“Are the girls hot?” Jake’s eyes lit up. “I’ll help.”
“You guys!” Emily grabbed the laptop from Beth and slammed the lid shut. She suddenly felt like her siblings were turning this into a pet project. It reminded her of when she was little and they decided that she was half-girl, half-cat because she was so young, small, and nimble. Felina, they called her, as though she were a superhero mutant. They’d developed training sessions for Emily to make her even more catlike, squeezing her under fences, folding her up inside cupboards, and forcing her to walk across a balance beam that straddled the small pond down the street. Emily put up with it because she liked the attention—it was hard being the youngest and left out of everything. It was only when they started talking about letting Emily jump off the roof to see if she’d land on her feet that Mrs. Fields got wind of it and put a stop to things.
“I don’t want a girlfriend,” Emily said now.
“Sure, you do,” Beth teased.
Emily groaned, stood up, and stormed into the kitchen, where her mother was standing at the stove minding a pot of pasta, a chicken-print oven mitt on one hand. When she saw Emily, she dropped the spoon into the pot and rushed over to the kitchen table.
“How did it go today?” she said in an excited whisper.
“Um, not too bad.” Emily ran her hand through her hair. “They invited me to a party.”
Mrs. Fields squealed giddily as though Emily had just announced she’d been awarded a full scholarship to Harvard. “That’s wonderful. And you’re going to go, right?”
So ironic. Usually, Emily had to beg her mom to let her go to parties. “You don’t care that it’s a Sunday night and I have school tomorrow?” she asked.
“You can go in late to school if you want,” Mrs. Fields said.
Emily almost swallowed her gum. Who was this woman, and what had she done with her über-strict mother?
Mrs. Fields started listing off points on her fingers. “Now, be sure to tell me everything they say, including any pranks they might want to pull next. In fact, try to record it on your phone if you can. Or write it down so you don’t forget. And don’t drink.” She wagged her finger at Emily.
“Got it,” Emily said.
The kitchen timer sounded, and Mrs. Fields stood up again. “You’d better get upstairs and figure out what you’re going to wear. I can have Beth set the table instead of you. Go on.”
She nudged her out of the room. Emily scuttled up the stairs, walked into her bedroom, and opened her closet. Nearly identical Old Navy long-sleeved T-shirts, medium-wash jeans, and Banana Republic cable-knit sweaters hung in an unorganized jumble. What did one wear to a naughty elf party? She pulled out a pair of tight black jeans and an off-the-shoulder black top she’d bought on a whim with Maya.
Then, a flicker outside the window caught her eye. She ran to the window and squinted hard. Something was moving through the cornfield outside. It was definitely a person. And did she see blond hair?
Emily pressed her nose and mouth so close to the window that the glass immediately steamed up. But by the time she wiped it clean and looked again, the figure had vanished.
Chapter 6
Poor Little Wallflower
A few hours later, Emily walked up the front steps of a huge white Victorian on Emerson Road in Old Hollis, the hip neighborhood next to Hollis College. It was the only house on the block with loud music pulsing from its seams, lights in every window, and cars parked on the grass, so Emily figured it was Cassie’s. A couple of kids were making drunken angels in the light dusting of snow. Everyone seemed to know one another, and she already felt out of place. She’d asked Aria to come with her, but Aria had to help her dad get wreaths or logs or something ready for the Winter Solstice.
The front door was shut tight. Emily was deliberating over what to do—knock? Just go in?—when the door burst open and a girl wearing a very short dress and thigh-high snow boots and a guy in a Santa beard and a HOLLIS BEER CRAWL T-shirt tumbled out onto the porch, giggling. They held the door open for Emily, and she slipped inside.