She stabbed out her cigarette on the wall behind us, dropping the butt. Then she brought her hand back down, raining her black fingernails through my hair. Little tingles scattered all up and down the nape of my neck.

She’s lavish with affection. It doesn’t mean we’re gay or anything. Kick-ass, Nine Inch Nails girls can be affectionate just like the little Blond Bitch cheerleaders are.

Speaking of the BBs, Chelsea Westad, the mayor’s daughter, head cheerleader, and all-around dingbat, was making quite the production of showing off her new car. We watched in rapture as Chelsea dragged two junior girls over to it, pointing to her vanity plate and laughing. Kori narrated the scene for me:

“Look at me! I’m clever! I have a vanity plate! Look at me.

I made a funny! Bar B. Get it? Barbie. I’m blond. I’m cool. That’s hot.”

Then Kori captures beautifully the Blond Bitches’ self-esteem-pumping ritual as it is so annoyingly played out in front of us. “Shu-tup! No, you shut up! You, shuddup. Ohmagawd, we can’t shut up! Ahhh-hahahah.”

“Can somebody shove Napoleon Dynamite up her skinny butt, please?” I muttered.

Kori flashed her wrist at me, changing the subject. “Think I should get this for real?”

She’d been drawing tattoos on her arm when I found her after school. She’s always doodling—on herself, in her notebooks. She creates some amazing things. I wish I had her creativity, but game coding is the only thing I have that resembles artistry, and if you knew the truth you’d know it was really just a bunch of code—math, syntax, logic—brainiac stuff.

“Wow, Kor, that’s amazing,” I said, taking a moment to study it. The black ink formed perfect tribal waves in a cuff bracelet. Chinese symbols dangled like charms around it. “But don’t you think it’s kind of hypocritical, since you’re anti cosmetic surgery and all?”

“I’m a vegetarian who loves cheeseburgers and a smoker who despises big business. I hate how my father tries to buy everyone’s love but would love it if he would buy me a car when I turn sixteen. What do you want from me? I’m a complicated person.”

I was too busy studying her wrist, marveling at her talent, to notice the BBs’ approach.

“Uh-oh. Here come Britney Duff and Mary-Kate-and-Ashley Simpson. I wonder what they want,” Kori said under her breath.

Marci Mancini jogged toward us, her black-and-blue cheerleader skirt flouncing. Leave it to Kismet High to have a bruise as its school colors. Chelsea followed, less enthusiastically.

“Hey, Kori, can I borrow your pen for like a millisecond-point-five?” That point-five thing is the BBs’ latest superannoying catch phrase. “I’ve got two-point-five gazillion hours of homework …” “I’ve got one-point-five boyfriends …” Surprisingly, Kori didn’t try to wing her pen at Marci’s face when she flicked it to her.