Do you have any idea what fifty-year-old-bald-guy-with-a-beer-belly spit tastes like?

Well, let's hope you never find out. To make sure that happens, stay as far away from Pillar High School as you possibly can. Like, vacate most of northeastern America if possible. Just a warning: if Principal Arnold Showalter finds you, it's already too late.

Principal Showalter was busy introducing me to the taste of his saliva. No, we were not making out. You guys are incredibly sick, sick people. Instead, he was yelling at me. Showalter spat. A lot. And every time I was unfortunate and stupid enough to try and refute any of what he was saying, he would ruthlessly cut me off, and fifty-year-old-bald-guy saliva found its nasty way onto my taste buds.

"An unprovoked attack on a fellow student on your first day-"

"Oh, no, sir, I hit her first," the blond told him.

I blinked in surprise. A confession of guilt from a face-slapping mutant she-witch? Not what I'd seen in my horoscope this morning.

The wind went out of Showalter's sails and he stared at the girl. Good. I'd been concerned about the poor geezer having the apocalyptic conniption and dying of heart failure. He looked like his parents hailed from an eggplant farm. I idly wondered if he was a plant-human recombinant life form.

Yes, I actually think about stuff like that.

"You don't need to worry about it, sir," the girl went on, smiling a pretty smile. Was she actually twirling one those burnished gold curls around her fingers? I thought I might gag. How cutesy could one five-foot-nine teenage girl get without going overboard? If I kept watching this, I'd fall into a sugar coma and die. She was still talking. "I'm sure me and the new girl can work it out between ourselves."

"My name's Alyssa," I informed her archly. "Not 'new girl.'"

"Pleased, I'm sure."

Who said that these days?

"Lily... well, if you think it's best," Showalter said.

Whoa.

Somehow, Blondie and I found our way out of the Principal's cramped little office and in the now-deserted hallway of the main school building. Not so much as a stray locker slammed. We were totally alone. There weren't even any teachers clearing the halls of stragglers.

I waited for her to hit me again. Instead, she turned her huge, doe-brown eyes on me and grinned disarmingly. I frowned. What was her game, anyway?

"I'm Lily Whitmoor. You must be Alyssa Carde."

I nodded.

"You just made the biggest mistake of your life," Lily practically sang out. "And bitch, you are so dead."

And she walked away.