­do­ers to jus­tice. I had to make her see that what she was do­ing to me was just as wrong as what she thought Noelle and her friends had done to Leanne.

  It had to work.

  'You have to open the door in or­der to go through it, new girl,“ Cheyenne said, startling me as she came around the cor­ner. ”Un­less you've got some su­per­pow­ers you haven't made us all aware of."

  I shot her a scathing look and walked in­to my room. Natasha's

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  bed was cov­ered with desk sup­plies, pens in one pile, Post-​its in an­oth­er, pa­per clips in an­oth­er. She stood up, pulling var­ious pads and note­books out of the bot­tom desk draw­er and toss­ing them near her pil­lows. Ap­par­ent­ly she was re­or­ga­niz­ing.

  “Good. You're here,” she said. “What's the sta­tus re­port?”

  “Sta­tus re­port?”

  “On our lit­tle project,” Natasha said im­pa­tient­ly. “Or did our ear­li­er con­ver­sa­tion not get through to you? Be­cause I can show you the slide show again right now if you need a re­fresh­er.” She start­ed for her lap­top, which was al­so on the bed.

  Okay. So much for her con­science.

  “No. That's not nec­es­sary,” I said grumpi­ly.

  I heft­ed my book bag over my head and tossed it on my own un­made bed. The socks I'd worn to bed last night lay crum­pled and dirty on the floor, and so­da cans lit­tered my desk. One thing the fairy tale nev­er talked about was Cin­derel­la hav­ing the messi­est room in the house.

  “So? I know you've been clean­ing ev­er since din­ner,” Natasha said, cross­ing her arms over her Eas­ton sweat­shirt. “Any­thing?”

  This was not go­ing to be pret­ty. “No.”

  Her eyes widened like a doll's. “Noth­ing? Reed, I'm start­ing to think you're not one hun­dred per­cent in­vest­ed in this project.”

  “Natasha, these are my friends,” I said, feel­ing des­per­ate. “I don't want to do this.”

  Natasha blinked. For a sec­ond I thought I had thrown her. “Well . . . you have to,” she said, sound­ing like a petu­lant five-​year-​old.

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  Well. If that was her strongest ar­gu­ment I was home free.

  “Isn't there some oth­er way for you to deal with this?” I asked.

  Natasha stepped to the cen­ter of the room and looked me in the eye. “You don't get it, do you? It's not like I can go up to them and ask them to con­fess. I say one word and they're go­ing to take what­ev­er loose ends they might still have out there and tie them right up. They're im­pen­etra­ble un­less we can take them by sur­prise. About the on­ly weak­ness they have is their over­con­fi­dence. They would nev­er even think that you would go be­hind their backs, which is why you're the per­fect weapon.”

  I stared at Natasha. She had re­al­ly thought this through. Very thor­ough. And al­so very psy­chot­ic.

  “No. If I'm go­ing to con­front them, I need proof,” Natasha said. “And I can't get proof with­out you.”

  “Natasha--”

  “Do I need to re­mind you of where you'll end up if you get kicked out of here?” she asked.

  Ev­ery­thing in­side of me stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “I looked up your home­town on the In­ter­net,” she said. “Very quaint. It has its own cham­ber of com­merce and ev­ery­thing. Were you guys just so psyched when they opened the new Blimpie last year?”

  My fin­gers au­to­mat­ical­ly curled in­to fists.

  “Ap­par­ent­ly you have a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege there too,” Natasha said. “I bet peo­ple re­al­ly go places with that de­gree.”

  “You are se­ri­ous­ly de­ranged,” I said through my teeth.

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  “Wrong again,” Natasha said. “I'm the sane one around here. It's Noelle and her satel­lites who are de­ranged. Maybe if you did what I told you to do, you'd start fig­ur­ing that out.” She turned and went back to her bed, flip­ping open her lap­top. “Or, I could just send this lit­tle e-​mail. . . .”

  “No!” I blurt­ed. Natasha paused, her fin­gers hov­er­ing over the keys. “Don't,” I said, re­signed. “Fine. I'll do it. But I don't think I'm go­ing to find any­thing.”

  Natasha closed her lap­top with a click. “Sure you don't, hon­ey,” she said con­de­scend­ing­ly. “Sure you don't.”

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  THE PADDED CELL

  The next morn­ing I got up be­fore the sun had even sent a wisp of light over the hills that sur­round­ed Eas­ton. It wasn't as if ly­ing there wide awake, as I had all night, was do­ing me any good. All I had done was stare at the wall and imag­ine my­self get­ting caught by Noelle, Ar­iana, Ki­ran, and Tay­lor in a mil­lion dif­fer­ent ways. I pic­tured what they would do, how they would re­act. In one ver­sion Noelle took out a bat and whacked me across the head, show­er­ing her bestest friends with blood and brains. But I think I had been drift­ing off when that one oc­curred, so it was a half-​dream. What­ev­er the case, it had kept me awake for the next three hours.

  So I got up, made my own bed, straight­ened my stuff, and took a show­er. Natasha tossed and turned and huffed when­ev­er I made a noise above a whis­per, but she said noth­ing. Good thing. I was, af­ter all, do­ing this all for her.

  And for my­self. And my fu­ture.

  Soon ev­ery­one start­ed to stir and I was able to vac­uum. Some girls said good morn­ing to me on their way down­stairs; oth­ers

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/>   didn't both­er. I didn't care much. All I could think about was what I was about to do.

  I was hov­er­ing in the shad­ows at the end of the hall­way when Ki­ran and Tay­lor walked out to­geth­er, de­bat­ing whether trav­el with­in the con­tigu­ous Unit­ed States was even worth the time it took to pack a bag. (Tay­lor was pro, Ki­ran was con.) Shak­ing like I was about to meet my ex­ecu­tion­er, I wait­ed un­til they round­ed the cor­ner, then sprang for­ward and slipped in­to their room. The sec­ond I was in­side, I re­al­ized there was no need for the cloakand-​dag­ger act. I was sup­posed to be here. There were the un­made beds, the piles of laun­dry, the musty bath­room. I could have walked in here while they were still get­ting dressed and it would have been fine. Ex­pect­ed, even. Way to stress my­self out.

  Re­lax­ing ev­er so slight­ly, I got to work on the beds. I'd do the chores first and get them over with, then snoop around a lit­tle. That way if I had to leave sud­den­ly, my work would be done when I bailed. Af­ter mak­ing sure ev­ery­thing was in or­der, I stood in the cen­ter of the room and looked around. Where to be­gin?

  My eyes fell on Ki­ran's clos­et. Might as well start with my fa­vorite place in the room. I walked over and placed my hands on the two knobs that worked the slid­ing doors. I lis­tened for nois­es. Some­one was show­er­ing in an­oth­er room, but that was all I could hear. I steeled my­self--I was do­ing this for a rea­son, I was do­ing this be­cause I had to--and threw the doors open.

  Right. Don't get dis­tract­ed by the thou­sands up­on thou­sands of dol­lars' worth of de­sign­er clothes. You want to get this over with.

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  Shoe box­es lined the floor, stacked three box­es high and at least twelve across. I dropped to my knees and opened the first box. Black stilet­tos. The one un­der it, suede camel sling backs. The one un­der that, red kit­ten-​heeled san­dals. God, a girl could go crazy in here.

  Fo­cus. Your fu­ture or try­ing on a pair of shoes?

  I opt­ed for a fu­ture. One by one I went through all the box­es and found noth­ing but shoes, shoes, and more shoes. Then on the far end, the purs­es be­gan. I worked my way up through shelves of clutch­es and ho­bos and shop­pers and mi­nis to the shelves of sweaters above the hang­ing rod. Al­ready I was sweat­ing. This could take for­ev­er.

  I dragged Tay­lor's desk chair over and stood up on it, mov­ing the first stack of sweaters aside care­ful­ly so that they would ap­pear un­touched. My eyes fell on some­thing out of place. It was a huge, black-​and-​white NO!

  Well. That was in­crim­inat­ing enough. Ten­der­ly I took down two stacks of sweaters and laid them rev­er­ent­ly on Ki­ran's bed. I stepped back up on the chair to have a bet­ter look. There, shoved in­to the far­thest, dark­est cor­ner of Ki­ran's clos­et, was a brown box with a small pad­lock and mag­azine clip­pings past­ed all over it. Like some­thing out of a se­ri­al killer's house.

  no!

  stay away

  don't touch

  Itch­ing with cu­rios­ity, I reached for the box and pulled it to­ward me. It was heavy and made of wood. Among the words and.

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  hasti­ly as­sem­bled let­ters were clip­pings of pic­tures of farm an­imals. Pigs and cows, most­ly. What the hell was this thing?

  I reached for the lock, ex­pect­ing it to be, of course, locked, but it fell right open. My heart skipped a beat. I re­moved the lock and slow­ly opened the box. The first thing I no­ticed was the pic­ture of some poor wom­an's hu­mon­gous, cel­lulite-​rid­den ass in a flow­ered bathing suit taped up in­side the box top. The sec­ond was the smell of ic­ing.

  Oh. My. God.

  The box was full of snacks. Host­ess cup­cakes, Twinkies, Ore­os, Ding Dongs, Nut­ter But­ters, brown­ies, cof­fee cakes, SnoBalls, Mi­lanos. It was sick. If she was so wor­ried about eat­ing it, why go to all the trou­ble of cre­at­ing a box to keep it in--a box de­signed to keep her away? Was it some kind of tor­ture?

  I no­ticed a small, spi­ral-​bound note­book propped flat against the side of the box and moved some Dev­il Dogs aside to pull it out. In­side was an en­try marked Septem­ber 9. Be­neath it was a list of ev­ery sin­gle thing Ki­ran had eat­en that day and the calo­rie con­tent of that item. At the bot­tom was writ­ten “Twen­ty Ore­os,” and next to it, in a psy­chot­ic scrawl, the words “No, No, No!”

  I cov­ered my mouth with my hand. This poor girl. This poor, poor girl. Talk about an eat­ing dis­or­der; this was more like an in­fec­tious dis­ease. Ki­ran was se­ri­ous­ly strug­gling.

  I turned the page in the note­book. The fol­low­ing day there was no sug­ar in­take and a smil­ing face was drawn at the bot­tom. But ev­ery day af­ter that there were more snacks and more crazy ad­mon­ish­ments.

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  Turned out Ki­ran was not as flaw­less as she would have the world be­lieve. From her cool de­meanor and the ca­su­al way she chose her food at meals, I nev­er would have known. As bad­ly as I felt for her, I can't say it wasn't good to know. Com­fort­ing, in a way, to know some­one that per­fect didn't ac­tu­al­ly ex­ist. But, of course, this had noth­ing to do with Leanne.

  Re­luc­tant­ly, I shoved the food di­ary back where I'd found it and re­placed all Ki­ran's things. The clos­et search had turned up noth­ing to help Natasha's case.

  Was this a good thing or a bad thing?

  I had a few more min­utes, so I de­cid­ed to check un­der Tay­lor's bed. I yanked out a few un­der-​the-​bed box­es full of note­books and texts. When I pulled one of them out, a sheaf of print­er pa­per ex­plod­ed all over the room, white sheets fly­ing ev­ery­where.

  “Oh, crap,” I said un­der my breath, gath­er­ing them up. They must have been piled loose­ly atop one of the box­es. There was no way I was ev­er go­ing to get them back in the right or­der.

  Please let them be num­bered. Please, please, please.

  But as I stacked the pages back up, I re­al­ized it didn't mat­ter if they were num­bered. Each and ev­ery page was filled with ex­act­ly the same thing--the same phrase typed over and over and over again:

  I am good enough. I am good enough. I am good enough. I am good enough.

  I snort­ed a sur­prised laugh. I couldn't help it. But then I in­stant­ly felt guilty. Tay­lor was los­ing it, clear­ly. Of course, I sup­posed all ge­nius­es were a lit­tle off. But this was ridicu­lous.

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  Fifty pages, at least, of this? She was the smartest girl ev­er to walk the halls of Eas­ton. I couldn't be­lieve she need­ed all this af­fir­ma­tion. When did she have time to sit down and do this?

  Hid­den snack cakes and ob­ses­sive af­fir­ma­tions. No won­der these two were room­mates. Did each know what the oth­er was hid­ing? Maybe if they did they could help each oth­er.

  “Tay­lor! Hur­ry up!” some­one shout­ed from down­stairs.

  There were foot­steps on the stairs.

  “I just have to get my plan­ner!” Tay­lor called back. She was right down the hall.

  Shak­ing vi­olent­ly, I shoved the pa­pers back on top of the box and pushed it un­der the bed. Then the sec­ond, then the third. The third got caught on the leg of the bed and I was just jim­my­ing it back in­to place when the door flew open. I stood up, straight­ened my sweater and looked right in­to Tay­lor's sur­prised eyes.

  “Reed! God! You scared me,” she said, then glanced at her bed.

  “Sor­ry. I was just fin­ish­ing up in here,” I said.

  “Oh. Okay,” she said, step­ping un­cer­tain­ly to­ward me. It was al­most as if she knew what I had found. She grabbed her PDA off the night­stand and smiled. “Come on. Let's ... go to break­fast.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me just grab my book bag.”

  “Oh, hey. Reed?” she said, paus­ing as she stepped in­to the hall. She fum­bled with her bag and pulled out a neat­ly typed pa­per in a l
ight blue cov­er. 'You're good with the clas­sic writ­ers, right?"

  I closed the door be­hind me. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I was won­der­ing if you could read this pa­per over for me,” she said, hand­ing it to me. "I know I'm a year ahead and

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  ev­ery­thing, but it needs an­oth­er eye be­fore I hand it in. I just want to be sure it's . . . you know . . . good enough."

  Good enough. Good enough, good enough, good enough.

  Oh, my God.

  “I'm sure it's great,” I told her firm­ly. “Ev­ery­one's al­ways say­ing you're the smartest per­son ev­er to even go here.”

  “That's what they think.” Tay­lor man­aged a wan smile. “Still, I could use your help.”

  “Oh. Def­inite­ly. I'll read it to­day,” I said, back­ing away.

  “Where're you go­ing?” she asked.

  “To my room. To get my bag, re­mem­ber?” I said.

  “Oh. Right. Okay. See you down­stairs!” Tay­lor said bright­ly. “And Reed? Thanks.”

  “No prob­lem.”

  I jogged back to the safe­ty of my own room, closed the door be­hind me, and looked at the pa­per. Poor Tay­lor. She thought she need­ed a sopho­more to tell her that her pa­per was good? And Ki­ran! Who knew it was pos­si­ble that these paramours of per­fec­tion could be hid­ing such se­crets?

  The oth­er girls in this school would kill for in­for­ma­tion like this. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there was one per­son who couldn't have cared less: Natasha. There was on­ly one bit of in­fo she was look­ing for and I hadn't found it. Yet.

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  MATCH­MAK­ER

  Sat­ur­day was a gor­geous fall day, with a crisp wind and a sky so blue it looked fake. A per­fect day for soc­cer. A per­fect day for tak­ing out days of pent-​up ag­gres­sion on un­sus­pect­ing Bar­ton School girls. Or­ange, brown, and yel­low leaves danced their crack­ly dance across the dewy grass as Josh, Noelle, Ki­ran, Tay­lor, and I made our way to the vis­itors' park­ing lot, where sev­er­al bus­es were parked, wait­ing to whisk us to Bar­ton for our away games. Tay­lor and Ki­ran both played field hock­ey and their game would be on the field ad­ja­cent to ours. Ba­si­cal­ly, it was go­ing to be may­hem- whis­tles, shouts, and crunch­ing bones. I was very much look­ing for­ward to it.