Lynch asks Asad if he can borrow his phone. Then he nods curtly in my direction. “Follow me.”

He doesn’t say a word all the way to the front office. He doesn’t even acknowledge me until we get to Principal D’s door, where Kenzie sits on a folding chair. How did they already know?

Kenzie smiles at me, except it isn’t a real smile, just loathing concealed behind upturned lips. Mr. Lynch tells me to wait while he goes into the office, leaving me with Kenzie and her dishonest smile.

I want to yell at her. I want to tell her she’s the wicked witch, not me.

Instead, in true girl fashion, I grin back.

We sit there with our dueling smiles until Lynch pokes his head out and beckons to Kenzie. Behind the door, Lynch’s muffled voice rises, and I hear a thud like maybe he’s dropped a book on a table. He exits, red-faced with that forehead vein bulging in full force. He stomps off as Mr. D yells for me to come in.

Inside, I catch a glimpse of my face on Asad’s phone on Mr. D’s desk. His eyes look tired when they catch mine.

“I’d like to give you a chance to tell your side of things, Ava.”

Kenzie uncrosses and recrosses her legs three times waiting for me to speak.

“Well, Asad got the text first. I know Kenzie sent—”

Mr. D cuts me off, shaking his head. “No, Ava. I’m not talking about this.” He holds up the phone. “We will get to the bottom of who did this, but Kenzie has assured us she was not involved in this prank.”

Prank? Like she short-sheeted my bed at camp? She blasted my deepest fears to everyone in the one place that even came close to feeling like home again.

This was no prank. This was pure hatred funneled into action.

Mr. D sits, folds his arms on his desk, and turns to me again. “What we are talking about is the trouble you’ve been having in drama.”

“The trouble you’ve been causing in drama,” Kenzie clarifies.

Mr. D stares at me. Kenzie smirks. This isn’t a fact-finding mission about Kenzie’s bullying, it’s an ambush—on me.

“I haven’t done anything,” I say.

“Not even steal school property?” Mr. D asks.

I blink, confused. “No, of course not.”

He leans back in his chair.

“Not even theater tickets?”

Oh. I swallow hard. “I took them, yes, but—”

“I told you,” Kenzie says, smiling.

Mr. D shakes his head. “Ava, we can’t tolerate that kind of behavior. Theft. Bullying. None of it.”

“I haven’t bullied anyone.” In what bizarro world am I the bully?

Kenzie laughs again, her hatred once again wrapped up in a merry disguise.

“You dropped a massive curtain on my head.”