by Kylie Key
Some one, or some persons, wanted to humiliate me, to shame me.
Was my life nothing but a sham?
Had my popularity only been because of my name? My money?
Was I such a horrible person that someone wanted revenge on me?
Had I wronged someone so much that they were out for my reputation?
I SPENT TWO DAYS LOCKED in my bedroom, crying until my eyes resembled that of a thousand year old vampire, a seven day suspension looming over me, banned from the Fall Fundraiser, my beautiful dress left untouched in my closet. The once invincible Blair Pennington reduced to a shell of a girl, hollow and humiliated. My bubble had burst, the coveted life of an heiress now in tatters, left to examine every facet of my existence. Was I that abominable—a stereotypical pampered princess, a dramatic diva? Did I really instil such loathing in others? Had my downfall been plotted by one, or many?
My parents worked frantically to appease the Raymonds, and to pacify the school board. Covington Prep could not survive without the generous contributions of the Whittaker empire, and before I knew it Mom had gotten me a place at an exclusive boarding school out east.
“What?” I’d shouted. “You’re sending me away? But you just said the Board agreed to let me back after a week.” Covington Prep was the only school I’d attended. I wouldn’t know how to exist somewhere new.
“Yes, we’ve fixed it,” Mom hissed, “but you can’t stay here. The Whittaker name, the Pennington name...I’ll never be able to show my face there again.”
Her words literally took my breath away. My mother was disowning me. She was embarrassed and humiliated by me and didn’t want me anywhere near her.
“But...but,” I tried to protest. “I don’t want to leave River Valley.” Okay, my friends might have been missing in action, but once the truth was discovered, once they realized that Blair Pennington could not possibly be a thief, they’d be there to support me.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, pointedly, defiantly. “I don’t want to go away.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom said. “It’s sorted. It’s just until you graduate, less than six months.”
“But I want to graduate here,” I cried. “Mom, you can’t send me away.” I was a Covington girl through and through. And I loved my hometown of River Valley. “Surely everyone will forget about it in a week. They’ll be some new scandal to deal with.”
“Forget? Forget, Blair?” She sounded crazy. “People don’t forget situations like this. People have memories like elephants!” She blabbered on about how back in high school Hunter Rochester’s Mom had vomited all over the band director during the school orchestra’s performance. Some things stuck for life, she said, though I hardly thought the comparison was relevant.
But she was right about one thing—I would now be known as the rich diva who stole the diamond bracelet. The shame would be permanent. I’d put a stain on the family name, and was being banished to a place far, far away.
That is, until Margaret stepped in with a solution. Unlike Mom and Dad, Margaret couldn’t stand the thought of me being sent away for something I couldn’t possibly have done.
Which is why, with only one person in my corner, I was about to start my new life at River Valley High.
Chapter 2
I stood at the counter of the school office, my head down, my long bangs hanging over my face. The lady behind the desk was taking a call, and she’d smiled in acknowledgment, giving me a quick nod to indicate she wouldn’t be long. I fiddled with my glasses, pushing them up my nose, still not used to wearing them. When I drank my coffee this morning, I’d kept knocking them with the cup.
Mrs Doi, as her name plaque read, put down the receiver of the old-fashioned phone and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “And you are?”
“Blaire. Ashley,” I muttered, “With an E.” The name came off my tongue awkwardly. It didn’t sound right. I’d been Blair Pennington for close to eighteen years and now I was reinventing myself using my first two names. And I’d changed the spelling, as if that would make all the difference.
Margaret had convinced my parents to look at things with a level head:
• I could complete my suspension and go back to Covington Prep in complete humiliation, my reputation in tatters.
• Stay home and study online.
• Be sent to boarding school on the east coast.
• Or attend the local high school.
It had been Margaret’s idea to go to River Valley High. She said she didn’t want me to miss out on all the highs of senior year, Winter Dance, prom and graduation. Plus, she didn’t really think Mom and Dad would want to lose me to a school far away. She knew I was a small town girl, the bright lights of the city magnetic, but only for a day or two. And then there was Peppy, my Pomeranian puppy. There was no way I could separate from her.
But Blair Pennington suddenly arriving at River Valley High would raise questions galore. My baggage would rest on my shoulders like a giant boulder. If word got out, I’d be laughed at, taunted and embarrassed. And what would be worse—being tormented by Covington Prep students or RV High ones?
I had no idea.
Which is why Margaret suggested a makeover, which evolved into a disguise and then a name change. Going incognito. At first it had sounded outrageous, like something from a thriller novel. A whole new fake identity.
Yet as if Margaret had been a member of the CIA in a past life, within days she had me flown to the city for a new ‘plain’ makeover, advised everyone who needed to know that I would be attending Belgrade Boarding Academy out east, and then secretly enrolled me at River Valley High under a new name. Yes, it was Margaret, our loyal and trusted housekeeper for over twenty years, who I would be moving in with. She had watched Theo and me grow up, and she’d become a mother figure to Mom, having lost her own mom in her late teens. Grandma Nancy had died from cancer. At the age of seventy, Margaret still came to our house daily, but Mom refused to let her do anything more than dusting and meal preparation. She didn’t want Margaret doing strenuous tasks like vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms, though she still paid her full rate.
Margaret, who had married Tony when she was in her forties, didn’t have children, so I was being introduced as their great-niece from the city, whose mother had health problems. Their small three bedroom home was on the other side of River Valley, a twenty minute walk to the school, but Margaret said the bus stopped right down the street. I’d never taken a school bus before, but, as you may have already guessed, my Mercedes would not be coming with me. Peppy, however, I was allowed to keep, and because of that, I knew I would get through it.
Peppy’s love was unconditional, she didn’t judge or condemn, or backstab. She would be my rock, my friend in a world that had turned friendless.
“Blaire,” Mrs Doi said, her fingers flying over the keyboard, “With an E. I’ll print out your timetable for you.” She looked up with a grin—I liked her already. “Take a seat.” I returned the first genuine smile I’d had in days and inched myself back toward the plastic chairs I’d noticed on my way in. “Won’t be a minute.”
I took another step back, but somehow tangled my own two feet up, the weight of my backpack making me stumble in an undignified way. One, I wasn’t used to wearing a backpack—at Covington Prep I carried a Prada tote bag—and two, I was not the most co-ordinated of people. My non-participation in sports would confirm this. Any success I’d ever had in tennis was due to being partnered with the top players.
With a little dip, I was about to sit myself down, instead finding I was planting my bottom not on a hard plastic seat, but a person. Well, a person who was sitting in the chair. Well, a boy to be exact.
“Arghhh, sorry,” I said, my reflexes slower than I would have liked. My backpack which contained my laptop, a full size lunchbox, a water bottle and a jacket had knocked the boy in the face, or body, or both. “Uh, didn’t see you there.” I adjusted my glasses as if they were to blame.
�
�No problem,” he said in a distinctly British accent, making my ears perk up. “You alright?”
The boy’s brown hair flopped across his forehead, covering one eye, but his visible one blazed at me with the intensity of Cyclops, the color of a glacial lake, blue to the depths of beyond. I melted as quickly as said glacier and flashed a smile and nodded, stupidly forgetting that I wasn’t Blair Pennington with long, blonde hair and perfect makeup, but Blaire with an E, the nerd with big glasses and a spotty forehead.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, demurely perching myself on the chair next to him, my backpack preventing me from sitting back. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself by removing it. “It’s my first day,” I said, looking down at the chainstore jeans and the brand new purple Converse I was wearing. What had I been thinking—they looked too purple! I tucked my feet under the chair.
“Hey, mine too,” he said, his ripped jeans showing off both of his knees, the laces on his Timbaland boots tied loosely. It was a rapper look that I didn’t particularly care for, but nevertheless I was gawking.
I bit down on my lower lip. Blair Pennington would have started a conversation and known the boy’s vital statistics, favorite food and the name of his hairdresser within minutes, but I remembered what I was doing here, and said nothing. I was an outcast and had to remain invisible and anonymous.
“Alex?” Mrs Doi called. “Alex Lord?”
“Yes?” It was an adorable accent.
“Oh good. I’ve got your timetable too.” She held out two pieces of paper. “Here you go.”
I stood, the straps of my backpack digging into my shoulders. I worked my thumbs to adjust the weight of the bag.
“Thank you,” I said, taking the sheet of paper and scanning it.
“You’re welcome,” Mrs Doi said. Alex took the other one and thanked her too. “Now if you wait a moment, a couple of the seniors are coming in to show you around.”
My heart skipped a beat. What if that senior was Bella Anderson, Jack’s girlfriend? She was the only person I knew at this school. How hard was it going to be to avoid her?
River Valley High was three times the size of Covington Prep, but that didn’t guarantee that our paths would never cross. Jack had asked me to help Bella select a dress for the Fall Fundraiser, knowing I had superior fashion taste and style, though wearing a $12 plain pink sweater, you’d never guess. Okay, initially I’d voiced disapproval to Jack over his Arvee girlfriend (Arvee being the name Covington Prep called the kids from the public high school; they in turn called us Stripers because of our striped blazers). You see, Arvees and Stripers didn’t generally associate, we didn’t run in the same circles. But Jack had gone all gaga when he saw Bella working at Peter’s Ice Cream Shoppe. They’d discovered a shared obsession for golf and were now a couple, a very cute couple, I might add. And contrary to my concerns that she might be a money-hungry gold-digger, Bella was anything but. She’d worried about the price of the dress and the shoes and purse, and worst of all, I hadn’t gotten to see her wearing the beautiful mermaid style gown at the Fall Fundraiser.
Uncle Matt, Aunt Clare and Jack were the only ones who knew about me coming to River Valley High. It was decided that Jack shouldn’t tell Bella. Bella didn’t need the burden of my secret, and it was possible I would never run into her. She was arty and sporty—things I wasn’t. In fact, it was hard to know what I was good at. Having an interest in fashion and makeup and celebrity gossip was hardly a skill or a talent. My school subjects were all regular classes—English Lit, History, Pre-calculus, Biology, Economics—hardly pointing to academic brilliance. And the Theater Arts class I’d had to include here was somewhat by default, either that or Strength and Conditioning. Yeah, no contest there. And though I’d been labeled a drama queen at times, I’d never taken a class in it.
I guess being a Whittaker meant I wasn’t overly worried about which path in life I took, knowing I would eventually end up working for the company. Getting a college degree was part of the process, but it hardly mattered what that piece of paper was for. It could be tree climbing for all anyone cared. Well, I knew my parents hungered over me attending an Ivy League school, which is where my brother was, but now that Jack had a golf scholarship to State, I hoped the expectations for me could be lowered. Theo and Jack could take care of the business side of things; maybe I could source uniforms or coordinate color schemes and furnishings in the offices.
“Where are you from?” At his full height, Alex could have been checking my scalp for dandruff, not that I suffered from that affliction, but his eyes appeared to be drawn to something over the top of my head.
“River Valley,” I said automatically, and then clamped my mouth shut. How many times had I rehearsed my fabricated life? A poor girl with an ailing mother, who had moved in with her Great Aunt. “Um, now. River Valley now. Not...um, are you British? Or English?” I needed the focus off of me.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, “I am.”
British? English? I wanted to ask. Was there a difference?
The door swung open and Mrs Doi exclaimed in glee, “Oh good! There you are!”
A tall boy with dark brown hair and a thin, sporty looking girl with a long ponytail entered the room. Good! At least it wasn’t Bella.
Mrs Doi did introductions. Josh Perry and Rebecca Cook were captains of the cross country team and Rebecca was Homecoming Queen. I mused over Josh for a moment, or the old Blair did, wondering if all River Valley High boys were so good looking. Certainly new boy Alex was someone I’d fall for in a heartbeat. Gah...what was I thinking! I had to make Blair with an E interested in things like World War II and Shakespeare.
Rebecca took control of the guided tour, not wasting time in showing that she and Josh were a couple by leaning her head against him at every opportunity. I immediately didn’t like her. She basically ignored me, as did Josh, turning all their attention to Alex, and the only time she spoke directly to me was when we went to the library and said with a sarcastic sigh, “You’ll probably spend a lot of your time in here.”
Biting down hard on my lip, it was a wonder it didn’t start to bleed. Day one, hour one, and I was seriously questioning if I could pull off this role. How differently people treated you when you were nobody of consequence. Would she have been so offhand with me if she knew I was an heiress to a fortune? I doubted it.
“So, you’re an exchange student, Alex?” Rebecca queried.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Kind of odd to arrive in the middle of a semester,” she said.
“Is it?” Alex clipped, taking Rebecca by surprise. She cast a cursory glance my way and asked, “Are you on an exchange too?”
“Uh, no,” I stuttered, taking a deep breath, knowing that the charade started here and now, “My mother is sick, so I’ve been sent to stay with my Great Aunt.”
I thought I might I have gotten a sympathetic, I’m sorry or That’s too bad, but the ever efficient Rebecca pointed to a room and said, “That’s the photo lab. Do any of you take photography?”
Alex and I shook our heads, and I dropped in behind them as she took us towards the football field. She was rambling on about how she was the school’s cross country champion. Talk about someone blowing their own trumpet. Yes, Rebecca Cook loved to talk about herself, which is why, when she asked us if we had any questions, in a bid to feel included, I said, “Did Mrs Doi say you were Homecoming Queen?”
Rebecca’s voice jumped up a decibel. “Yes! I’m Homecoming Queen,” and she prattled on about the ceremony and her tiara and sash. I nodded like a star struck sophomore, almost choking on the thought that I wanted to reveal that I’d been a member of Homecoming Court for prestigious Covington Prep. Oh, wow, to see her face if she knew.
“What’s Homecoming?” Alex asked, a blank look on his face.
“What! You don’t have Homecoming? What sort of country do you come from?” Rebecca scoffed, but didn’t wait for an answer, rambling off a repeated, even more detailed report,
this one describing the whole voting process and how she’d been chosen by the student body. Did I mention chosen by the whole student body?
I offered Alex an eye roll and surprisingly he closed his eyes in a gesture of solidarity. Or boredom.
“Do you think you’ll join any clubs?” Rebecca asked Alex.
“What sort?” he asked.
“We have a wide range at River Valley High,” she said. “Though it might be hard to join mid-semester. Some clubs will start after winter break.” Alex nodded, but he looked disinterested.
“There’s a math club, coding club, or poetry, if that’s more your thing.” It was Alex’s nudge to my arm that made me realize Rebecca was addressing me.
“For me?” I asked, with a genuine look of shock. “Do I look like someone who does math for fun?”
Alex laughed heartily, but Rebecca was unimpressed by my remark. “Well, don’t you?” She glared at me from top to toe, and apart from the Converse which were standard teen footwear, I’d forgotten my clothes were unlabeled. And yes, it did matter—I’d been guilty of that judgement on others.
After the tour, Rebecca deposited us back to our lockers, with Josh announcing to Alex that he could meet them in the cafeteria at lunch break. My invitation didn’t come, but that was okay, I needed to keep a low profile. Checking out the library seemed like it would be a good idea.
Chapter 3
I entered each classroom with apprehension, afraid that I’d encounter Bella, but the morning classes were uneventful. The teachers were certainly less strict than Covington, with kids allowed to keep their phones during the lesson. Not that it was a big deal for me. A new phone and a new number only had Margaret, Tony, Jack and Mom and Dad as contacts. The English teacher introduced me to the class, but the others handed me a text book or worksheet and directed me to a seat. No one took any notice of the studious looking girl in ordinary clothes, and to my surprise I totally understood the pre-calculus lesson, not needing to copy the kid sitting next to me.