At lunch, all her friends wanted to talk about were two things: the talent show, and what had happened to Clarita.

“Do you think she’s going to recover in time for the talent show?” Simone asked.

“Who cares?” Jacqueline replied. “She’s probably not even hurt. I bet she’s just faking to get out of it.”

She cast a very pointed look at Nomi, but no one else seemed to be paying attention.

“She isn’t faking,” Simone said. “I texted with her last night.”

Everyone went quiet. Even Jacqueline stopped glaring at Nomi to stare at Simone.

“You got in touch with her?” Jenna asked. “Did she tell you what happened?”

Nomi’s heart throbbed heavily in her chest. She couldn’t hear anyone else in the lunchroom. She could only hear the thud of her pulse and her friends’ conversation.

“Yeah,” Simone said. “She finally texted back. I guess she had to get a new phone.”

“Oh. Em. Gee,” Jacqueline said. “Get to the point! What happened to her?”

“She fell down the stairs,” Simone said in a hushed tone.

There was a pause. Then Jacqueline groaned.

“That’s it?” she asked. “I knew Clarita was a klutz, but come on—”

“She said her doll tripped her,” Simone interjected.

“What?” Jenna asked. “That’s impossible.”

“Yeah,” Jacqueline replied. “Emmy dolls can’t walk.”

Simone shrugged and poked at her food.

“That’s what she said. She said the doll snuck out of her room and tripped her while she was going down the stairs. She fell and broke her phone, but it sounds like the doll tumbled, too, and also broke.”

“Yeah, right,” Jacqueline replied. “She’s lying. She was probably just texting and walking and tripped over her own feet. She’s just too proud to admit it.”

“Think what you want,” Simone said, “but that’s what she told me.”

“Well,” Jacqueline said with a huff. “I don’t know why she was talking to you and not to me. I texted her, like, a dozen times last night.”

Jenna laughed.

“You know why, Jacqueline,” she said. She mimicked Alice’s voice. “You just aren’t worth speaking to.”

She laughed again, and Simone asked what she was missing, and Jacqueline glowered as she ate her lunch.

Nomi couldn’t move.

Couldn’t bring herself to eat.

Clarita’s doll had tripped her. Right after Alice had said Clarita wouldn’t bother Nomi or Jenna ever again.

She didn’t know how, but she knew that Alice was the reason Clarita fell.