AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It felt like fingernails scraping against Spencer’s heart. “Stop it!” she rasped, nearly tripping over an empty J. Crew box her mother had left on the steps.
Melissa grabbed Spencer’s arm and swung her around. She put her face right up to Spencer’s. Her breath smelled like espresso. “Little baby wants everything of mine, but you know what? You can’t have what I have. You never will.”
All the anger that Spencer had held in for years broke free and flooded her body, making her feel hot, then wet, then shaky. Her insides were so bathed in fury they were starting to prune. She braced herself against the railing, grabbed Melissa by the shoulders and started to shake her as if she were a Magic Eight Ball. Then she shoved her. “I said, stop it!”
Melissa stumbled, grabbing the railing for support. A frightened look danced over her face.
A crack started to form in Spencer’s brain. But instead of Melissa she saw Ali. They both wore the same smug, I’m everything and you’re nothing expression. You try to steal everything away from me. But you can’t have this. Spencer smelled the dewy humidity and saw the lightning bugs and felt Ali’s breath close to her face. And then, a strange force invaded Spencer’s body. She let out an agonized grunt from somewhere deep inside her and shot forward. She saw herself reaching out and pushing Ali—or was it Melissa?—with all her strength. Both Melissa and Ali fell backward. Their heads both made skull-shattering cracks as they fell against something. Spencer’s vision cleared and she saw Melissa tumbling down, down, down the stairs, falling into a heap at the bottom.
“Melissa!” Mrs. Hastings cried.
And then, everything went black.
29
THERE’S A FULL MOON AT THE HOLLIS PLANETARIUM
Hanna staggered to the planetarium gates a little after nine. It was the weirdest thing, but it was kind of hard to walk in the court dress. Or sit down. Or, well, breathe.
Okay, so the whole thing was too damn tight. It had taken Hanna forever to wriggle into the thing and then even longer to zip up the back. She had even considered borrowing her mom’s Spanx girdle, but that would have meant taking the dress off and going through the zipper torture again. The process had taken so long, in fact, she’d hardly had time to do anything else before coming here, like touch up her makeup, tally the calories she’d eaten today, or import her old phone numbers into her new BlackBerry.
Now the dress fabric seemed to have shrunk even more. It cut into her skin and clung so tightly to her hips that she had no idea how she would pull it up to pee. Every time she moved, she could hear tiny threads tearing. There were certain spots, too, like around the belly, the side of her boobs, and across her butt, that…bulged.
She had eaten a lot of Cheez-Its over the past few days…and she’d tried really hard not to throw any of them up. Could she have gained weight that fast? What if something was suddenly wrong with her metabolism? What if she had turned into one of those girls who gained weight by simply looking at food?
But she had to wear this dress. Maybe the fabric would loosen the more she wore it, like leather. The party would probably be dark, too, so no one would notice. Hanna tottered up the planetarium’s steps, feeling a bit like a stiff, champagne-colored penguin.
She heard the pumping bass from inside the building and steeled herself. She hadn’t felt this nervous about a party since Ali’s seventh-grade Halloween bash, when she’d still felt like she was teetering on the edge of dorkdom. Not long after Hanna had arrived, Mona and her geeky friends Chassey Bledsoe and Phi Templeton had shown up as three Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings. Ali had taken one look at them and turned them away. “You look like you’re covered in fleas,” she’d said, laughing in their faces.
The day after Ali’s party, when Hanna had gone with her mom to the grocery store, she’d seen Mona and her dad in the checkout line. There, on the lapel of Mona’s denim jacket, was the crystal-studded jack-o’-lantern pin that had been in Ali’s party gift bag. Mona was wearing it proudly, as if she belonged.
Hanna felt a twinge of guilt about ditching Lucas—he hadn’t e-mailed her back after she cancelled on him—but what choice did she have? Mona had all but forgiven her in T-Mobile and then sent her the dress. Best friends always came first, especially best friends like Mona.
She carefully pushed through the large metal front door. Immediately, the music washed over her like a wave. She saw bluish ice sculptures in the main hall, and farther back, a giant trapeze. Glittering planets hung from the ceiling, and an enormous video screen loomed over the stage. A larger-than-life Noel Kahn gazed through a telescope on the Jumbotron.
“Oh my God,” Hanna heard behind her. She turned around. Naomi and Riley stood by the bar. They wore matching emerald sheaths and carried tiny satin clutches. Riley smirked behind her hand, giving Hanna the once-over. Naomi let out a loud guffaw. Hanna would have nervously pulled in her stomach if the dress hadn’t already unnaturally been doing it for her.
“Nice dress, Hanna,” Riley said smoothly. With her blazing red hair and shiny bright green dress, she looked like an inverted carrot.
“Yeah, it looks really good on you,” Naomi simpered.
Hanna stood up straighter and strode away. She skirted around a black-suited waitress carrying a tray of mini crab cakes and tried not to look at them, worried she really might gain a pound. Then she watched as the image on the Jumbotron changed. Nicole Hudson and Kelly Hamilton, Riley and Naomi’s bitchy underlings, appeared on the screen. They also wore slinky green sheaths and carried the same delicate satin bags. “Happy birthday, Mona, from your party court posse!” they cried, blowing kisses.
