“I don’t know. I think she might be like Iago, she just likes evil for its own sake. It’s fun for her, messing with people and destroying their dreams.”

But when I look up, Grimshaw is smiling broadly at me.

“What?” I ask.

“That question that you asked your mom at the end almost made it all worth it,” she said. “That was classic Serena.” She throws back her head and laughs. “Promise me that your grades will never get so good that you stop being yourself, okay?” She’s looking at the bank of windows right above the front doors of the high school. For the longest time, it was Mr. Van’s office. Now it’s hers. Grimshaw shakes her head. “I will always love your mom, but … wow.”

“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I don’t think she used to be like that.”

“Yeah,” Grimshaw says. “We definitely should have started playing this game earlier.”

“Well, we didn’t know we were going to be good at it.”

“Time to find a new game,” she says.

“Maybe we should just do it anyway. The dance team. Just go ahead and do it. Do it out of Monique’s. What can they say?”

“No,” she says. “What killed me was how nice she was.” Rack pulls up in front of us. “Once they’re nice to you like that, you’re dead.”

eight

NO MIKE, NO DANCE TEAM, now we’re just high school girls with no future but plenty to think about in the present. When tomorrow dies, you still have today. Be a cheerleader, have friends, laugh, drink, be normal. It’s not so bad. I’d do it, too, if I were her.

For homecoming, the Rockets are playing the Minnechaug Cougars, the only other undefeated team in the conference. Minnechaug is just like Colchis and Linerville and Bavaria, only smaller and grimier. For the first time in eighteen years, there’s going to be a homecoming parade through the middle of Colchis, and each class has to build a float. Somebody will be king and somebody queen. None of this will happen democratically. When the football team started to win, Rack basically assumed command of the high school. When Rack and Angel pick us up at the cemetery every morning, it’s getting cold enough that I have to do my homework wearing gloves. Rack decides to build the senior float down in Scot’s hot-rod shop, which he never rented out. Rack wants to dub Scot the Official Realtor of Homecoming, but Scot says no thanks. It’ll look bad, him being married to the principal. We can use a garage he owns, about two blocks from the high school. Grimshaw’s brothers offer us the use of their flatbed.