Masquerade of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

Let’s go girls.”
    “Toodles,” Claire said in a snarky tone as she wiggled her fingers to dismiss them. As they strutted away Claire and I exchanged a smile. I couldn’t believe she had my back like that. Maybe her reputation preceded her.
    I then pulled out my smartphone and sent a text to Brooke: Hey, what happened to you last night? I looked up from my Motorola and caught all of them staring at me.
    “Who are you texting, new girl?” Claire probed, raising her left eyebrow . Look who’s getting into my business now, I thought.
    “Oh. Brooke. We were supposed to meet up last night, but she never showed up.”
    “Brooke Tillier? That freak?” Claire blurted.
    “Give it a rest,” said Josh.
    “Be careful; she might sleep with your dad,” Katie said, and all three girls cackled.
    “She totally hooked up with a teacher that used to work here. He lost his job because of her,” said Claire with a smug look on her face. Even though I knew what she was talking about, I acted surprised.
    “No way!”
    “Way! She’s been weird ever since. We used to be friends, but that was a long time ago. Things change.”
    “I think she’s nice. We’ve become really close,” I offered.
    “Okay, I’m officially bored with this conversation,” Claire said, then immediately changed the subject. “O…M…G…I have that essay due on Friday on the American Revolution for History class, and I haven’t even started! If I don’t finish it, I’m totally gonna fail!”
    “I can help you with that. I did an assignment on that at my old school,” I said. I didn’t want to be on Claire’s shit list, so I figured it was better to be her friend than her enemy. Besides, the closer I got to her, the closer I got to Josh.
    “Are you serious?” Claire asked, surprised.
    “Yeah, it’s no biggie.” 
    “That’s totally awesome! Hey, you should come to Angela Blaine’s party! Her parties always rock!”
    “Are you sure she won’t mind if I come?”
    “Of course not, silly; you’ll be with us.”
    “Great. I’ll be there.” Ohmigod. What did I just get myself into?
    I really wanted to talk to Brooke about what Claire had said to me that morning. I tried to defend her against Claire, but my nerves got the better of me. Besides, Claire seemed okay to me. It felt like I was stabbing Brooke in the back, but really I just wanted to get close to Josh. Brooke was my friend, and I didn’t want things to be weird between us, especially after she confided in me about what had happened between her and Claire. Only, I couldn’t reach her, and she wasn’t in English first period.
    Sitting through second period class was torture, with Mr. Harding rambling on about obtuse triangles. I kept looking at my phone, waiting for Brooke to send me a text message. At least I had the satisfaction of looking at the back of Josh’s head. If I leaned forward a little bit, I could smell the scent of his cologne.
    Geography class wasn’t any better; I couldn’t care less about the latitude and longitude of a map. Suddenly, my phone vibrated to notify me I had a new text message. It was Brooke. Finally, I thought.
    She texted: Sorry about last night. Meet me at my house after school. My address is 534 Partridge Avenue. I already had her address, but I guess she wouldn’t know that.
    I texted her back: what happened?
    She wrote back: will explain later.
    I wrote back: k, b there after school.
    I needed a way to get to her house, so I decided to ask Claire for a ride. I’d overheard her talking to Katie and Jessica about their cheerleading practice in the gym after school, so that was where I planned to be.
    When I roamed into the gym, I found Claire in the middle of a two-legged stunt. The boom of the music came to a grinding halt.
    “Are you lost?” one of the cheerleaders asked.
    “It’s okay, girls, I know her,” Claire bellowed. She jumped down and walked over to me.
    “You’re not supposed to interrupt cheerleading practice, new