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lunch bags.
    They were so close that Cassie could see the red stone blazing at Faye’s throat. Although she was in shadow now, if she moved they wouldn’t be able to miss her. She was trapped.
    “Did anybody follow us, Deborah?” Faye asked lazily as she rummaged through her backpack.
    The biker girl snorted. “Nobody’s stupid enough to try.”
    “Good. Because this is top secret. I don’t want you-know-who to hear anything about it,” Faye said. She took out a stenographer’s notebook with a red cover and laid it on her knee. “Now let me see, what shall we do to start this year off? I feel like something really wicked.”

Chapter 6
     
     
    “W ell, there’s Jeffrey . . .” the strawberry blond said.
    “Already begun,” Faye said, smiling. “I work fast, Suzan.”
    Suzan laughed. When she did, her extraordinary chest jiggled in a way that made Cassie certain she wasn’t wearing anything underneath her apricot-colored sweater.
    “I still don’t see the point of Jeffrey Lovejoy,” the biker girl said, scowling.
    “You don’t see the point of any guy, Deborah; that’s your problem,” said Suzan.
    “And your problem is that you can’t see the point of anything else,” Deborah retorted. “But Jeffrey’s worse than most. He’s got more teeth than brain cells.”
    “It isn’t his teeth I’m interested in,” said Faye thoughtfully. “Who are you going to start with, Suzan?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. It’s so hard to decide. There’s Mark Flemming and Brant Hegerwood and David Downey—he’s in my remedial English class, and he’s developed this killer body over the summer. And then there’s always Nick . . .”
    Deborah hooted. “Our Nick? The only way he’d look at you is if you had four wheels and a clutch.”
    “And besides, he’s taken,” Faye said, and her smile reminded Cassie of a crouching jungle cat.
    “You just said you wanted Jeffrey—”
    “They both have their uses. Get this straight, Suzan. Nick and I have an . . . arrangement. So you just back off and pick yourself a nice outsider, all right?”
    There was a moment of tension, and then the strawberry blond shrugged. “Okay, I’ll take David Downey. I didn’t really want Nick anyway. He’s an iguana.”
    Deborah looked up. “He’s my cousin!”
    “He’s still an iguana. He kissed me at the junior prom, and it was like kissing a reptile.”
    “ Can we get back to business?” Faye said. “Who’s on the hate list?”
    “Sally Waltman,” Suzan said immediately. “She already thinks because she’s class president she can stand up to us, and if you take Jeffrey, she’s going to be really mad.”
    “Sally . . .” Fay mused. “Yes, we’ll have to come up with something truly special for dear old Sally. . . . What’s wrong, Deborah?”
    Deborah had stiffened, looking up the hill toward the school entrance. “Intruder alert,” she said. “In fact, it looks like a whole delegation.”
    Cassie had seen it too, a group of guys and girls coming through the main entrance down the hill. She felt a surge of hope. Maybe while Faye and the other two were occupied with them, she herself could slip away unnoticed. Heart beating quickly, she watched the new group approach.
    A broad-shouldered boy in front, who seemed to be the leader, spoke up.
    “Look, Faye, the cafeteria’s crowded. So we’re going to eat out here—okay?” His voice started out belligerent, but it wavered toward the end, becoming more of a question than a statement.
    Faye looked up at him without haste, then smiled her slow, beautiful smile. “No,” she said, briefly and sweetly. “It isn’t okay.” Then she turned back to her lunch.
    “How come?” the boy burst out, still trying to sound tough. “You didn’t stop us last year.”
    “Last year,” Faye said, “we were only juniors . This year we’re seniors—and we’re wicked. As wicked as we wanna be.”
    Deborah and Suzan smiled.
    Frustrated, Cassie shifted her weight. So far