Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“Turkey?” he asked, referring to my sandwich.
I held it up. “Yeah, with provolone.”
It gave me great pride to proclaim I was eating a type of cheese one step up from childish American.
“My favorite,” Phillip said with a small smile.
His blue eyes were so kind behind his glasses that I couldn’t help but match his smile with one of my own as I pointed at his food. “Your lunch looks good too. I love garlic bread.”
His dark brows shot up. “Oh! Want some?”
He was already holding out a slice for me to take, and in return, I offered him the other half of my sandwich. Though he was perfectly willing to give me some of his pasta, I was too embarrassed to accept it. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself slurping spaghetti in his presence, but we did go halfsies on my chips and his brownie.
I can’t even recall what we discussed that day. Our respective schools? Our current classes? Our interest in quiz-bowl trivia? The only thing that lingers now is the warm feeling I had while sitting there with him, indulging my little crush and hoping that maybe he felt the same way about me.
From that day on, Phillip would always seek me out during lunch on tournament days, and though we became friends, I never dared to tell him that I thought he was cute or hinted that I would have liked us to move beyond that. I mean, talk about a wasted opportunity. All those unsupervised hours! We could have been making out in public school bathrooms, making out under public school bleachers, making out in public, period. But instead, we were playing adversaries. Shelby kept a tight leash on me and the rest of our team, ensuring there was no possible way I was going to cross enemy lines, and she scared me enough that I wasn’t even tempted to try to see Phillip outside of our secret lunches. There’d be other boys down the road, surely. Right then, staying on Shelby’s good side was all that mattered to me.
I didn’t care all that much about the quiz-bowl team, but I did care about keeping Shelby happy, and at the end of our season, when we were at district finals and only one team could advance on to compete at regionals, she wasn’t going to stand idly by and let fate decide for us.
“We’re going to sabotage them.”
I still remember the three of us—her minions—looking at her like she was talking complete gibberish.
“What do you mean, sabotage them?” I asked.
She looked around, worried for a second, before leveling her gaze on me. Her eyes felt like two sharp daggers. “Keep your voice down, idiot. You want us to get caught?”
Well . . . it didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world. We’d only be held responsible for attempted sabotage, not the real thing. The tournament organizers would threaten to call our parents; we’d be released from the competition, forced to take the L, and then we’d get to go home early. It kind of sounded nice when I thought about it . . .
Shelby pulled a small plastic tub of peanut butter out of her bag.
With a villainous smile, she informed us that Jake, one of the key players on Hillandale’s team, had a severe peanut allergy.
I remember gasping in horror. “You could kill him!”
“Oh, relax,” she said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Fine, if you’re too much of a pansy for that, I also brought some laxative stuff my mom uses sometimes.”
She went digging in her bag for it.
“That’s still horrible.”
“It’s just going to make him poop his pants. Big deal.”
I didn’t like any of it. Cheating was bad enough but poisoning someone! I wanted nothing to do with it.
My other teammates—Lindsey and Anika—remained silent. Shelby had tortured them into submission. They knew better than to speak up. I was too useful to her to suffer the same fate, but my insubordination that day went one step too far for her.
Shelby shoved the bottle of liquid laxative into my hand. “You’re going to do it.”
I tried to push it back to her. “No. I’m not.”
“Do it,” she bit out with venomous rage. “Or else.”
Lindsey started sniffling then, obviously scared of Shelby’s threat. “Just do it, Casey! Stop arguing with her.”
I snorted because this was all absolutely ludicrous. “Do whatever you want to me, but I’m not poisoning someone. It’s stupid.”
I crossed my arms—case closed.
Shelby’s mouth curved into a smile. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not what I’ll do to you. It’s what I’ll do to poor Lindsey here.” She dropped a hand onto Lindsey’s shoulder and squeezed. “You wouldn’t want her suffering because of you, would you?”
Diabolical.
Obviously now, as an adult, I see that Shelby was an actual psychopath in need of serious help. I should have immediately run to an authority figure and ratted her out, but I was thirteen and naive enough to think that Shelby really did hold all the power in the world.