Brice Burnack’s new Broadway musical opened on the weekend. Not only was the theater half-empty, but the scalpers—the ones with the uncanny, near-canine ability to sniff out a play’s success—got stuck with the tickets they’d gobbled up. And it seems even the critics felt invincible enough to defy Brice’s finely sharpened claws and fiery hair. While reviewers applauded the lead actors’ performances, calling them “brilliant” and “hauntingly soulful,” they ripped Brice’s music score into finely ground tiger meal. The New York Times said the musical “might better have been sung by muppets.” USA Today suggested it might be “adopted by nursery schools across the country as perfect music for pulling on rain boots.”
According to Brice they were too simple-minded to see the irony in his work.
Carling hasn’t been seen without a mouthful of antacids all week. Unfocused and rumored to have been caught smoking in the girls’ locker room at recess, she has taken to wearing Isabella as a coat of armor. Not that Isabella minds.
There isn’t the tiniest part of me that wants to be at Carling’s house after school. Not a fingernail, an eyelash, or a pore. With people like these, at a time like this, anything could happen. Brice himself might open the door, Carling might jump off the roof, and Isabella might find herself permanently glued to Carling’s skin. Again, not that she’d mind. But there’s a certain wisdom in keeping your enemies close, and I’m afraid to let Isabella Latini out of my sight.
No sign of Brice, the throbbing tiger, when the door swings open. It’s Gracie herself. From the look of things I can only assume that their housekeeper, whatever her real name was, has quit. The floor is unswept, there’s a stack of unopened mail spilling off the hall table, and a basket overflowing with laundry sits at the bottom of the stairs. Gracie, her hair unstyled, dressed in sweatpants she might have slept in, tries to smile. “The girls are in the basement.”
Music thumps from the rec room speakers and Carling, Isabella, and Sloane are at the bar; Isabella on a barstool in a spa-like white robe and Sloane bent over doing Izzy’s toes. Carling is behind the bar—wearing my mother’s sweater—stuffing things into the blender and looking happier than she has in days.
Carling grins as I enter. “London. It’s Pamper Isabella Day. Grab a pumice stone and start filing the girl’s bunions.”
“You don’t file bunions, you cow,” says Isabella, adoring all the attention. “A bunion is a swollen bursal sac with an osseous deformity at the mesophalangeal joint.”
“Stay still,” says Sloane. “You’re messing up your pedi.”
I sit down and watch Carling pour frozen berries into the machine. “Carling, when am I going to get my sweater back?”
“You’re too uptight, London. I’m not keeping it.” But she makes no move to take it off.
I know why everyone is treating Isabella like the queen, but have to ask, “What’s the occasion?”
“Izzers just got me into med school,” Carling says with a happy squeak. “She stole Curtis’s math test for me, and I decided she deserves some juice.”
Isabella stares at me. “If only Carling knew what things I do for her when she’s not around.”
My heart thumps in my throat.
“That’s the best kind of friend to have,” says Carling. “One who’s working for me—Round. The. Clock.”
“Can you believe I did that?” Isabella looks at me. “Next I might start telling outrageous lies about myself. I might even start telling people I’m from London. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“A riot,” I say without taking my eyes off her.
She continues. “How about you, Sloaney? If you could suddenly be from anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
Sloane sips from a small bottle of sparkling water and thinks a moment. Then says, “Italy. But only because of the accent and the hot guys.”
“But some people can drop their accents just like that,” says Isabella, snapping her fingers. “Like London.”
“I told you, I wasn’t born there,” I say, wanting to slap her.
“Still,” she says, “you’d think you would have picked up the accent in all your years of going to British schools, riding in British limos, fraternizing with the Royals …”
“I never said I knew the Royals.”
Isabella says, “Don’t some of the Royals have weird obsessions? I wonder if you know anyone weird, London. Anyone with strange quirks who calls attention to himself in crazy ways? Maybe even someone who can’t stop—”
“Can I see it?” I blurt out.
“What?” asks Carling, pushing the juice across the counter to Isabella.
“The stolen test. Show me, I want to know what’s on it.”
Carling roots through her backpack behind the bar. She starts out slowly, then starts pulling out pencil case, binder, Tums bottle in a panic. “Oh my God. It’s not here!”
“What isn’t?” asks Isabella.
“My little purse.” Her nostrils flare and her chest starts heaving. “I must have left it on the floor by my locker. I pulled it out of my backpack because I couldn’t find my lipstick. I must have forgotten to put it back!”
“So you lost your Prada bag,” says Sloane, sticking her finger into Isabella’s juice. “Don’t be so dramatic. You can get another in, like, a couple of days. And I’ll hook you up with a new fake ID.”
“The test was inside my purse. If anyone finds it and opens it up …”
Sloane looks up. “You’re dead.”
Ever since I got home about an hour ago, I’ve been in and out of the bathroom three times, certain I’m going to throw up. We went to the school and found no sign of Carling’s purse, no sign of the stolen test. And Isabella made one thing clear to me as I left: if Carling gets caught, she’s turning me in.
I’m leaning against the sink when Dad pokes his head in. “You don’t look so well. Are you sick?”
“No. I don’t know. Probably just tired.”
“Would you like a sandwich? I’m making one for myself. We have the lean turkey you always ask for, and mayonnaise.”
“Please. No food.”
“Why were you so late getting home?”
“I went back to school to help a friend look for her purse. But we couldn’t find it. Some kid probably took it home.” The image of Isabella whispering in Mr. Oosterhouse’s ear while pointing at me fills the air above my head and my stomach lurches. “It was a pretty expensive bag.”
“Was it brown? Canvas and leather with a logo on one side?”
I look up. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“I found a brown purse on the floor beneath a row of lockers. I didn’t want to invade the owner’s privacy by looking inside.”
“Seriously? I’ll call her and tell her we have it.”
He turns away and starts padding down the hall, scratching himself. “It’s not here. I left it with the principal.”