Invitation Only

  “Okay, come on, Reed,” I said through my teeth, shak­ing out my hands.

  I flipped to the next page in Ar­iana's plan­ner and turned it over on the floor at my side. Tay­lor's the­ory had turned out to be both a boon and a curse. At first I had thought I would just check Ar­iana's birth­day and see if she had any­thing writ­ten there. That was be­fore I re­al­ized that I had no idea when Ar­iana's birth­day was. So in­stead I had start­ed to flip through page by page, fig­ur­ing the spe­cial days would be ob­vi­ous, that she'd have writ­ten Dad's birth­day on a cer­tain date, or Par­ents' an­niver­sary some­where in there.

  I was wrong. Noth­ing was ob­vi­ous in Ar­iana's plan­ner, oth­er

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  than the fact that she was a doo­dler. A doo­dler and a jot­ter who brain­stormed po­ems and ti­tles in ev­ery avail­able space on ev­ery avail­able page. Yes, there were po­em ti­tles on some dates, but there was no way of know­ing if the dates held any sig­nif­icance. So I had spent the last hour typ­ing in pret­ty much ev­ery word I found in any giv­en date square.

  Pret­ty soon, my knuck­les were go­ing to seize up. Ear­ly on­set arthri­tis. That was where this mis­sion was go­ing to get me.

  I took a deep breath. I just had to keep at it for a few more min­utes. Then I would call it a night and at least wipe down Noelle and Ar­iana's win­dows--which looked streak-​free to me--so that they would think I had fol­lowed or­ders.

  I was on April. April fifth had a sin­gle word in its square. I took a deep breath and start­ed to type.

  Rub­ber band. R-​U-​B-​B-​E-​R-​B-​A-​N-​D. En­ter.

  In­valid pass­word! the screen replied.

  Okay . . . next. Slammed. S-​L-​A-​M-​M-​E-​D. En­ter.

  In­valid pass­word!

  I groaned. I scanned the cal­en­dar, look­ing for some­thing even re­mote­ly in­trigu­ing, and my eyes fell on the last day of April. April 30. In big, red let­ters was the word home. Then, un­der­neath that, in much small­er let­ters, the ti­tle of one of her more re­cent po­ems: “The Oth­er.” That one had been pub­lished in last month's Quill.

  I took a deep breath. My fin­gers were trem­bling. Okay. “The Oth­er.” Two words.

  T-​H-​E [space] O-​T-​H-​E-​R. En­ter.

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  In­valid pass­word!

  Some­where near­by a door slammed. My heart was in my mouth. I closed the com­put­er and was about to stash it away, but in­stead I froze. I froze and lis­tened. Foot­steps. Foot­steps com­ing clos­er...

  Oh, God, no. I scram­bled to put ev­ery­thing back. I al­most dropped the com­put­er. I was nev­er go­ing to get it all in there in time....

  And then the foot­steps passed by the door. They were go­ing back down­stairs. I sat down hard on my butt and breathed. Ev­ery­thing was shak­ing. I should just bag this. Just bag it and start over to­mor­row. But when was I ev­er go­ing to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty like this again?

  Slow­ly, I opened the com­put­er again. I would just try this last one and that would be it.

  Okay. Theother. One word.

  T-​H-​E-​O-​T-​H-​E-​R. En­ter.

  There was a beep. My pulse raced. The drive whirred to life, the screen went black, then came up with a blue sky back­ground and the two sweet­est words I had ev­er seen on a com­put­er screen.

  Wel­come, Ar­iana!

  Holy crap. I was in! Holy moth­er of-- I had done it! I want­ed to jump up off the floor and scream and yell and im­pro­vise a dance of joy. But that wouldn't have been the best idea, what with the old creaky floors and the fif­teen girls watch­ing Or­lan­do in rapt si­lence un­der my feet.

  Deep breath, Reed. I scrounged in my bag and found the

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  flop­py disk I had brought along just in case there was any­thing worth copy­ing. I shoved it in the slot on the side of the com­put­er and tried to calm my heart. If it kept pound­ing that loud, it would drown out any nois­es from down­stairs, and I couldn't get caught. Es­pe­cial­ly not now.

  There were sev­er­al file icons on Ar­iana's desk­top, each marked with a year. I clicked open the most re­cent and there were noth­ing but Word files in­side. Po­ems. Hun­dreds of po­ems. Some with ti­tles I rec­og­nized from the Quill, most with ones I did not. But was one of these an in­crim­inat­ing file in dis­guise? Was one of these “po­ems” ac­tu­al­ly some kind of an­ti-​Leanne rant that might prove Ar­iana want­ed to hurt her in some way? Who knew? My heart filled with sick, frus­trat­ed des­per­ation. I did not have time to click open and read a hun­dred or more po­ems.

  I scrolled down in the win­dow, look­ing for who knew what. At the very bot­tom was one sin­gle file icon. A file with­in the file. It was marked “projects.”

  Okay. This could be some­thing. I dou­ble clicked. In­side were sev­er­al more Word doc­uments, each with ini­tials as their ti­tles. EP, CS, IP, NL, TL, IM, and then LS.

  LS. Leanne Shore.

  My en­tire mind went blank. This was it. A file on Leanne. I sup­pose that part of me had al­ways thought it was im­pos­si­ble. That Noelle and Ar­iana could nev­er have got­ten some­one kicked out of school for no good rea­son. But here it was. I was about to have the proof.

  Re­luc­tant­ly sali­vat­ing, I opened the file. A Word doc­ument

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  popped up and filled the screen. At the top, the words Latin Stud­ies. Then, Notes from 8/5. My whole body slumped and I al­most laughed. Ap­par­ent­ly, Ar­iana had spent her sum­mer tak­ing class­es. In Latin. Stud­ies.

  Noth­ing to do with Leanne. Ar­iana was in­no­cent.

  I took a breath and closed the doc­ument. I lis­tened for foot­steps and heard noth­ing. Ap­par­ent­ly Or­lan­do was still do­ing his thing. I de­cid­ed to check out the oth­er ini­tialed doc­uments, just to sat­is­fy my cu­rios­ity, so that I wouldn't have gone through all this for noth­ing. I opened EP. It was a list of wom­en's names with “yes” or “no” next to each one and a to­tal at the bot­tom, some kind of RSVP list. Maybe Ar­iana had helped her mom throw a par­ty or some­thing. Next up was CS. I opened it and my heart took a nose­dive.

  As I Lay Dy­ing, Faulkn­er, 1980.

  Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God, Hurston, 1987.

  In­vis­ible Man, El­li­son, 1947.

  It was a crib sheet. A list in a tiny font set on 3 x 5 pa­per. And from the looks of the in­for­ma­tion, it was a se­nior En­glish crib sheet. Ex­act­ly the class Leanne Shore had cheat­ed in. And what had the ad­min­is­tra­tion used as their damn­ing ev­idence?

  Crib sheets.

  If these matched the crib sheets that had sealed Leanne's fate, then it was all true. Natasha was right. Noelle and her friends had framed Leanne. They had got­ten her kicked out of school. But why? Just be­cause she was a suck-​up and she an­noyed Noelle? Was that re­al­ly a rea­son to mess with some­one's life?

  Dy­ing to know more now, I opened the file marked IM. Sure

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  enough, a file full of copied IM mes­sages filled the screen. They were most­ly be­tween Ar­iana and Noelle. My eyes scanned the first mes­sages. They all seemed mun­dane. Con­ver­sa­tions about home­work and par­ties--noth­ing out of the or­di­nary.

  Then I saw my name and all the air rushed out of me. I stopped to read.

  *Ar­iana*: so we're def­inite­ly do­ing this Noelle_l: DEF­INITE­LY. We de­cid­ed we want­ed Reed

  right? *Ar­iana*: yes. and lat­timer is on board, ki­ran

  got her a free pass at manolo 4 her si­lence. Noelle_l: PER­FECT! Lat­timer is 2 easy. So we're

  ready to do it? You have the cribs? *Ar­iana*: all set. just tell me when and where. Noelle_l: TO­MOR­ROW. We'll get Reed in here by the week­end. And L out. Thank God! ?Ar­iana*: you are so bad! Noelle_l: And it feels SO GOOD . . .

  I could not breathe. Couldn't move. Co
uldn't have even saved my­self if the en­tire dorm had walked in at that very mo­ment.

  They had done it for me, to cre­ate a place for me in Billings. This had all hap­pened be­cause of me.

  I heard a creak on the stairs and sud­den­ly came to life. I didn't

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  have time to think about this. Quick­ly I copied all the ini­tialed files on­to my disk, just in case there hap­pened to be some­thing more worth read­ing. I shoved the disk in­to the back pock­et of my jeans, then shut the com­put­er down and re­placed ev­ery­thing as I'd found it. I was just clos­ing the trunk when I heard voic­es down­stairs. The par­ty was break­ing up. I shoved the trunk in­to the back of the clos­et, closed the doors, grabbed my stuff, and fled.

  I knew ev­ery­one would be com­ing up the front, so I raced for the safe­ty of the back stair­well. Once in­side, I slumped down on the steps and strug­gled to catch my breath.

  They had framed Leanne be­cause of me. It was my fault Leanne had been boot­ed. My fault Natasha was so up­set she was will­ing to black­mail peo­ple and sneak around be­hind their backs. It was all for me. So that I could live here. So that I could be a Billings Girl.

  It was sick. It was twist­ed. It was evil. But it was al­so for me. No one had ev­er done any­thing like this for me be­fore. They had risked their own fu­tures to get me in­to Billings and so­lid­ify mine. As dis­gust­ed as I was, I was al­so more than a lit­tle bit flat­tered.

  And how had I re­paid them? I had snooped through their rooms. Un­cov­ered their most em­bar­rass­ing se­crets. For a mo­ment I was over­come with shame. These were my friends, and I had be­trayed them.

  But I still had one ques­tion. Why were they my friends? Why had they brought me to Billings at all? What were they get­ting out of it? Why did they even want me here? Just so they could or­der me around? It didn't make any sense. None of this made any sense.

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  A door slammed right above me and I was on my feet again, rac­ing down the stairs fast enough to keep up with my pulse. I had to get back to my room any­way. Get back there and think. I had the ev­idence now. I had what Natasha need­ed. The ques­tion was, would I ev­er share it with her?

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  SUS­PI­CIOUS EYES

  The next morn­ing while Natasha was in the show­er, I threw on jeans and a sweat­shirt, tossed my hair in­to a pony­tail, and snuck out, clos­ing the door as qui­et­ly as hu­man­ly pos­si­ble. I had risen ear­ly and had al­ready re­done all the first-​floor win­dows in an ef­fort to avoid be­ing in the room when her alarm went off. Now was the per­fect chance to bail be­fore she could ask me if I'd found any­thing and be­fore the oth­er girls could strong-​arm me in­to more chores.

  It was a cool, cloudy morn­ing and I shrugged in­to my coat as I quick­ly di­aled Thomas's room on my cell phone. I hur­ried away from Billings, hoist­ing my bag over my shoul­der as I held the phone to my ear. The cam­pus was as silent as a grave­yard. My breath made steam clouds in the cold morn­ing air. The marigolds that lined the walk to Billings were bent from the weight of the frost that cov­ered their petals. I strug­gled to but­ton my coat with one frigid hand. Josh picked up on the fifth ring.

  '“Lo?” he asked. He was still asleep.

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  “Josh, I'm so sor­ry to wake you.” “Who is this?” he asked.

  “It's Reed,” I said. Sud­den­ly I felt as if some­one was watch­ing me. I paused at the in­ter­sec­tion of the path to the girls' dorms and the path to the li­brary and looked around. The quad was com­plete­ly de­sert­ed ex­cept for a squir­rel zip­ping here and there un­der one of the bench­es.

  “Reed. What's wrong?” he asked me. “Is it Thomas? Did you hear from him?”

  “No,” I said, squirm­ing at the men­tion of the name. “I just have to talk to you about some­thing. Can you meet me in the caf in, like, fif­teen min­utes?”

  “Uh... sure,” he said. “I'll be right there.” “Thanks,” I told him.

  The mo­ment I hung up the phone, I felt a chill down my back. I whipped around and my heart rock­et­ed in­to my throat. I gasped, star­tled, and then choked. De­tec­tive Hauer was three feet be­hind me. His brow creased as he ap­proached me, his black trench coat bil­low­ing be­hind him.

  “Are you all right, Miss Bren­nan?” he asked me. I pound­ed on my chest with my free hand and tried to get con­trol of my cough. Miss Bren­nan. He'd re­mem­bered my name. He'd met about five hun­dred kids over the past two weeks and he'd re­mem­bered my name. That could not be good. “I'm fine,” I said. “Fine. You just scared me.” “Sor­ry,” he replied, though he didn't look it. “I like a stroll in the morn­ing. Clears my head.”

  167

  He looked like he was wait­ing for a re­sponse, so I gave him one. “That's .. . nice.”

  “And you?” he said.

  “And me what?”

  “What are you do­ing out here so ear­ly?” he asked. “It was a long time ago, I ad­mit, but I sort of re­mem­ber lik­ing my sleep as a teenag­er.”

  “Yeah, well, I'm an in­di­vid­ual,” I said with a laugh, throw­ing my hands out. I was act­ing like a der­ranged scare­crow.

  “Who were you talk­ing to?” he asked, eye­ing my phone. He rubbed his hands to­geth­er and blew in­to them.

  “Oh, uh . . .” There didn't seem to be any rea­son to lie. “Josh. Josh Hol­lis. He's meet­ing me at break­fast.”

  “Thomas Pear­son's room­mate?” he said, rais­ing his bushy eye­brows. “That Josh Hol­lis?”

  Why did he have to make it sound sus­pi­cious? What the heck was wrong with me meet­ing Josh?

  I shrugged. “He's the on­ly one I know.” Then I made an elab­orate show of check­ing my watch. “Ooh. I got­ta go. I'm gonna be late,” I said, back­ing up. “En­joy your walk.”

  He nod­ded, nar­row­ing his eyes slight­ly. “En­joy your break­fast.”

  “I will! Thanks!” I replied, try­ing my hard­est to seem un­af­fect­ed.

  It didn't work. I could feel him watch­ing me all the way across the quad and it was all I could do to keep my­self from turn­ing around and check­ing to see if I was right. But when I

  168

  fi­nal­ly reached the cafe­te­ria, sweat­ing from ex­er­tion and nerves, I couldn't take it any­more. I paused and pre­tend­ed to search through my bag for some­thing. As I did so, I glanced out the cor­ner of my eye. There was De­tec­tive Hauer, stand­ing alone in the cen­ter of cam­pus. Watch­ing me.

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  * * *

  For the first time in days I was able to go through the break­fast line and get what I want­ed and on­ly what I want­ed. I knew that as soon as the Billings Girls ar­rived I would be back up here, fill­ing their or­ders, but for now I was go­ing to en­joy the free­dom. I de­served it af­ter ev­ery­thing I'd been through this morn­ing.

  Two pieces of ba­con, one slice of peanut but­ter toast, and a bowl full of Ap­ple Jacks lat­er, I emerged from the line and walked over to our usu­al ta­ble. I start­ed with the toast, hop­ing to calm my un­easy stom­ach be­fore mov­ing on to the sug­ar and the grease. The cav­ernous cafe­te­ria was so undis­turbed, I could see the in­di­vid­ual dust par­ti­cles danc­ing in the shafts of sun com­ing through the sky­lights. I watched Josh en­ter through the front door, stick to the wall on his way to the line, and emerge mo­ments lat­er with cof­fee and three dough­nuts.

  “So, I'm in­trigued,” he said, sit­ting down in front of me. He chomped in­to a cin­na­mon dough­nut, spray­ing the brown pow­der ev­ery­where. His curls were mashed on one side and stuck straight

  170

  up on the oth­er, re­mind­ing me that just a few min­utes ago he had been curled up in his bed, warm and cozy, and that he'd hoist­ed him­self out of his slum­ber for me.

  “Okay, hy­po­thet­ical­ly...”

  Josh dropped the dough­nut. “I lov
e a good 'hy­po­thet­ical­ly,'” he said, lean­ing his el­bows on the ta­ble.

  I laughed. “Hy­po­thet­ical­ly,” I re­peat­ed for his ben­efit, “if you found out that one of the guys in your dorm had bro­ken the hon­or code . .. would you tell?”

  Josh raised his eye­brows, then looked down at his plate and blew out a breath.

  “I mean, I know you're sup­posed to tell, but, in re­al­ity... would you?” I asked.

  Josh nod­ded once and lift­ed his head. “Def­inite­ly.”

  “Re­al­ly?”

  The dou­ble doors opened and a clump of stu­dents filed in. We wouldn't be alone for long.

  'Yes. No ques­tion,“ Josh said, sip­ping his cof­fee. ”You signed a con­tract. We all did. I know it's prob­ably not cool or what­ev­er to say this, but that ac­tu­al­ly means some­thing to me. When you com­mit to some­thing, you don't go back on your word. Be­sides, it's the right thing to do. If some­one does some­thing wrong, they should be called on it. Case closed."

  Damn. Boy took his hy­po­thet­ical very se­ri­ous­ly. For some rea­son, his con­vic­tion made me squirm. I dropped the toast and pushed my tray away.

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  “Tell me how you re­al­ly feel,” I joked, try­ing to light­en my own mood.

  “How he re­al­ly feels is id­iot­ic.”

  Star­tled, we both looked up to find Whit­tak­er hov­er­ing at the end of the ta­ble. Where had he come from?

  “No of­fense in­tend­ed,” he said to Josh.

  “Uh . . . none tak­en,” Josh said face­tious­ly. He jumped his chair for­ward un­til the ta­ble con­strict­ed his chest so that Whit­tak­er could get by. Whit pulled out the chair next to Josh and set­tled in. He took a long sip of his grape­fruit juice and smacked his lips.

  “I didn't in­tend to eaves­drop, but I couldn't help over­hear­ing,” Whit­tak­er be­gan, rest­ing his wrists on the edge of the ta­ble like a well-​man­nered boy. “Reed, if there is, in fact, some­one in Billings who has cheat­ed . . . you can­not, un­der any cir­cum­stances, turn them in.”

  “What?” Josh blurt­ed.

  'Your opin­ion is kind of naive, don't you think?“ Whit­tak­er said, pick­ing up his fork and toy­ing with the eggs on his plate. ”Not to men­tion hyp­ocrit­ical."