The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney Read online

  THE SECRET IDENTITY OF DEVON DELANEY

  Lauren Barnholdt

  Tom Daly

  ALADDIN MIX

  1230 Avenue of the Americas,

  New York, NY 10020

  THE SECRET IDENTITY OF DEVON DELANEY

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN MIX

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2007 by Lauren Barnholdt

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN MIX is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Tom Daly

  The text of this book was set in Arrus.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Aladdin Mix edition April 2007

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Library of Congress Control Number 2007920235

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-3503-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-3503-7

  eISBN 978-1-439-11253-3

  For my sister, Krissi, who always wanted to stay up late reading

  Thank you so, so, much to:

  My fab agent, Nadia Cornier, who didn’t laugh when I told her I wanted to write a tween book. My editor, Molly McGuire, for taking over with such enthusiasm, and for her wonderful insight on how to make this book better. Jennifer Klonsky, for making things happen so fast, and for loving Devon as much as I do.

  My mom, for always believing I was going to be a writer. My sister, Kelsey, for making my book signings very interesting. My dad, my grandparents, and my whole extended family, for such wonderful support.

  Kiersten Loerzel, for having to deal with a few of my “secret identities” while we were growing up. Kevin Cregg, for being a wonderful friend. Robyn Schneider, for always letting me vent. Rob Kean, for putting up with my craziness on a daily basis.

  Abby McDonald and Scott Neumyer, for being wonderful IM buddies.

  And, of course, Aaron Gorvine, for being so amazing, and for letting me write most of this book at his house.

  chapter one

  Of course I’ve lied before. I mean, who hasn’t? But they were small lies. White lies. Lies that wouldn’t hurt anyone, and that no one even really knew were lies. Like when I told my friend Nicole last year at the sixth-grade dance that no one could see her underwear through her dress, even though everyone totally could, especially when the revolving lights passed over where we were standing. (By then, Nicole’s mom had already dropped us off and gone home, so unless Nicole wanted to change into her gym clothes or find someone who had an extra, non-underwear-exposing dress hanging around, there was nothing anyone could do about it.)

  Or when I tell my grandma that her spaghetti sauce is the best I’ve ever tasted, even though I like the sauce they use at Bertucci’s way better.

  Or the time my mom asked if I was feeding tuna to the cat, and I told her I wasn’t, even though I was. She couldn’t figure out why he was gaining so much weight when he was on his lean kibble, but since the vet said he’s perfectly healthy, I figured giving him tuna wasn’t a big deal.

  But like I said, these are small lies. Minuscule, even. Not life-changing. And besides, I don’t make it a point to lie all the time. Until last summer, of course, when I somehow became the biggest liar in Connecticut, creating a total made-up life that had nothing to do with my real life at all.

  My mom says that karma always comes around to get you, and I guess it’s true. Because last summer I was a total liar, and now, right here, in the middle of Mr. Pritchard’s third-period math class, my whole world is about to come crashing down. Mr. Pritchard is at the front of the classroom, and standing next to him is Lexi Cortland, which pretty much means that my life is over. Because Lexi knows I’m a liar. Actually, no, she doesn’t know I’m a liar, she’s the one I lied to, and now she’s here and it’s going to become apparent that I’m a liar because—

  “Devi!” Lexi squeals, right in the middle of Mr. Pritchard introducing her to the class.

  Mr. Pritchard looks around, and I slink down in my seat. “Oh.” Mr. Pritchard sounds surprised. “Alexis, do you know Devon Delaney?”

  “Yes!” Lexi says. “We only spent the whole summer together!”

  “Great,” says Mr. Pritchard. “Why don’t you take the seat next to her? It always helps to see a familiar face.”

  Lexi beams and makes her way down the aisle toward me. She’s wearing a silver skirt and a beaded pink tank top with a short, fitted jacket over it. Her nails match her lip gloss.

  “Devi!” Lexi says. It sounds weird having her call me that, since everyone else at school calls me Devon.

  “Hey,” I say, wondering if I should pretend I don’t know her. I could make her think she was mistaking me for someone she thought she knew, like the time I thought I saw this girl from my church in the cafeteria but it turned out it wasn’t her. And the girl was all “I’m not Beth.” And I was like, “Oh, okay, sorry.” It wasn’t a big deal. Maybe I can just pretend I’m not Devon. I practice looking confused.

  “Oh, hi.” I squint at her like I don’t know who she is.

  “Can you believe I’m here?” she says. Mr. Pritchard drones on up front, not even caring that she’s talking. Teachers always let new people get away with everything. “I wanted to tell you I was transferring, I’m so sorry I didn’t, but I thought it would be fab if it was a surprise!”

  Yeah. Really fab.

  “Mmm,” I say, still trying to pretend like I don’t know her. I figure that eventually, if I keep this up, she’ll just be like, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you Devon?” And I’ll be like, “Yes, I’m Devon, but I’ve never seen you before.” And she’ll be like, “Oh, okay, sorry, wrong Devon.” And that will be that. Although Lexi does know my last name. But I could try to keep that secret for a while. Maybe.

  “Devi, I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, grabbing my arm. “I’ve had the most horrible morning. I don’t know anyone, and I was totally afraid I’d have to sit alone at lunch. I’ve been looking for you all over, but every time I asked someone about you, they acted like they had no idea who you were.”

  “Mmm,” I say again.

  “Devi, what’s wrong with you?” she says, looking at me with wide eyes. “Are you sick or something? You’re being weird.” She takes in the jeans and pink UConn hoodie I’m wearing. When Lexi and I spent the summer together, I never wore jeans. I wore lots of skirts, lots of cute shorts, and lots of tank tops. I always had my hair perfectly straightened, and I wore tons of lip gloss. “Seriously, are you okay?” Lexi asks again, frowning. “Oh my God!” she says, her eyes brightening. “You’re wearing the bracelet!” She looks down at my wrist, and there’s the purple and gold beaded bracelet we made before I left. We went to the store together to pick out the beads and spent a whole afternoon working out the perfect color combinations before stringing them together. Lexi holds up her wrist and shows me the matching bracelet.

  So much for prete
nding to be someone else.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I’m wearing it.” I look ahead, hoping she gets the message. The message being, you know, to be quiet.

  “Oh, Devi, this is going to be such a good year!” she says. “I’m so glad I know you, I mean, how lucky am I? Knowing one of the most popular girls at my new school before I even start?” She squeals. Mr. Pritchard ignores her. What is the deal with him, anyway? Why is it teachers are always enforcing the rules when you don’t want them to? And now, when a girl who has the ability to ruin your life shows up prattling away about nonsense, they don’t? They just keep going on and on, about the value of pi.

  “So we’ll sit together at lunch, right? Thank God!” She smiles, revealing a mouthful of braces. “And I can’t wait to meet Jared!”

  Mr. Pritchard picks that moment to tell us to quiet down, and Lexi smiles and rolls her eyes at me. “Meet me outside the cafeteria before lunch,” she says, then turns and faces the front of the classroom.

  I try not to throw up. Because Lexi Cortland thinks I’m dating Jared Bentley. Jared Bentley, who is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Jared Bentley, who plays soccer but is also on the seventh-grade student council, which is totally contradictory. Jared Bentley, who doesn’t even know I’m alive.

  This whole thing is my parents’ fault. If they hadn’t gone uber-psycho and decided they needed time to work out their problems (or as my mom likes to call them, “marital challenges and roadblocks”), I never would have been sent to live with my grandmother for the summer. And I never would have met Lexi Cortland. Which means I never would have lied about Jared Bentley being my boyfriend, or that I was one of the most popular girls in my school.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad my parents stayed together. Although it is kind of annoying to see them kissing each other when I walk into the family room, or whenever they think my little sister, Katie, and I aren’t looking. But why couldn’t they have stayed together with us around? Why did they have to ship us ninety miles away for the summer?

  I spend all of my fourth-period earth science class silently cursing my parents, and when the bell rings signaling the beginning of lunch, I consider just skipping it and hanging out in the library. I could get my best friend, Melissa, to come with me. And then I can just avoid this whole thing. Until I come up with some sort of brilliant plan that will allow me to save myself, before everyone finds out I lied about Jared Bentley being my boyfriend and I get completely humiliated and become the outcast of Robert Hawk Junior High.

  I rush to the caf, hoping Melissa hasn’t bought her hot lunch yet so I can whisk her off to the library for a quick, secret conference. But as soon as I get there, Lexi Cortland screams my name from the popular kids’ table in the corner. “DEVI!” she yells, standing up and waving. “Come on! I saved you a seat!”

  Crap. Now what am I supposed to do? I can’t very well go sit at Jared Bentley’s table. That would be disastrous. I mean, Lexi thinks he’s my boyfriend, and how can I explain that one? Why and how is Lexi sitting at the popular kids’ table, anyway? It’s her first day of school! The A-list is so not that easy to penetrate.

  I ignore Lexi and walk toward the corner where Melissa is sitting.

  “Hey, Mel,” I say, grabbing her and lifting her out of her chair. Seriously, I did. Lift her, I mean. Melissa is the smallest girl in our class. Which causes certain problems because she still has to buy clothes in the kids department, and also because at the beginning of the past two school years, her teachers have expressed concern over her size and have sent her to the guidance counselor, who then calls her parents in. And Mel’s parents have to explain to them that, no, Melissa doesn’t have an eating disorder, she eats tons (she does too—one time she ate a whole Domino’s Pizza at a sleepover and was still hungry), and thank you for your concern, but no, they are not in denial, and please don’t call them down to the school anymore for this, because they have jobs and it interrupts their workday and also upsets Mel.

  “What are you doing?” Mel asks.

  “I’ll explain in a second,” I hiss, hoarding her toward the door.

  “I’m eating lunch!” she protests, her blue eyes crinkling as she frowns at me. She glances back at her lunch tray.

  “You can have mine,” I say, thrusting my brownbag lunch at her.

  “But I don’t want yours,” she protests. “I want the pizza that’s on my tray. What are you—”

  “No time to explain!” I say, moving faster. I step on Gregory Weston’s foot as I try to make my way through the throng of kids in the cafeteria.

  “Watch it!” he says.

  “Sorry,” I yell over my shoulder. I’m four feet from the door when suddenly, the jig is up.

  “Devi!” Lexi screams, grabbing my shoulder. Her perfectly manicured nails exert slight pressure into my skin. “I was looking for you! I’m sitting at your table, can you believe it? Come on, I saved you a seat.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” I say, brushing my hair away from my face and trying to shield Mel from Lexi, all the while moving us toward the door. “Mel and I are going to the library and—”

  “Oh, is this Melissa?” Lexi squeals. She jumps up and down, her wristful of bracelets jangling as she does so. “I’ve heard so much about you!”

  Melissa frowns at Lexi. “Who are you?” she asks, looking between me and Lexi, confused. The thing is, I never mentioned Lexi or the other girls I hung out with this summer to Mel. I know it sounds horrible, but I told Mel my summer consisted of Sitting around at Gram’s with my little sister, watching lots of reality TV (Dancing with the Stars was my favorite), and reading lots of books. It worked until Mel asked which books I had read, and in reality, I’d only read two books while at Gram’s, one of them a Harlequin romance I’d found behind the bed in the guest room, and which, surprisingly, made me want to read others. (Even though I had to hide the cover from my sister, Katie, by reading it under the blankets with a flashlight after she’d fallen asleep. I really didn’t think Katie should be exposed to such, um, rippling muscles. Although at one point, I was very tempted to show her, because I really couldn’t figure out if the muscles on the cover model were real or added with Photoshop. But I controlled myself.) Anyway, I couldn’t really tell Mel I had read a Harlequin, so I started making up books, and then she asked me what I’d thought about some of them because, unlike me, apparently Mel really had spent her summer reading. It was almost a problem, but I changed the subject by bringing up the fact that I’d heard Brent Madison (her crush) was going to be in advanced math this year, which was the same class Mel was in. I had to sit through half an hour of her wondering what she should do about this problem (i.e, find a seat next to him or not, because if she sat next to him, it would help her get to know him, but if she didn’t sit next to him, her grade would probably be better, and how could she risk her math grade for some guy?), but it was worth it.

  “I’m Lexi!” Lexi says now. She grabs Mel in a hug. I look around, wondering if I’m perhaps on one of those hidden-camera shows. Like Punk’d, only for noncelebrities.

  “Oh,” Mel says, hugging Lexi back hesitantly She gives her a few pats on the shoulder.

  “Come sit!” Lexi says.

  “Oh, no, we can’t,” I say, looking around nervously. “We’re on our way to the library.”

  “The library!” Lexi says, throwing her head back and laughing. The lights of the cafeteria bounce off her braces. “Don’t be silly, Devi.” Mel’s eyebrows shoot up at the use of the word “Devi.” “Come sit with me! I’m at Jared’s table.” Mel’s eyebrows shoot up even more.

  “But how did—” I start.

  “I couldn’t find you,” Lexi says, tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder. “So when I got to the cafeteria, I asked a girl where Jared Bentley was sitting, because I figured that’s where you’d be. I thought you said in math you were going to meet me outside the cafeteria at the beginning of lunch.”

  “I, uh, forgot,” I say lamely Mel’s eyes are now practic
ally bugging out of her head, and I send her a silent message not to say anything that could potentially ruin my life.

  “Come on,” Lexi says. “We’re missing lunch. And that guy is totally staring at me.” She looks in distaste at the table next to us, where Mark Gibson’s eyes are almost as big as Mel’s. You can’t blame him. Lexi is wearing a very short skirt.

  “Lexi,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I really can’t.”

  “Why not?” Lexi says, her eyes narrowing. She looks at me suspiciously. “What’s the problem?” This is the moment of truth. This is the time where I should come clean, I should tell Lexi that everything I told her this summer was completely made up, that Jared Bentley and I are not dating, that no one calls me “Devi,” and that I don’t usually look the way I did this summer.

  “Lexi, I—”

  “Alexis Cortland!” a voice booms suddenly. I turn around to see one of the guidance counselors, Mr. Boone, standing behind us. Mr. Boone is really cool. He totally saved the seventh grade a couple of weeks ago when the eighth graders tried to fix the Robert Hawk Junior High penny contest for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

  “Mr. Boone,” Lexi says sweetly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for you,” Mr. Boone says. He adjusts his navy blue striped tie. Mr. Boone is always adjusting his tie. I don’t know why. Other than the fact that maybe his tie is always loose? Or maybe he feels uncomfortable all dressed up, like the hero in one of the romance novels I read this summer. He was a carpenter (the guy in the book, not Mr. Boone) and he fell in love with this woman who had a lot of money. She was an heiress or something, and he was doing work on her house. Anyway, she took him to this huge event, kind of like a ball, and he had to wear a tuxedo, and he was very uncomfortable. Because he was used to going around shirtless all the time (to show off his rippling muscles, I think, which is why the heiress got interested in him in the first place). I imagine Mr. Boone walking around with no shirt on, and I blush.