She stared at me for a moment before asking, “Why would anything be wrong?” She asked in a chirpy voice.
“Seriously? You have no idea?”
“No.”
“You called Marylin and Beverly and told on me. You told them that I was trying to steal Graham from Brittany. And you told them that I was trying to defy them.”
“Because you were doing both of those things. Members of the Charm Club have to stick together.”
I glared at Meg. “Yeah, well you weren’t exactly sticking with me when you told on me.”
“Because you weren’t sticking with Brittany.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and at this point I was furious, so I stood up and dumped my coke on Meg’s head.
Meg stood up. “Tiffany!” She screamed. She shoved me.
I shoved back, and she fell over the row of chairs in front of us.
I ran out of the theatre. What was happening to me? Everything was falling apart. Everything had been since I joined the Charm Club. And something was stopping me from quitting. I needed help.
I ran to the police station.
“You have to help me.” I begged the man at the front desk. “I joined the Charm Club at school, but I want to quit. But I can’t quit. Something is stopping me. It’s like they’re controlling me. Please help me.” I took a couple of breaths. I was worn out from running all the way there, and rambling certainly didn’t help.
The man looked at me. “Something is controlling you?” He asked slowly.
I nodded. “Help me. Please.”
“Ma’am, have you been drinking?” I shook my head. “Have you been doing any drugs? You haven’t smoked any marijuana, have you?”
“No! I’m not on drugs and I’m not crazy. There is something going on. I don’t know what it is, but I need help.”
“I’m going to need your parents’ phone number.”
Not quite sure why he needed it, I gave it to him.
He called my parents and told them to come pick me up. He mentioned something about a psychotic break.
Fifteen minutes later, my parents came rushing into the police station. They both hugged me.
“Mom, Dad. I need your help,” I said weakly.
“We’re going to help you.” My mom told me. “We’re going to get you the help you need.”
Meg
I stormed into my house and upstairs, to take a shower. Lauren-Anne was following closely behind me.
“Meg, wait!” She cried. “I didn’t know that would happen!”
I stopped halfway up the stairs and turned to face her. “It doesn’t matter!” I yelled. “I didn’t want to go and you made me! This whole thing is your fault! Do you know how embarrassing that was?”
“How is it my fault that Graham is dating Brittany? That’s not my fault.”
I shook my head and walked into the bathroom. Lauren-Anne was knocking on the door, but I ignored her as I turned on the shower, drowning out her voice and knocks.
I scrubbed my skin until all the stickiness was gone. Then I lathered my hair in shampoo. I rinsed and then I repeated.
Why was Tiffany so mad at me? What made her think that she was above the rules?
I stepped out of the shower and stared at myself in the mirror as I got dressed. I deserved to be in the Charm Club as much as Tiffany. She wasn’t better than anyone. Someone would have to set her straight.
I walked into my room, where Lauren-Anne was sitting on the bed.
“Did you get clean?” She asked.
I nodded. “What’s Tiffany’s problem?” I asked.
Lauren-Anne shrugged. “She’s always thought that she’s better than everyone else. Now that she’s in the Charm Club, she’s learning that she isn’t at the top of the food chain.”
“Well, I think someone needs to teach her a lesson.”
“Beverly and Marylin are doing that well enough. Believe me, Meg, she isn’t going to get away with this. There will be consequences.”
I considered this for a moment. Then I said, “Yeah, but we should get revenge.”
“Revenge? What do you mean?”
I smiled. “We should cut off all her hair.”
Lauren-Anne looked at me like I had two heads. “Meg, are you crazy?”
“No! Of course not! But she embarrassed me, Lauren-Anne! We have to show her that it isn’t ok.”
She got up. “I’m going to go home. I’ll see you tomorrow at Marylin’s house.”
“Fine. Bye.”
Lauren-Anne paused at the doorway. “You aren’t really going to cut Tiffany’s hair, are you?”
I shrugged. “Probably not. But it would be fun.”
Lauren-Anne opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. Then she left.
I paced around my room for a while. I was seriously considering sneaking out to cut Tiffany’s hair off. Eventually, I decided that it could wait and went to sleep.
Chapter 7
Lauren-Anne
“Alright, ladies.” Evelyn began. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed that Tiffany isn’t here. Well, I’ve been notified by her parents that she’s had a little break from reality. She’s been sent away for a while.”
The room exploded into chatter. No one knew what to think. Everyone had heard about what Tiffany had done to Meg last night, we just couldn’t figure out why.
“That’s not going to look good for us,” Kit York said.
“No, it won’t,” Evelyn agreed.
“What are we going to do?” Meg asked.
I glanced at Meg. Somewhere over the past week, she had become a model Charm Club member. I thought she hadn’t even wanted to join this club.
No one said anything.
Marylin clapped her hands together. “I know! We can tell everyone that she got sent to a Swiss boarding school. You know, to better her education.”
Evelyn grinned. “That’s a wonderful idea.”
Beverly looked at everyone. “Can you all remember that?”
Everyone nodded.
“Meeting adjourned,” Evelyn said, standing up from Beverly’s director style chair.
I walked out of the room in a hurry. Something wasn’t right. I had to find out what was happening.
“Hey, Lauren-Anne, wait up!” Meg called, running to catch up to me.
“Oh, hi Meg.”
“Where are you going?”
I searched my head for a lie. I didn’t want her to know what I was doing. She was so dedicated to this club, and I didn’t want to get in trouble with Beverly and Marylin. “I have to go to Reno with my mom today. She wants company on the car ride.”
Meg laughed. “Reno’s only half an hour away.”
I shrugged. “She’s making me go.”
Meg stared at me for what felt like the longest moment of my life. “Ok, see you later.”
Our houses were in opposite directions, so Meg didn’t find it strange when she went right and I went left. And luckily, Tiffany’s house happened to be in the same direction as mine.
I walked up the front walkway to Tiffany’s house and knocked on the front door.
A woman answered the door. She was gorgeous, and I could instantly tell that she was Tiffany’s mother.
“Hi, Mrs. Thomas. I’m Lauren-Anne, a friend of Tiffany’s.”
Mrs. Thomas, who I now noticed looked like she had been crying, said, “I’m sorry, Tiffany isn’t here. She’s... Well, she’s gone away for a while.”
“I know, I heard about that. I was just wondering if I could ask you a few things about it.”
Mrs. Thomas looked back into the house. “I don’t know if my husband would like that. He’s a very private person.”
“It’s just a few questions. Please. I promise I’m not going to tell anyone anything.”
She thought for a moment before opening the door wider. “Alright, just a few questions.”
We walked into the living room, where I sat down on the couch.
“I don’t know
if you know this,” I began. “But last night Tiffany dumped soda all over one of our friends. Then she pushed her over a row of chairs at the movies.”
“Which friend was it?”
“Meg.”
“I didn’t know she was friends with a Meg. For years the only girls she would talk to were Betty and Judy. And then she joined that damn Charm Club.” She caught herself. “I’m sorry, I don’t usually use words like that.”
I leaned forward. “Do you not like the Charm Club?”
“It drove her crazy. It’s the reason we sent her away. She kept telling us that it was a terrible thing. She said that she tried to quit, but couldn’t. She said-” Mrs. Thomas’ voice broke. “She said that she would kill herself if she couldn’t get away from it.”
“Why couldn’t she quit?”
“Something inside her wouldn’t let her. She said she tried but she couldn’t get the words out. She said she had made a pledge to some god or something. It sounds like some sort of cult. You aren’t involved in that, are you?”
I shook my head, quickly standing up. “No. I need to go.”
I ran home, where I called Evelyn. I was only supposed to call her in an emergency. I considered this an emergency.
“Hello?” She answered on the first ring.
“Evelyn, this is Lauren-Anne.”
“Lauren-Anne, what are you calling me for?”
“What is Et Splendidis?”
“What?”
“You made us take a pledge to Et Splendidis. What is it? Is it a god? Is this a cult?”
“No, it’s just something we do for fun.”
“I quit.”
“You can’t quit!” She cried. “No one has ever quit the Charm Club. It’s for life.”
“What’s stopping me from quitting?”
“Nothing, I suppose. But-”
“Good. Then I quit,” I hung up the phone. That took care of that, but I still had questions.
Brittany
On Monday morning on the front steps of the school, the Charm Club had the second emergency meeting in two days.
“Lauren-Anne quit,” Marylin said simply.
I looked at Meg. She was in shock. So, she hadn’t even known that her best friend was quitting the Charm Club.
“Why would she want to quit?” Meg asked.
Beverly shrugged. “We don’t know. Evelyn said that Lauren-Anne was saying something about gods and cults.”
I smiled slightly to myself. It looked like Lauren-Anne was just as crazy as Tiffany.
Graham walked over to me just then. He grinned as he said, “Hi, Brittany.”
I smiled. “Hi. I’m actually in the middle of a Charm Club meeting. Can we catch up later?”
Before Graham could answer, Beverly said, “It’s alright, Brittany. You can go.”
Her and Marylin gave me knowing smiles while the rest of the Charm Club giggled behind their hands.
Graham and I walked away from the group. “What’s going on?” I asked.
Graham smiled and shrugged. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”
“Aw, that’s sweet.”
“Thanks. How was your weekend?” He had taken my hand now, and we were walking back toward the school.
“Great.” I told him. “I went on a date with this guy on Friday night. I hope he’ll ask me out again.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s too bad.”
I frowned. “How come?”
“Because I wanted to ask you out.”
I laughed. “I’ll go out with you anytime.”
“Great. How about I pick you up tonight?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you at seven.”
Later that night, Graham picked me up. My parents were out for the night, and I hadn’t told them that I was going on a date. I guess that I was technically sneaking out.
When Graham rang the doorbell, I ran down the stairs and yanked the door open.
“Hi,” I said, grinning.
Graham smiled as he looked me over. “Hi, Brittany. Are you ready?”
I nodded and closed the front door behind me.
“I thought we could go to the movies. Is that ok?” Graham asked.
“Yeah, sounds good.”
While we were sitting in the theatre, waiting for the movie to start, Graham said, “You know, Meg was here when Tiffany Thomas dumped soda on her over the weekend.”
I didn’t say anything. Where was this going?
“Wasn’t Tiffany in the Charm Club?”
“Yeah, but her and I weren’t really friends.” That was the truth. Even though she had invited me to eat lunch with her on the first day of school, Tiffany didn’t seem to like me very much. She didn’t seem to like anyone in the Charm Club.
“What happened to her? She came over to my house last week and she was acting really weird.”
Was that concern in his voice? I didn’t want Graham to like Tiffany, so I said, “She was crazy. She thought that the Charm Club was a cult or something. She was crazy, so it doesn’t really matter. Her parents sent her away.” I laughed as I said, “Everyone in the Charm Club is supposed to say that she went to a Swiss boarding school.”
Graham made a small noise, but he didn’t say anything.
“Don’t tell anyone.” I said quickly. “I could get in trouble for telling you.”
Graham smiled. “I won’t tell anyone.” He said, putting his arm around me.
I stared at him. Something in that smile told me that he was lying.
Meg
“This is a disaster!” Evelyn cried, throwing her hands up in the air. “Now everyone knows about Tiffany.”
“Meg, how did your brother find out?” Beverly asked.
“I don’t know,” I insisted.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and the Charm Club was meeting in Beverly’s bedroom. Somehow Graham had found out about Tiffany being sent to the loony bin and had told his friends, who then told everyone in the school.
“You’re his sister, you’re the only one close to him who knows about Tiffany.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest. “We’re not even that close,” Suddenly a lightbulb went off in my head. I turned to Brittany at the same time everyone else did.
Brittany looked up from painting her nails. “Ok, so I told him. But he promised he wasn’t going to tell anyone.”
“Do you know how bad this makes us look?” Evelyn asked.
“Between Tiffany going crazy and Lauren-Anne quitting, people are going to think there’s something wrong with us.” Alice Carols said.
I glared at Alice. She was always bringing up the bad things.
Marylin pointed at Brittany, shaking her finger. “You are getting too close to Graham. You’ve been leaving us to be with him. It’s making people think that the Charm Club isn’t as together as we’re supposed to be.”
“Well, I’m sorry!” Brittany cried. “I thought it’d look good for the Charm Club if at least one of us had a boyfriend!”
Everyone started yelling at each other at that moment, telling each other why none of them could get boyfriends.
“Quiet!” Evelyn yelled.
Everyone shut up immediately.
“Brittany, you can go home now.” Evelyn said. “There’s something the rest of us need to discuss.”
Brittany got up and stormed toward the door. “I was just trying to help us look good,” She said before slamming the door shut.
Everyone turned to Evelyn. Normally Marylin and Beverly were the bosses, but today Evelyn was in charge.
“We need to get rid of Graham,” Evelyn said.
I looked around the room, but no one argued. Everyone was focused on Evelyn.
“Him and Brittany are growing too close for the good of the Charm Club. Something needs to be done.”
“Evelyn, what happened to your husbands?” I asked.
With a wave of her hand, she said, “I killed them. It had to be done. They were becoming a distr
action.”
I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly everything I had been saying and doing to protect the Charm Club seemed insane. These girls were insane. I had to get out.
I stood up.
“Meg, are you volunteering?” Marylin asked, grinning.
“What?”
“You’re volunteering to kill Graham? It would make things easier, seeing that you live with him and everything.”
“I... I, uh-”
Marylin walked over to her vanity and opened the drawer. She pulled out a switchblade. “Thank you, Meg.” I took the knife blindly, but Marylin held onto it for a second. “If you don’t follow through, we’ll make you regret it.”
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I got up from my bed. Marylin said that the Charm Club would make me regret not killing Graham. I believed them. I had to kill him for my own good.
I grabbed the switchblade from my purse and walked down the hall. I opened Graham’s bedroom door and walked over to him. He was in a deep sleep. Hopefully, it was deep enough that this wouldn’t hurt him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Then I plunged the knife into what I thought was his heart.
He woke up instantly, gasping and coughing for air. It took me a moment to realize that I had stabbed in him the lung. His lung was filling up with blood.
“Oh god!” I cried. I ran down the hall to get my mom and dad. “Mom, Dad!” I said through my tears. I was crying so hard that it was hard for me to breathe. I might as well have been stabbed in the lung too. I managed to get something out about stabbing my own brother and about him needing help.
My mom ran into Graham’s bedroom while my dad called 911. I stood out in the hallway, watching my parents try to calm Graham down. By the time the ambulance and police arrived, Graham was dead.
“What happened?” A cop asked me in the front yard.
I had managed to stop crying. I think at that point, I was in shock. “I stabbed him.”
“Why?”
“Just because,” I wasn’t about to turn the Charm Club in. I didn’t want to see what happens when you betray Evelyn Ruffinio.
The cop handcuffed me and put me in the back of his car. I sighed and leaned back as we drove to the police station. Maybe now I’d be safe from the Charm Club.
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