Sloth

“Uh… Ms. Campbell?” She nodded expectantly. “I guess, I’m, uh, not sure where you’re going with this?”

She snapped the file shut and stood up. “Where I’m going is this,” she said in an unusually firm voice. “Your grades are atrocious, and you’re in danger of failing the year. I’m assigning you a tutor, and with some hard work, I hope you’ll be able to dig yourself out of this hole.”

“A tutor?” He was aware of the whiny note that had crept into his voice, but couldn’t help himself. How lame could you get? “Do I have to?”

“You don’t have to do anything, Adam.”

He smiled in relief.

“But without a tutor, your grades won’t improve. And if your grades don’t improve, soon, you can stop worrying about your future. Because you’re not going to graduate.”

Miranda was about to open the stall door when she heard their voices. Mini-She’s was a bit higher than Mini- Me’s, but otherwise, they were interchangeable. Just like the rest of them.

“She’s such a bitch.”

“Totally.”

“Do you think she even knows what people are saying about her?”

A sigh. “It’s tragic.”

“Totally.”

“I mean, she was the shit.”

“Definitely.”

“But all that crazy stuff last month?”

“Total meltdown.”

“And poor Kaia…”

“She probably went crazy and ran them both off the road.”

A moment of silence.

“That was all really sad.”

“Yeah.”

“That was kind of a hot skirt she was wearing today, though. Think it would look good on me?”

“Totally And I was thinking I might pick up one of those tank tops-”

“You bitch! I was all over that.”

“No prob, I’ll go green, you stick with the blue.”

Giggles.

“I feel kind of bad for her, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, me too, of course.”

“That’s why I’m totally going to stick by her.”

“Oh, yeah, me too, of course.”

“It’s like a community service project or something.”

“God, that’s sad.”

“Tragic.”

“Good thing she’s got friends like us.”

“Totally.”

The door banged shut, and then there was silence.

Miranda held her breath and opened the door of the stall. The girls’ room was empty. She squirted some soap into her hands, ran them under the hot water, and waited.

She’d just reached for a paper towel when a second stall door opened, and Harper finally emerged.

Harper washed her hands in silence. Miranda could tell she was nibbling on the inside of her left cheek, a nervous habit. She bent down, and then flipped her head up again, her hair flying back down to her shoulders. She ran a hand through, fluffing up the sides and smoothing it down at the roots. “I’m thinking of getting it cut,” Harper said finally. “Nothing too dramatic, though.”

“Sounds good,” Miranda said, waiting for some kind of explosion.

Harper pulled out a tube of cherry-colored lipstick.

“Nice color,” Miranda told her. “New?”

“Yeah. Want to try?”

“I don’t know.” She looked in the mirror, giving her limp hair a disdainful flip. Cherry and orange didn’t seem like a match made in heaven. “Think it would look good on me?”

Harper tossed over the tube, then raised her eyebrows and gave Miranda a weak half smile. “Totally.”

Chapter 4

It wasn’t easy to surprise Kane Geary When you assume that everyone in the world is out for themselves, not much happens that you don’t see coming.

But this was most definitely unexpected.

Beth sat at a table just in front of the school doors, handing out Haven High pennants and wrist bands to any seniors who’d forgotten to dress in Haven’s school colors- rust and mud-for Spirit Day; the most festively adorned, psychotically spirited senior would win some kind of fabulous grand prize.

Kane wore a navy button-down shirt and Michael Kors jeans.

He didn’t do spirit.

Harper was a few feet ahead of him, walking quickly with her head down, taking a few final puffs on her cigarette before entering the school. Kane, who noticed everything, caught Beth looking away as she approached-no surprise there. Harper, on the other hand, barely noticed the table of paraphernalia or the blond beauty staffing it. She just took one last drag and carelessly flicked the cigarette away-too carelessly, it turned out, as it tumbled through the air, right into Ms. Barbini’s back.

Never a good idea to pelt the teachers with cigarettes- tempting as it often was-but Ms. Barbini, the no- nonsense, no-deodorant geometry teacher, was a particularly poor choice. She whirled around, bent down, and picked up the incriminating butt between her thumb and index finger, then glared at Harper, who had frozen in place.

“Who threw this?” she asked, in a tone that suggested she need not wait for an answer.

Kane was close enough to see Harper roll her eyes, open her mouth… and snap it shut again as Beth leaped to her feet.

“I did, Ms. Barbini,” she announced.

Surprise.

Kane and Ms. Barbini goggled at her; Harper’s face remained expressionless, as if she were watching a rather boring show on TV and was just waiting for a commercial.

“You?” the teacher said incredulously.

“Me.”

“Can I go now?” Harper asked. “Wouldn’t want to be late for homeroom.” She shot a hostile glare at Beth-a silent message that looked less like thank you and more like your choice, your funeral-and, without waiting for an answer, limped up the stairs and disappeared inside the school.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Ms. Manning. Smoking on school grounds?” The teacher whipped out a small pink pad and began to scribble. “That’s two days’ detention.” She thrust the detention slip at Beth and, after giving her a disdainful scowl, followed in Harper’s footsteps up the stairs and through the heavy wooden doors.

It had been a late night, and Kane had almost cut homeroom to sleep in-good thing he’d made the “responsible” choice, as nothing cured a hangover like a good mystery. And there was nothing more mysterious than Beth taking the fall for her mortal enemy.

“Now that was interesting,” he said, sauntering up to Beth’s table. He swept aside a swath of orange and brown crap and hopped on, half standing, half sitting, and all in Beth’s face.