Why is it that when you donât want to think about something, you canât stop thinking about it?
From the second I woke up, the scene Amanda had witnessed at my house yesterday kept playing over and over in my head like some kind of sick YouTube video on repeat. Iâd thought about it while I was getting dressed, while I was riding my bike to school, and even while Kelli and I stood by her locker and she tried to recap the entire plot of the Reese Witherspoon movie sheâd caught just the tail end of last night. Now I was sitting in history class, hearing not Mr. Randolph explaining the causes of World War I but my dadâs voice in my head saying the same words over and over again while I tried to figure out what, exactly, Amanda had overheard. Everything, probably. The phone rang while I was upstairs looking for my Scribble Book, and since my dad was practically screaming into the receiver by the time I got back to the kitchen, the conversation had obviously begun a while back. I mean, considering how much she and I have talked, Amanda had obviously known something was going on. She knew more than anyone else at school did. But up until yesterday she hadnât known everything. She hadnât known the worst of it. She knew about my mom, but she didnât know about the money. And now she did.
The crazy thing was, she hadnât seemed surprised. It was almost as if somehow sheâd guessed a long time ago â¦
â⦠Which is why, yes, the assassination of the Archduke is the catalyst but is not the cause per se.â Iâm usually kind of into Mr. Randolphâs class even though Iâm not exactly what youâd call a history buff. Heâs really nice and patient and he explains everything clearly, and heâs one of the only teachers at Endeavor who actually prepares you for the test heâs going to give. Still, there was no way I could concentrate on this morningâs lesson.
I shook my head and straightened up in my chair, clicking some lead out of my mechanical pencil. Perhaps if I resembled an attentive student, I would become one.
âDid you all write that down? Entangling alliances. If you remember nothing else from today, remember that.â
The board was covered in notes, but Mr. Randolph had found room to write entangling alliances in letters almost six inches high and heâd underlined âentanglingâ about fifty times. I rolled my eyes at myself as I began to copy down the crucial phrase. No doubt entangling alliances was the only thing Iâd be remembering from todayâs class. Too bad I had no idea what they were or who had them.
Just as I started writing alliances, Lexa Booker, who was sitting next to me, slid a crumpled piece of paper across my notebook. I palmed it expertlyâHeidi and I have had enough classes together that I can pretty much make a note from her disappear in a nanosecondâand finished the word, then carefully unfolded the paper.
I looked up. The desks in Mr. Randolphâs room are in a big horseshoe, and Heidi was all the way on the other side of it, but her eyes met mine and she raised her exquisitely shaped eyebrows. I nodded almost imperceptibly, grateful to have something to think about besides Amanda knowing even more about my screwed-up family than she had last week. This Saturdayâs party was going to be amazing, and the I-GirlsâKelli, Heidi, Traci, and yours truly (okay, I briefly spelled my name with an âi,â but not anymore!)âthe reigning queens of the ninth grade, were going in green. That was coolâI have a dark green fitted T-shirt, and once when we all went to the movies I wore it. Lee was there, and heâd said my eyes looked really pretty when I wore green. Thinking about Lee, I felt my face go pink, which is what happens to redheaded Irish girls when weâre embarrassed. Or scared. Or hot. Or just the slightest bit nervous or uncomfortable. Basically between twenty and a thousand times a day. âCallista Leary?â
My head shot up at the sound of my full name. Had Mr. Randolph noticed the note going around the horseshoe? Some teachers, if they catch you passing a note, make you read it out loud to the class. Not that this was such an incriminating missive, but still. Then I realized it was a womanâs voice that had said my name and Mr. Randolph wasnât even looking at me; he (along with everyone else in the room) had turned toward the door where one of the secretaries from the main office was standing.
âUm ⦠thatâs me.â Everyone was staring, and I could feel the heat spreading across my face and down my chest in a hard-core blush.