The great clock outside St. Cecilia’s Hall chimed eight and echoed mournfully through the empty classrooms and deserted lawns. It was prep time, which, according to school rules, meant the girls had to stay in their bedrooms for another whole hour, doing homework for tomorrow or reading books that would supposedly broaden their corrupted teenage minds.
Alice sat in front of her sleek silver laptop in the dorm she shared with Tally. Theirs was a corner bedroom, one of the best in Tudor House, and Alice had had to do a lot of bribing and wheedling to make sure their rooming ballot number had come out high enough for them to get it. That wasn’t really cheating; it was more like networking, the way politicians did. Her dad would have been proud. After all, she’d had her heart set on this room since she was in sixth grade, and he always pushed her to go out and be the best.
The room was big, with three windows instead of two, and was famous throughout the school for having a large alcove set back in the wall facing the beds. She and Tally had made that nook their “entertaining area.” They’d filled it with their two regulation armchairs, a brand-new white sheepskin rug, and an old wooden chest that Tally had brought from her dad’s house in London. They were using the chest as a coffee table, which wasn’t strictly allowed since bringing furniture from home was against the rules, but if anyone asked they’d just say it was Tally’s suitcase. They’d also spent an hour that afternoon hanging Christmas lights around the edges of the alcove; not the common old bulbs that lots of St. Cecilians had, but trendy lights from the Conran Shop with red and white shades that curled delicately around them.
Facebook was open on Alice’s screen. She was preparing herself for some serious stalking, her eyes narrowed and her fingers poised over the letters. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Whoever had made that up was probably living in the lap of luxury somewhere. Actually, they were probably dead but whatever.
Alice’s fingers swooped down on the keys. D-y-l-a-n T-a-y-l-o-r she typed in the search box, then held her breath, praying that she’d be able to see something. Anything. Hoping that the bitch wouldn’t have the privacy settings switched on.
A list of Dylan Taylors appeared. It was three pages long. But that didn’t matter, seeing as most of them were boys. Alice rolled her eyes. Of course they bloody well were. What kind of name was Dylan for a girl anyway? Quickly, she honed in on her prey.
Dylan’s photo was annoyingly good. It was a close-up of her at what appeared to be a black-tie dinner. Her makeup was subtle, her teeth gleamed white, her skin was smooth and creamy, her hair looked bouncy without being out of control. She’d probably posed for ages to get it just right. How lame. Alice’s Facebook photo was far more spontaneous. She’d engineered it that way because your picture said a lot about your personality, and no one wanted to be friends with an uptight poser.
Tristan had taken it last New Year’s, when their whole crew had gone skiing in Courchevel. She was waving a sparkler and winking cheekily at the camera. Originally, George Demetrios had been messing about next to her, making an absurd face with his eyes crossed and his cheeks puffed out, but Alice had cropped him away. She’d also Photoshopped her eyes to make them amazingly bright, and touched up her skin just a little so that a healthy pink flush suffused her cheekbones. She looked wild and free, like an enchanting winter sprite.
Dylan was in the London network. She’d obviously switched over from New York as soon as she’d moved. Alice brought up her profile. Six hundred and seventy-four friends. What a joke. So maybe Alice had a few less, but at least all of hers were real. Dylan’s friends probably hated her anyway. Alice scrolled through the list. Yaaawn. They all looked exactly like Dylan: long shiny hair, overly friendly smiles. A bunch of despicable goody-goodies.
Several pages in, there was a pretty blond girl called Lauren Taylor, who looked about fourteen. Lauren is Dylan’s sibling, read the blurb. Lauren was in the London network too. Well, at least they’d escaped having her at St. Cecilia’s. That was the last thing they needed: two sad sisters from the Taylor family.
Time for Dylan’s photos. There she was with a clique of girls and boys in school uniform; wearing a caramel-colored winter coat on a New York street corner; wearing a bikini on the beach. There was a whole load like that from this summer—Dylan playing volleyball, Dylan eating ice cream, Dylan lolling on a towel reading magazines. A terrible thought suddenly occurred to Alice: What if T had been there, just out of the frame, in all of them? Her blood ran cold at the thought. Dylan had to pay.
Suddenly, Alice saw a photo that Dylan had obviously neglected to edit out. She was wading out of a rough sea, squinting, her eye makeup smeared down her cheeks and her hair gnarled with sand and seaweed. Her brown bikini top had twisted round and one of her huge breasts had almost completely fallen out.
So tasteless to have that on Facebook. It deserved to be seen by certain people. Alice opened her iChat and typed Sonia a note.