Rhymes with Witches

“I hid behind the island in Kyle’s kitchen, because everyone I tried to talk to ran screaming for the hills,” I said. “Now am I a floundering blob of patheticness?”

“Ouch,” Phil said. He looked startled. “Did anyone see you?”

“No.”

“Well, thank god.”

“You think?”

He plucked a piece of grass. He threw it over the edge of the blanket. Then he circled back to the embarrassment at hand and said, “You hid behind the island? Why didn’t you—I don’t know—camp out in the bathroom or something? Or better yet, why didn’t you just leave?”

“And how would have I done that? Bitsy was the one driving, remember?” I fiddled with the Whoppers carton, opening and closing the top like a fish mouth. Inside, the malted milk balls gleamed. “Ohhh, and get this. Bitsy came in while I was hiding there, and I about had a heart attack.”

I told him what happened, how she blasted Pammy Varlotta, and he winced at all the right places.

“It was horrible,” I finished. “Even when it comes to cut-downs, Bitsy’s a notch above.”

“And this is a good thing?” Phil asked.

“You say it like it’s not.”

“Well, is it?”

I put down the Whoppers. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to explain this. “Listen. If Pammy had wanted to insult someone, what would she say?”

“I have no idea.”

“She’d say something ridiculous, like, ‘Ew, where’d you get your shoes—Kmart?’”

Phil waited.

“But Bitsy’s more … subtle.” I saw what flickered in his eyes, and I said, “All right, so maybe not subtle. More like sophisticated. Smart. I don’t know.”

“Cruel?” Phil suggested.

“Maybe. I never said she wasn’t.” I squirmed. “Jesus, will you stop looking at me like that?”

“I just don’t get why you’d want to be friends with her, then.”

“Hey, better her than Pammy Varlotta.”

He arched his eyebrows. I glared.

“You are really a

“What? I didn’t even—”

“Anyway, Rae says we have no choice. She says we have to like them, it’s like witchcraft or something. And you yourself said you wouldn’t throw Bitsy out of bed, now didn’t you?” I jabbed my finger at him. “Ha. Ha!”

“Rae, as in Alicia’s sister Rae? She said it’s witchcraft?”

“You act like it’s so bad, to want to be popular. ‘Ooo, she wants to be popular. Ooo, she’s so shallow.’ But—”

“Hold on. Who said anything about—”

“—but everyone wants to be popular, whether they admit it or not. And fine. I do, too. So hate me, all right?” He protested, but I railroaded over him. “But it’s more than that. Because Sukie Karing is popular. Pammy Varlotta, believe it or not, is popular.”

“And your point would be?”

“My point is that it’s not about being in the ‘in group,’ which is so stupid I can hardly believe I just said it.”

“Then what’s it about?”

I started to answer, then at the last instant decided maybe I didn’t want to. “I can’t explain.”

“Try.”

“No. It’s unexplainable.”

“You started it, so you have to finish it,” he said. “It’s the rule.”

I narrowed my eyes. He widened his, like, Hey, this one’s not my fault.

“Fine.” I lifted my chin defiantly. “It’s not about being popular. It’s about …”

“Spit it out.”

“Being one of them.”

“The Bitches.”

“That’s right. And maybe it’s not a good thing, but it’s what I want.” I re-grabbed the Whoppers and popped one into my mouth. It crunched in a really wrong way, and I tongued it back out. “Ew! Ew! What the fuck?”

The crushed Whopper, which should have been dense with malt, was practically hollow. First came a layer of chocolate, then a layer of pale brown malt, much thi

Bugs.

Nearly microscopic, except I could see them moving. I screeched and flapped my hand, and the malted milk ball went flying.

“Holy crap,” Phil said. “There were bugs in there. Did you see?”

“It was in my mouth!” I cried. “Of course I saw!”

Phil whistled. “Like maggots or something. Holy ca

I licked my arm to scrub my tongue. I took a sip of Coke, swished it furiously, and spit it out.

Phil shook the carton of Whoppers. “Are they all like that?”

“Throw them away,” I said. I pointed to the heavy-duty trash-can by the water fountain. “Throw them away now.”

He tipped the carton, and a glossy malted milk ball rolled into his palm. “Relax. I’m not going to eat it.” With his teeth, he split the Whopper open. He peered at the halves. He leaned closer, then made a strangled sound and flung them into the grass.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” I groaned.

“But don’t you want to know how they got in there?” Phil asked. He fingered another Whopper, rotating it to study the chocolate glaze. “I don’t see any burrow marks or anything.” He bit into it and spit the two pieces in his hand. “Hey, hey—we’ve got a wi

The malt core was intact, two pale brown moons. He tossed the halves into his mouth and chewed.

“Phil! Just because you didn’t see any bugs … just because …” I whacked him. “They could be dormant, you idiot!”

He shook another Whopper into his hand and split it open. He examined it. Threw it over his shoulder. “Bad,” he pronounced.

“Okay, whoa,” I said. “You are getting used to this way too quick.”

He checked the next Whopper. “Bad again. I swear, I don’t know how the little wormy things get in there.” He cracked open another. “Ooo, this one’s for you.”

I swatted his hand and sent the pieces flying.

“What did you do that for? That one was perfectly good!” he exclaimed.

“I thought I was telling you about my night from hell,” I said. “About how inadequate I felt.”

“You don’t feel inadequate around me, do you?” Another Whopper passed his test, and he gobbled it down.

I cradled my head in my hands, because no, I didn’t feel inadequate around him. What I couldn’t tell him was that no one would ever feel inadequate around him, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

He put his hand under my chin. He tilted my head. He looked at me in this serious way, and for a second it was really freaky, because the air pulsed between us and I thought, Shit, is he going to kiss me?

“Here,” he said, raising a halved malted milk ball to my mouth. “No bugs.”

Later I thought about how it was that Phil, like Camilla, wasn’t all ga-ga over the Bitches. He thought they were hot, sure, but he didn’t fall under their spell like the rest of us. Camilla, she was above it all. At least that was my take on it. But Phil was immune for a different reason: because he was pure. That was a fu

On Monday, I avoided the Bitches as best I could. I picked different routes when I glimpsed any of them in the hall, and I stayed away from the bathrooms altogether. But I ran into Mary Bryan as I was heading for history, and for a moment we were face to face at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Jane,” she said.

My stomach dropped, and I pushed into the crowd. She called after me, but I pretended I didn’t hear.

At noon I bought a Nutrigrain bar from the vending machine and snuck to the library. I took the long way past the basement art rooms, because hardly anyone except the art kids went down there. A group of them leaned against the wall by the Ceramics Studio. One of them was Raven Holtzclaw-Fontaine, from Kyle’s party. I could tell she didn’t have the vaguest clue who I was.

In the library, I chose the farthest back carrel. I slit open my bar and got out my book. Ramona was cross because she had to clean up her room, and Beezus was cross because her mother wouldn’t let her spend the night at Mary Jane’s. Even Picky-picky, the cat, was cross. Cross, cross, cross.