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me another disgusted noise and a
bonus eye-roll. “Never mind. I wanted to talk to you, too. About
some stuff I don’t want to talk about here.” This last was said
with a meaningful look.
    “Oh. Well, ok. I guess so.”
    She flashed that freakishly charming smile at
me. I could feel the corners of my own mouth want to turn up. I
wondered if it was another Talent or if she was just born with the
dose of charisma the Charm Angel forgot to give me. Though I had
been heretofore convinced that my lack was a genetic defect
inherited from my dad—and not much missed.
    “Great! So meet me in front after school—same
place I was yesterday, and my mom will pick us up, ok?”
    “I…I should probably go home,” I hedged. “My
mom’s expecting me…” The subject of me going to a friend’s house
instead of walking straight home had never come up before. I wasn’t
sure how that worked.
    “Oh, you can call her from my house. And if
it’s a problem, my mom will just drive you home. But it won’t be,
’cause your mom likes me, and wants you to spend more time with
me.”
    The fact that that was probably true made me
scowl darkly at her.
    “So you’ll come, right? Because I really want
us to talk.”
    “Yeah, I’ll come,” but only because a
chance to talk some sense into you was what I wanted in the first
place.
    “Yay!” And then she hugged me.
    Geez.

    * * *

    Joss

    There was a lot of pink in Kat’s room. Bright
pink, bright aqua, bright yellow. You get the idea. All matching
white furniture on a wood floor scattered with more bright rugs.
Thanks to my little sister, I could recognize Hello Kitty and
friends when I saw them, but I had no idea who the hunky guys on
the walls were. I was really behind on current popular culture.
    Kat had me sitting in a giant hot pink and
chrome chair that resembled a satellite dish but made me feel sort
of like my ass was perched in King Kong’s palm. Or possibly it was
the collection of stuffed animals on the bed that made me feel
threatened.
    I had already called my mom from the comfort
of the Dawson’s spacious living room. It seemed like practically
every room in the house got a dose of her mom’s affection for
porcelain dolls and figurines. They were all staring at me and
creeping me out. But anyway, like Kat had said, mom sounded happy
about me spending time over here. “Of course it’s ok for you go to
a friend’s house, Jocelyn. Just be home by dinnertime. Do you need
me to pick you up later?”
    Of course, she says, like we do this all the
time. Like Dad wouldn’t flip if he even found out I had a
friend.
    Do I? Have a friend? Kong’s hold was
tightening.
    Kat breezed into the room with a bowl of
chips in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other. There was a
small stack of plastic cups lying alongside the cookies and a
2-liter of diet cola dangling from between two fingers. I gave her
the are you nuts? look she deserved.
    “I could have helped, if I’d known you were
provisioning yourself for the winter.”
    Kat laughed. “The others should be here
pretty soon.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Matt’s dropping Maddy, Elizabeth, and
Heather off, but they had to go do something else first, I don’t
know. I think Heather has a thing for Matt maybe, but I’m not sure.
Do you drink diet?”
    “Whatever. I thought we were going to talk
about your problem with Marco.”
    “Yeah, we are.”
    “Because, I still don’t think you understand
how serious this is. He knows what you can do.”
    “I know, Joss. I was there too.”
    “He’s blackmailing you!”
    “Again, thanks for the recap. Marco is attempting to blackmail me.”
    I dropped my face into my hands. “And I’m attempting to clue you in on how bad that is. I told you not
to get on his bad side, that you didn’t want him to notice you. But
you just—”
    “I know, I know, you told me so. Noted. Now,
moving on, here’s the thing about Marco: he’s a bully.” She dropped
the statement with the