Scarlet Wakefield 01 - Kiss Me Kill Me Read Free Page A

back her lush mane of blue-black hair (what I wouldn’t give to be Persian), and adjusts her designer sunglasses, pushing them slightly back on her head. Her heels have got to be three inches high, and she wavers slightly on them for a moment before she catches her balance. Then she starts to pick her way down the stairs. She was sitting almost at the top—a sign of high favor. Plum gets to sit on the edge of the fountain, but then, Plum is the princess, and that’s her throne.
    Plum leans forward and says something to Nadia, something emphatic, by the way she’s waving her hands around. Nadia nods, equally emphatically. She’s at the bottom of the steps now.  .  .  . She’s on the path.  .  .  . She’s walking straight toward us.  .  .  .
    “Oh my God, what do you think she wants?” Alison is definitely squealing. There’s no other way to describe it.
    “Shut up, Alison!” Luce hisses. “Be cool!”
    “Yeah,” I say cynically. “They’re probably just going to take the piss out of us. Nadia will say something nasty, we’ll react, and then they’ll all burst out laughing.”
    That’s such a strong possibility that even Alison gets a grip on herself and calms down. We take deep breaths, trying to brace ourselves against the inevitable piece of bitchiness that’s about to be directed our way.
    Being noticed by Plum and her entourage is rarely, if ever, a good thing. In fact, it usually means tears before bedtime for the poor girl who gets singled out. One nasty comment from Plum, amplified a thousand times by her hangers-on, can burn through you like acid thrown on your face. Earlier this year, Plum pretended to mistake Luce for a third-former trespassing in the sixth-form area, much to the amusement of Plum’s posse. Of course, Plum’s elaborate apologies were even more offensive than the original comment—salt in the wounds. I know Luce cried herself to sleep that night and many nights afterward.
    Nadia’s crossed the road now, her tanned legs so thin that even her upper thighs don’t brush against each other as she walks. Three steps and she’ll be bang in front of us.
    I swallow. Even the air has gone strangely quiet. It’s like the showdown in old cowboy films, where the men squint into each other’s eyes for an intimidating moment before going for their guns.
    “Hey,” Nadia says, looking straight at me.
    Nadia isn’t really pretty, but she wears a ton of makeup, like an Indian girl in Bollywood films. Foundation, lots of eye shadow, black eyeliner, and pale, golden-glossy lips (it’s Miss Dior gloss. I know because Nadia is always reapplying it in class). It’s very intimidating, this degree of grooming and (obviously) gloss. My hair is damp from gym, and I’ve probably sweated off all my mascara. I must look like a bag lady by comparison.
    I can’t breathe. I just know some awful comment about my boobs is imminent. She’s going to say that Plum asked her to ask me where I got a hammock big enough to swing them in, or something.
    “Scarlett? We were just wondering  .  .  .”—Nadia says we to save face, but all four of us know it’s Plum who was wondering—“if you wanted to come over and hang out? We might all go for a coffee later, or something.”
    I can’t speak. But unfortunately, Alison can.
    “Well, my dad’s supposed to pick us up,” she blurts out. “But I could ring him and tell him not to come.”
    Nadia looks at Alison like she’s dandruff on her shoulder. “No, not you. God.” She rolls her eyes in incredulity that Alison could even think for a moment that she might get an invitation to the Promised Land. “Scarlett,” she says. “I was asking Scarlett.”
    Luce and Alison look at me. Their expressions are identical: a near-even blend of disbelief, jealousy, and insistence that I turn Nadia down and defend the honor of our threesome. All for one and one for all is what they want. What they should have.
    And instead I hear myself saying,