Rhymes With Witches Read Online Free PDF Page B

spooky fingers, which she swatted away.
    â€œI did, and they are,” she said. “Do you swear?”
    This was so like Alicia, to warn me away from something—saying it was for my own good—and then want that very thing if there was a chance it might really come through. Would I take Alicia, if given the opportunity? Would she take me if the situationwere reversed? It sounded so stupid,
you have to take me with you.
As if it were a prison break.
    â€œOh my god,” Alicia said, and I realized I’d taken too long with my answer.
    â€œI swear, I swear,” I said.
    â€œI’m leaving. You’ve given me a headache.”
    â€œSorry,” I said.
    â€œYeah?” she said. “You should be.”

    Didn’t see the Bitches in the hall. Didn’t see the Bitches in the bathroom. Didn’t see the Bitches in the library, where I ate lunch in order to avoid pissy Alicia.
    I did, however, see Camilla Jones. Camilla was a freshman, like me and Alicia, although she often forgot to act like it. She read battered textbooks on post-modernism, for example, and she used words like “socio-economic” even when teachers weren’t around. Today she wore a dusty rose leotard and a wrap-around skirt, and she’d secured her bun with serviceable brown bobby pins. She always wore her hair in a bun, because she was really serious about ballet. Ballet and weird literature theory shit, those were Camilla’s things.
    Looking at Camilla, what occurred to me was,
Huh. She’s not obsessed with the Bitches.
This was a new thought, and I tested it in my mind to see if it held up. At lunch, Camilla usually sat with the drama kids, although she invariably kept her nose buried in oneof her books. Did she get all twittery when the Bitches entered the cafeteria? I didn’t think so. I didn’t think Camilla got twittery, period. And I couldn’t remember her ever complimenting one of the Bitches or getting tongue-tied around them or gazing at them surreptitiously from across the room.
    No. I was sure she didn’t. Which meant that Rae was a big juicy freak, as of course I’d known all along.
    I crumpled my granola bar wrapper and stood up. I walked over to Camilla’s carrel.
    â€œHey,” I said. I didn’t really know why.
    She lifted her head. She seemed surprised that anyone was talking to her.
    â€œUm … what are you reading?” I asked.
    She flipped her book so I could see. It was called
Artifacts of Popular Culture
.
    â€œHuh. Is it any good?”
    â€œIt’s all right,” she said. She paused, then added, “Did you know that Barbie dolls can grasp wine glasses, but not pens?”
    â€œPens? You mean, like to write with?”
    â€œAnd Astronaut Barbie’s spacesuit is pink, with puffed sleeves.”
    Her disgust was apparent, so instead of saying, “Well, that’s to make her look cute,” I kind of laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s definitely what I’d wear if I were an astronaut. Well … see you!”
    I left, and my brain spun back to the Bitches. Maybe Camillawas impervious to their charms, but I wasn’t, especially after they’d lavished me with one-on-one attention. Why had they treated me that way only to leave me in the cold?
    See?
I told myself.
It was a joke. They were stringing you along for their own amusement, and now they’re done. What were you thinking—that your life was honestly going to change?
    Then I came back with,
But who said anything about hanging out together at school? Not Keisha. Not Bitsy. Not Mary Bryan. Maybe the hanging-out part comes later, after you pass the test.
    And then my stomach got spazzy and I had a panic attack right there in the hall. Kyle’s party was only a day away, and what if the Bitches didn’t arrive to pick me up? What if they
did
?
    During my humanities elective on early religions, as Lurl the Pearl tried to explain