Part 8 (1/2)

”Allison, stop! Can you quit being ridiculous for one second? I am trying to talk to you. I've been defending you all day and now you're making me wonder if everybody was actually right.”

”Right about what?” I asked.

Jade sighed. ”I think I owe it to you to tell you people are talking about you, and it isn't pretty.”

My call waiting buzzed through. Roxie. I ignored it and sank down deeper into the couch. Everybody was talking about me? Oh, hideousness.

”I wouldn't say anything if I didn't care about you,” Jade said.

”I know,” I answered, feeling the knot in my stomach tighten again. ”I know. What are they saying?”

”Just-you know what, who even cares? That's what my mother said when I told her about it.”

”You told your mother?” I knew she told her mother everything, but I mean, please.

”Not the details, don't worry,” Jade said, in her talking-me-down voice. ”Just, like, the general stuff people were saying about you, because I was so upset. But she was like, 'Allison is your best friend. Don't even listen to all that awful gossip-it will rot your soul.' And I think she has a point, don't you? That kind of talk is just beneath us. You know?”

I didn't know if I knew, so I didn't answer.

”Screw them,” Jade said. ”They don't know you like I do. You want the homework?”

”Um, yeah, sure,” I said, getting out a sc.r.a.p of paper, since my backpack was still in the bushes. ”Thanks, Jade.”

”You're welcome,” she said, in her near-whisper voice. ”You're my best friend. You know I'll always be there for you.”

”Yeah,” I said. ”I know. It's just been a weird week.”

”That's exactly what I was telling everybody,” Jade said. ”'Everybody has a weird week at some point. It doesn't mean Allison has changed.' I must have said that twenty times today.”

”Thanks.” I closed my eyes. ”What would I do without you?”

”You'd be lost,” she said quietly, and then told me what homework I had to do.

10.

BY THE TIME THE FORMS arrived on Thursday afternoon, I'd become an expert on mail delivery times. The worst thing, I knew, would be for somebody else to get the mail, read something about my short but apparently impressive modeling career, and then be waiting in the kitchen, with a tapping foot, raised eyebrows, and the doc.u.ments in hand, when I strolled in from school. arrived on Thursday afternoon, I'd become an expert on mail delivery times. The worst thing, I knew, would be for somebody else to get the mail, read something about my short but apparently impressive modeling career, and then be waiting in the kitchen, with a tapping foot, raised eyebrows, and the doc.u.ments in hand, when I strolled in from school.

So I'd skipped tennis team practice Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Thursday, the postal officer, Evangeline, and I had become close. Turns out she had a son who was heading off for college in the fall, and he'd been a mail stalker while he waited for decision letters in April. So Evangeline sympathized, and waited while I looked through our stack of bills and junk mail until I found it.

”That what you were waiting for?”

”Yup,” I said.

She wished me luck and I sent luck to her son.

So that was nice. I'd spent the week feeling kind of tense and p.r.i.c.kly with both Jade and Roxie, but at least I was friends with Evangeline, the mail woman. I almost asked her in for a lemonade.

Another weird but nice thing was that, as I discovered when I sliced open the envelope with a knife in the quiet kitchen, it wasn't at all a misunderstanding. Zip Zip magazine had actually chosen me as a semifinalist model. magazine had actually chosen me as a semifinalist model.

Me.

Allison Avery. (Okay, Alison Avery, but still.) The ”interesting-looking” Avery girl. The one of me, Jade, and Serena who was most likely to wear the wrong thing, the worst makeup, the fewest hair products-and to care least about it.

Zip magazine thought I was one of the twenty most gorgeous teens in America. magazine thought I was one of the twenty most gorgeous teens in America.

And all I'd had to do was let my cell phone go a little wacky.

Well, that realization whomped me right back down to earth. Obviously it wasn't that I was actually gorgeous; I had cheated. I had sold my cell phone so that a few people would be conned into thinking I was gorgeous. By the devil.

Not that I believed in him.

But maybe I was starting to, because I had to believe either that the devil had magically appeared in my bedroom one night and traded me gorgeousness for my cell phone, or that people whose job it is to recognize gorgeousness chose me as one of the most gorgeous teens in the country.

No contest.

I was das.h.i.+ng up the stairs to hide in my room so I could reread the forms when, as if to emphasize which was real, my cell phone played a series of loud trumpet sounds, had a small seizure, and died.

I scrunched down on the far side of my bed and studied the forms. Before I could compete in the semifinal round of twenty teens, I would need to get a parent to sign a paper filled with small print. The likelihood of that happening was somewhere between not not and and are you out of your mind are you out of your mind. I read on anyway, just for kicks.

If I won (ha ha ha ha ha), not only would I receive the honor of gracing (yes, ”gracing”) the cover of the September issue of zip zip magazine, I would also get a boatload of beauty products (bringing up the irony of giving beauty products to the one person who evidently needs them least) and a free trip to the South of France for myself and one parent, for a weeklong photo shoot, and also $10,000. magazine, I would also get a boatload of beauty products (bringing up the irony of giving beauty products to the one person who evidently needs them least) and a free trip to the South of France for myself and one parent, for a weeklong photo shoot, and also $10,000.

Not cash, though. A scholars.h.i.+p. That made me almost laugh out loud. If you're gorgeous, you get not just stuff to make you even more stunning, but also a scholars.h.i.+p. a scholars.h.i.+p. Because stunning looks prove you are a real scholar, as everybody knows. Because stunning looks prove you are a real scholar, as everybody knows.

A knock on my door made me jump. I was still shoving the papers into the envelope and the envelope under my bed when Dad loped into my room.

”Hey, Lemon?”

”What!?” I tried to wipe the guilty look off my face. Open eyes wide for an innocent look, Open eyes wide for an innocent look, I remembered reading in one of Phoebe's dumb magazines. Oops, the one I might soon be gracing the cover of. I remembered reading in one of Phoebe's dumb magazines. Oops, the one I might soon be gracing the cover of.

”What's up?” he asked, his eyes wide, too. Maybe he'd read the same article.

Okay, the thought of Dad thumbing through zip zip was too weird even for me. ”Nada,” I said slightly frantically. ”Just hanging.” was too weird even for me. ”Nada,” I said slightly frantically. ”Just hanging.”

He nodded.

I nodded.

I am the child my father borrows books from the library about, searching for ways to not scream at me. Somehow he gets along easily with everybody except me. My mother screams at me, too, but she screams at everybody sometimes. (Well, not Phoebe. n.o.body screams at Phoebe; she's the baby baby and so and so sweet. sweet.) But Dad, who is the most popular teacher at Willow Brook Elementary, reserves his short fuse only for me.

So I braced myself. Obviously he had found out I'd cut school.

I had no excuse, so I decided to just take whatever he had to dish out and try not to argue back. That's what he had advised me to do the last time I got in huge trouble, for pus.h.i.+ng Quinn down the stairs. I had thought it was a good idea to let him know why I had chosen to give her a slight shove, which wouldn't have knocked a st.u.r.dier person off balance at all: She had said she would play lacrosse with me in the backyard, so I hauled all the stuff out there, and it had been a really rough day because Jade was mad at me for embarra.s.sing her by laughing too loud at something she'd said in the cafeteria about the smell of tuna, so she and Serena were giving me the silent treatment and I just wanted to whip a ball around. Quinn had said yes and came out after I got everything out there, and then played for, like, five minutes, but then she said she had to go to the bathroom. I waited out there for about half an hour, and when I finally came in to see if she was okay, she was upstairs, reading a book. Apparently she'd had enough lacrosse. So I gave her a slight tap. I was just trying to explain, when Dad was yelling at me, that I had actually shown tremendous restraint by not breaking Quinn's arms off, and maybe he could at least compliment me about that. But no.

He had insisted, fake-calmly, that in the future I should just listen and then apologize.