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Lili materialized at Emma’s side again. “They’re here!” she hissed. “The Devious Four are here!”
Emma peeked out the gym door. Sure enough, the bouncer had lowered the velvet rope and was talking heatedly to the four girls, who were dressed to the nines.
“What do you think it is?” Ethan asked out of the side of his mouth.
“I guess we’ll see,” Emma said nervously.
“But we were invited,” Ariane, the girl with the dip-dyed hair, argued, tugging on the leather skirt of her dress.
The bouncer held up his clipboard. “Not according to this list, you aren’t.”
Lili nudged Emma. “I told him to give them a hard time. But now he’s going to ask Coco to prove she’s a Hollier student by going to her locker…which is right next to the gym.” She grinned maniacally, then flagged down a girl Emma recognized from English carrying a video camera. “Sadie! I need you in the hallway! Something major is about to happen!”
Emma chewed on her lip as the bouncer lifted the velvet rope and let the Devious Four inside. He followed them to Coco’s locker, and the girl with the video camera skulked behind them. Coco spun her combination, looking annoyed. Emma braced herself for what could be inside. What if it was something that really freaked them out—or worse?
I didn’t like this either. I didn’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone else.
The video camera blinked red, its lens focused on the girls. Just as the latch clicked open, there was a whooshing sound. Suddenly, something spilled out of the cubby, gathering in a mound at each girl’s feet. Emma squinted, taking a moment to realize what the white tube-shaped objects were. Tampons.
“Ew!” Ariane said, grabbing for the cottony tampons, which had all been unwrapped from their plastic shells. The other girls jumped away from the tampons, but they kept spilling from the depths of Coco’s locker. Then, they looked up and realized they were on video camera. Their faces went red. Ariane put her hand on the lens, angry-celebrity style.
“Smile!” Charlotte trilled, leaning against the doorway. She gestured to a wall in the gym, where the girls’ images were projected. “You’re live!”
The Devious Four all turned in the direction she was pointing, their mouths hanging open. And as they watched, the footage switched from the live feed of the tampons at their feet to the security feed Ethan had successfully downloaded. A grainy image of four girls decorating the trees in the courtyard with bras and panties appeared on the wall, flip-book style. At first, it was hard to see who the vandals were, but then, one of the girls turned, stared straight at the camera, and gave it the finger. She had trademark two-tone hair and a bratty smirk.
Gotcha, I thought. My friends couldn’t have pulled this off more perfectly.
“Ethan, it looks amazing,” Emma breathed.
Ethan grinned. “I have to admit it’s pretty fun to be on this side of the prank.”
Everyone in the gym was watching. First there were whispers, and then they turned into stares and grumbles. “It was them!” plenty of people said. “Who are they?” someone else cursed. “Losers!” a voice called over the rest.
The Devious Four hung their heads. They stared at the members of the Lying Game, who had all gathered in the doorway to accept their victory. Emma stepped forward and plucked a tampon off of Ariane’s shoulder, a smirk on her face.
“Now you know who bows down to whom,” she said lightly, spinning on her heel.
Way to go, Sis. They totally deserved it.
An hour later, the party was in full swing. A rap beat pulsed through the huge speakers the DJ had positioned all around the bleachers. The disco ball spun, strings of lights flashed on and off, and bodies danced in a massive swarm under the basketball hoops. Sadie roamed with a handheld camera, and members of the yearbook staff patrolled with big SLR cameras, snapping photographs like they were the paparazzi. Hollier students had gone all out, as though this was a normal dance—some of the girls wore full-length dresses and most of the guys wore ties.
“Um, I thought we were keeping the guest list small,” Emma said, scanning the packed room. At least a hundred kids were there.
The Twitter Twins looked at each other guiltily. “Well, people kept asking to come…”
Madeline blushed. “Yeah, I ended up inviting some people from the dance studio.”
“Who cares?!” Charlotte shouted. “This party is awesome.”
The song ended, and the DJ’s voice boomed through the microphone. “This next one is dedicated to a certain group of girls—you know who you are. Thanks for throwing such an amazing party, ladies!” The opening beats to “Sexy and I Know It” swelled through the air. Everyone screamed and ran for the dance floor at once. Lili barreled up to Emma, who was supervising the food table, and grabbed her arm excitedly.
“We so rock!” Lili shrieked.
Emma grinned in return. For the past hour, kids had come up to her, thanking her for throwing the party and complimenting her on the decorations and music. It was official: The girls of the Lying Game were back on top as the queens of Hollier.
If only I could share some of the glory. Nostalgia filled me as I watched my friends. I remembered exactly how a night like tonight felt: the sheer thrill of orchestrating a prank, the buzz I felt when I walked into a packed party and decided who was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of my attention, the whoosh of heat when I locked eyes with Thayer across a room.
But then Emma checked her phone, and her stomach tightened. It was almost eight thirty. She had to leave soon.
