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"How can you be afraid of coconuts?" Ariana asked, laughing now as well.
"Who knows? Ask Martin Tsang," Palmer answered, joining them. The sound of his voice sent pleasant shivers all through Ariana's body and into her toes. He slung one arm companionably over Ariana's shoulder, the other over April's. This simple touch brought back a thousand vivid memories of Saturday night, and suddenly Ariana's skin was burning. "Little dude freaked out when he opened the door to his room and all those nasty things came rolling out. He's down at the infirmary talking to Dr. Shrinkhead."
"Dr. Shrinkhead," Ariana repeated, trying to appear unaffected.
"His real name's Dr. Brinkshed, but since he's the campus shrink, the nickname wasn't much of a leap," April explained.
"What I want to know is, how the hell did anyone get that many coconuts onto campus and into his dorm in the middle of the day without anyone noticing?" Palmer said, leaning his weight on Ariana and April now, causing Ariana's body heat to skyrocket. "Whoever did this is a criminal mastermind. In fact, I'd like to meet such a per--son.
Something in the way he said it made it absolutely clear to Ariana that he was the mastermind in question. She looked at him and smiled.
"I'd like to meet that person too."
Palmer stood up straight and tugged up on the waistband of his pants. "Who knows, Ana," he said, chucking her under the chin with his fist like an uncle might. "Someday, you just might have that chance."
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Then he turned and loped away, casually producing his baseball from a back pocket and tossing it up and down as he went. Ariana smiled after him, happy in the knowledge she had just gleaned. As Soomie would put it, the facts were these:
A) This was clearly the retaliation against the Fellows that Lexa had spoken of after the toenail incident, which meant that B) Martin Tsang was in the Fellows, and that C) if Palmer had executed the prank, as Ariana was certain he had, then Palmer was definitely in Stone and Grave.
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BACKFIRED
"Looking good!" Ariana said as Brigit teetered by her in her new heels that night. She was sitting in the Wolcott Hall common room with her history books open on the table in front of her, but she hadn't studied much since she'd arrived. She was too busy feeling giddy over the certainty that Palmer was in Stone and Grave. That if she got in--when she got in--they would be brought even closer together. And she was going to get in, because the Allison plan had clearly worked. No one had seen the girl since Mr. Chen had dragged her off to the headmaster's office that morning. Ariana hoped that meant Allison was in serious trouble. Maybe she'd even been thrown out of APH entirely. A girl couldn't get into Stone and Grave if she wasn't even enrolled at the school."I'm glad I look good. Because I feel like I'm about to--" Brigit attempted to turn at the far end of the room and tumbled sideways instead, falling over the back of a vacant chair. "Ow."
"Are you all right?" Ariana asked, jumping up.
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"Fine. I'm fine. I just have to master this before the NoBash, because it's going to be a lot worse if I do that and the only thing around to break my fall is Ambassador Tate and her wheelchair," Brigit said, her face flushing as she stood up straight.
"Yeah. That would be bad," Ariana agreed.
"Oh, by the way, I gave Lillian an invite," Brigit said, taking a tentative step. "She was so excited she hugged me for like five minutes. I thought she was going to pee in her pants."
Ariana swallowed back all the snide remarks she wanted to make and tried to feel the triumph of successfully completing another task. Kaitlynn was going to the NoBash. Ariana's life was safe. For now.
"That's great. She's a sweet girl," Ariana said with some effort.
When she's not cutting off our hair and nails, she added silently.
"Yeah. I like her. I'm glad you invited her on Saturday."
A sudden burst of laughter filled the foyer and Ariana turned around slowly. It couldn't be. It just couldn't.
Allison and Tahira traipsed through the door, falling all over each other in giddiness. Ariana felt as if she were being sucked through some kind of wormhole. What was Allison doing here? And why was she so effing happy?
"What's going on?" Ariana asked.
The two girls stopped in their tracks, falling silent. They glanced around the room, which was dotted with students, then exchanged a look.
"I suppose we could tell you," Tahira said, though she sounded anything but thrilled at the idea. She glanced over her shoulder at the
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theater, then waved for Ariana and Brigit to follow them. As soon as the four girls were safely inside the darkened theater, Tahira and Allison started to giggle all over again. "You guys are going to love this," Tahira said with a trace of sarcasm.
