Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page A

and forced herself to vomit.
    Ali had walked in as Hanna was in the middle of her second heave. She’d promised Hanna her secret was safe with her, but Hanna had learned a lot about Ali between then and now. Ali kept a lot of secrets from a lot of people—and had played people against each other. Like how she’d told Hanna and the others that they’d caused The Jenna Thing when really, Jenna and Ali had orchestrated it all along. Hanna wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Ali had marched back out to the patio that day and told Kate everything.
    After a few minutes the sick feeling passed. Hanna took a deep breath, stood back up, and reached into her pocket for her BlackBerry. She opened up a new text message. You won’t believe this, she typed. My dad wants me to be the Rosewood Day Welcome Wagon for Psycho Kate. Can we do emergency mani-pedis tomorrow a.m. to discuss?
    She was halfway through scrolling down her Contacts list when she realized she had no one to send the text to. Mona had been the only person she’d gotten mani-pedis with.
    “Hanna?”
    Hanna whirled around. Her father had cracked the bathroom door open a couple inches. His eyebrows were crinkled in concern. “Are you okay?” he asked, using a gentle tone of voice Hanna hadn’t heard in so long.
    Mr. Marin stepped closer and put his hand on Hanna’s shoulder. Hanna swallowed hard, ducking her head. Back when she was in seventh grade, before her parents divorced, she and her dad had been really close. It had broken her heart when he’d left Rosewood after the divorce, and when he’d moved in with Isabel and Kate, Hanna had worried that he’d traded ugly, chubby, poop-brown-haired Hanna for pretty, skinny, perfect Kate. A few months ago, when Hanna was in the hospital after Mona hit her with her SUV, her dad had promised to be a bigger part of Hanna’s life. But in the week her dad had been here, he’d been too busy helping redecorate the house according to Isabel’s tastes—lots of velvet and tassels—to make much time for her.
    But maybe he was going to apologize for all that. Maybe he was going to apologize for dropping her cold this past fall without getting her side of the story…and for dropping Hanna for Isabel and Kate for three whole years.
    Mr. Marin patted her arm awkwardly. “Listen. This fall has been terrible for you. And I know testifying at Ian’s trial on Friday must be creating stress for you. And I realize that Kate and Isabel moving here was a little…abrupt. But Hanna, this is a huge life change for Kate. She abandoned her friends in Annapolis to move here, and you’ve barely spoken to her. You need to start treating her like family.”
    Hanna’s smile drooped. It felt like her father had conked her over the head with the mint green soap holder on the porcelain sink. Kate certainly did not need Hanna’s help, not one bit. Kate was like Ali: graceful, beautiful, the object of everyone’s attention…and incredibly manipulative.
    But as her dad lowered his chin, waiting for her to agree with him, Hanna realized there were two little words he’d left off of his last statement. Two words that were very indicative of how things were going to be around here from now on.
    Hanna needed to start treating Kate like family… or else.

3
    ARIA’S ART SCENE DEBUT
    “Oh, ew.” Aria Montgomery wrinkled her nose as her brother, Mike, dipped a piece of bread into a ceramic cauldron of molten Swiss cheese. He swirled the bread around the bowl, pulled it out, and licked up a long, gooey string of cheese that hung off the fork. “Do you have to turn everything into a sexual act?”
    Mike smirked at her and kept making out with the bread. Aria shuddered.
    Aria couldn’t believe that it was the very last day of a very weird winter break. Aria and Mike’s mother, Ella, had decided to treat them to homemade cheese fondue with the fondue set she’d found in the basement under some boxes of glass Christmas ornaments and