But, wit and charm failing her when she needed them the most, Harper settled for the obvious.
“So, where are you from?”
“Oh, around,” Kaia said, looking bored. “We have an apartment in New York-and my mother keeps a place in the country. Of course, some years I’m away at school…”
Boarding school? Harper fought to maintain a neutral expression-just because the new girl was the epitome of urban rich cool and looked as if she’d just walked off a movie screen was no reason to panic.
And maybe…
Maybe Little Miss Perfect would actually be an asset. There had to be a way.
“Boarding school?” Harper asked, trying to sound as if she cared-though not too much, of course. “So what happened?”
“Which school?” asked Kaia, smirking. “This last time? Long story. Let’s just say that if you’re going to be sneaking two guys out your window, it’s best to check first that the headmistress isn’t spending the evening in the quad, watching a meteor shower. It’s also probably best if the guys aren’t carrying a stash of pot-the other half of which is in your dorm room.”
Harper burst into laughter. If nothing else, this was going to be interesting.
“So as punishment, they exiled you to no-man’s-land?”
“Yeah, my dad lives out here. Tough love, right? I guess they figured there’d be no trouble for me to get into out in the middle of nowhere.” Kaia, who had been smiling, suddenly frowned and looked around her. “Obviously, they were right.”
It was true. Haven High wasn’t much to look at-and appearances weren’t deceiving. The squat building, erected in the late sixties, had been ahead of its time, its designers embracing the riot-proof concrete bunker style of architecture that grew so popular in the next decade and then deservedly vanished from sight. It was an ugly and impersonal structure, painted long ago in shades of rust and mud-also, conveniently, the school colors (although the powers that be preferred to refer to them as orange and brown). Built to accommodate a town swelled by baby boomers, the small school now housed an even smaller student body, and the dilapidated hallway in which Kaia and Harper stood was largely empty.
The girls fell silent for a moment, contemplating the peeling paint, the faint scent of cleaning fluid mixed with mashed potatoes drifting over from the cafeteria. The year to come. At the moment, neither was too thrilled by the prospect.
“So, Harper Grace,” Kaia began, breaking the awkward moment. “I don’t suppose that’s any relation to Grace, California, my oh-so-fabulous new hometown?”
“You got it,” Harper replied, allowing herself a modest smile. She did love being great-great-great-granddaddy’s little girl. “Grace Mines, Grace Library, Grace, CA. There used to be a Grace High School, too, but it burned down in the fifties.”
Kaia failed to look impressed-or even particularly interested. But Harper persevered. “This used to be a mining town, you know. My great-great-great-grandfather was like a king around here. Graces ran the mine all the way until it closed in the forties.”
“Uh-huh.”
Of course, Harper didn’t mention the fact that a few years after the mine ran dry, the family bank account had done the same. Being a Grace somehow didn’t seem to mean as much these days when the only family business was a dry cleaning shop on North Hampton Street. But at least she had the name.
Not that Kaia seemed to care.
What was the point of trying to impress this girl, anyway? She’d find out soon enough that Harper was as good as it got around here. When that happened, she’d come crawling back-in the meantime, why bother trying?
And with that, Harper reverted to autopilot tour guide mode.
“And this is the gym,” she explained, directing Kaia’s attention to the wall moldings. “Refurbished in 1979, it can hold over one hundred people…”
“She said
Harper grinned. She so loved a good story, and Miranda was such an appreciative audience-suitably shocked and awed in all the right places. Not that that was why Harper kept her around, of course… but it didn’t hurt.
“You heard me. I asked her why she’d been kicked out of her swanky boarding school and that’s what she told me.” Feigning sudden disinterest in Kaia’s sleazy past, Harper idly picked up one of the beakers of solution sitting on the lab table in front of her-but, thinking better of it, quickly set it down again. As if she’d been paying attention to what they were supposed to be doing with all this stuff.
Miranda let out a long, low whistle. “Do you think it’s true?”
Harper shrugged.
“Who knows. To be honest, she looked like she’d lie about her own name if she thought it would get a rise out of people. You know the type.”
Miranda arched an eyebrow but said nothing.
“What?” Harper asked.
Miranda looked at her pointedly
“Remind you of anyone you know?” she asked finally.
“Who, me?” Harper answered, forcing a laugh-and ignoring the annoying ring of truth. “In her dreams, maybe. You should have seen her, sauntering around like she owns the place, acting like I’m going to collapse in awe of her Marc Jacobs bag.”
“
“Oh God, chill out.” The shock and awe reactions were suddenly getting a little old. “It was just a bag. I’m sure it was a fake. You can always tell.”
Must have been. Harper’s “Kate Spade” bag looked real from a distance too. But it wasn’t. Obviously.
But Miranda wouldn’t be put off the scent. “So why do you think that-”
“Girls, a little less conversation, a little more science, please?”
Mrs. Bonner, a short, all-too-perky blonde who liked to wear her unnecessary white lab coat even on trips to the grocery store (and Harper and Miranda could vouch for this, having once spotted the white-smocked figure ferrying a case of Budweiser out of the Shop ‘n’ Save), shot them a warning look and continued pacing around the room.
They were supposed to be titrating their solvent-or dissolving their titration, or something along those lines, Harper couldn’t remember. Yet another reason, come to think of it, that it was useful to keep Miranda around. That and the fact that they’d been best friends since the third grade, when Mikey Mandel had knocked over their carefully constructed LEGO tower and Harper had punched him in the stomach. Mikey wasn’t too happy-and Miranda had stuck by her side through all the hair-pulling, pinching, wrestling, and screaming that followed, through the unsuccessful lying and excuses when they’d been caught by the recess monitor, through the long hours they’d spent sitting out in the hall “thinking about their actions.” Nine years later, Miranda had grown (if not as many inches as she’d hoped) from a shy, scrawny tomboy into a smart, snarky girl with a killer smile and the quickest wit in the West, and she was still loyally cleaning up Harper’s messes-or, when that failed, readily plunging after her into the mud. Mikey Mandel, on the other hand, had grown into a serious stud: six foot four, football team’s star running back, scruffy hair, smoldering eyes, never without a smiling blonde on his arm-and he was still a prick.
“I can’t believe she’s actually making us do a
“Who ever said the Bonner was human?” Miranda asked, carefully suspending their beaker of solution over the lit Bunsen burner.
It was true-they’d had her for science three years in a row (nothing ever changed at Haven High), and in all that time she’d yet to show up with new hair, new shoes, or a new lab coat-and who could imagine what lay beneath the glorified white sheet? Their very own Frankenstein’s Monster, for all Harper knew. Maybe their science teacher was just some student’s award-winning science project. She stifled a laugh at the thought.
“What?” hissed Miranda, flashing her a look of caution as the teacher circled toward them again. They bent intently over their flasks and beakers, feigning enthusiasm in the scientific process. The two girls at the next table
