I call it the Man Muncher.” Dylan was practically shouting on the Great Lawn, struggling to be heard above the bell. She was explaining to Farah Assadi and Emilia Charles the impossibly raunchy dance routine she’d just demonstrated, which was, at the moment, number one in her arsenal of sexy moves. She couldn’t get over the fact that Farah and Emilia were talking to her like normal people. They were the first popular girls who hadn’t spat in her face since she’d arrived at St. Cecilia’s. Dylan hoped Alice was watching. But Alice didn’t seem to be in her normal spot, on top of the wide, flat stairs leading to Quad.
“No man has ever survived it intact,” she added, feeling the back of her skirt to make sure it hadn’t ridden up too far with all the gyrating.
“Oh man.” Emilia’s eyes were wide. She started twitching her pelvis tentatively, as if tempted to try out the Man Muncher for herself. She looked like she couldn’t dance for shit, though. Not on those toothpick legs.
“Where did you learn it?” Farah asked.
“Oh, nowhere. I made it up myself.” Dylan shrugged breezily. “It was for a contest at my school in New York. I was president of the tenth-grade dance team.”
“Excuse me,” Mimah interrupted shrilly. She was smirking the way she always did when she reckoned she had something clever to contribute. “What exactly did you say you called this move?”
“The Man Muncher. So?”
“So?” Mimah let rip a vicious laugh. “Sounds suspiciously like something else, doesn’t it?”
There was a silence. No one seemed to be following her.
“Hello? Rug muncher perhaps?” She grinned obnoxiously at Farah and Emilia, waiting for them to laugh. No go. They were too rapt with Dylan’s stupid story to care.
But Dylan cared. She shot her friend a hurt look.
“Umm, anyway,” she went on, “I might use the Man… er, that routine in Pashminas to the Rescue. It’s not hard to learn. Just lock your abs and rock your hips. Like this.” She lifted her arms in a graceful arc and bumped her butt in circles. Her breasts—they must have been at least double-Ds—bounced in time with her movements. She looked just like an exotic belly dancer, except without the belly.
“Hot,” Farah said. “That move should definitely be rated R.”
“You go, girl!” Emilia cried.
Mimah glared at them. “Ooh, I’ll bet I know who enjoyed that,” she snapped. “Tristan Murray-Middleton. Especially when you did it underneath him.”
“What?” Dylan stared at her.
Mimah put on a deep, breathless voice. “‘Dance for me, Dylan. Dance while I’m inside you. Work it, baby.’ Is that what he said?”
The others giggled.
“Of course not!” A familiar cold rage flashed behind Dylan’s eyes. “Actually, sometimes at the end of the routine I like to add a flourish. Like this.”
She did a high-kick in the air, landing her toe right near Mimah’s chin. Mimah stumbled backward. “Oops. Sorry, sweetie.” Dylan feigned concern. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Immediately, she felt surprised at herself and a little ashamed. Dylan used to lose her temper all the time when she was younger. She’d thought she’d got it under control, but if the last few days were anything to go by, that wasn’t the case. Plus, Mimah’s face had a particularly nasty air right now. Maybe that was because of the birthmark under her left eye: It seemed to channel all of her vitriol at moments like this. Just as Dylan thought things might get ugly, a male voice broke the tension, resonating off the red-brick buildings at the back of Quad.
“Enough chatting!” shouted Mr. Vicks, the Head of Physics, charging among the loiterers. He was clapping his hands at them, as if they were a pack of hounds. “Get to lessons. Lessons! That means you lot, Jemimah.”
Without giving Mimah a second to respond, he strode past and thrust his balding head in Dylan’s face. His gray eyebrows were wedged together so that all the little wisps of hair stood straight out.
“And you, my girl—save the kicking for when you really need it.”
Dylan gasped. “Yes, sir.”
Farah rolled her smoky, almond-shaped eyes as Mr. Vicks set off after another group. He was always spouting vaguely ominous comments that made it sound as if the Apocalypse was about to hit. He probably believed it was. He was crazy enough. The school should really fire him, but he was one of those institutionalized teachers who’d been there for so long he’d probably wither up and die in the real world.
“I’ve got to get to German,” Mimah grunted, stalking toward the Main School. “See you later.”
Farah turned to Dylan. “Moody cow, isn’t she? What’ve you got?”
“Free period.”
“Awesome. Emilia and I were going to cram for our Chemistry quiz on the Great Lawn. Feel like joining us?”
Dylan nodded eagerly. She’d been longing for an invitation into a Great Lawn study set ever since her first day, when she’d seen cliques of girls dotted round like they were posing for the cover of a perfect school prospectus.
When they reached the sunniest patch of grass, right out in the middle of the lawn, Emilia pulled a charcoal gray pashmina out of her bag and folded it neatly. She lived in constant fear that her ass would get smudged with grass stains.
“I wonder what Sonia’s going to do if her nose isn’t normal again by the time she has to compère,” she said.
“Who cares?” Farah asked. “Serves her right for being such a stuck-up bitch.”
They both chuckled. Dylan couldn’t believe her ears. Farah bad-mouthing Sonia? Maybe Alice’s crew weren’t as untouchable as she’d thought.
“I feel sorry for Sonia though,” she ventured, “because no matter how hard she tries, she’ll never be as big a bitch as her idol: Her Majesty Alice Rochester.” She chortled loudly.
Then she realized the other two weren’t laughing.
“Oh, Alice is really cool once you get to know her,” Emilia said defensively.
“She knows everyone there is to know. And she throws the best parties. Her sixteenth was at Shantytown. You know, the club that Sir Randolph Lindley’s grandson owns?”
“Practically no one can get into Shantytown,” Emilia panted. “He only let her have it there because her aunt is married to his cousin, and also, it’d obviously make the place look good to have Rochesters in it.”
“And you know, if you have a party and Alice isn’t there, that basically means it’s a failure.”
Dylan had gone red. What was it with Alice? Did she have the entire fucking country under her thumb?