Tonya Hurley_Ghostgirl_03 by Lovesick Read Free Book Online

his, and almost, but not quite, grabbing for her hand. “But I don’t see any conspiracy in this. It’s just another thing we have to do to get where we need to go.”

He was sounding a whole lot like her father, which was both comforting and irritating. Right about now, it was mostly irritating. Didn’t he realize a break like this could spell death to a new relationship? To their relationship?

The Wendys were sharing a mini-rice cake outside the lunchroom and obsessing, as usual, about their waistlines and Petula.

“Did you see that Asian fusion brownie throwdown on the Food Network last night?” Wendy Anderson began. “Yum, yum.”

“No, I was switching between the National Geographic Channel and Animal Planet last night,” Wendy Thomas said. “I couldn’t believe how fat all those natives are. Their stomachs are absolutely huge.”

“It’s all those carbs we send over!” Wendy Anderson concurred. “Somebody should airlift a few crates of Ab Rollers along with the rice and powdered milk.”

“Simple substitutions like protein powder and brown rice,” Wendy Thomas offered, “would do wonders.”

“A little lean protein wouldn’t hurt, and it’s easy to get,” Wendy Anderson said, “with all those animals running around.”

They both needed a short break to savor and swallow the dried cracker.

“You know,” Wendy Thomas mentioned, “it just occurred to me that, for most of the world, Animal Planet is the Food Network.”

Just as Wendy Anderson was about to applaud her on that keen observation, Darcy sashayed up to them, interrupting their secret snackrifice to the Goal Weight Goddess. She was dressed expensively, but without a single logo blaring from her ass pocket or sleeve to blow her nouveau riche cover.

Both Wendys recoiled, pulling their heads back like threatened turtles. Darcy, The Wendys observed, had done her homework.

“You guys are The Wendys, right?” Darcy greeted. “Or is that just your circus name?”

“We don’t have an act,” Wendy Thomas shot back, clueless to the intended freak-show dis.

Darcy smirked, laughing to herself that the only thing these girls probably knew about Big Tops came from a plastic surgeon’s office.

For their part, The Wendys were less offended than intrigued by the new girl’s audacity.

“That’s us,” Wendy Anderson replied curiously, shushing Wendy Thomas. “And you are…?” Of course The Wendys knew but would never give Darcy the satisfaction of acknowledging it.

“Darcy,” the girl answered, tilting her chin up slightly and sucking in her cheeks. “Your pleasure, I’m sure.”

“What can we do for you?” Wendy Thomas asked regally.

“Sorry to disturb your lunch,” Darcy quipped, noticing the rice cake, “but I had some information about Petula that I thought you might find interesting.”

A total stranger gossiping about Petula? And using her name, no less? This was just not done. Much as the ancient Israelites were forbidden to speak the name of Yahweh, the students of Hawthorne refrained from talking about Petula in a familiar way.

The Wendys sheathed their claws momentarily because Darcy seemed to know something about Petula that they didn’t know, a rare occurrence in WendyWorld.

“Go on,” Wendy Thomas instructed tersely.

“I know someone who knows someone,” Darcy said, speaking vaguely to protect her source, The Wendys assumed. “Who heard Petula got busted in an alley downtown last night.”

“Doing?” Wendy Anderson asked, not wanting to seem out of the inner loop, but secretly dying to know.

“He didn’t say,” Darcy answered, “but I thought I should tell you first before it… you know, gets around the school.”

Darcy knew that if such information ever leaked, The Wendys would be more than a little humiliated by association. With the end of senior year approaching, their legacies were at stake.

“How considerate of you,” Wendy Thomas said flatly, her eyes squinting Darcy into