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
