Rhymes with Witches

“I’m totally lost,” I said.

“It’s a ‘Friendies’ profile,” Elizabeth said proudly. She scrolled to the top, where sure enough, there was Camilla’s name, along with her measurements, her favorite food, and her favorite color. For that one, Elizabeth had entered, “The rainbow.”

“You know, a hook-up club,” Elizabeth explained. “We gave out her home phone, too. And her street address. Want to see the photo we submitted?”

She clicked on another link, and up came the picture. Camilla’s hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and her lips were pursed. Offering contrast to Camilla’s scowl was a flock of doting bluebirds, which Elizabeth had pasted in so that they appeared to be sitting on Camilla’s shoulders.

I battled with my natural impulse, which was to laugh. Only in reality it wasn’t my natural impulse, and I knew it. My breathing grew shallow.

“I took it on my camera-phone yesterday during lunch,” Jerri Skyler volunteered. “First I made Clark throw a cherry tomato at her.”

“But why?” I said.

“To make her look up,” Jerri said.

“No, I mean why are you doing this in the first place? What if some weirdo actually tracks her down?”

Elizabeth winked. “Then maybe she’ll make a friend.”

“A friendie,” Jerri corrected.

They all cracked up. I didn’t want to be there, so I left. Bitsy followed me into the hall.

“Chill,” she said. “It was my idea. I thought it would be good for a laugh.”

I wrapped my arms around my chest. I was a bad person, but at least I tried to rein myself in. And I knew I was indebted to Bitsy, but why did she always have to make things harder?

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You’re, like, the most adored girl in the school. You’ve got everything you want. Why do you have to make everyone be mean to her?”

Bitsy wagged her finger. “You’ve got to admit, Camilla is very antisocial. It’s not healthy.”

It pissed me off that she was being so flippant. The whole situation pissed me off, my own reaction included. “And this is your way of bringing her out of her shell? Signing her up for an online stalker service?”

“She’s a stuck-up cunt. If she didn’t think she was so much better than us, none of this would be happening.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” I said. My anger flared higher. It was her fault I felt so ragged inside. So I said, “Why do you even care what Camilla does? Seriously, does it bug you that much that she knows about your dad?”

Her face went slack. Then her eyes flashed poison and she said, “What did you say?”

I realized I’d screwed up, but it was too late to recant. “Nothing! Just that …” I threw up my hands. “Dads leave. That’s what they do.”

She lifted her chin. “And of course you know all about it, being the resident expert. How long’s yours been gone, two years now?”

“Three,” I threw back. “But you don’t see me ruining people’s lives just for the fun of it.”

“Oh, so you did your friend Alicia a favor, then, did you?”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t—”

“Face it, Jane. You’re no better than I am.”

“Maybe not. But at least I want to be.”

She stepped closer. For a second I thought she was going to—what? Slap me? Then a movement at the end of the hall drew her attention. It was Mary Bryan, wandering out of the living room.

“There you guys are,” she said. She glanced from me to Bitsy. “What? What’s going on?”

“Jane’s been prattling on about how virtuous she is because she feels sorry for poor Camilla,” Bitsy said.

Mary Bryan wrinkled her forehead. “Camilla? Why?” Then, as if it honestly that second occurred to her, “Oh. Because of the ‘Friendies’ thing?”

“And you need to keep your blabbing mouth shut,” Bitsy added, making Mary Bryan flinch. Bitsy spun on her heel and strode down the hall. Halfway to the front door, she turned around.

“By the way, it was her bobby pin,” she said, way too casually. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? Look deep into your saintly heart and tell me you didn’t know.”

Bitsy left, leaving me and Mary Bryan alone in the hall. After a moment, Mary Bryan looked at me.

“Thanks a fucking lot,” she said. “There goes our ride.”

After Stuart’s party, things weren’t the same between me and the others. Still, I kept my word and canceled my date with Phil so that we could go to the Fall Fling as a holly jolly foursome. Because what was I going to do, walk away from the Bitches in protest of Bitsy’s fucked-up-ness? Let them reap all the glory while I glowered from the sidelines? They were stuck with me, and I was stuck with them. I wasn’t about to give up what I’d worked so hard to earn.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” Phil had said when I called him. “Please tell me you’re not ditching me to be with them.”

“I’m not,” I said. “It’s just, you know, a girl thing. A ladies’ night out.”

“In other words, you’re ditching me to be with them.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“Janie, come on,” he said in a wheedling voice that made him seem spineless. “This is me.”

“Yeah, and you hate school functions. That’s what you’ve always said, that you can’t even stand going to them and—”

“Fine,” he said. “Forget it.” The wheedling was gone, replaced by a stiffness that cut right through me. “But I never would have done this to you, Jane. And you know it.”

My heart felt bruised. “Okay,” I whispered.

He hung up.

Keisha, Mary Bryan, and Bitsy all tried to shake some sense into me. They each did it separately, as if they didn’t want the others to know. It would have been fu

Mary Bryan approached me on Monday afternoon. She tracked me down in the farthest back library carrel, where I’d retreated after our lunchtime schmooze-fest with the girls’ soccer team.

“Oh, Ramona the Brave!” she exclaimed, nudging down the spine of my paperback so she could see the title. “I loved that book when I was little!”

I regarded her from under my bangs. I’d done my bit in the cafeteria, playing to our audience as was expected. But one-on-one, I’d resolved to play it cool. It was hard, though, because just being near her made those waves of liking swell back up again.

“That’s the one where those boys call Beezus ‘Jesus Beezus,’ right?” Mary Bryan said. “And Ramona gets all tough and tells them off?” She put her fists on her hips and scowled a six-year-old’s scowl. “‘Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!’”

“What do you want, Mary Bryan?”

She dropped the cutesy act. She pulled up a chair, its front leg knocking against the edge of the carrel. “Why are you mad at me? That ‘Friendies’ thing was Bitsy’s deal, not mine.”

“You thought it was hilarious.”

“So? It’s not hurting anybody.”

“It isn’t?”

She fiddled with her bracelet. It was silver, a chain of tiny flowers. She let it go and changed tactics. “You know, it kind of pissed me off what you said about Bitsy’s dad after swearing you wouldn’t. I called Bitsy the next day. She told me everything that happened.”

My stomach tightened despite myself. “I didn’t mean to. It just came out.”

“Well. Just so you know.”

The library was empty except for the two of us and Ms. Cratchett, who was trying to get one of the feral cats off her desk. The cat lay draped over the top of the computer, and Ms. Cratchett’s “scats” were having no effect. If she were a good librarian, she’d forget the cat and scold us instead.

“Look,” Mary Bryan said. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“We all go through it, the whole ‘Is it right?’ thing. But that’s why we picked you, Jane. You’re, like, a force for the good.”