Dylan had almost given up waiting when she finally saw Mimah jog through the line of gnarled oak trees round the side of the theater. If Mimah had stood her up, that would have been one less friend she had at this snobby school. And one less pretty much meant zero.
“Do you have the stuff?” she called in a loud whisper. She jumped up from the bench she’d been slouching on and ran over.
“Shut up!” Mimah scowled.
“There’s no one around. At least, I don’t think there is. All the Saturday-afternoon clubs started like ten minutes ago.” Dylan looked anxiously back at the empty stone patio outside the theater. Damn. It seemed like she was always making stupid mistakes here, being too loud or too friendly or too obvious. These English girls didn’t seem to get her, and she sure as hell didn’t get them.
“Just be quiet for a minute, okay?” Mimah snapped. “We have to look innocent, like we’re going for a stroll. If we get caught, we’re fucked.” After dealing with Miss Sharkreve, she wasn’t in the mood for stupid people. “By the way, what on earth are you wearing?” She gaped at Dylan’s getup of fluorescent pink leggings, black leg warmers, black leotard, and pink headband.
“What do you mean? It was for dance studio. This is what you wear. How else are you supposed to move around?”
Mimah sniffed. Dance Club was for losers. “Well, I just hope you’re good. Because you look like a joke, walking round dressed like Exercise Barbie.”
Dylan bit her lip. Sometimes it seemed like Mimah only wanted to be friends with her so she’d have someone to bully. Trying to block out the swishing sound that Mimah’s ballet flats were making over the grass, she looked down over the school spread beneath them. An elegant avenue led from the Great Lawn to the chapel; gardeners in overalls beetled about the grounds, and a little farther away, on the games fields between the white goalposts, girls wearing long socks ran back and forth in patterns like migrating birds. At the side of one field stood a ring of younger students, cheering on the lax team at practice. One girl ran and turned a cartwheel. The others skipped up and down and applauded. They were about her sister Lauren’s age, and they all looked the same: skinny with glossy ponytails, bootcut jeans, and lacy little tops.
Dylan missed her sister. Lauren had sent her a hungover-sounding e-mail this morning: Her new friends from school had taken her out last night to the pub in Notting Hill and got her drunk on pints of Fosters that someone’s older brother kept buying them. Something that fun would never happen here. Those girls by the games field looked like they’d rather eat shit than let a new member into their clique.
Abruptly, Mimah turned off into the woods bordering the hill. She ducked through some barbed wire, and beckoned furtively to Dylan. “This way.”
Dylan surveyed the fence. Cruel metal asterisks glinted along it, and she could see tufts of hair sticking out. Or was it fur? Wild animal fur. Dylan shuddered. The English countryside was a little bit like hell. What if she got snagged and turned rabid and Mimah abandoned her and she collapsed, foaming at the mouth? This wasn’t where she wanted to die.
“Umm, actually I’m okay.” She backed away. “This seems a little complicated. Maybe we should go home and make popcorn or something. Isn’t The Simpsons on?”
Mimah rolled her eyes. “Come on, you wuss; you’re not in New York anymore.” She trod on the bottom strand of the fence and yanked the top one upward. “Look, you can get through there. You’re not a fatty. Or are you?” She laughed sourly. “Your ass does look a bit big.”
Bitch. Dylan squeezed her eyes shut and scrambled through the opening. Soil and dried leaves were clinging to her when she straightened up on the other side, but before she could brush them away she noticed a black blob scuttling up her leg.
“Arrrgh!” she screamed. “There’s a spider on me, there’s a spider on me! Get it off, get it off, get it oooff!”
Mimah stared. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Didn’t these bloody Americans ever go outside?
By now Dylan was galloping around, shaking her leg like an epileptic dog. She looked like an escaped lunatic.
“What if it gets into my pants?” Dylan yelled. “What if it gets into my underwear?” She slapped her palm down hard on her thigh. A smudge appeared on the pink material of her leggings.
“Ewww! Gross!” she squealed, wringing her hands. “It’s dead!”
“Of course it’s dead, you idiot,” came Mimah’s voice. “You murdered it. Now will you stop fucking screaming?”
Dylan looked at her in surprise, suddenly turning red. What was she doing, losing it like that? Over a bug? With a pang, she thought of her friends back home. This little outing so wasn’t their style. Sneaking out to the woods to get stoned? The closest they ever came was sneaking out to a café to get lunch.
“That’s better. Are you finished?” Mimah asked.
Dylan nodded. “I, umm…,” she said lamely. “Our apartment in New York is really clean. Our maid makes sure there are no cockroaches or anything.”
“Yes, well, maybe you should have brought your maid with you here. She could walk ahead of you with a dustpan and brush and sweep up any creepy crawlies before they got within two meters of you. And you might want to watch out for that horse shit,” she added.
Dylan looked down. A big pile of manure lay on the ground right next to her shoe; she’d almost stepped in it. She gasped and jumped to one side.
Mimah chuckled. “I take it you don’t ride horses.”
“Of course I don’t.”
“You absolutely must learn to. It’s like tennis: If you ever come to stay at our country house, everyone rides and you’ve got to join in. Alice and I were both in Pony Club when we were younger. I was better than her. I always beat her in eventing.”
“Oh. Really? What’s eventing?” Dylan asked.
“You must be joking,” Mimah muttered. Without answering, she plunged into the trees, down what she seemed to think was a path. Dylan hurried behind, darting her eyes around for any dangling webs or suspicious leaf-shaking. After a while though, she let her guard down. The forest was like a strangely still room that smelled sweet and a little musty. They passed through streams of cool air and then warm air, where prongs of light pierced the leaves, spotlighting tree trunks and cushions of moss. They walked for a long time, until Dylan started to worry that Mimah was leading her round in circles.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” she asked.
“Yes, obviously,” Mimah said. “I come here all the time. This is my favorite smoking spot.” She looked pointedly over her shoulder at Dylan. “I only tell the people I trust about it. See? We’re here.”
They’d come to a tiny clearing where a stream flashed in the light. A few feet away were some flat rocks and, piled behind them, the remains of a low stone wall. It made the perfect sitting area. If anyone came, you could duck and be momentarily hidden. That was a relief. Dylan didn’t dare think what her mom would do if they got caught.
Mimah settled down cross-legged and dug in her pocket for the two joints she’d pre-rolled. She lit one. Dylan watched her take a deep toke, hold her breath, then let out a rich cloud of smoke. She looked so cool. That made Dylan nervous since she, on the other hand, was about to make an asshole of herself. She’d only got stoned once before. At least, she thought she’d been stoned; she might have just been trashed. It was two years ago, at her first boyfriend’s party, and she’d ended up drunker than she’d ever been in her life. At about four in the morning, everyone sat in a circle passing around a pipe of weed. Brandon and his friends had started daring her and the other girls to kiss in front of them. Dylan had ended up making out with her best friend, Jessie, for two full minutes while the boys pounded the floor and cheered them on. Then she’d spent the rest of the night throwing up in the toilet.
Mimah passed Dylan the spliff. Dylan balanced it between her index and middle fingers like a cigarette but it wobbled and fell. Probably because she didn’t smoke cigarettes either.
Mimah giggled. “Hold it with your thumb.”
Dylan nodded and took a shallow puff. Then she held her breath with her eyes wide open, like she was underwater.
“I’m sort of bad at smoking,” she said. She hadn’t breathed out, and her voice sounded constipated.
“Oh really? I’d never have noticed,” Mimah shot back. “First of all, you’ve got to take more than that. And chill out.”
Dylan tried again. She coughed.
Mimah cracked up next to her.
“What? Am I doing it wrong?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your little ballerina hobby?” Mimah cackled, pointing to Dylan’s leggings again. Dylan glared and tossed the joint on the ground between them. She was at the end of her fuse.
“Why do you have to be so mean?” she retorted. “If you don’t want me here, I can leave, you know.”
“Oh please. Keep your shirt on,” Mimah snorted. But when she spoke again, her voice sounded friendlier. “Seriously, are you any good?”
Dylan started to nod, then awkwardly crooked her head to one side just in time. You were never supposed to say you were good at anything in this weird country, even if you’d won Wimbledon or something. How could she forget, after finding that out the hard way? The other day she’d walked into the common room and found Zanna Balfour and Sonia lounging on the sofa.
“Dylan, are you gonna go for any school teams?” Zanna had said, craning her neck round on the cushion. “I thought all Americans loved sports.”
“That’s a great idea; I’m definitely good at sports,” Dylan had said. “I could probably get onto the hockey team or something. I’ve always been awesome at—” She’d stopped suddenly, noticing that Sonia and Zanna were grinning snidely at each other, sharing some kind of private laugh. It hadn’t taken her long to find out that the joke was her.
Now, in answer to Mimah’s question, she looked down demurely. “Oh, no. I’m a terrible dancer, I have no rhythm whatsoever. I don’t even know why they let me in the class.”
“Don’t be so modest, silly; I’m sure you’re fine.” Mimah leaned back and appeared to be thinking, her black fringe tumbling over her eyes. Without warning, she sat up straight. “Hold on, I have a brilliant idea! Let’s do our own special dance together in the ‘Pashminas to the Rescue’ show. We’ll be partners. It’ll be so fun!”
“Umm…” Dylan shook her head, trying to sound diplomatic. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“I wasn’t planning on getting involved. It just doesn’t sound like… my thing.”
“What, dancing?”
“No. Getting laughed at in front of the whole school. Everyone would make fun of us.”
“Of course they wouldn’t. Go on,” Mimah urged. “If we choose a good song and work out an amazing routine, they’ll all look like spazzes compared to us. Say yes, say yes!”
Dylan glowed with the flattery, despite the fact that she found it unnerving when Mimah switched moods like this out of the blue. The thing was, Mimah was good to know. Over the past week, she’d been the only person Dylan could sit with at meals, the only one who’d save her a spot in class or whose door she could go knock on when everyone else in Tudor House was curled up gossiping in each others’ rooms.
She’d also been the only one who hadn’t found it funny to stick up pictures of Dylan’s bare nipple all over the school.
“I hear they’re inviting all the Hasted House boys,” Mimah wheedled.
That did it. Dylan had been trying to think of a way to attract Tristan’s attention. It wasn’t exactly easy, trapped here in the middle of a bunch of fields, and dancing in the PTTR show could be the perfect chance to remind him what he was missing out on.
“Okay,” she sighed, not wanting to seem too eager. Mimah might suspect something. “I guess I’m down with that. Let’s listen to some music tonight and come up with a song.”
“Wicked! I’ll lend you some of my pashminas. I have a dusty-rose-colored one that’ll be gorgeous on you. Oooh, I can’t wait! Here, let’s smoke some more.”
She handed Dylan the spliff again. Dylan took a third drag, then a fourth. Then a fifth. Then something started happening.
“Heehee,” she giggled, feeling giddy. “Heeheehee!” She couldn’t stop herself. Not that she wanted to. Were there birds twittering or was it her imagination?
“Birdies,” Dylan called. “Where are you, birdies? Heehee.”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Mimah’s voice floated across to her.
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Want to come to a party next weekend?”
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong with you? It’s at George Demetrios’s house. He’s one of T’s good friends.”
“Beeest frieeends,” Dylan sang. She gave a high-pitched giggle. “Who?”
“Tristan and George!” Mimah sounded like she was shouting from far away.
“Sounds nice, I’ll go,” Dylan said. “Wait. Are you sure I’m invited?”
“You’re invited now. And stop hogging the spliff. You’ve definitely had enough.” Mimah plucked the dead joint out of Dylan’s hand and relit it.
Dylan propped her head on a rock and lay with her mouth hanging open, listening to the stream hum its happy song. Suddenly she felt something dribbling down onto her top. She lifted her fingers to her face. Was it drool? She smeared it away, then tried to shut her jaw by pummeling her chin with her hand.
“God, you’re a mess,” Mimah groaned. “I hope you don’t act like this at the party.”
“What party?”
“The one next weekend.” Mimah sighed. This was getting ridiculous. “We’ll go up to London straight after Saturday-morning lessons.”
“Oh,” Dylan murmured, “can I come? Sounds fun.”
Mimah stretched out on the grass with her hands behind her head, ignoring her gibbering companion. She had other things to occupy her—like how it would be to see Seb Ogilvy at the party. He hadn’t spoken to her since those rumors had started circulating, and she just had to sort things out.
“Fun isn’t the word,” she mumbled to no one in particular. “Parties are what this fucking school is all about.”