I have to duck my head at this to hide my smile.
“Almost like having a sister!” Megan bursts out at the rink an hour later, when I tell her what my mother said. “Are you kidding me?”
“She didn’t put two and two together when she heard Sophie’s last name,” I reply. “And I didn’t tell her.” My mother is not a Fairfax fan. Not after Annabelle Fairfax nearly sabotaged the British-American Society’s Patriot’s Day dinner dance here in Concord a couple of years ago. My mother was in charge of the event, and when Stinkerbelle managed to substitute shaving cream for whipped cream on the dessert pies, my mom was furious. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid’s quick thinking—along with a chocolate fondue fountain—my mother’s still convinced the evening would have been ruined.
My cell phone buzzes. It’s a text from Ashley. She was supposed to meet us at the rink and go to Burger Barn afterward, but she hasn’t been feeling well the last couple of days. NOT GOING TO MAKE IT TONIGHT, she says. FEELING BETTER, BUT MOM SAYS I NEED TO REST CUZ OF PRACTICE TOMORROW AND MEGAN’S PARTY.
Ashley and I are on the cheerleading squad together. I relay the message to Megan, who’s spotted Emma and Jess and is waving to them over my shoulder.
“Too bad!” says Megan. “Tell her hi from me.”
I’m texting Ashley back as our friends slide into the seats beside us. Cassidy and Zach Norton are right behind them.
I still can’t tell if Cassidy and Zach are together or not. He sticks to her like glue around school, and she doesn’t seem to mind. But she never talks about going out on dates or anything, and aside from an enthusiastic kiss I witnessed on New Year’s Eve, which doesn’t totally count because Zach kissed me too, although maybe not quite as enthusiastically, I haven’t seen any actual PDA between them. Not that Cassidy has time for a boyfriend, anyway. Her calendar is booked to the max between school and all of her hockey stuff—she plays on an elite team and coaches Chicks with Sticks, a club for younger girls that she started a couple of years ago.
I sneak a peek to see if the two of them are holding hands. Nope. But they’re sitting about as close as two people can possibly sit and still be two separate people. I make myself look away. It’s really, really time to move on.
Megan nudges me. “He’s looking at you again,” she whispers, her eyes twinkling.
For a split second I think she’s talking about Zach, and then I realize she means Third. I scowl at her. “Would you quit it already?” Megan likes to tease me about him. It’s true, though—Third, who is sitting rinkside next to my brother Stewart, is staring up in our direction.
Third is actually Cranfield Bartlett III, but nobody calls him that. Back in eighth grade, he and Ashley kind of liked each other, but that fizzled when we got to high school and she switched to liking a guy on the basketball team. I don’t know when it started, but sometime last fall Third started mooning around after me. I’ve tried to discourage him, but in a nice way because we’ve been friends since preschool. He doesn’t seem to take a hint, though. He’s kind of like Kevin Mullins that way.
As if summoned by my thoughts, Kevin suddenly materializes and squeezes in next to Jess. Kevin is so skinny he could squeeze in pretty much anywhere.
“What’s the scoop?” Cassidy asks. “How come you two want to call an emergency meeting?”
Megan and I exchange a glance. “Is there someplace we can go and talk privately?” Megan whispers, with a significant nod at her parents, who are seated in the row ahead of us with my parents and the Hawthornes.
“The game’s starting any second,” says Cassidy. “Don’t you want to watch?”
“At halftime, then.”
Cassidy looks disgusted. “There is no halftime in hockey, Megan.”
“Whatever.” Megan is so not a sports fan.
Cassidy sighs. “Yeah, I know a place we can go.”
Megan is just finishing showing us pictures of her new kitten when the game starts. We scream our heads off through the first period cheering on the Avengers, but Concord’s trailing Dracut by two points by the time the buzzer goes off for the break.
Cassidy stands up and stretches. “Come with me,” she tells us. “Not you,” she adds to Kevin and Zach. “You two stay here. This is girl stuff.”
“Oh,” Zach replies, grinning. “Fine. I’ll go get us some popcorn and sodas.”
Us. That’s definitely “us” as in “we’re a couple.”
Enough, Becca! I remind myself sternly, following Cassidy and my friends down out of the stands.
“Welcome to my office,” says Cassidy grandly, pulling out a key and inserting it into the lock of a door on the far side of the lobby.
“You have an office? Wow, I’m impressed!” says Jess.
Cassidy grins. “You won’t be when you see it.” She flips on the light, revealing what turns out to be a large storage closet. “The rink’s owner lets me keep my Chicks with Sticks equipment in here.” We all pile in and she closes the door behind us. I’m glad I have my jacket on—it’s even colder in here that it is up in the stands.
Cassidy pats a big plastic storage container and Emma and Jess sit down on it. Then she grabs a pair of buckets and turns them upside down for Megan and me. Leaning against the wall, she folds her arms across her chest. “Spill.”
Megan does, explaining all about Sophie Fairfax and the foreign exchange student fiasco. I fill in the blanks with what I overheard about Mayor Perkins. Our friends are openmouthed with astonishment by the time we’re done.
“She’s going to be living at your house until June?” says Jess.
Megan nods, and Cassidy gives a low whistle. “Bummer. How unfair is that? And how come we didn’t know that Stinkerbelle had a cousin?”
“Why would we?” Emma replies. “It’s not exactly headline news.”
“Maybe Sophie’s different from Annabelle,” says Jess.
We all look at her.
“Well, it’s true,” she adds defensively. “We shouldn’t judge ahead of time.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” says Megan indignantly. “She already stole my kitten! I haven’t even had Coco a whole day yet, Jess! And Gigi’s acting like she’s got a crush or something, just because Sophie speaks French and wears French clothes and is all French and everything. Plus, it turns out she’s a vegetarian, so now my mother’s acting like she’s the one who got a new pet. She even invited her to join our book club!”
Emma groans, and for once I agree. Book club may not be the highlight of my social life the way it is for Emma, but still, it would have been nice if Mrs. Wong had asked us first.
“She’ll be at my birthday party tomorrow night, too,” Megan continues. “The only reason she didn’t come to the game is because she’s jet-lagged.”
“Coach Sloane to the rescue,” says Cassidy, grabbing a clipboard off one of the shelves. She hunts around for a couple of seconds, then pounces on a pen. “First rule of hockey: You have to learn to outthink your opponent. Anticipate their every move. Be one step ahead. The only way to do that is to learn everything you possibly can about them. My team studies film of the other teams so we can learn to spot their favorite plays, their habits, their weak points. I say we do the same thing with Sophie.”
“You mean spy on her?” asks Jess, her eyebrows shooting up.
Megan and I exchange a glance. Jess can be kind of a goody-goody sometimes.
“Not exactly,” Cassidy replies. “Think of it as collecting information. The more we have, the better our chances of figuring out what she has up her sleeve.”
“What if the answer is nothing?” says Jess stubbornly. “I still think you guys are being too suspicious.”
Ignoring her, Cassidy points her pen at Megan. “If Gigi and Sophie are chattering away in French, you need to pump your grandmother for information about their conversations. Find out what they’re talking about. Get ahold of Simon, too, and see if he knows anything. He’s her cousin as well as Stinkerbelle’s; he’s g
ot to.” She turns to Emma. “Maybe you can ask your mother a few casual questions. She’s still in touch with Mrs. Berkeley, right?”
Emma nods.
“Meanwhile, I’ll find out what Tristan knows. And Becca, do you think you can ask your mother—or if she can ask the lady in charge of the exchange program—why Sophie decided to come here? It just seems like a pretty big coincidence that of all the places she could have gone, she’d pick Concord, Massachusetts.” She makes a few notes on her clipboard, then looks up. “So what have we got so far?”
Megan shrugs. “Not much. Her name is Sophie Fairfax. She’s our age. She lives in or near Paris—I couldn’t quite understand which when she and Gigi were talking earlier at dinner. I’m pretty sure she’s rich because she showed us some pictures of herself with her parents, and her house is practically a castle. Oh, and she’s an only child like me. At least I think she is. There weren’t any other kids in the pictures.”
Cassidy jots this all down. “Right. We’ll start with this and go from there. Everybody know what you have to do?”
We all nod, although Jess still doesn’t look convinced.
“Then let’s get back to the game.”
In the end, Alcott High loses to Dracut by one point, which leaks some of the fun out of the rest of the evening. We all drive over to Burger Barn afterward, but the guys especially are pretty subdued, until Cassidy talks everyone into sticking french fries across our upper lips like mustaches while we sing “Happy Birthday” to Megan. That gets us all laughing.
I’m up early the next morning for cheerleading practice. Afterward, Ashley drops me at Pies & Prejudice on her way home.
“Wait until you see what I decided to wear tonight!” she says as I get out of the car. “You’re going to crack up!”
The two of us have had a lot of fun figuring out options for our ’80s themed outfits. I only hope the guys get into it too, otherwise we’re going to look really stupid.
The tea shop is bustling again, which gives me plenty of practice juggling multiple customers. Plenty of exercise, too. Waitressing is a workout! By the end of my shift I’m beginning to feel like I’ve gotten the hang of it, and I’ve also earned another thirty dollars in tips. On the walk home I try and figure out how many months it will be before I can afford a decent used car.
“Brr,” says my mother as I come through the back door. “Close that quick! It’s freezing out there!” She gestures to the chair beside her at the kitchen table. “Come visit with me while I finish this.”
I glance over her shoulder to see that she’s doing something complicated with graph paper and colored pencils and lists of plant names. My mother is in graduate school, working on her landscape design degree.
I shake my head, yawning. “Sorry, Mom. Between cheerleading practice and my job, I’ve been running since the crack of dawn. I’ve got to take a nap or I’m going to fall asleep at the party tonight.”
She frowns. “When are you planning to do your homework this weekend? We’re hosting the book club meeting tomorrow, you know.”
“I know.” I promise her that I’ll at least tackle my Spanish homework before I head to Megan’s, but when I go upstairs and start conjugating verbs, I quickly drift off.
My brother knocks on my door a while later. “Hey!” he says, poking his head into my room. “Mom said to wake you up. I’m leaving for the party in about half an hour, if you want a ride.”
I sit up and he grins. “Nice look. New party dress?”
I glance down to see that I fell asleep in my Pies & Prejudice uniform. “Shut up.”
He ambles in. Why is it that guys can do nothing but take a two-minute shower and throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt—in my brother’s case the Stanford one he got when he went out to visit the campus last spring—and still look totally ready for a party? Even one with an ’80s theme. At least Stewart bothered to add the white suit jacket he found at Goodwill for a little retro flair.
He pokes at the pile of papers on my bed. “Spanish vocab, huh?”
I nod. “I have a test this week.”
He points to the book on my bedside table. “How do you like it so far? Jane Eyre, I mean?”
Jane Eyre is our current book club pick. We spent last fall reading the Betsy-Tacy series, thanks to my grandmother who’s a rabid fan, and when it came time to choose our next book to read, Mrs. Hawthorne suggested we all write down our top choice and put them in a hat. Then she had Stewart draw one. Jess was really disappointed when he pulled out Jane Eyre, because she’d been lobbying for some horse story called Seabiscuit. Personally, I think maybe my brother cheated, because he’s Emma’s boyfriend and he knows that Jane Eyre is one of her favorite books.
I shrug. “It’s pretty good.”
“She’s got a lot of spirit, doesn’t she? Jane, I mean.”
“Yeah.” This feels totally weird, talking about a book with my brother. I hope I’m not turning into Emma Hawthorne. That would be a fate worse than death.
Emma is a huge bookworm just like Stewart, and the stuff they read usually spells B-O-R-I-N-G. I have to admit that Jane Eyre is not just pretty good, though, it’s really good. The story starts out when Jane is a little kid, just ten years old, an orphan living with her horrible aunt and even more horrible cousins. Eventually, she’s shipped off to a boarding school called Lowood run by this creepy guy named Mr. Brocklehurst, who barely feeds the girls and makes them cut off their hair and bathe in cold water. I’m just at the part where Jane’s finally made a friend. We’re supposed to have read up until the point when she leaves Lowood, so I have some catching up to do before our book club meeting tomorrow.
I shoo Stewart out so I can shower and dress. A few minutes later I’m standing in front of my open closet debating my choices. Even though I’m going solo, I still want to look good. For one thing, Zach Norton will be there, and for another, this is my best friend’s sweet sixteen we’re talking about.
I decide to go with jeans and a satiny blue shirt that I got at the vintage store. Its big puffy sleeves and V-neck scream ’80s. Then I pile on the blue eye shadow and blow dry and backcomb my hair until it looks kind of like a bird’s nest on top of my head, spraying it securely in place with hair spray. Adding a sprinkling of glitter, I finish off the look with black suede boots and as much sparkly stuff as I can manage to put on without looking like a Christmas tree: rhinestone snowflake earrings and matching necklace, a pile of blue and white bangle bracelets I found at Sweet Repeats, the vintage store in Boston that Megan and I love to shop at, and a long strand of clear crystal beads double-looped around my neck. One final check in the mirror confirms that I’ve achieved the perfect over-the-top ’80s glam look I was going for.
Grabbing Megan’s present (I still can’t believe she wanted bunny slippers, but she dropped so many hints I couldn’t ignore them), I head downstairs to find Stewart.
We stop by the Hawthornes to pick up Emma, then head for Strawberry Hill Road. The snow has stopped by now, but we still slip around a few times on the drive there. The Wongs live on kind of a steep incline, and even though my mom let Stewart borrow her SUV, it can still be a little scary driving up here when the roads are bad, especially at night.
We’re the first to arrive. Megan greets us at the door holding Coco, and Emma and I start squealing the second we spot the kitten, of course. Stewart stands back, giving us some space. Boys don’t get the whole concept of cute. Even when it comes in a four-legged package.
He does take a turn holding her, though, and Emma whips out her cell phone and snaps a picture.
“Don’t even think about putting that in the school newspaper,” Stewart warns her.
“Nah, it’s going directly online,” she replies, grinning at him.
“Emma!”
“Kidding, you dork! You look so cute with her, though, that I really should.”
Stewart hands Coco to me, and I squeal again. I can’t help it—she’s irresistible. “Megs, she’s so adorable!” I
tell her, stroking the kitten’s snowy white fur.
Megan nods happily. “I know. I still can’t believe my parents gave her to me.”
“So does she sleep curled up on your bed?” asks Emma. “Melville always slept on my parents’ bed, but Lady Jane prefers her basket.”
Lady Jane is the kitten that the Delaneys gave to Mrs. Hawthorne at our book club’s New Year’s Eve party. I guess technically Lady Jane is Coco’s sister, although they don’t look anything alike. The only white on the Hawthornes’ cat is her paws and bib. Otherwise, she’s pure gray.
Megan’s face clouds.
“Let me guess,” says Emma. “Sophie?”
Megan’s face clouds. “So far, Coco makes a beeline for Sophie’s room most of the time. I’m trying to train her to stay with me.”
“Can’t you just shut the door or something?” Emma suggests.
“My mother says I have to be extra nice to Sophie,” Megan tells her. “I guess her parents’ divorce is really upsetting her.”
“Ooo, information to add to Cassidy’s chart,” I reply.
“Yep.”
“What chart?” asks Stewart.
“Never mind,” I tell him. “It’s just girl stuff.”
“Speaking of girl stuff, it’s good to see that male reinforcements are starting to arrive,” says Mr. Wong, poking his head into the entry hall. “Nice to see you, Stewart!” The two of them shake hands. “I could use some last-minute help down in the family room, if you don’t mind.”
“So where is this mysterious Sophie?” asks Emma, after Mr. Wong and Stewart disappear. She peers over Megan’s shoulder toward the living room.
“With Gigi, of course,” Megan replies, not even trying to hide the bitterness in her voice.
We follow her across the living room toward the long hallway that leads to the bedrooms at the back of the house. Megan’s house is really different from mine. My family lives in an old Colonial-style house. Not as old as Half Moon Farm—that was built in the 1700s, I think—but still old.
Our house is stuffed with antiques; Megan’s is ultramodern, with high ceilings and more windows than walls. And everything, from the carpet to the furniture, is white. Or was, before Gigi got hold of a paintbrush and painted one of the living room walls bright red. Mrs. Wong had a cow, but she didn’t change it back. It looks pretty good, actually.