“I was about to ask you the same question,” she says.
Immediately, I realize my mistake. I’ve moved into her turf, not the other way around. Last year, she was in the upperclassman dorm, and I was in the underclassman dorm, and now I’ve moved up a level.
“It looks like we’re neighbors,” Parker’s roommate says, nodding to their room across the hall. She’s one of Parker’s clones, a girl who essentially has no identity other than to look and sound exactly like Parker.
“You live there?” Hana asks, her face falling. She has no love for Parker, either. And she knows exactly what kind of bad news it is that Parker is living right across the hall.
“Miranda!” I hear my sister shout in her telltale lisp. “Miranda! Where are you? Miranda!”
Oh God. She’s found me somehow. And in front of Parker, no less. And she’s not even supposed to be in this dorm. She’ll get us both in trouble.
“Looks like you’ve got a fan,” Parker says, and gives me a slow, calculating smile.
Lindsay runs up to my door and nearly collides straight into Parker. “Um, thorry,” she lisps. “I need to talk to my thithter.”
Parker looks at Lindsay like she’s a cockroach, taking in Lindsay’s pressed pastel Polo shirt and khakis. “This is your sister?” Parker asks me, an amused look on her face. God, this is so embarrassing. Not that I care what Parker thinks, but why does Lindsay have to be so, well, embarrassing? “Nice shirt,” Parker says, but she clearly means the opposite.
“Oh, thankth! I’ve got a whole clothet full,” Lindsay says, beaming. “I’m Lindthay,” my sister says quickly, sticking out her hand for a shake. Parker gives it a disdainful look, but then decides to shake it.
“I’m Parker,” she says. “Now, if you need anything, you let me know, okay, Lindsay?”
“Um, okay, thankth,” Lindsay says, nodding.
“I mean it—I’m only here to help,” Parker says, venom dripping from her smile. “Any sister of Miranda’s…well, you know the rest. We’ll see you around.”
Parker nods at us both and then retreats to her room across the hall, where I can hear her and her clone cackling. They think Lindsay is hilarious. Lindsay, meanwhile, is oblivious.
“She’s nice,” Lindsay says. “And she has cool clothes.”
“No, she’s evil and she has evil clothes,” I correct. “And you should stay away from her. Now, what’s the problem?”
“You have any tamponth? I’m all out,” Lindsay says at a volume not fit for discussions about feminine products. She’s so loud, in fact, that I hear Parker and her clone across the hall dissolve into another fit of snorts and giggles.
Ms. P (as in Sylvia Plath), our dorm mother, the faculty member in charge of the girls’ upperclassman dorm, makes an appearance in the hall, just as Lindsay is rummaging through my suitcase.
“Miranda Tate,” Ms. P calls, and then stalks with a purpose straight toward me. Her dark blond hair falls in ringlets at her shoulders and she’s wearing a plain brown skirt and white blouse. She’s also got her telltale red lipstick on and very little eye makeup. I’ve only seen Ms. P in passing on campus, and never had any of her classes, but she always struck me as one of the ghosts who didn’t like being stuck at Bard. Not that most of them enjoy purgatory, but some of them are resigned. Ms. P just seems sad. More than sad. Bitter.
Not to mention, my advisor, Ms. W (Virginia Woolf), already warned me that not all the faculty like me. I have two strikes against me because a) I know the secret of Bard, as well as the location of the book vault, which holds the teachers/ghosts’ souls, and b) I’m a descendant of a fictional character from Wuthering Heights—Catherine Earnshaw’s now-lost twin daughter, Elizabeth. Since she left the book to marry my great-great-great-great grandfather, she’s no longer in any version you can read now. The faculty doesn’t trust fictionistas—people descended from fictional characters. Mainly because we have special powers, since we span both worlds. Last year, Emily Brontë tried to use me to open up the seam between this world and the fictional one. I didn’t want to help her, but among some faculty I’m to blame regardless.
“Miranda—back for more punishment?” Ms. P says, putting her hands on her hips and stopping in front of my door.
“Wow—I love that sweater,” Lindsay says, turning on her full brownnosing mode, the way she always does when in the presence of authority. “It really brings out the color of your eyes. And, oooh, is that cashmere?”
Ms. P gives her a look that I would classify as almost warm. Granted, Ms. P isn’t smiling—she never smiles—but she’s not frowning, either. “It is, actually,” she says, then turns to me. “You realize that having an underclassman in this dorm violates Bard procedures.”
“I know, Ms. P, but it’s my sister and she had a, well, a personal emergency,” I say, thinking that her whole life is just one big personal emergency. I mean, look at her. She has wrapped tampons sticking out of her jeans and she’s still trying to win brownie points. The girl has no shame.
“I’m sorry, Miranda,” Ms. P says, crossing her arms. “I can’t allow any exceptions to the rules.”
“But, Ms. P,” Hana starts, trying to defend me.
“That’s enough, you two. Miranda and Hana, since this is your room and you have an underclassman in it, you’ll be on the first shift to clean the hallways and the bathrooms. You’ll be expected to do this every morning before breakfast. I expect them to be spotless. Cleaning supplies are in my room, and you’ll be reporting there tomorrow morning at five-thirty.”
“But—”
“If I hear any more excuses from you, I’ll make it two weeks instead of one,” Ms. P says curtly. “And as for you,” she adds, turning to Lindsay. “You get a warning—this time. But I expect you to stay out of this dorm, understood?”
“Why does she get a warning and we don’t?” I can’t believe this. I knew my parents spoiled Lindsay, but why is Ms. P giving her a break?
“You’re an expert on Bard, aren’t you, Miranda? You should know by now that things here are hardly fair. For any of us.” Ms. P gives me a look that tells me she’s talking about herself. She’s one disgruntled ghost.
I sigh.
It’s going to be one long semester.
Four
“Remind me again why Lindsay’s not here with us cleaning?” Hana asks me as the two of us stand over a very old-looking toilet seat. This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had to do, hands down, even including stocking the edible undies and inflatable penises at In the Puke.
“Because she’s the original kiss-up,” I say. “She was practically slobbering over Ms. P trying to win her over. That’s why she’s my parents’ favorite, by the way. Because she’s always telling them how great they are, too, even though it’s all BS.”
“Well, your parents must have caught on. She ended up here, didn’t she?”
“But she wanted to come here,” I say. “She engineered the whole thing. She thought it was some kind of cool private school with a bunch of tough kids. She’s in a delinquent phase.”
“Still, it’s got to be better to have your sister here than not. I wish I could see my brother more often,” Hana says.
“But you don’t understand. Lindsay blames me for everything and somehow everyone always believes her. I’m always the one getting punished, while Lindsay gets whatever she wants. I ask for a hamster and get denied, but Lindsay gets a hamster farm, two gerbils, and a dog. I ask for an iPod Mini and get turned down, but Lindsay not only gets an iPhone, she gets speakers and her own laptop, too. I mean, it’s just not fair. She gets everything she wants. She even has boobs.”
“You have boobs,” Hana points out.
“Barely,” I say. “She’s got B cups, and she’s only fourteen. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is when people assume she’s the older sister because she’s stacked?”
“No, but—”
“And don’t even get me started on her popular kids obsession.”
And now I’m going to be late for the crummy Bard breakfast because I’m scrubbing toilets.
“At least we can see outside,” Hana says, nodding to a big window in the girls’ bathroom. We didn’t have one of those in our old bathroom. It was wall-to-wall creepy black-and-white tile. This one at least has some light coming in.
I walk over to the window where Hana is standing and see people from across campus filing into the cafeteria, which has just opened.
“Hey, isn’t that Lindsay?” Hana points to a girl who does look a lot like my sister. She is, in fact, and she’s changed into her Bard Academy uniform. She has her hair up in pigtails, which makes her look twelve, but it’s the hairstyle that MacKenzie said looked best on her. Lindsay is such a sucker sometimes. MacKenzie just wanted to make sure Lindsay didn’t look prettier than she did, and encouraging Lindsay to look like a kindergartener did the trick. She’s also wearing her striped Hollister leg warmers, even though it’s not even cold out. And, I notice, she’s wearing my Steve Maddens. “And isn’t she talking to…”
“Parker Rodham,” I say. It’s true. The two seem to be actually talking. I stiffen, but it doesn’t seem like Parker is in her fighting stance. In fact, she and her clone posse are smiling at Lindsay.
“They don’t look like they’re about to fight,” Hana says, voicing my thoughts aloud. “It seems like they’re pretty friendly.”
“But why? Why is Parker being nice to Lindsay?”
“Maybe they both share a passion for Hollister?”
“I doubt it,” I say. “Something is up, and I don’t like it.”
I don’t get a chance to talk to my sister about Parker because by the time we’re finished scrubbing toilets I’ve missed breakfast, and by morning assembly, I can’t seem to find her. We’re all crowded into the campus chapel again, sitting in pews surrounded by giant stained glass windows. I glance up at them and see the familiar scenes from Shakespeare—Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet. Some people might think they’re pretty, but to me they just look like one more bad memory.
“Creepy, aren’t they?” Hana asks me, nudging me with one arm. She and I both remember last semester when some of those stained glass figures came to life. They weren’t so pretty when they were trying to kill us.
“Definitely,” I say.
I glance away from MacBeth, who’s giving me the creeps, and manage to lock eyes with Ryan Kent. His steady blue eyes meet mine and don’t look away.
I thought I was on the road to recovery when it came to him, but now, as I look at his perfectly tanned face, I feel my stomach lurch. I forgot how good he looked.
It’s always a shock to see Ryan, because he’s gorgeous, in a straight-off-the-set-of-Laguna Beach sort of way. He’s got beach-blond hair and a gleaming white surfer’s smile.
I remember what it felt like to wear his letterman’s jacket last year. How he used to look at me before he’d dunk a basketball when I sat in the stands, cheering him on. Back then, I thought we were made for each other. Of course, that was before all the rumors about us circulated—the ones that said I was into things like doing the entire basketball team just to get into Ryan’s good graces. Said rumors were started by Parker, of course. She’d do or say anything to try to break us up, since she’d wanted Ryan for herself.
Ryan gives me a hesitant smile, and my stomach flips. I remember the last thing he said to me before summer break: “Let’s just be friends for now, and see how things go.” So far, I’m thinking, the going is lousy.
I return his smile, but the smile is frozen on my face as I realize Parker Rodham is sitting right next to him. But of course she is. I’m sure they’ll be dating before the end of the first week of classes. I feel something dark and oily at the pit of my stomach. Is it jealousy?
And then, on the other side of Ryan, I see…Lindsay.
I blink twice.
Is that right? Is my sister sitting next to my ex—the all-state basketball champion and school heartthrob?
I nudge Hana hard.
“No way,” she hisses, seeing them together. “How did she manage that?”
“Whatever she wants, she gets,” I say. “Told you. She’s not bound by the same rules of physics and popularity like the rest of us.”
It’s true. Lindsay is a hard-core suck-up, and she’s not afraid to do whatever it takes to get into the good graces of the beautiful people. I shouldn’t be surprised she zeroed in on Ryan. Lindsay, for her part, does not turn, so I can’t catch her eye. She’s probably ignoring me on purpose. And she seems to be sitting awfully close to Ryan. I get an unpleasant thought. Does Lindsay like him? It wouldn’t be hard to imagine. He is gorgeous. I push the thought out of my head. Surely she doesn’t, though. He’s my ex. Even Lindsay wouldn’t sink that low.
I turn away from her and look at the faculty sitting at the front of the chapel. Headmaster B (that’s Charlotte Brontë, for those of you keeping score) is going through her morning announcements. She’s saying something about a new rule being established for Bard runaways, and the fact that anyone entering the forest without permission will be pursued by Guardians and tracking dogs. That doesn’t sound good. But, since I have no plans to head into the forest (the last time I did that, I ended up right back on the Bard campus anyway), I start to tune out. I glance behind Headmaster B and my eyes follow the familiar line of faculty members: Coach H (Hemingway), Ms. W (Woolf), and even Mr. B (Blake). It hits me suddenly that they all look a little world-weary, and I guess I would be, too, if I was stuck in purgatory for who knows how long, teaching a new crop of misfits every year.
Ms. W told me that all of them have certain tasks to do before they’re allowed to leave this plane, but I’m not even sure they know exactly what would help them leave. A number of teachers have gone crazy and tried to leave. Emily Brontë, for example, was willing to destroy the entire school and even the world, just to end her time in purgatory.
My eyes slide to the end of the faculty line and settle on Ms. P. She looks particularly miserable. She seems to be studying a small framed photo in her hand. When she catches me looking at her, she slips the small frame in her pocket and frowns at me. Quickly, I look away. The last thing I need to do is get on Ms. P’s bad side. Again.
After announcements at morning assembly, we file out of the campus chapel. While in the crowd, Hana gives me a nudge.
“Uh-oh, don’t look now,” Hana says next to me. “You aren’t going to believe this.”
I follow her gaze and I see my sister has cornered Heathcliff. Apparently moving in on my ex-boyfriend wasn’t enough excitement for one day. She’s got to try to muck up things with my would-be guy. She’s prattling on to him about something probably really embarrassing, like my flossing habits, and I can see him shifting his weight and looking a little uncomfortable. Heathcliff is acting like he’s gotten his foot caught in a bear trap and doesn’t know how to get free.
When I get close enough to them to eavesdrop, I hear the tail end of something seriously mortifying.
“…And you know she’th like, totally in love with you. I mean, thhe writes about you all the time, about how mythteriouth you are, and how thhe can’t figure you out at all, and—”
“Lindsay!” I shout. I can’t believe what my sister is saying. She was born without an edit button. Instantly, I feel my face turn bright red.
“Oh, hey, Miranda. We were just—”
“Lindsay, can I speak to you a minute? Alone?”
Lindsay shrugs as if it’s no big deal, then peels herself away from Heathcliff and follows me. I whirl
on her only when we’re far enough from Heathcliff so he can’t hear.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Helping along your love life,” Lindsay says. “No need to thank me.”
“Thank you? You have to be joking. You’re ruining my life!”
“God, Miranda, chill. I’m just telling the boy about your true feelingth. I mean, he hath a right to know.”
We both glance over at Heathcliff, who still looks a bit dazed, like he’s not sure what hit him.
“You don’t know anything about boys,” I say. “You can’t just tell them you’re in love with them.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t.” I send a worried look to Heathcliff. Lindsay probably just scared him off permanently. Not that there could be anything between us, since the faculty have put him off limits. Still, I’d rather believe that he wants to be with me, but can’t because of the Bard rules.
I glance down at her feet and am reminded that she’s wearing my Steve Maddens.
“Those are my shoes!” I cry. “I’ve told you a million times not to wear them!”
Lindsay huffs. “Geez, no need to get all bent out of thhape. They’re just thhoeth. And as far as Heathcliff goeth, I wath just trying to do you a favor.”
“Well, don’t. I don’t need favors. I have real friends, okay? I don’t have to do papers for people to get them to like me.” This comes out harsher than I intend, and I see Lindsay’s face fall just a little.
“You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that?” Lindsay says, hurt, as she turns away from me.
It’s true. Guilty as charged. But Lindsay just…well, brings out the worst in me.
“Lindsay, wait…” I shout and grab her arm. I’m about to apologize, when she whips around, glaring at me.
“Let go of me,” she nearly shouts, putting all her weight against me as she tugs to get her arm free.
“Is there a problem here, girls?” asks Ms. P, who has materialized from seemingly nowhere. This is because she probably has. Ghosts have a way of creeping up on you.
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