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“Okay, girls!” Charlotte clapped her hands and drew the rest of the court members into a circle. “You al need to get changed for your big entrance! People are filing in here in ten minutes. Don’t forget heels and a fresh coat of gloss!
And remember, the makeup artist is going to come and put blood in your hair and paint blue circles under your eyes.”
The girls pouted. “Do we real y have to do that?” Tinsley Zimmerman whined.
“Yes,” Charlotte answered sharply, her slight smirk revealing just how much she loved being the boss. Tinsley eyed Charlotte’s party dress. “You’re not wearing corpse makeup. We’l look uglier than you!”
That’s the point, I thought.
“It’l make you look avant-garde and chic,” Madeline said, sounding like a fashion editor. “You’re dead beauties of the Titanic. You drowned in the ocean. How do you think you should look? Like a Bobbi Brown spring campaign?” She gestured to a bunch of dressing rooms at the back. “Now go change!”
The court girls turned, giving one another cryptic, I-knowsomething-you-don’t smiles, reminding Emma that none of them knew exactly who was getting pranked today. Tinsley slammed a dressing room door shut before anyone could join her. Alicia Young—she of the nasty cleanse diet—
ducked into a tiny, curtained-off alcove to change. Madison Cates looked around furtively, then slipped into the shadows and pul ed a black sequined gown over her stiff hair. The other girls disappeared as wel . When they emerged from their respective dressing rooms in their black gowns, their faces registered notes of surprise.
“I was hoping the joke was on you,” Tinsley, who wore a strapless gown, said to Norah Alvarez.
“Wel , I hoped it was on you,” Norah snapped back, smoothing the feather col ar on her flapper dress. Makeup artists whirled around, swiping each girl’s mouth with corpse-blue lipstick. Emma leaned toward Charlotte.
“So we’re sure Gabby and Lili don’t suspect anything?”
Charlotte glanced at the dressing room on the second floor. The door was shut tight. “Last I checked, they had no clue.” Pul ing a walkie-talkie from her hip, she pressed TALK.
“How’s everything going, Laurel?”
“Great!” Laurel’s voice blared fuzzily through the speaker.
“I’m just helping Gabby and Lili get dressed. They look fabulous!”
A crafty smile appeared on Charlotte’s lips. “Perfect. We need them down here in five minutes, okay? Stay up there until then. We’l send the makeup artists up.”
“Aye aye!”
When Laurel radioed off, Charlotte rubbed her hands together. “We need to keep them up there until the very second they have to go on stage. They’l have no time to change.”
Madeline joined them, giggling. “This is going to be so good.”
“I hope so.” Charlotte stared at the velvet curtain that separated the back stage from the front, a serious look suddenly crossing her face. “Just as long as we don’t land Gabby in the hospital again.”
Madeline stiffened. “We didn’t land Gabby in the hospital. Sutton did.”
Both of them turned and glanced at Emma. Emma felt a sharp punch to her stomach. They had to be talking about the train prank. She waited for either of them to elaborate, but Madeline started fiddling with her clipboard and Charlotte strode away.
The final bel rang, and the doors to the lobby flung open. Emma peeked out from behind the curtains. Students poured down the center aisle and fil ed the plush red seats. Freshman girls gaped at the Titanic set, squealing about how they couldn’t wait until they were old enough to be on the court. A group of girls Madeline and the others cal ed the Vegan Virgins—for reasons Emma wasn’t entirely sure of, though she had a pretty good guess—plopped down next to a couple of the corpses and screamed. The entire footbal team sat together, shoving one another and jockeying for attention. Nearly everyone in the audience pul ed their phones from their bags and sneakily checked the screens.
Charlotte’s words swirled in Emma’s mind. Just as long as we don’t land Gabby in the hospital again. What exactly happened that night? Had Sutton hurt Gabby? The message in the box with the train charm flooded back: I will always be seized with the memory.
“Showtime!” Charlotte scurried to the court nominees, who were al inspecting their drowning-victim makeup in the ful -length mirrors. Emma let the curtain close and stared at the ceiling, as though she could see straight up to the Twitter Twins’ dressing room. “Everyone line up! I’m going to announce you to the school in a couple of minutes!” The six non-prank court girls found their dates, six cute guys who looked absolutely mortified to be in tuxedos. Charlotte glanced over her shoulder, waving her hands around like an air traffic control er. “Mads, you’re going to welcome the crowd. Sutton, you’l enter from stage left—
your mark is a big X on the floor—with al the Homecoming Court sashes for the girls and guys. I’l come in from stage right. Sutton, can you open the box of sashes? They’re by the mirrors. Sutton?”
Emma blinked, breaking out of her trance. “Uh-huh.” She walked toward the box of sashes to the left of the stage. Laurel’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “Uh, Mads? Can we come down now?”
Madeline checked her watch. “No! I need you to stay up there for a little while longer.”
“Uh . . .” Feedback screeched through the walkie-talkie speaker. “Actual y? I’m not sure that’s possible.”
