Unearthly

Chapter 9 Long Live the Queen

“Can I get into this thing by myself?” I ask.

“Put on as much as you can,” Angela calls back, “and I’ll help you with the rest.”

I contemplate the gown and all of its many parts, which are hanging from a hook in the backstage dressing room at The Pink Garter. It looks complicated. Maybe we should have gone with the Angels of Mons idea.

“How long am I going to have to wear this tomorrow?” I call, pulling on the silk stockings and tying them with ribbon under the knee.

“Not long,” answers Angela. “I’ll help you put it on right before class and then you’ll wear it during the entire presentation.”

“Just so you know, this may kill me. I may have to sacrifice my life for us to get a good grade on this project.”

“So noble of you,” she says.

I struggle into the corset and the long crazy hoops of the petticoat. Then I grab the hanger with the dress on it and march out onto the stage.

“I think I need you to tie up the corset before I put the rest on,” I say.

She jumps up to help me. That’s one thing about Angela: She never does anything halfway. She yanks the laces.

“Not so tight! I still have to breathe, remember?”

“Quit whining. You’re lucky we couldn’t find any real whalebone for this thing.”

By the time she slides the dress over my head I feel like I have on every item of clothing at the Garter. She walks around me pulling on the pieces underneath to make sure they look right. She steps back.

“Wow, that is good. With the makeup and the hair right, you’ll look exactly like Queen Elizabeth.”

“Great,” I say without enthusiasm. “I’ll look like a pasty-faced tart.”

“Oh, I forgot the ruffs!”

She hops down from the stage and runs over to a cardboard box on the floor. She pulls out a stiff round collar that looks like the things you put on dogs to keep them from licking themselves. There are two more for the wrists.

“No one said anything about ruffs,” I say, backing away.

She jumps toward me. Her wings come out with a flash and beat a couple of times, carrying her easily to the stage, then disappear.

“Show-off.”

“Hold still.” She puts the final ruff on the end of my sleeve. “My mom’s a genius.”

As if on cue, Anna Zerbino comes in from the lobby with a stack of table linens. She stops in the aisle when she sees me.

“So it fits,” she says, her humorless dark eyes looking me up and down.

“It’s great,” I say. “Thank you for all your hard work.”

She nods.

“Dinner’s ready upstairs. Lasagna.”

“Okay, so we’re done with the fitting,” I say to Angela. “Get me out of this thing.”

“Not so fast,” whispers Angela, glancing at her mom over her shoulder. “We haven’t done much of our other research.”

She’s so predictable. Always with the angel research.

“Come on,” I whisper back. “Lasagna.”

“We’ll be right up, Mom,” says Angela. She pretends to fiddle with my collar until her mother leaves the theater. As soon as we’re alone again, she says, “I figured out something good, though.”

“What is it?”

“Angels — full-blooded angels, I mean — are all male.”

“All male?”

“There are no female Intangere.”

“Interesting. Now help me get out of this dress.”

“But I think that angels could appear female if they wanted to. I believe they can change form, like shape-shifters,” she says, her golden eyes dancing with excitement.

“So they can become cats and birds and stuff.”

“Right, but more than that,” she says. “I have another theory.”

“Oh, here we go,” I groan.

“I think that all the stories about supernatural creatures, like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mermaids, aliens, you name it, could all be angel related. Humans don’t know what they’re seeing, but it could all be angels taking on other forms.”

Angela has some wild theories, but they’re always cool to consider.

“Awesome,” I say. “Now let’s eat.”

“Wait,” she says. “I also found something about your hair.”

“My hair?”

“The blaze thing you told me about.” She walks over to the table and grabs her notebook, flips through it. “It’s called comae caelestis. The Romans used the phrase to describe ‘dazzling rays of light emanating from the hairs of the head, a sign of a heavenly being.’”

“What, you find that on the internet?” I ask with a stunned laugh. She nods. As usual, Angela has taken the nugget of information I’ve given her and turned it into a gold mine.

“I wish it would happen to me,” she says, twisting a strand of her shiny black hair around her finger wistfully. “I bet it’s awesome.”

“It’s overwhelming, okay? And you’d have to dye your hair.”

She shrugs like that doesn’t sound so bad to her.

“So what do you have for me this week?” she asks.

“What about the concept of purpose?” This is a big one, something I probably should have gotten into a lot earlier, only I didn’t especially want to talk about purpose, because then I’d have to talk about mine. But now I’ve literally told her everything else I know. I even broke out the angel diary and showed her my old notes. Secretly I hope that she, in her infinite wisdom, already knows all about purpose.

“Define purpose,” she says.

No such luck.

“First get me out of this thing.” I gesture to the dress.

She moves around me quickly, loosening and unfastening all the laces and ties. I go into the dressing room and change back into my normal clothes. When I come out, she’s sitting at one of the tables drumming her pencil on her notebook.

“Okay,” she says. “Tell me.”

I take a seat across from her.

“Every angel-blood has a purpose on earth. Usually it comes in the form of a vision.”

She scribbles furiously into her notebook.

“When do you see this vision?” she asks.

“Everybody’s different, but sometime between thirteen and twenty, usually. It happens after your powers start to manifest. I only got mine last year.”

“And you only receive one purpose?”

“As far as I know. Mom always says it’s the one thing I was put on this earth to do.”

“So what happens if you don’t do it?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“And what happens after you complete it? You go on to live a normal, happy life?”

“I don’t know,” I say again. Some expert I’m turning out to be. “Mom won’t tell me any of that.”

“What’s yours?” she asks, still writing.

She looks up when I don’t say anything. “Oh, is it supposed to be a secret?”

“I don’t know. It’s just personal.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to tell me.”

But I want to tell her. I want to talk about it with someone other than my mom.

“It’s about Christian Prescott.”

She puts her pencil down, her face so surprised I almost laugh.

“Christian Prescott?” she repeats like I’m about to hit her with the punch line to a very silly joke.

“I see a forest fire, and then I see Christian standing in the trees. I think I’m supposed to save him.”

“Wow.”

“I know.”

She’s quiet for a minute.

“That’s why you moved here?” she asks finally.

“Yep. I saw Christian’s truck in my vision, and I read the license plate, so that’s how we knew to come here.”

“Wow.”

“You can stop saying that.”

“When is it supposed to happen?”

“I wish I knew. Sometime during fire season is all I know.”

“No wonder you’re so obsessed with him.”

“Ange!”

“Oh, come on. You eye-hump him all through British History. I thought you were just enraptured, the way everyone else at school seems to be. I’m happy to find out that you have a good reason.”

“Okay, enough angel talk,” I say, getting up and heading for the door. I’m sure I’m beet red by this point. “Our lasagna’s getting cold.”

“But you didn’t ask me about my purpose,” she says.

I stop.

“You know your purpose?”

“Well, I didn’t know until now that it was my purpose. But I’ve been having the same daydream thing, over and over again, for like three years.”

“What is it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

She looks serious all of a sudden.

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “There’s a big courtyard, and I’m walking through it fast, almost running, like I’m late. There are lots of people around, people with backpacks and cups of coffee, so I think it’s like a college campus or something. It’s midmorning. I run up a set of stone steps, and at the top is a man in a gray suit. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he turns.”

She stops talking, staring off into the darkened theater like right now she’s seeing it play out in her mind.

“And?” I prompt.

She glances over at me uncomfortably.

“I don’t know. I think I’m supposed to deliver a message to him. There are words, there are things I am supposed to say, but I never can remember them.”

“They’ll come to you, when the time is right,” I say.

I sound just like my mom.

What’s comforting about Angela, I think as I get ready for bed that night, is that she reminds me that I’m not alone. Maybe I shouldn’t feel alone, anyway, since I have Mom and Jeffrey, but I do, like I’m the only person in the world who has to face this divine purpose. Now I’m not. And Angela, in spite of her know-it-all nature, doesn’t know what her purpose means any more than I do, and no amount of research or theorizing can help her. She simply has to wait for the answers. It makes me feel better, knowing that. Like I suck a smidge less.

“Hey, you,” says Mom, poking her head in my room. “Did you have a good time with Angela?” Her face is carefully neutral, the way it always is whenever the topic of Angela comes up.

“Yeah, we finished our project. We’re doing it tomorrow. So I guess we won’t be hanging out as much now.”

“Good, we’ll have some time for flying lessons.”

“Awesome,” I deadpan.

She frowns. “I’m glad about Angela.” She comes into my room and sits next to me on the bed. “I think it’s great that you can have an angel-blood friend.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely. You need to be careful, that’s all.”

“Right, because everyone knows what a hooligan Angela is.”

“You feel like you can be yourself around Angela,” she says. “I get that. But angel-bloods are different. They’re not like your normal friends. You never know what their real intentions might be.”

“Paranoid much?”

“Just be careful,” she says.

She doesn’t even know Angela. Or her purpose. She doesn’t know how fun and smart Angela is, all the cool things that I’ve learned from her.

“Mom,” I say hesitantly. “How long did it take you to get all the pieces for your purpose? When did you know — for absolute certain — what it was that you had to do?”

“I didn’t.” Her eyes are mournful for a few seconds, and then her expression becomes guarded, her body going stiff all the way up to her face.

She thinks she’s already said too much. She’s not going to give me anything else.

I sigh.

“Mom, why can’t you just tell me?”

“I meant,” she continues like she didn’t even hear my question, “that I didn’t ever know for absolute certain. Not absolute. The whole process is usually very intuitive.”

We hear a blast of music as Jeffrey comes out of his room and tromps his huge feet down the hall and into the bathroom. When I look at Mom again she’s her usual sunny self.

“Some of it you have to take on faith,” she says.

“Yeah, I know,” I say resignedly. A lump rises in my throat. I want to ask so many questions. But she never wants to answer them. She never lets me into her secret angel world, and I don’t understand why.

“I should sleep,” I say. “Big British History presentation tomorrow.”

“All right,” she says.

She looks exhausted. Purple shadows under her eyes. I even notice a few fine lines in the corners I’ve never seen before. She might pass for mid-forties now, which is still good considering that she’s a hundred and eighteen years old. But I’ve never seen her look so worn out.

“Are you okay?” I ask. I put my hand over hers. Her skin is cool and damp, which startles me.

“I’m fine.” She pulls her hand out from under mine. “It’s been a long week.”

She gets up and goes to the door.

“You ready?” She reaches for the light switch.

“Yeah.”

“Good night,” she says, and turns off the light.

For a moment she stands in the doorway, silhouetted in the light from the hall.

“I love you, Clara,” she says. “Don’t forget that, okay?”

I want to cry. How did we get so much space between us in such a short time?

“I love you too, Mom.”

Then she goes out and closes the door, and I’m alone in the dark.

“One more coat,” says Angela. “Your hair is so. aggravating!”

“I told you,” I say.

She sprays another toxic cloud of hair spray at my head. I cough. When my eyes stop watering I look into the mirror. Queen Elizabeth stares back. She does not look amused.

“I think we might actually land an A.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” says Angela, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “I’m doing most of the talking, remember? You just have to stand there and look pretty.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumble. “This getup must weigh a hundred pounds.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Wait a sec,” I say. “When did you get glasses? You have perfect vision.”

“It’s my costume. You play the queen. I play the studious straight-A student who knows everything there is to know about the Elizabethan age.”

“Wow. You’re sick, you know that?”

“Come on,” she says. “The bell’s about to ring.”

The other students part to let me pass as I follow Angela down the hall. I try to smile as they point and whisper. We stop right outside the door to British History. Angela turns and starts to fiddle with my dress.

“Nice ruffs,” she teases.

“You so owe me.”

“Wait here.” She looks the tiniest bit nervous. “I’ll announce you.”

After she slips into the classroom, I stand in the hall listening, waiting, my heart suddenly beating fast. I hear Angela speaking, and Mr. Erikson answering. The class laughs at something he says. I peer through the tiny rectangular window in the classroom door. Angela is standing at the front of the class, pointing to the poster we whipped up with a timeline of the life of Queen Elizabeth. She’s going to announce me after the death of Queen Mary. Any minute now. I take a deep breath and stand up as straight as I can under the crushing weight of the gown.

Christian is in there. I can see him through the window, sitting in the front row, resting his head on his hand.

Christian has the nicest profile.

“So without further ado,” says Angela at last, loudly, “I give you Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth the first of the house of Tudor, Queen of England and Ireland.

Tucker, get the door.”

The door swings open, and I step inside the classroom with as much poise as I can manage. Careful not to trip on the massive dress, I sweep to the front of the room to stand beside Angela. The class seems to take a collective breath.

Of course we weren’t able to completely replicate any of the actual gowns from the portraits of Elizabeth we printed off Wikipedia, the ones encrusted with emeralds and rubies and made from yards and yards of expensive fabrics, but Angela’s mom did a bang-up imitation. The gown is a deep gold color with a silver brocade pattern and a white silk undershirt that pokes through at the sleeves. We hot-glued fake pearls and glass jewels all around the edges. The corset cinches me into a little triangle in front; then the skirt flares out and down to the floor. The ruffs at my neck and wrists are made of stiff white lace, also decorated with faux pearls. To top it off, my face is painted nearly white, something that’s supposed to represent Elizabeth’s purity, with red lips. Angela parted my hair down the middle and rolled it into an elaborate braided bun in the back, then pinned on a small crownlike headpiece made out of wire and pearls, with a tiny pearl that dangles right in the middle of my forehead, and a long piece of white velvet hangs off the back like a bride’s veil.

The class stares at me like I am the real Queen Elizabeth, transported through time.

I suddenly feel beautiful and powerful, like the blood of kings is truly pumping through my veins. I’m not Bozo anymore.

“Queen Mary is dead,” Angela says. “Long live Queen Elizabeth.”

Now it’s my turn. I close my eyes, take in as much air as I can given the corset, then lift my head and look out at the class like they are now my loyal subjects.

“My lords, the law of nature moves me to sorrow for my sister,” I say in my best British accent. “The burden that is fallen upon me makes me amazed, and yet, considering I am God’s creature, ordained to obey His appointment, I will thereto yield, desiring from the bottom of my heart that I may have assistance of His grace to be the minister of His heavenly will in this office now committed to me.”

The class is quiet. I glance at Christian, who’s looking right at me like he’s never seen me before. Our eyes meet. He smiles.

I suddenly catch a whiff of smoke in the air.

Not now, I think, as if the vision was a person I can command. The next line of my speech flies out of my head. I begin to see the outlines of trees.

Please, I think at the vision desperately. Go away.

No use. I’m with Christian in the forest. I look into his gold-flecked eyes. He’s so close this time, so close that I can smell his wonderful mix of soap and boy. I could reach out and touch him. I want to. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything so much in my life. But I feel the sorrow building in me, that grief so powerful and painful that my eyes instantly flood with tears. I’d almost forgotten that grief. I lower my head, and that’s when I see that he’s holding my hand, Christian’s long fingers wrapped around mine. His thumb drags over my knuckles. I suck in a shocked breath.

What does it mean?

I look up. I’m in the classroom again, staring at Christian. Somebody snickers. Mr.

Erikson looks at me expectantly. I can feel Angela’s tension rising up off her in waves. She’s freaking out. She wanted to give me note cards. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Your Majesty?” prompts Mr. Erikson.

I suddenly remember my next line.

“Take heart,” I say quickly, unable to tear my gaze away from Christian’s. He smiles again, like we’re having our own private conversation.

“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman,” I say. “But I have the heart and stomach of a king.”

“Here, here!” says Angela, her golden eyes wide behind her glasses. “Long live the queen!”

“Long live the queen,” repeats Mr. Erikson, and then the whole class is saying it.

I can’t help but smile. Angela, looking relieved that my part is done, starts going into the details of Elizabeth’s reign. Now I only have to stand there and look pretty, like she said. And try to calm my racing heart.

“Of course for a long time all anybody in England seemed to be interested in was finding the right husband for Elizabeth,” Angela says, glancing over at Mr. Erikson like she’s proving a point. “Everyone doubted that she’d be able to rule by herself.

But she turned out to be one of the best and most revered monarchs in history. She ushered in a golden age for England.”

“Yeah, but didn’t she die a virgin?” asks Tucker from the back of the class.

Angela doesn’t waver. She immediately launches into her stuff about the Virgin Queen, the way Elizabeth used the image of the virgin to make her unmarried status more attractive.

Tucker is standing against the back wall, smirking.

“Sir Tucker,” I say suddenly, interrupting Angela.

“Yeah?”

“I believe the correct response is, yes, Your Majesty,” I say in my haughtiest tone. I can’t just let him mock me in front of the entire class, can I?

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he says sarcastically.

“Have a care, Sir Tucker, lest you find yourself in the stockades.”

He scoffs and looks at Mr. Erikson. “She can’t do that, can she? She’s not the ruler of this class. Brady is.”

“She’s queen today,” says Mr. Erikson, leaning back in his chair. “I’d shut up if I were you.”

“You could strip him of his title,” suggests Brady, apparently not minding at all that I have usurped his throne. “Make him a serf.”

“Yeah,” says Christian. “Make him a serf. Being a serf blows.”

As a serf, poor Christian has already been killed several times in our class. Aside from dying of the Black Plague on the first day, he’s starved to death, had his hands cut off for stealing a loaf of bread, and been run down by his master’s horse just for kicks. He’s like Christian the fifth now.

“Or you could get rid of him altogether. Throw him in the Tower of London. Have him drawn and quartered. Maybe the rack. Or a red-hot enema,” says Mr. Erikson, laughing. You have to admire a teacher who’d suggest death via red-hot enema.

“Perhaps we should put it to a vote,” I say, looking coolly at Tucker, remembering how he almost got me burned as a witch. Sweet revenge.

“All in favor of death to Sir Tucker the heretic, raise your hand,” says Angela quickly.

I look around the classroom at the raised hands. It’s unanimous. Except for Tucker, who stands in the back with his arms crossed.

“Red-hot enema it is,” I say.

“I’ll mark it down,” says Mr. Erikson gleefully.

“Now that that’s settled,” says Angela, looking at me sharply, “let me tell you about the defeat of the Spanish Armada.”

I cast a triumphant glance at Tucker. The corner of his mouth lifts in a half smile. He nods at me, as if to say, Touché.

Point: Clara.

Go me.

“What was that?” hisses Angela as we beeline it for the restroom after class.

“The thing with Tucker? I know! I can’t figure him out.”

“No, the thing where you spaced out in the middle of your speech and left me hanging in front of the entire class.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I had the vision. How long was I out?”

“Only like ten seconds. But it was the longest ten seconds ever. I thought I was going to have to slap you.”

“Sorry,” I say again. “It’s not something I can control.”

“I know. It’s fine.” We burst into the girls’ bathroom and stand in the handicap stall while Angela disassembles the dress and I step out of it. She unties the corset and I gasp in relief, finally able to take a full breath.

“You saw the forest fire?” she asks, peeking out to make sure we’re alone.

“No, not this time.”

She grins wickedly as she hands me my sweatshirt. “You saw Christian.”

I feel a blush creeping up my cheeks.

“Yes.” I carefully remove the headpiece and hand it to Angela, then pull the shirt over my head.

“So you were like, looking at Christian in class and then you were looking at him in the future. That’s wild, C.”

“Tell me about it.” I pull on my jeans and walk over to the mirror to survey the damage to my hair. “Ugh. I need a shower.”

“And in the future, what happened?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “It was only ten seconds, remember? There wasn’t time for anything to happen.”

I turn on the sink and lower my head to splash my face, watching the white makeup dissolve into my hand and swirl down the drain. The cool water feels good against my flushed skin. Angela hands me a paper towel and I dry off, then wipe at the bright red lipstick. She gets a brush out of her backpack and starts to pull the pins out of my hair.

“Nothing new, huh?” she says, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “No new part of the vision?”

I sigh. I might as well tell her. Angela has a way of ferreting out the truth one way or another. She’s nothing if not perceptive and persistent.

“He was—” I begin softly. “We were. holding hands.”

“Shut up!” exclaims Angela. “So you two are like lovers!”

“No!” I protest. “I mean, maybe. I don’t know what we are. We’re holding hands, so what? It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Oh, right.” Angela looks at me incredulously as she tugs the brush through my hair-spray-saturated hair. “Save it. You know you’re totally in love with him.”

“I don’t even know him that well. Ouch! Take it easy!”

“Well, I’ve known him since kindergarten,” says Angela, ignoring my protests as she works the tangles out of my hair. “And trust me when I say that Christian Prescott is all that he’s cracked up to be. He’s smart, funny, nice, and oh yeah, hotter than hell in July.”

“Sounds like maybe you’re in love with him,” I point out.

“Eighth grade,” Angela says. “Ava Peters’s birthday party. We play spin the bottle.

My bottle points to Christian, so we sneak out to the back porch to kiss.”

“And?” I say.

“And it was fine. But no sparks. No chemistry. Nothing. It was like kissing my brother.

Don’t worry, he’s all yours, C.”

“Hey, this vision is a job, remember,” I say. “Not a date. And I believe he’s all Kay’s, so enough with the crazy talk.”

She scoffs. “Kay’s pretty. And she’s clever enough to keep his attention. But Kay’s a normal high school girl. You’re an angelic being. You’re smarter and more attractive than she is in every way. You’re genetically superior. Okay, so there’s the hair thing.

It’s a bad color, distracts people, whatever. But you’re totally hot. You’ve got a whole Scarlett Johansson thing going on, minus the boobs. Every guy at Jackson High knows who you are, trust me.” Then she adds, “Besides, Christian and Kay are almost over.”

“What do you mean? What have you heard?”

“Nothing,” she says flippantly. “It’s just the timeline, you know? This kind of relationship has a definite shelf life.”

“What kind of relationship is that, exactly?”

She looks at me levelly. “The physical kind. What, you think Christian’s attracted to Kay’s dazzling wit?

“Their expiration date is almost up. Trust me,” she says when I don’t answer, the corner of her mouth twisting up into her evil smile. It’s unbelievable that her wings are whiter than mine.

“You’re a weird one, you know that?” I say, shaking my head. “Weird.”

“Just wait,” she says. “You’ll see. Soon he’ll be all yours. He’s your destiny, after all.”

She flutters her eyelashes.

“Oh really, you think my purpose is about me getting a boyfriend? That would be awfully nice and all, because clearly I could use some help on the romantic front, but don’t you think the world is a little bigger than me and Christian and our love lives?”

“Maybe,” she says, and it’s impossible to tell whether or not she’s serious. “You never know.”

After school, I wait in the parking lot for Wendy. We’re going back to my house to study for a Jane Austen exam in Phibbs’s class. I can’t help but locate Christian’s Avalanche, parked in the back like always.

Wendy walks up and playfully punches me on the arm. “Tucker told me you were a queen today,” she says.

I drag my gaze away from Christian’s truck. “Yeah, I ruled. Literally.”

“I wish I’d seen you in your costume,” she says. “You should have come and gotten me at lunch. I could have helped you get ready.”

“Oh, you didn’t need to help me with the history class stuff,” I reply as if I hadn’t wanted to impose on her. But the truth is, I don’t know how to handle Angela and Wendy in the same space. How weird would it be to talk about normal things like school and boys now when I’m so used to talking about angel stuff with Angela? The last couple weeks I’ve mostly seen Wendy in class and at lunch, where I still sit at the Invisibles table. I’ve been busy with Angela working on our project most days after school.

“Ready for Jane Austen?” I ask.

“You know I’m crushing on Mr. Darcy, big-time,” she says.

“Oh, right,” I say distractedly, because I’ve spotted Christian and Kay.

They’re standing next to the silver truck, talking. Kay is smiling up at him. She leans into him as she talks, practically draping herself over him. He doesn’t seem to mind.

They kiss, not a little peck, but a long, lingering kiss where she twines her arms around his neck and he curls his arms around her waist and pulls her close and lifts her up. He pulls back and brushes his hand across her cheek, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. He says something. She nods. He opens the driver’s side door of the truck, and she climbs in. He hops in after her and closes the door. I don’t have a good view of what happens next, but the Avalanche doesn’t move. They aren’t driving anywhere.

They don’t look like a couple whose expiration date is almost up. They look happy.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” says Wendy then, loudly.

I jump, startled, and look over at her. She has her head cocked slightly to one side, her blue eyes narrowed.

“Sorry,” I say quickly. I smile. “Did Tucker tell you that I had him executed today? It’s good to be queen.”

I expect her to lighten up, make some smart-aleck remark, but she just shakes her head.

“What?”

“Christian has a girlfriend, as you might have noticed,” she says. “I suggest you get over it.”

My mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.

“Hello, rude!” I finally sputter.

“It’s true.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” I shoot back.

“Well, maybe I would, if you ever bothered to talk to me anymore,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Oh, I see, you’re jealous now. Hence the rudeness.”

She looks away quickly in a way which confirms it — she’s jealous of Angela and all the time we’ve been spending together. “I’m sick of watching you drool over Christian Prescott like he’s a piece of meat, is all.”

It’s been a long day. And so I lose my temper.

“What’s it to you, Wen? It’s my life. Why don’t you stop being invisible for once and get your own?”

She stares at me for a long moment, her face slowly reddening, her eyes shining with the beginnings of tears that she’s too stubborn to let fall. She turns away. I can see her shoulders starting to shake.

“Wen—”

“Forget it,” she says. She picks up her backpack and slings it over her shoulder. “I thought I was your friend, for real, not just until you found somebody better. My mistake.”

“Whoa, Wendy, you are my friend,” I say, taking a step back. “I—”

“No offense, Clara, but sometimes it’s not all about you.”

I stare at her.

“I’m going to catch the bus home,” she says, pushing past me.