"This cannot be happening," Massie Block whispered to her best friend, Alicia Rivera, in the girl's bathroom during first period. She checked her hair in her mirror, flipping open her new phone, then closing it again. "I mean, she didn't even fall for my joke!"
Alicia nodded sympathetically. "I know, I know. Who does she think she is?"
Massie sniffled a bit, hoping Alicia would show even more sympathy. She loved attention. She ruled most of OCD, and was envied by her classmates, so how could this have happened?
"Do you think she's laughing at me right now?" Massie knew it wasn't possible for a girl to gossip about her and get away with it, but she still wondered whether or not the new girl was spreading rumors about her. "What's her name, anyway?"
Alicia flipped through the text messages in her phone. "Lucy Vahn, a transfer from the Upper East Side of Manhattan." She was reading straight from a recent message.
Oh, great, so she's glamorous, too? Massie blinked, knowing that if she said that aloud, it would show that she was weak, and she was not weak.
"Don't worry, Massie," Alicia smiled. "That Lucy girl is such a LBR."
Maybe she was a Loser Beyond Repair? Except she had a sharp tongue and was quick-witted. Her clothes were fresh, possibly even more crisp and chic than Massie's. But besides that, Lucy was from Manhattan. Massie shuddered. Everyone knew that girls from Manhattan always had boyfriends, clothes, money, and attitude.
"Why did she transfer?" Massie forced herself to pull out of her misery. This was ridiculously embarrassing.
"Um, I'm not too sure…" Alicia looked at her phone again, but she received no messages from her sources. "Probably because she was involved in some kind of scandal."
Somebody's been watching too much Gossip Girl, Massie thought.
With a shrug, Massie pulled a bag of sour gummies from her purse and popped one into her mouth, a habit that she had acquired from her new BFF, Claire Lyons, a.k.a. the newest member of the Pretty Committee.
At that moment, Massie's three other friends scurried into the bathroom, all holding boxes of tissues. Dylan Marvil jammed the door so no one could open it, while Kristen Gregory began to fuss with Massie.
"Ohmigod, guys, we're in the secret bathroom, it doesn't matter!" Massie said, laughing at her friend's efforts.
"Oh, Massie!" Dylan showered her friend with tissues, laughing. "We came as soon as I convinced Kristen to get her lazy butt up here!"
Claire laughed loudly.
"What happened, Kristen?" Massie was irritated that one of her friends would hesitate to come assist her.
"I was worried about missing the history quiz, so…"
"So?" Massie snapped.
"So…'mgonnabebusted!"
"What?" Alicia snorted.
"She had to fake a note to get out of class," Dylan explained calmly.
Massie rolled her eyes. Kristen was always worried about grades because she went to OCD on scholarship, and wasn't as rich as she let on.
"Anyway," Dylan said loudly. "Let's get down to the business of you, Massie! What do you all think of the new girl?"
Claire shifted uneasily in her seat on the counter of the bathroom. "I don't think she's that bad…"
"Of course she is!" Alicia cried. "She embarrassed Massie!"
"Wait…" Claire paused. "How long have you been up here?"
Massie didn't plan on answering Claire's dumb, nosy question, so Alicia did it for her. "Since school started. As far as the teachers are concerned, they think we're, like, at home or something."
"Seriously?" Kristen asked, having recovered from her worries.
"Yup," Alicia smiled proudly. "So we can stay up here all day! It'll be like our very own tree fort!"
Massie rolled her eyes, but laughed anyway. "We weren't prepared for this, Alicia."
"Exactly," She smiled. "Which is why I sent for my butler to send us some goodies!" She pulled a bag from her tote and revealed stacks of candy, bags of popcorn and chips, and a soda.
"How did you carry all this up here?" Claire laughed.
"I didn't!" Alicia exclaimed proudly. "My butler helped! Oh, wait!" She pulled out a 500 thread count blanket and spread it on the floor.
The secret bathroom was the perfect new place for the Pretty Committee to meet up because nobody knew about it. Even the staff had forgotten. After Massie hired a crew to fix it up, it would probably look pretty good. But for now, the floors were slightly dusty, and it only had one working toilet and one working sink. Already, the plans for the new interior design were helping Massie forget the problem of the new girl, Lucy Vahn.
"Are those Uggs, Kristen?" She pointed to her friend's feet. "You know, I bet if the new girl sees those she'll, like, spit in your face or something."
Kristen blushed. Massie was aware of her friend's financial situation, but she could at least buy some decent stuff with whatever spending money she had.
"Maybe we should stop calling her new girl," Claire piped up. She had been quietly munching on the sours that Alicia had put out on the blanket when she decided to give some input.
"Why?" Massie challenged. Leave it to Claire to get all soft on people who attacked her friends.
"Because…because what if she's actually a nice person?"
The four other girls gaped at her and were silent until Dylan spoke: "Seriously? She totally dissed Massie this morning!"
"Yes, but…"
"Enough!" Massie said. "Before we start arguing, we need to plan our revenge on this girl…Lucy Vahn." She glared pointedly at Claire as she spoke the name. "Now…what do you think we should do?"
Massie noticed Claire shrinking away from the group, and suddenly had a wonderful idea. "How about we make this a contest?"
"Ohmigod, I love contests!" Alicia squealed with glee.
Massie smiled grimly. "We all submit an idea for what revenge we should give Lucy, and then I'll pick a person's name out of a hat, and we'll go with whatever idea that person has!"
The girls stared at Massie, smiling. She knew that all minds were whirling to find the best idea already, if only to win Massie's favor. "Oh, and the winner gets…two pairs of DKNY jeans!"
Massie smiled to herself upon seeing the shocked expressions of Kristen and Claire. Alicia and Dylan only yawned to themselves at this challenge, because they could buy expensive new jeans any time, but not those two.
It didn't matter, though, because Alicia wanted to come out on top, and Dylan wanted to prove that she was just as capable as anyone else of her plotting abilities.
"You ladies have one week," Massie added conspiratorially, before putting a finger to her lips to indicate secrecy and popping a sour in her mouth.
This was going to be perfect, just perfect.
And the best part about it?
Lucy Vahn had no idea.