Birthday Vicious

  Tri wanted war? A.A. would give him war.

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  4 LAUREN FINDS DOUBLE-DEALING JUST LEADS TO DOUBLE TROUBLE

  T HE SLEEK BENTLEY CONTINENTAL PURRED up to the main gates of Miss Gamble's and slid into one of the spaces reserved for dropping off and picking up pupils--all of the spaces empty now, because it was eleven on a Monday morning and school had been in session for a couple of hours. Lauren Page, in the Bentley's backseat, leaned forward for a last-minute check of her hair and lip gloss in the console mirror.

  She'd just been to the dentist, and she had to make sure there was no trace of anything powdery or sticky around her mouth. Last year she wouldn't have thought twice about this: She'd have been rubbing her sore jaw, or obsessing over being late for class. But that was then, and this was now.

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  Once upon a time, Lauren had dreaded Monday mornings. She used to dread walking up to the main gates of Miss Gamble's, because that meant walking past the Ashleys. Every morning they'd be posed on a stone bench by the playground like vengeful Greek goddesses, scrutinizing every girl as she arrived, making snide comments about the way they wore their school uniform or their hair.

  Before this semester, Lauren came to school on the bus, not in a Bentley. Her heart would thud as she got off one stop early--so none of the other girls would see her taking public transportation. When she approached the school, she would put her head down and scurry by as quickly as she could, wishing she were invisible.

  And usually she was invisible to the Ashleys; they were far more concerned with wannabes and potential style rivals than hopeless cases. Because that was exactly what Lauren used to be--a hopeless case. Frizzy hair, bad skin, thick glasses, baby fat, no makeup, secondhand clothes. Someone no one paid attention to, whose name was only mentioned at school prize-giving, when she snagged all the awards.

  Then, last summer, Lauren's computer-nerd father hit the Silicon Valley gold mine. She got tanned, toned, and terrific, and everything changed. She made it her goal to join the most exclusive clique in school: the Ashleys. There'd been some speed bumps along the way--winning over the trio

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  of baby barracudas wasn't easy. But for now, she was IN. She was one of them.

  It was all part of her secret master plan: to bring the Ashleys down. To destroy them once and for all. Lauren had weathered years of ridicule and misery at their snotty hands. In kindergarten, Ashley Spencer had said in front of the whole class, "Everyone is invited to my birthday party except for Lauren Page!" while in fourth grade, Lili had made up the nickname "Loron" (a clever combo of "Lauren" and "moron," and a name that stuck for years) just to amuse Ashley, and last year, A.A. had picked her last once again for a volleyball tournament during PE. Lauren vowed she would have her revenge one day.

  Becoming an Ashley was just the first step. Because as every good spy knows, corruption always starts from within.

  Luckily, that silly blog, AshleyRank, had started her work for her. The key to power, as Lauren was learning this semester in honors history, was divide and conquer. When the now-defunct blog started toying with the Ashleys, shooting Lauren into the upper echelons and demoting Queen Bee Ashley Spencer to number four, fault lines had appeared in the heretofore solid coalition of cool.

  Okay, so maybe up-close and personal, the Ashleys weren't as evil as Lauren had originally believed them to be. They were almost sweet. A.A. gave big, friendly smiles and

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  made her feel like one of the gang. Lili had included her in the dance squad at the Gregory Hall lacrosse game. Ashley had even helped her shop for clothes before the big "Seven" party. They weren't all bad. And now that she was an Ashley herself, did she really want to give all this up?

  "Here we are--better late than never," Dex said, grinning at Lauren in the rearview mirror. "Are you gonna sit there all day gazing at yourself? Some of us have things to do."

  "What, like drop off the dry cleaning?" Lauren retorted. Dex was like a big brother to her, as well as her driver. He was her father's intern--or protégé, as Dex preferred to call it. He wasn't even eighteen yet, but he seemed to enjoy giving Lauren endless advice about her life. And she enjoyed telling him to mind his own business.

  "Better than dropping a filling into my food." Dex scratched his buzz cut, probably to drown out the sound of Lauren's theatrical sigh. He just couldn't stop bringing that up, could he? Ever since one of Lauren's fillings had clunked onto her plate at Sunday brunch, to her mother's horror and Dex's delight, he'd worked it into every possible conversation.

  Worst of all, he said--right there at the table, in front of her parents--that fillings often came loose when you spent too much time kissing. How embarrassing! Her father just held up the newspaper and pretended not to hear, while

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  (even more excruciating) her mother looked all overjoyed, leaning over to stroke Lauren's hair and talk about how popular her baby was these days. Eek!

  It was bad enough trying to juggle two boyfriends without discussing the gory details with your parents! And all the deception was exhausting. Pretending to be a friend to the Ashleys while secretly plotting their demise and pretending to be the only girlfriend of two guys took a whole lot of energy.

  Dating two guys sounded like fun until you actually had to do it. Just keeping them straight--and keeping them apart-- was practically a full-time job. Lauren had a good memory, and she knew it was dark-haired Alex who'd lived in Spain for a summer and wanted to grow up to be a famous film director, while towhead Christian was the one whose parents were divorced and whose biggest ambition was to ski every top mountain in the world.

  But the other day she'd absentmindedly mentioned to Alex how her language arts teacher with the bad breath reminded her of the fire-breathing beast in the latest monster movie, which got him confused, and she'd had to say "never mind" when she realized too late that it was Christian with whom she'd seen the latest smash-up-New-York blockbuster.

  Her phone rang with a thumping hip-hop beat: boyfriend number one, Christian (favorite band: Flo Rida). If it had rung with the sound of an orchestral symphony with a

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  punk-pop edge, that would mean it was boyfriend number two: Alex (favorite band: Vampire Weekend).

  "Hey there!" She smiled into her phone, ignoring Dex's ear-to-ear smirk from the front seat. "How was your presentation?" She had helped Christian come up with an argument for his public speaking class's debate--Spiderman: Superhero or Super Fool?

  She laughed when he made a joke about his spidey sense tingling. "Me? I'm just about to walk into school. Just got back from the mental dental. Ugh. Two cavities. I know. This afternoon? Sure, I'd love to--oh." She just remembered. She'd promised Alex they would study for their Latin midterms after school together. "Oh, you know what, I can't. I've got late study hall. Yeah, it sucks. Okay, maybe tomorrow. Cool."

  Lauren caught Dex's eye in the mirror as she hung up. She knew he knew she didn't have late study hall, which was Miss Gamble's--speak for detention. "Don't start," she warned him.

  She felt like a total snake for lying to Christian, and she hated herself for it. It was torture, feeling like she was cheating all the time. The problem was that she liked both of them so much. Alex was incredibly handsome, while Christian was the only boy who could make her laugh so hard Diet Coke came snorting out of her nose. She knew she had to decide whom she liked better at some point, but the thought of

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  hurting their feelings made her stomach feel so twisted up that she convinced herself dating the two of them at the same time was a much nicer thing to do than dumping one of them.

  "Do you think I'm a bad person?" Lauren asked, hoping to get a straight answer for a change.

  Dex merely chuckled. "Feeling guilty, Little Miss Man-Eater?"

  She shrugged, wishing Dex would take her seriously, but whenever she tried to have a heart-to-heart, it was obvious he thought her situation was hilarious. He was no help at all. Wor
se, he began to sing some cheesy old song called "Torn Between Two Lovers."

  "Okay. Enough!" She opened the car door and slithered out. She was wearing a curvy Balenciaga crested blazer over her uniform--the newest Ashley fashion statement. "Try not to overdo it today," she told him, full of mock concern, pausing before she closed the door. "I know how hard it is for you to think of more than one thing at a time."

  "Remember what the dentist said," Dex called after her as she walked through the gates. "Not too much oral action for a few days!"

  Lauren ignored this, as well as the obnoxious kissing sounds he was making, and marched up the stone stairs with as much dignity as she could muster. If she hurried, she'd only miss the first five minutes of honors history.

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  5

  ASHLEY TELLS HERSELF IT'S NOT A LIE IF YOU BELIEVE IT'S THE TRUTH

  CAN YOU BELIEVE HE HAS A NEW GIRL-friend already?"

  "Huh?" Ashley looked up from her Chanel compact. She wasn't paying attention to what A.A. was saying. She wanted to check if the tiny red dot she'd discovered on her nose that morning was still there. Yep. It sure was. She pressed some more powder on the affected area.

  It was all her mother's fault. Matilda spent all her time lazing about on the couch napping and couldn't be bothered to take care of any party details. The stress from having birth-daypalooza turn into birthdaypa bust was making her break out. Ashley frowned at the cakey bump. Isn't that why they called it concealer? Because it concealed things? But every time she patted on another layer, it was like she was drawing

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  a huge arrow pointing to the middle of her face, flashing: ZIT! ZIT! ZIT!

  "Are you even listening to me?" A.A. snapped. The two of them were exiting the regular history classroom and walking toward the hallway where Lili and Lauren were going to meet them after their honors history class. The four of them would then proceed to the refectory together. The Ashleys liked to make an entrance, and walking into a room, four in a row, always had the desired effect.

  Ashley gave her friend a sweet smile and put away her makeup. She would just have to live with being less than perfect for the time being. At least until she got a mini-facial at Bliss. "Of course. You were talking about Hunter, right? He's so gorge."

  "Um, no. I was talking about Tri."

  "Tri?" Ashley scrunched her nose as if she'd smelled something bad.

  A.A. sighed. "Your ex-boyfriend?"

  "Right." Ashley wondered why on earth A.A. thought she would be interested in Tri's love life, since he was no longer part of hers.

  A.A. bit a cuticle off her thumb. "He's dating someone new. I met her the other night."

  "So?"

  "So you don't care?"

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  "Why should I care, he dum--I mean, I dumped him. Once you take out the trash, it doesn't matter who picks it up from the curb." Ashley sighed. She glared at a sixth grader who was impudently staring at her--and not with the usual fear and worship. Maybe it was because of her humongous zit? Ugh! Great, now everyone would think she was a leper.

  A.A. absentmindedly swung her slouchy new Yves Saint Laurent Downtown bag (the new Ashley school-bag of choice) back and forth, almost slamming the large patent-leather accessory into Ashley. "I know. But you don't feel weirded out that he would move on so quickly?"

  "Not really," Ashley said airily. She wished they would get off the subject. She still felt a little guilty whenever A.A. talked about Tri. The thing was, just a few weeks ago she'd told A.A. a little white lie--that she had dumped Tri, when the truth was the other way around. Tri had chucked her over the side because he'd kissed A.A. at a Seven Minutes in Heaven party and realized he was in love with A.A. all along. Okay, so maybe it wasn't very nice of her to lie to one of her BFFs, but what Tri had done to her wasn't so nice either.

  Besides, Ashley was just about to dump him, really, as she was tired of waiting for him to kiss her, and hearing that he'd kissed A.A. was just the last straw. Tri got a jump on the dumping before she could, so it was simply a technicality about who dumped whom. Which made what she'd told

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  A.A. not really a lie. At least, not one that truly counted.

  It wasn't as if A.A. liked Tri or anything like that. A.A. was always saying how short he was and how irritatingly conceited he was and how they never even hung out anymore. Besides, A.A. had that hot boyfriend, Hunter, so what was her problem?

  "Hey, pretties," Lili broke in, carrying the Uptown version of the Yves Saint Laurent bag, which had a structured frame and polished hardware but was just as large. Honors history always let out a few minutes after regular because of all the homework their teacher gave out.

  "Hey yourself," Ashley responded somewhat grumpily, as she didn't feel very pretty that day, what with the huge crater on her face. It didn't help that Lili looked fabulous--clear, dewy skin, sparkling eyes, glossy hair--making Ashley feel even more wretched. Maybe AshleyRank was right. Maybe Ashley was yesterday's news. She should just go move to Vermont with Aunt Agnes and hoover up cheese for the rest of her life.

  "Guys, what am I going to do about this camping trip?" Lili asked, looking worried. "I have to go, I can't let those wenches win. I'm getting nightmares that they'll bring some other dreadhead slut who'll steal Max away."

  Ashley felt better after hearing about Lili's Outward Bound worries. At least she just had a pimple to worry about,

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  not a pair of pampered poseurs. "We'll think of something."

  "We always do," A.A. agreed.

  "Where's Lauren?" asked Ashley, noticing that the newest member of their group wasn't following behind Lili like she always was.

  "Dunno," Lili said. "She was right behind me." Ashley looked down the hall and spotted Lauren hanging by the doorway, talking to someone she couldn't see. "Lauren? Coming?" she called.

  Instead of running over with a syrupy compliment like she always did, Lauren hesitated, turning to the person she was speaking to and then looking back to Ashley with a somewhat tense smile on her face. "Go ahead, I'll catch up with you guys in a bit," she told them.

  "Let's go, I'm starved," Lili urged.

  Ashley shrugged. A.A. nodded, and the three of them walked to the refectory. The Ashleys waited for no one.

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  6 LAUREN TRIES TO DODGE A BLAST FROM THE PAST

  C HRISTIAN HAD TEXTED HER ALL THROUGH- out class, and Lauren spent the hour furiously replying to him, her fingers flying on the phone hidden underneath her desk. Cell phones were supposedly banned on school grounds, but that didn't stop anyone from using them. The girls of Miss Gamble's could send a text with their eyes closed.

  She was so engrossed in their text flirtation that she didn't pay attention to anything in class and didn't even notice that the lunch bell had rung and that people were getting up from their seats. She tapped a hasty good-bye to Christian and gathered her books into her new YSL bag (which still gave her a bit of sticker shock, but as they say, when an Ashley, spend as an Ashley) when she felt a tap on her arm.

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  Standing in front of her was a new girl who seemed to know her name and looked way too familiar.

  "Lauren--is that you?" The girl was tall and skinny in a gawky, all-elbows way, her school uniform hanging like a sack. Her lank fair hair was pulled into two childish braids, and she wore the kind of thick reading glasses that the Ashleys always referred to as plane windows. "It's Sadie--Sadie Graham!"

  "Omigod!" Lauren almost dropped her phone. She totally remembered her now. Sadie had left Miss Gamble's in the middle of fourth grade when her parents moved to Connecticut. When Sadie left, Lauren had had nobody, really, except the other social rejects, and they weren't really her friends, just comrades in despair.

  But Sadie was different. She was the only girl at school Lauren ever really liked. They used to sit together in the back row of every class and study together after school, rolling their eyes about the Ashleys. Sadie always insisted that the Ashleys were a
bunch of stuck-up losers who were jealous of their superior brainpower, and of course Lauren always agreed.

  "I tried to get your attention in class, but you never looked up from your desk. Anyway, my dad's company moved him back here. Can you believe it?" Sadie asked, beaming with happiness, pushing her thick black plastic glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. "I'm so happy you're still here!"

  "Uh ... yeah, that's ... that's great." Lauren felt as

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  though time had frozen. As though she was frozen. She was still holding her notebook and pen over her open bag, unable to move from the spot. She felt a rush of conflicting emotions--she was truly happy and surprised to see Sadie again, but she was also completely taken aback.

  Sadie knew Lauren when she had an unfortunate Shakira perm and wore patchy, cast-off sweaters rather than brand-new cashmere. When she was a social pariah. When the Ashleys didn't even know she existed.

  Lauren looked anxiously to see if Lili, the only Ashley in honors history, had noticed Sadie talking to her. Lauren would totally lose major cool points if she were seen talking to a total zero like Sadie. While Lauren hated herself a little bit for thinking like that, it was the brutal truth. If she wasn't careful, one tiny slip and she would lose her precarious position at the top of the social pyramid.

  The Ashleys would never speak to someone who looked and talked and acted like Sadie. Sadie was like Lauren last semester--a nobody.

  Lauren noticed that Lili was waiting impatiently by the door, and she felt her stomach sink when she saw that Ashley and A.A. were now out in the hallway waiting too. Ashley even craned her neck and called for her.