Dead Little Mean Girl

They shared a look that I couldn’t quite read. Before anything else could be said, our teacher, Mr. Riddell, walked in. He always looked like he smelled something foul—his brow was knitted with worry lines, his nostrils were pinched, his mouth was flat and wide like a guppy’s. Even his smiles looked pained. But the better I got to know him, the more I understood that this wasn’t an indicator of bad disposition. Nature had given Mr. Riddell a resting sad face.

“Welcome, everybody,” he said. “I’m looking forward to a creative year!”

We didn’t do any art that day, just got a tour of the classroom to see where all our supplies were kept. Mr. Riddell talked about his syllabus and asked us what we’d like to focus on for the year. It was the standard first-day stuff. By the time the bell rang, I was eager to get started but that’d have to wait another day. I stooped over to grab my book bag, and when I stood, there was Quinn, a grin on her face.

“Mind if I invite Nikki to lunch?”

“We’re having lunch together?” I blinked stupidly.

Quinn smirked. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we?”

I nodded despite the because you hated me two days ago rattling around inside my brain. “I don’t mind. She’s pretty cool.”

“Nice. I’ll ask.”

And I watched as Quinn dazzled her way into Nikki’s charms. She made it look so easy, like people were puzzles she had no problem solving. I should have realized then that this was indicative of a lot of experience. I should have realized that only a person who cycled through friends would know how to ingratiate herself so well so quickly.

Live and learn.

* * *

Not only did Nikki eat with us that day, she ate with us every day that week. I’d taken up my usual seat between my two best friends at the time, Laney Rosenberg and Tommy Naughters. Quinn sat across from me with Nikki to her side. They kept to themselves, giggling and whispering, so it was no big surprise when Quinn informed me that Nikki would be coming home with us after school that day. I thought it was neat that Quinn had already made a friend. Nikki clearly thought it was neat, too.

I had no idea exactly how neat things had gotten.

At the house, the two of them disappeared into Quinn’s room. I was disappointed at being relegated to third wheel, but I settled in at the kitchen table and let my mountain of homework keep me busy instead of brooding about being ignored. Every so often a peal of laughter would ripple downstairs, but that stopped fairly quickly. They were so silent, I almost forgot they were there until Karen called at half past four sounding out of breath.

“Hi, Emma. Quinn about?” she asked.

“She’s in her room.”

“Can you get her for me? I need to ask her a question so I can schedule her allergist appointment.”

I mumbled a yes and trod upstairs, wary of a Versace attack as I rapped my knuckles on Quinn’s door. She hadn’t quite latched it so it swung open with barely any pressure on my part. The Chihuahua immediately started doing his angry Chihuahua thing from his bed in the corner, and I glanced at it, but then Quinn let out a squeal. My eyes flew to her double bed with its white canopy. I blinked. I blinked twice. It took a moment to register what I was seeing, but when I did, I couldn’t unsee it.

There was Quinn, naked as the day she was born, with Nikki doing stuff to her.

Quinn grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest to cover her boobs, Nikki lifted her head in a panic, the dog scrambled to his feet and ran at me like he’d maul me from the knees down. Something clicked on in my brain telling me I should extricate from the situation before a Chihuahua devoured me, so I closed the door, my hand resting on the knob, the flat pane of white wood a blur before my face. All the while, the phone in my grasp called my name over and over again.

Finally, Karen’s voice penetrated the yeah, I totally saw that stupor, and I lifted the phone to my ear again.

“She’s uhh...indisposed,” I said.

Lame, yes, but I was pretty sure telling Karen her kid was having sex in the other room would do no one any favors—least of all me. I already wanted to remove my brain from my skull and give it a solid bleaching.

Karen sounded alarmed. “Everything all right? I heard her shout.”

“Yeah. She’s—” I struggled for the right words as Quinn and Nikki hissed furiously to one another on the other side of the bedroom door “—she’s fine. She was getting changed. I surprised her.”

“Oh! Yikes. Okay. Right. Well, tell her to call my cell. I have a dinner appointment at five so I won’t be available after that, but—thanks, Emma.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I went back downstairs, my face burning fire. What was I supposed to say to either of them when they emerged? “Sorry I interrupted your sex?” or maybe “Gee, Quinn, maybe being a lesbian is contagious after all?” We’d had peace around the house since school started, but that was probably out the window. Quinn was undoubtedly going to hate me for...

“Hey, Emma?”

Her voice wasn’t angry.

My spine stiffened all the same. “Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry ab—you know. That.” I glanced up to see her leaning over the railing of the stairs in a T-shirt and pair of shorts. She was flushed, though whether that was embarrassment or sex glow, I didn’t know. Nikki appeared behind her, her anarchy bag slung over her shoulder, her colorful hair disheveled. She was red in the face, and she barely looked at me as she darted outside, muttering a goodbye before the door slammed in her wake.

Being caught inside my stepsister embarrassed her. I couldn’t say I blamed her for that.

“Crap. I can follow her if you want,” I said, feeling guilty Nikki was so weirded out.

“No, it’s—I’ll call her later. It’s cool. But don’t say anything to anyone, okay? It’s nothing serious. I’m just messing around.” Quinn jostled her weight back and forth, her hands fluffing out her hair. “It’s not like I’m gay. I was getting off. But you don’t want that kind of stuff getting around school.”

I nodded dumbly at her, and then kept nodding when she returned to her room. I had no intention of saying anything to anyone, especially not our moms who weren’t going to take that last comment all that well. No, I’d keep my mouth shut and hope that it’d all go away.

Except it didn’t. It really, really didn’t.

Quinn lay low all that night through the next morning. When I came down for breakfast, she was quiet, tossing me a half smile but offering none of the friendly-ish chatter of the last few days. The wait for the bus was silent. Walking into school was silent. It put me on edge, but I tried chalking it up to a bad day or late-breaking awkwardness that I’d seen her being intimate with someone.

No, it wasn’t at all a sign that the dark times returneth.

I passed Nikki in the hall once and she met my eyes for a brief second before jerking her gaze away. She scampered into her classroom, head down. And when art class came I sat down at my station beside Quinn only to watch Nikki park herself at another table across the room, as far away from the two of us as possible.

“What’s that all about?” I asked under my breath.

“She’s mad,” Quinn said matter-of-factly.

“Why? What’d you do?”

“Nothing! She’s mad I won’t be her girlfriend. I’m about the pole, not the hole. Silly dyke.”

There were multiple problems with the answer. The first was her tone—it was grade A snark, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since before school started. It was enough to put my body into fight-or-flight mode: my palms went clammy, my stomach clenched. I wanted to dive under a rock to get away from such concentrated meanness.

The second was the context. Nikki had definitely not been holding Quinn down. In fact, one of Quinn’s legs had been firmly propped on Nikki’s shoulder, which was not an indicator that Quinn had been forced into anything. Nikki might have instigated it, but it was hypocritical to call someone a “silly dyke” when you were a willing participant in your very queer sex.

The last problem—and by far the biggest problem—was her volume. I’d whispered my question but Quinn had responded loudly. Loudly enough that everyone looked at her, then over to Nikki, and back again, knowing exactly who Quinn was talking about. The color drained from Nikki’s face as she looked at the class, her eyes enormous.

She’d been outed. Publicly. In a conservative high school with a whopping No One out of the closet. Westvale was gossipy, and very, very white, and very, very privileged. The fact that no one had burned rainbow crosses on my front lawn when Karen moved in was nigh miraculous.

“Stop looking at me,” Nikki snarled, her hand fisting in the straps of her bag before she ran for the door. She collided with Mr. Riddell as he walked in; he oomphed and called her name, but Nikki kept running, not to be seen again for four days.

Chapter Three

Art class started as the sole thing Quinn and I shared in common, but quickly morphed into “the hour I spend with that chick I abhor.” Her stock rose after she screwed over Nikki. People were curious about her. A handful of people called her homophobic, yes, but others justified her behavior, saying it was Nikki’s fault for hitting on a straight girl in the first place. Far more people applauded Quinn’s “bravery” than condemned her insensitivity, which was all sorts of messed up.

I wondered how the perception would have changed if Nikki told everyone the truth. I had no issue with Quinn identifying as straight and screwing a girl—plenty of gay folks had straight sex, and experimentation was a legit thing. But Quinn was cruel when she talked about the gay people in her circle. Even if she hadn’t been getting her hump on with Nikki, look at her mother, at our mothers, and how she’d accused my mother of inappropriate staring. How could she be so horrible?

I stewed about it for days. The conclusions I reached weren’t heartening. Even if Nikki set the record straight, Quinn couldn’t lose. Most of the guys in my school would have been more interested in the fap material than the injustice of what Quinn did to Nikki. Quinn would go from being the hot, interesting new girl to the walking boner fodder of Westvale.

The only thing I could do was extend an olive branch to Nikki. Her first day back after her hiatus, I found her at lunch. I was so nervous, I got slimy-sweaty and worried about pit stains. A few deep breaths, a few prayers to my benevolent, godly maker, and I approached her table, my lunch tray clasped tight between my hands. She stopped eating her pudding midspoonful. Her expression was empty, like this was a stranger wearing a Nikki mask and not the girl herself.

“What Quinn did was wrong and I’m sorry.” I couldn’t look her in the eye so I concentrated on the rhinestone barrettes in her hair instead. “If you want to tell people that she’s a liar, I’ll back you up. That wasn’t cool.”

I expected her to tell me to screw off, but after a long pause, she kicked out the empty chair across from her in invitation.

“Not worth it,” she said, returning her attention to her pudding.

I ate with Nikki every day after that, Tommy and Laney joining us to round out our quartet. It marked the last day of the Quinn/Emma alliance. Quinn didn’t need me anymore. Derek Powers, our star baseball player, asked her out after Nikki’s shamefest and that was it—Quinn had her “in” with the popular kids. She was free to blossom from a petulant, pain-in-the-butt bud to a full-blown terror flower.

My home life deteriorated to its previous misery while school was “pretend the other one is dead” time. The hostility made art class a chore. Quinn would walk in, see where Nikki sat, and purposefully take the workbench farthest away. I stuck with Nikki so that put me and Quinn on opposite ends of the classroom. One day, while I was sketching, I told Nikki that it was an apt metaphor for my and Quinn’s relationship as a whole—a nation divided, ne’er the twain shall meet.

“Cool,” Nikki said. “Glad I’m on the non–douche bag side of the Mason-Dixon.”

So was I.

* * *

A week later, Quinn’s trouble with Mr. Riddell started. Once Quinn got popular, she got social. Really social. Our school had a policy that cell phones had to be put away at all times or they would be confiscated. Either Quinn thought she could charm her way out of punishment or didn’t think the rules applied to her in the first place.

That was a mistake.

It was a Tuesday, and we were working with watercolors. The exercise was to blend the paints as seamlessly as possible. It wasn’t difficult, but apparently it wasn’t interesting enough for Quinn. I could see her in the front row. She alternated between twisting the paintbrush between her fingers and reaching into her bag to pull out her phone. Every time Mr. Riddell patrolled to look at work, she’d thrust her hands under the table or put the phone away, but Mr. Riddell wasn’t an idiot.

“Focus on the work, Miss Littleton. Not whatever it is you’re doing over there.”

“Uh-huh.” She flashed him an oopsie smile, probably hoping her revolting cuteness would sway him, before picking up the paintbrush and doing three swirls across her paper. The moment he walked out of her row, she was back at the phone, her head pointed down, her shoulders hunched so she could hide when Riddell patrolled near. To use my dad’s saying, it was as subtle as a fart in church.

“Dumbass,” Nikki muttered to me under her breath.

“Yep.”

Three more circuits through the room, two more warnings from the teacher before Mr. Riddell got tired of Quinn’s crap. He didn’t come at her from the front row, but from the row behind. Quinn had her head down, her thumbs flying when he reached over her shoulder to pluck the phone from her grasp. She yelped and whirled around, trying to snatch it from his ham fist, but Riddell shook his head and headed toward his desk, depositing the phone in his top drawer.

“You may retrieve it at the end of the school day,” he said.

Quinn’s ears went pink. It wasn’t shame—she wasn’t really capable of shame—so much as annoyed exasperation. “What if there’s an emergency? Like, a school shooter. There’s a billion trench coat kids here. Tommy Nutters has crazy eyes. Hello?”

Tommy Naughters may have been my ex-boyfriend, but he was still my friend. I glowered at the back of her head, wishing I had heat-ray vision. Sadly, my lack of superpowers meant her strawberry blondeness didn’t erupt into flames.

Mr. Riddell grimaced. “Back to work, Quinn.”

“But...”

“Multiple warnings to put it away means no buts. You may collect the phone at the end of the day. If that doesn’t suit you, I can give it to the principal’s office and they can call your mother to collect it for you.”

Quinn’s pink face went red. This was a telltale precursor of Quinn having a fit, which at home resulted in headaches and new designer purses from Karen. I almost hoped she’d lose it in class so I could snicker about her rotting in detention for the rest of her natural life, but a pat on the shoulder from Drone A on her left calmed her enough that she kept her trap shut.

“Whatever,” she snapped, slamming her paintbrush down on her worktable.

Okay, mostly kept her mouth shut.

Class was unremarkable after that. Quinn was sullen. The watercolors were watercolors and did what watercolors do, which wasn’t much. By the time the bell rang, Quinn had worked herself into a snit. She grabbed her books and stormed toward Mr. Riddell’s desk, one hand perched on her hip, her shoe tapping against the tile floor.

“Can I have it now? My last class is across the building and I have plans after school.”

Mr. Riddell made a show of stacking his papers in a neat pile. “This will be the third time you’ve pushed me, so no, you may not. And now your choice is to pick it up tomorrow after school or I’ll call your mother to pick it up today.”

“Come on! I’m expecting a call from my dad later. Please?”

I’d been easing my way toward the door when Quinn’s wail stopped me short. Nikki was at my elbow, and she leaned back so she had a clear view of Riddell’s desk. He didn’t seem all that concerned with Quinn’s plea or the multiple eyes watching the unfurling drama.

“No. Tomorrow or your mother. Which is it?”

“This is so stupid.” Quinn marched for the door, grumbling under her breath the entire time. She was about out of the classroom when Mr. Riddell called her name. She turned, eyes bulging with barely suppressed rage. I sensed the imminent threat of combustion. The art room easels would be strewed with glittery entrails, lacy underwear and Midol.

“Which is it, Quinn? That wasn’t rhetorical.” At Quinn’s blank stare because rhetorical had too many syllables, Mr. Riddell sank into his computer seat, his hand drumming on the desktop. “Tomorrow, or should I call your mother today?”

“Tomorrow,” she spat, her temper barely in check as she stomped her way into the hall. Nikki and I shared a look and headed out, both of us thinking Quinn would get her phone back tomorrow and that’d be it.

Noooooope.

Quinn avoided Mr. Riddell calling home so she could deliver her own slant to her mother after school. She made it sound like Mr. Riddell had screamed at her mercilessly before amputating the arm attached to the phone. The complaining went on for hours, Quinn saying what a jerk Mr. Riddell was and how boring class had been so, really, it was his fault that she’d been texting in the first place. She actually screeched in rage because she had to use something as archaic as the house phone. It couldn’t even look at the internet, she reminded us, and she had to go all the way upstairs to check her Instagram on her computer! And how stupid was that? OH MY GOD!

How we survived her hissy fit is a wonder. It probably had something to do with Karen getting Quinn out of the house at dinnertime so no one accidentally impaled her in the forehead with a butter knife. And by “accidentally,” I mean totally on purpose because the whining made me crazy.

“She’s going to buy her off, you realize,” I said to my mother after they left. Mom gave me a look for stating the obvious, but sure enough, two hours later Quinn walked in with a dress bag in one hand and an ice cream sundae in the other. My mom gave Karen the hairy eyeball for it, but there were certain battles she wouldn’t pick. Karen’s lackluster conflict-management skills was one of them.

Quinn got her phone back the next day and was, by all appearances, properly chastened. If she was a sane person, that would have been the end of it, but no. A week after the confiscation, Mr. Riddell made the tragic mistake of coming to school sick. He was pink and sweaty and clearly uncomfortable. I was guessing he was feverish because he took off his vest, his tie and divested himself of the stuff in his pockets, like the extra weight made him hotter. Halfway through class, while we painted watercolor animals, he excused himself and rushed out the door for the bathroom. This wasn’t noteworthy until Quinn noticed Mr. Riddell’s phone on the corner of his desk.

“Oh. Oh, ho,” Quinn said, standing. She whispered to the girl next to her, Melody Cohler, who was in the larval stages of BFFness. Melody’s scandalized giggles spurred Quinn onward. Quinn sauntered over to the phone, and by the utter joy spreading across her face, I could tell Mr. Riddell hadn’t password protected it. Her thumbs flew over the keypad before she paused and eyed the door, her smile turning feline.

I glanced at Nikki. She scowled at Quinn’s back. And then she was sitting up straighter in her chair, her mouth falling open. I followed her gaze and then my mouth fell open. Quinn was in the corner lifting her shirt, snapping off selfies of her boobs with Mr. Riddell’s phone.

“What the crap are you doing?” I asked because no one else in the class could articulate. They were all too stunned to speak.

“Stay out of it, Emma,” she replied as she took more pictures from the side view. My classmates started snickering, and one of the guys in the back made whooping noises, but Quinn spun around to stab a talon in his direction. “Shut up, Aidan. Everyone shut up or I swear I will kick your asses. This is between me and Riddell.”

Quinn took some less risqué pictures. There was a picture of a vase and some art on the walls, a few shots of the paintbrushes drying on the window ledge. I didn’t understand why until Nikki snorted, looking down at her half-finished painting of a goat. Other people painted pandas or parrots or ponies, but my new best friend picked a goat. Because she was weird.

“She’s burying the pictures. This can’t go well for him,” she said.

The ramifications didn’t occur to me when Quinn returned the phone to the desk. Nor did they occur to me when I went home from school. No, I didn’t quite get it until the next Monday when I walked into art class. Standing at the front of the room was a woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven with Principal Ahadi at her side.

“Everyone, this is Miss Glass. She’ll be taking over for Mr. Riddell for the foreseeable future. I assure you, you’re in great hands. Any questions, you know where to find me.”

My stomach dropped to the floor.

She ratted him out. Those pictures got out, or she told someone about them or forwarded them and now he’s gone.

I didn’t want to believe that Quinn could be so catty as to compromise a guy’s job for scolding her, but when I saw her sit back in her seat in the front row, her arms folding over her chest, her smugness a living, breathing thing threatening to gobble all the space in the classroom, I knew she was responsible.

“Oh. Oh, wow,” I whispered, sinking into my seat, my face flushing hot. “I cannot believe she did that.”

Nikki shook her head so hard her silver cross earrings smacked against her cheeks. “I can. That girl makes Hannibal Lecter look like a saint.”

Chapter Four

“If you tell the school about the Riddell thing, I’ll end you.”

One minute I was shoving a bologna sandwich in my face at the kitchen table, a book open before me, the next Quinn loomed over me in her workout pants and tank top like a perfumed vulture.

“That’s nice. You’re in my light. Move?”

She batted my book away. The pages rustled and settled somewhere in the middle that was distinctly not my place. It irritated me. I was at a really good spot, when Katniss... It’s not important. You don’t mess with my The Hunger Games and she messed with my The Hunger Games and for that I wanted to snap her like a twig.

“You don’t have to be a dong about it.” I snatched the book and tucked it beneath the table where her grimy tentacles couldn’t touch it.

“You’re not listening to me, Emilia.”

This was a new thing, the Emilia bit. I have no idea where she got it from, but it was stupid.

“I am listening. Don’t tell anyone about the Riddell thing. Now can I go back to reading?”

“No, see. You don’t get me.” She leaned down, until her lips were an inch away from my ear, her breath lashing at my skin. I could feel her body heat against my back. “If you tell anyone, I will make you so miserable at school, you’ll wish you were dead.”

She was threatening me.

Awesome.

Faaaaantastic.

I rubbed the back of my neck, unwilling to admit aloud that her unleashing her winged monkeys scared me to death, but that was the truth of it. I liked my low profile. I liked hanging out with Nikki and Laney and Tommy, and being ignored by my classmates. It was safe. Being Quinn’s target dummy outside of the house as well as in? Was the anti-safe. “Whatever, okay? I’ll leave it alone.”

Satisfied with my cowardice, she wandered off to the bathroom. I heard the radio blare followed by the rush of water. I tossed the book onto the counter and headed out the door, my hand plunging into my jeans pocket in search of my cell phone. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Bouncing Bear Coffee Shop on the corner and Tommy Naughters was pulling into the parking lot in a Jeep Cherokee so old it looked like it was held together with duct tape.