Red(11)

Everyone.

Felicity stumbled through the morning in a fog of panic. She didn’t hear a thing her teachers said about radians, Hemingway, or light refraction, and she completely botched her pop quiz about Vikings in History of Redheadedness. Every time she walked into a room, she expected to be greeted with wide eyes and horrified whispers. But class after class, nothing happened. Felicity felt as if she were in the dentist’s chair, listening to the high-pitched whine of the drill as it approached a cavity. She almost wished the actual drilling would begin, just so she would know how much pain she was up against. Right now, she could only imagine the worst.

The drill touched down just before fifth-period lunch. When Felicity opened her locker to retrieve her books for the afternoon, a second red envelope landed at her feet, and her heart leapt into her throat. She snatched up the incriminating message before anyone could see it, then locked herself in a bathroom stall so she could read the contents unobserved.

Starting right now, you will act like you want every brunette in this school to be your best friend. Fail to impress us, and everyone finds out what you really are.

Felicity swallowed hard. It would be difficult to make that look natural, but she would have to find a way to make it work. The good news was that nobody had spread her secret around yet. Sure, she was being blackmailed, but at least she had the opportunity to protect herself. The situation could be infinitely worse.

The first thing Felicity saw when she entered the cafeteria was Lorelei Griffin and a crowd of her theater friends standing menacingly around the table where Gabby, Marina, and Sayuri were sitting. That particular table was prime real estate: close to the windows and the vending machines, far from the chaos of the lunch line. “What are you doing here?” Lorelei was saying to the girls. “This is our spot. Get out.”

Gabby made a big show of inspecting the surface of the table. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see a reserved sign with your name on it.”

Lorelei’s eyes widened—nobody ever talked back to her. “Do you seriously want to mess with me? You’ve had your little joke, and now it’s time to go back where you belong before I get really pissed.”

“No thanks, we’re good here,” Marina said. “But I see a free table for you over there.” She pointed at a table near the trash cans, right under a banner proclaiming red is rad! Gabby and Sayuri snorted with laughter.

A dark cloud passed over Lorelei’s face. Then she very deliberately removed the plastic lid from her soda and tipped it off her tray, directly onto Marina’s white shirt. “Oops,” she said sweetly as Marina jumped up with a shout. “So sorry about that. But look, your shirt matches your hair now!” Lorelei’s friends laughed as ice cubes cascaded from Marina’s lap and skittered across the floor. From the far corner of the room, a copper-haired lunch monitor glanced up disinterestedly, then returned to her gossip magazine.

Felicity took a deep breath. Then, praying her blackmailer was watching, she grabbed a handful of napkins and headed straight into the fray. “Hey,” she said, dabbing at Marina’s shoulder. “Let me help you.”

Marina jerked away. “I don’t need your help.”

“Well, here. At least take these.” She put the napkins on the table, and Marina grudgingly grabbed several. As she blotted at her shirt, Felicity turned her attention to Lorelei. “What is your problem?” she hissed, making sure all three brunettes heard her. “They didn’t do anything to you.”

“They were sitting at my table. I asked them to move very politely. It’s not my fault if they’re too dumb to follow directions. Why do you care, anyway?”

Felicity bit back the “I don’t” that was forming on her lips. “You don’t have to be such a bitch about it,” she said instead.

Everyone was looking at her now, probably wondering why someone with hair as red as hers would stick up for a brunette in a fight. This could be a serious blow to her red cred, and it was time to get out while she was still ahead. She turned away quickly, face flaming, and hurried toward the table she always shared with Haylie and Ivy. Hopefully her blackmailer had seen her selfless act, and everyone else would forget about her strange behavior by the end of lunch.

But then Gabby, Marina, and Sayuri fell into step beside her, carrying their lunch trays.

“That was surprisingly decent of you,” Gabby said.

“Yeah, well, I— You’re welcome,” Felicity muttered.

They reached Felicity’s table, and Haylie looked up. “Hey, don’t you think Ivy should—” She broke off as she registered that the three brunettes weren’t just walking near Felicity, but with her. A tiny crinkle of confusion appeared between her eyebrows. “Why are you—”

“We can sit here, right?” Marina said. She looked straight at Felicity, her eyes steely. It was clearly a test, and Felicity’s stomach turned over. It was one thing to stick up for someone when she’d just had a Coke dumped on her and quite another to spend the entire lunch period with a table full of brunettes. But Marina might be her blackmailer, which meant that turning her down could have unspeakable consequences. Felicity knew what she had to do.

“There’s not really room—” Haylie started, but Felicity cut her off.

“It’s okay. We can squish.”

Haylie and Ivy both shot her perplexed looks, but she pretended not to notice. She grabbed another chair from a neighboring table and tried to get everyone seated as inconspicuously as possible.