"Massie," Derrick began.
"Derrick," she said through gritted teeth.
He flinched. So she wasn't calling him Derrington. All right, then. "Would you stop being so obsessed with me?" Derrington asked innocently.
"Would you take your head out of your ass long enough to realized I'm not obsessed with you?" Massie snapped.
"This is exactly why I broke up with you," Derrick said softly. His tone was menacing, almost. But Massie glared at him, meeting his blank gaze. "You're so self-centered and appearance-obsessed."
Massie's jaw dropped. Alicia came to the rescue, snarling, "At least we act our age, not your IQ."
"I don't act like I'm hundreds of years old!" Derrick said, confused.
"But you do act like you're two years old," Massie said, regaining her composure. She thanked Alicia with her eyes.
"Wha-?" Derrick looked at them, the insult lost on him.
"Your IQ is two," Kristen said slowly, like she was talking to a retarded five-year-old.
Derrick opened his mouth when a hand came down on Massie's shoulder. "Problem, little ones?"
Skye Hamilton stood there, in all of her high school alpha glory. She was smiling at Derrick in a strange way. She looked friendly, but in a treacherous way. The smile was like the thin layer holding back the serious stretch-limo-sized verbal slap.
"Only one," Derrick managed, glancing at Massie dismissively.
Skye smiled blissfully. "Derrick? Would you do me a favor?"
"What?" Derrick looked up at her, confused. The phony smile was still plastered on her face.
"Crawl up your ass and die," Skye snapped at him, the smile disappearing. She glared.
His jaw dropped, but he said nothing.
"Why are you still here?" Massie chimed in. "Didn't you hear her?"
"Or did you think we wanted a live performance?" Kristen asked. "Because that's something my stomach and I could do without."
"Did you not hear me?" Skye demanded. "Crawl. Up. Your. Ass. And. Die."
Shocked, Derrick began to stumble backward. Skye smiled and waved. "Byeee!" she called out, the sunny smile plastered across her face once more. The Pretty Committee waved, too.
Derrick tripped over some tiny bump in the carpeting, landing with a thud in the middle of the aisle.
"Smooth move, buddy," someone shouted.
"Mr. Harrington," the dean growled. "To your seat, please."
Derrick blushed as he made his way to his seat. The entire auditorium broke out in applause, and someone else shouted, "Hey! At least that HUGE fall didn't kill you!"
Derrick slid down in his seat until he was invisible.
When he was gone, Massie asked Skye, "Why did you do that?"
"Alphas protect their own," Skye said softly.
Massie turned around to thank her, but Skye was already gone.
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"We're all in the same dorm!" Claire cried out, waving their dorm info papers around. "Look! Salir House, rooms 1337 and 1338. Third floor. All of us!"
The girls grabbed their papers. "I'm in 1337," Alicia announced.
"Us too!" Claire and Massie shouted.
"We're in 1338," Kristen and Dylan said.
"Right next door, according to Dylan's map," Kristen added. The girls high-fived like total dorks, making them all laugh.
"Let's go see our rooms," Claire said, her blue eyes glittering. She was so excited about this. There was no Todd at OCD to ruin her life: Todd had been kicked out of Briarwood because he was failing all of his classes besides Art, in which he had a C-. He was an Abner Double Day student until Headmaster Adams decided to re-admit him. And Claire was finally over Cam. He and Nikki could go on a date right in front of her, and she could care less.
Yes, life at OCD was going to be a lot sweeter.
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Salir House turned out to be a gorgeous brick building with ivy growing all over it. The porch was just wide enough to have a group of ten chairs centered around a bronze fire pit. Firewood was stacked against the wall. There were also loveseats among the chairs. Vanilla candles were placed along the railing, glowing softly and distracting the mosquitoes from the girls who would be sitting on the porch.
Wasp traps were hidden among the ivy and purple wisteria flowers. Gold hummingbird feeders hung on tall, thin black stakes, swinging gently on the breeze. The red liquid inside caught the light, glowing like an oversized ruby.
There was a tiny gold horseshoe hung on a nail over the dark wood double doors. It had "Salir House, Est. 2007" engraved on it in script. The doors had stained glass panels on their upper halves. The roof was made of tiny wood shingles. The roof slanted up until it came to the upper bit, which was large, rectangular, and flat. There were two chimneys, made of moss-covered brick, poking up on either side of this roof. Massie's eyes didn't fail to see the fire escape leading from the roof to a dorm room's window. She made a mental note of this before shoving open the front door of her new home.
The smell of cinnamon and other spices greeted her as soon as she stepped inside. It was warm and cozy here in the common room: fires blazed in the firplaces on either side, and oriental rugs, woven with intricate patterns of flowers, covered the glossy floors. Big, caramel-colored suede chairs were placed in the room, and large flatscreen TV's hung on each of the walls. There were empty photos, to eventually be filled up with pictures of the soon-to-come Salir House girls. Currently, they housed a few photos of donors to OCD.
The kitchen was in the back of the first floo, connected to the common room. It has four overs, gleaming black marble coutertops that were flecked with gold, a six-burner stove, four microwaves, and an industrial-sized refrigerator with a freezer below. The floors were tan tiles
Stairs were a foreign concept here in Salir. (A/N: rhyme unintentional, I swear! I'm not THAT cheesy.) Other than the two steps up to the porch outside, there were only elevators, with bronze doors and mirrored insides. There were numbers above the door inside. They went up from one to four. TPC's rooms were on the fourth level. The floor, Claire noted, was made of soft-looking cream colored carpet. It appeared to have been freshly vaccumed.
The halls were the same as the floor in the common room: dark, polished wood covered with blue oriental rugs with white fringe and a pretty flower pattern. The doors were made of four panels of wood, with the room numbers in gold script angling down diagonally.
1333, 1334, 1335, 1336...
Finally, room 1337. Massie smiled and took a deep breath. She hoped her new room was fabulous.
Massie threw open the door to her new room dramatically. She gasped.
The floors were bare, somewhat scratched hardwood. The walls were plain and white, and the smell of paint clung to the air. The best part of the room was the view out of the big window seats: it showed Westchester from up high, in all of its preppy perfection. She could see the park, her favorite street to shop on, and a tiny dog park where they would probably end up bringing Bean.
"Okay, we'll need a bottle of Febreeze, sixteen candles, and an area rug." Massie beamed. "We'll also need the nearest Ralph Lauren home decorating store's number, and the number of the nearest construction crew."
"Ew," Alicia said, crinkling her nose. "How are you decorating your dorm with sweaty dudes?"
"I'm not. We're joining our rooms," Massie explained. "And unless you want to install the door yourself..."
"Sweet!" Kristen pumped her fist in the air like she was doing a soccer cheer. "Now let's go see my room."
They went back out and saw the exact same thing in the room next door. There was the same view, slightly shifted to the left, and the same sucky décor. But there was a fire escape in one of the windows.
"Aw, man," Kristen moaned when she saw it. "Now if Salir catches on fire, there'll be a bunch of LBR's crowding our room to get out."
"Puh-lease," Massie said, the gears in her head turning. "What are the chances of that? Besides, it's more likely that we'll be using that to sneak in guys, or to go out for parties, or to bring in party guests."
"Sneak in guys? Mass, we're in eighth grade." Claire rolled her eyes.
"Actually, all of us but you are old enough to be ninth graders," Alicia studied Claire through squinted eyes. "Hence the difference in maturity."
Claire laughed. "I SO knew that," she said, giggling.
"Wonder who's the new girl?" Kristen asked, gesturing to a third bed in the room.
"That'd be me," a soft voice said. The voice was feminine, quiet, and had a soft French accent. "Assuming this is room 1338?"
"Yes," Massie said. "I'm Massie, and this is Alicia, Claire, Kristen, and Dylan. A and C are in my room, so you must be rooming with K and D."
"Um…yes, I believe so," the girl said. She stepped into the light. This girl had on a white short-sleeve, tie-front cropped cardigan over a strapless pink dress. She wore light pink Abercrombie flip-flops and a tiny collection of tan braided bracelets, much like Claire's old ones. "Hi, everyone. I'm Sabine DuLac."
"We know," Massie said smoothly. "We were at orientation, too. Very back row."
"Ooh, then that was you talking to the boy?" Sabine smiled. "A boyfriend of yours?"
"More like my ex," Massie said.
"So he's open, then?" Sabine's eyes went wide with hope.
"Yeah, but you do NOT wanna go there," Massie said coolly.
"Why?"
"Because Derrick is a man-whore and a jerk. He's self-centered and broke up with Massie because she didn't want to kiss him in public," Alicia snapped.
Sabine's eyes widened fearfully. "Oh, my…"
"Yeah. Don't go for him, Sabine. Just don't."
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Sabine had left shortly after that, mumbling something about wanting to go meet up with her other friends.
"So, I say we eliminate the LBR's from Salir, and make it like a sorority," Massie said firmly. "You know, a House Committee, which would be us, that has a historian, and a social chair, and a Salir House President, and all that!"
"We could do hazing rituals for the girls who want in," Alicia offered. "Like making them get things for us, making them do chores, all that stuff!"
"And host charity events to keep us off of the 'To Be Watched' list," Claire chimed in.
Massie snapped her fingers. "Genius!" She tapped away at her Palm Pilot, making notes. "Ah-proved!"
"As for the Undesirables, well, we can't kick them out ourselves, but we can make them want to leave." Massie's eyes flickered wickedly.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Alicia asked.
"Sabotage!" they all shouted.
"But first, we need to do these rooms," Massie said, rolling her eyes.
"Why?" Dylan looked at her friend. "Why not scheme then clean?"
"Because," Massie said. "Can we do our best plotting on the floor? Probably not. And this will have to be the best sabotage on earth to get these girls to leave the best dorm on campus."
"True," the girls admitted.
Massie clapped her hands. "So let's get started! Dylan power up your laptop! We're going to need a construction crew."