Spellbound

The slick smile was back on his face as James Blond spoke directly to my shirt’s third button. Great. My first day and I attract the attention of the biggest manwhore I’ve ever met. I started thanking whatever lucky stars I had that we had reached the English classroom.

“Uh yeah, well, thanks for showing me to class,” I muttered, eager to get away from him. This guy had more lines than loose-leaf.

“Oh, it was all my pleasure,” Legally Bland said, leering at me. I’d always heard the phrase “mentally undressing someone with your eyes” but never had I actually seen it in action. This dude’s eyes could perform a freakin’ CAT scan, they were so thorough.

I spied Jenn and was thankful to see she had saved me a seat next to her, in the last row of the class. I practically ran over to her, and she introduced me to her friends Kristin Thorn, whom I’d recognized as the highlighted, tanned blonde I’d seen earlier, and Francisco Fernandez, a guy with a friendly smile whom I liked immediately.

Kristin looked me up and down as if I were dressed in a chicken suit, and not in the same exact outfit she was wearing.

“So, like, you’re the new girl.” It was an accusation, not a question. She tossed her long hair and glared at me.

“Yes, hi, I’m Emma.” I flashed an awkward smile.

“So, like, why did you decide to leave…where is it you’re from?” She sniffed, tossing her hair again and glaring at me like I had monkeys crawling out of my nostrils. I reached up and smoothed my cowlick, wondering if it was sticking out and flipping her off, based on the look on her face.

“Philadelphia,” Jenn broke in, giving Kristin a wary look.

“So, like, did your family, like, throw you out?” she sneered, punctuating it with another toss of her white-streaked hair and crossing her red-soled shoes. Of course she wore Christian Louboutin heels. My cheeks got hot.

“So, like, do you have some kind of OCD that makes you toss your hair all the time?” I mimicked her, meeting her ice-blue glare. “Are you going to start counting things, and knocking on wood, too? I’m just concerned for you.” I tried to make my voice sound sweet and convincing, like I really did have genuine worry over this glossy princess who had, for some reason, deemed me the enemy. But after my skeezy encounter with Blondo, my patience was wearing thin—and my sarcasm was evident.

I heard a snicker from the black-haired guy who’d just sat down in front of me, and I knew that our conversation had been overheard.

Great. So much for staying anonymous. Is it too late to transfer again?

“No, I’m fine. Don’t you even try to think about me.” She bared a row of perfectly straight, bleached-white teeth that stood out in her fake-tanned face. White and orange, orange and white. This girl looked like a Creamsicle.

Kristin continued her nasty tirade. “I just think your arrival is…off. Why would you transfer out in the middle of September? Why not wait until the end of the semester? You don’t make sense. Why are you here now?”

“Well, you see, my mom got a new job. In Tokyo. So I decided to stay in the States with my aunt Christine. Christine Considine.” I emphasized my aunt’s last name—she had some serious pull at that school and if Blondo can pull the “Don’t you know why I am?” move, why couldn’t I?

A slight look of surprise replaced her scowl, but she kept up with her inquisition.

“So where are you actually from, though?” she asked me, Emma the cockroach. “Philadelphia.” Did she not hear Jenn say it?

“Hmm.” She pursed her shiny lips. “My brother is at boarding school outside of Philadelphia. What school was it?”

“Oh, it wasn’t a boarding school…you wouldn’t know it.” I stalled. Crap. Crappity crap crap! Why hadn’t I decided to pick a fake alma mater? Knowing my luck, it would be her brother’s high school. She would own the high school. It would have a wing named after her family. The Creamsicle Wing.

“Well, come on, Emma.” The way she said my name was as if she was spitting out sour milk. “Was it Delbarton? Pingry? Which one?”

My mind raced, flipping through everything I knew of Philadelphia. What was there? The Liberty Bell? The Phillies? Cream cheese? Oh, yeah, Cream Cheese High School. Brilliant, Emma.

Something from my fifth-grade studies popped into my head.

“Congress Academy,” I heard myself saying, pulling the knowledge of the site of the first Continental Congress out of thin air.

Kristin wrinkled her nose, and the small diamond chip she had pierced on her left nostril sparkled. “I don’t know it.”

“Oh, it’s really small. And exclusive,” I added.

“Where is it?” she pressed.

“Downtown,” I lied, hoping downtown was a good thing. For Keansburg’s proximity to Philadelphia, I hadn’t been since a school field trip in eighth grade.

“Downtown? I’ve never heard of any Congress Academy downtown. I’ll have to ask my brother if he knows it,” she continued. “If it’s any good.” She resumed looking at me with a satisfied look on her face. She might as well have said, “So there!”

“Hey, Kristin, why do you care?”

The smooth voice came from the row in front of us, from the black-haired guy who laughed at my dig earlier.

Throwing his left arm cavalierly over the back of his chair—so his arm was resting slightly on my desk—he turned around and faced Kristin, who turned beet-red and stammered, “I don’t care. I was only—”

“You were only being a nasty little girl, as usual,” he said, coolly. “Anyway, I know the school. We’ve played them.”

He turned and looked at me for a brief second—and my pulse sped. I didn’t expect my response. I’d been around good-looking guys before—but this guy looked like a rock star. Long black lashes framed his green eyes—twinkling green eyes that locked with mine.

“In fact,” he added with a smirk. “At Congress Academy, they’re very good.”

I smiled back. Is he flirting with me?

His gaze dropped lower. For a split second I thought he was being Blondo 2.0 and staring at something else—okay, two something elses—on my chest, when I realized he was looking at my charm necklace. His eyes returned to mine and crinkled up at the corner with his smile. Then the boy with the rock-star eyes quickly turned around, returning to the exact same pose he was in before, which I now noticed was slouched in his chair, legs sprawled out, not caring in the least who might trip over them.

Chapter 2

Class was over, and it was time to go to lunch. I wasn’t sure if my confrontation with Kristin would mean that I had lost my potential lunch partner in Jenn, or if I’d actually be lunch, with Kristin picking at my bones and my flesh.

Relief isn’t the word for it when Francisco immediately said, “Hey, new girl, sit with us at lunch.” He ignored the glare from Kristin and gave me a big smile.

Looking right at her, I replied, “Sure, thanks.”

Three hours in, and there was no chance I would get to be invisible in this school. Anonymity I wanted, but it was clearly not an option, since I wouldn’t be a doormat. I didn’t take Henry’s crap, why would I take it from some Upper East Side princess?

We strolled slowly to the cafeteria, Kristin racing down the stairs quickly with Jenn for what I could see was about to become a fully blown-out bitch session about me. Francisco hung back, peppering me with benign questions until Kristin and Jenn were far enough ahead. Then he threw in, “Don’t let Kristin get to you.”

“What’s her deal?” I asked, exasperated. “I didn’t do anything.”

“There doesn’t always have to be a reason,” he stated plainly. “She was in these commercials for super-absorbent diapers when she was a toddler, so she thinks she’s better than everyone. I still think she’s just as full of crap as she was then. Some people are just rotten.”

I burst out laughing, surprised by Francisco’s candor.

“She has quite a history with Anthony—one of those on-and-off things—so I’m sure she’s not thrilled that he was all over you in the doorway of the classroom,” Francisco continued, giving me a sideways glance. “Way to make a splash on your first day, newbie.”

“Was that his name? He seemed annoyed that I didn’t know who he was,” I said, then groaned internally. Great, that’s probably Francisco’s best friend or something.

To my relief, he just started laughing. “Yeah, I bet. His royal high-ass isn’t used to that. So I take it you shot him down?”

“More or less,” I mumbled, and he snorted with laughter. I breathed a sigh of relief—finally, someone that seemed normal.