“What’d I do?” Malika asks, settling into her seat.
“You kind of just gave the entire school a look at the goods,” I say and pat her bare knee.
“Well, it’s not like I’m not wearing underwear,” Malika says and throws her slick black hair over her shoulder.
“Yes. I like the pink flamingos, Mal,” Harper answers and gives her a wink.
With a Japanese mother and Pakistani father, Malika is hard not to notice in WASP-y New Albany, Ohio. Plus, she’s what I like to call stupid pretty. So beautiful, she strikes you dumb and stumbling.
“Malika, what do you think this is, a strip club?” a voice says from behind me. I know who it is before I even turn around. Everyone knows the low, raspy voice of Madison Scarborough. “But then again, it’s nothing half the guys in this room haven’t seen before.”
“Hey, I’m only a make-out slut,” Malika says, pointing a finger to her chest. “I don’t take off my clothes.”
“Whatever. A slut is a slut,” Madison says, rolling her startling blue eyes. I open my mouth to zing her but she’s already turned on her heel to head to the field hockey girls’ table.
“Don’t worry,” I say, linking my arm with Malika’s. “I’ll get her back later.”
I learned how to hack into computers during one of my summer training camps in China. In about ninety seconds, I can hack into the school’s computer system and change grades, attendance records, anything. It’s child’s play compared to the other systems I’ve mastered. By tonight, Madison will have a D in physics and the field hockey captain will be promptly benched for Saturday’s rivalry game against Upper Arlington. I’ll change it back Monday. Madison totally deserves the D for all the mean-girl crap she pulls on a daily basis. But I only use my spy skills for short spurts of vengeance evil.
The rumor-spreading, shit-stirring Madison Scarborough is what bonded us last year. I noticed Harper and Malika on my first day of school. Malika because she’s gorgeous and Harper because she has the type of effortless coolness money can’t buy. But they didn’t hang with the field hockey and lacrosse crowd, the self-anointed “popular” girls. They were what Madison and her friends liked to call “fringers.” Invited to the big parties but never the exclusive sleepovers or birthday dinners. They were known around school but never the center of attention. They quickly became my target group of friends. I needed to get into a small, uncomplicated group and blend as quickly as possible, so when I caught wind of terrible rumors Madison was spreading about them, I knew it was my chance.
Madison has had the same boyfriend for over a year. A preppy lacrosse senior who wears salmon shorts and mirrored sunglasses at parties and uses the word summer as a verb. Even with a d-bag boyfriend, girls think twice about getting involved with anyone Madison’s ever dated. When Madison’s ex-boyfriend asked Harper to homecoming, she spread a rumor that she was a lesbian and that none of the field hockey girls felt comfortable sharing a locker room with her. Then when Madison heard that Malika kissed a guy who dumped her two years ago, she started a rumor that sweet Malika made a sex tape even though Mal had never even had sex. Still hasn’t.
During study hall, I hacked into Madison’s Twitter account (@PrincessMaddie. Cue the eye roll) and had Mal and Harper help me compose a stream of hilarious apology tweets to every person she’d ever terrorized. They were deleted twenty minutes later but that act cemented my place in our little group.
I almost hate to admit that my motive to get into the fringers was part of my training because I sort of love everything about them. I love that Harper eats all the orange and purple Skittles because she knows how much I hate them and how her shoelaces are always coming untied because she refuses to double-knot. I love how Malika is deathly afraid of spiders but has seen every slasher film ever made and how she’s still a virgin but has a hilarious goal of making out with a guy from every continent. They’ve become real friends now and not just part of my never-stand-out strategy.
“Got to love a guy in uniform,” Harper calls over my shoulder and whistles a loud catcall. I turn around in time to see Luke Weixel’s creamy cheeks turn a dusty rose. He shakes his head at Harper, his lips crinkling into a crooked smile before turning his pale blue eyes to me.