The Rivals Read Online Free PDF Page B

period.
    Delaney takes one more look down the hall, then says in a low voice, “So you can probably figure that cheating—in any way, shape, or form—is one of my least favorite things.”
    I nod.
    “You can probably also figure I would want to stay as far away as I could from any accusations of cheating.”
    I wait for her to say more. I picture Amy talking to me for the first time last year and do everything I can to channel her calm and her warmth.
    “That’s why what I am going to tell you can never be associated with me in any way. I need to be far away from this.”
    “Okay,” I say. “What do you want to tell me?”
    “There is a group of students here plotting out how to methodically, systematically, and regularly use drugs to cheat this semester.”
    “Already?” I say, and it comes out as a snort and a scoff and a laugh all at once. It’s doubly ironic, considering the pledge we all just took. “But classes don’t even start till tomorrow.”
    “I know. But it’s Themis, so they’re prepared,” she says, waving her hand in the air, separating herself from the rest of the school.
    “You mean they prepped over the summer? Like summer reading?”
    “Yep. They called it summer training. They want to be ready, in top shape for the second school starts.”
    “What are they doing exactly?” I ask.
    “Prescription meds. You can guess what kind, right?”
    I nod, because I can. “So is this like a cheating ring or something?” I ask carefully.
    “Yeah. Several students already. And it’s about to be a lot more.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because of the deliberateness of it. The planning. They’re like an army, plotting how to use the meds to cheat in a very specific way,” she says, and an image flashes by of Themis students huddled together in a sort of war room, a mastermind-y general type holding a pointer, tapping a blueprint of a bunker, barking commands at some elite group—Delta Force, SEALs, that sort of thing—so they all think they’re untouchables. “And it’s every day, several times a day. Taking more, using it in different ways ,” she says, sounding out those words slowly, and I nod again, because I have a feeling I know what she’s talking about without her having to say the words snorting it.
    “Are you talking about Anderin?” I ask.
    Because it’s got to be Anderin. It’s the latest ADHD drug, the new Ritalin, the new Adderall, but better, stronger, faster. It’s like steroids for the brain. I know that plenty of college students think nothing of popping an Annie before a big test, saying it makes you perform better. My sister, Casey, who’s a senior at Williamson, has told me Annie is pretty much the rage over there. Still, there’s a difference between taking a pill every now and then before a test and taking it every day. And there’s an even bigger difference if the cheating is so premeditated. Because at the end of the day, it is what it is—an amphetamine.
    Delaney nods.
    “Who’s doing it? Can you tell me?”
    Her phone rings, the opening notes to an Arcade Fire song. She grabs it from her back pocket, looks at the screen, and says, “Crap.”
    She doesn’t answer the call, though; the song keeps playing and the vocals start. But it’s not the band’s voices I hear. It’s someone else—raspy and gravelly. It’s Delaney doing a cover of “Wake Up.”
    “You can sing,” I say, trying to mask a grin, thinking we should recruit her for our Faculty Club performance.
    “Yeah,” she says in an offhand way. “I’m in an all-girl band back home.”
    “An Arcade Fire cover band?”
    “We have our own songs too. Listen, I totally have to go,” she says, holding up the phone.
    “Wait,” I say quickly. “I need more. Can’t you tell me more?”
    “Not now. But you can start looking into it, right? Investigating it? Just don’t say the tip came from me, all right?”
    “So why are you telling me, then?”
    She gives me a look like duh.