Moby Clique Read Online Free Page A

Lindsay.
    “Guys, this is my kid sister, Lindsay. Lindsay—that’s Hana and Samir and Blade.”
    “Like, ohmigod, real delinquents,” Lindsay says, rubbing her hands together in glee. “ Th o, like, tell me, what did you guy th do to get th ent here?”

    “Are you sure you two are related?” Hana asks me as the two of us unpack our suitcases in the senior girls’ dorm. She’s my roommate this year, because Blade went off to room with one of her Goth friends, who’s a witch-in-training. Blade said she felt bad about abandoning me, but at the same time felt the need to stay true to her Wiccan roots. Honestly, I don’t mind. Blade’s idea of room décor is pictures of skulls and Satan. Plus, most of her “spells” smell like old gym socks.
    “I think she was switched with my real sister at birth,” I say, shaking my head.
    “You think she’s going to be okay?” Hana asks me.
    The last time we saw her was when we dropped her off at her dorm, which is next door to ours.
    “I don’t know,” I say. “I just hope she doesn’t get in trouble, which she’s prone to do, especially if she goes around asking everybody why they’re delinquents.”
    “Yeah, that’s not the sort of thing to win you friends among the criminal set,” Hana says. “And there are plenty of those types at Bard.”
    She’s right. The school mostly falls into six basic cliques: druggies, freaks, Goths, kleptos, jocks/date rapists, and white-collar criminals (the extremely rich kids). The lst group doesn’t need Bard Academy scholarships (offered up to thirty percent of the student body), and everybody knows they are the absolute worst offenders. Ironically, they also seem like the most clean cut.
    Hana, Samir, and I stay out of the cliques for the most part. Blade has her Goth friends, but we don’t usually hang with them. I wonder how Lindsay is going to fit in.
    “Miranda Tate, are you sure you’ve got the right room?” purrs the unmistakably evil voice of Parker Rodham, interrupting my thoughts. Parker is standing in our doorway looking her usual viper self, her sleek blond hair pulled up tight in a ponytail, her makeup flawless, and she’s clad from head to toe in Burberry.
    Parker, a.k.a. queen of the white-collar kids, is rumored to have poisoned her mother and nearly killed her, as well as murdered two of her ex-boyfriends in convenient “accidents.” She also happens to hate my guts for dating Ryan Kent last semester, because she’s been pining over him since he transferred to Bard.
    “Parker, what are you doing here?” I ask.
    “I was about to ask you the same question,” she says.
    Immediately, I realize my mistake. I’ve moved into her turf, not the other way around. Last year, she was in the upperclassman dorm, and I was in the underclassman dorm, and now I’ve moved up a level.
    “It looks like we’re neighbors, ” Parker’s roommate says, nodding to their room across the hall. She’s one of Parker’s clones, a girl who essentially has no identity other than to look and sound exactly like Parker.
    “You live there?” Hana asks, her face falling. She has no love for Parker, either. And she knows exactly what kind of bad news it is that Parker is living right across the hall.
    “Miranda!” I hear my sister shout in her telltale lisp. “Miranda! Where are you? Miranda!”
    Oh God. She’s found me somehow. And in front of Parker, no less. And she’s not even supposed to be in this dorm. She’ll get us both in trouble.
    “Looks like you’ve got a fan,” Parker says, and gives me a slow, calculating smile.
    Lindsay runs up to my door and nearly collides straight into Parker. “Um, tho rry,” she lisps. “I need to talk to my thithter .”
    Parker looks at Lindsay like she’s a cockroach, taking in Lindsay’s pressed pastel Polo shirt and khakis. “ This is your sister?” Parker asks me, an amused look on her face. God, this is so embarrassing. Not that I care what Parker thinks, but why