Four Truths and a Lie Read online

  I know a lot about basketball. I play all summer at my friend Ryan’s house, although we cheat a little and lower the hoop so we can practice dunking. You probably can’t dunk yet. Sorry you got conned into playing basketball. You should try to switch to soccer—that’s what I play. It’s pretty fun.

  Hit me back.

  Number Seventeen

  How lame. He doesn’t even have any big, juicy secrets. Well, that settles it. I’m definitely not telling him mine. Not that I would anyway. After the big debacle at my old school, no one is going to find out the real reason I’m here.

  The second letter says this:

  Number Seventeen,

  Welcome to FOUR TRUTHS AND A LIE. Over the next few weeks, I will be sending you five declarative statements. Four of these statements are true, and one is a lie. It will be your job to figure out which is which.

  Statement Number One:

  MISS CARDANELLI IS DATING MR. LANG.

  You have until Monday to figure it out. If you choose not to participate in this game, you are destined for darkness.

  Good luck.

  What is it with people here and this game? I look around the room to see if this is some kind of joke. Like, part of the documentary or something, where the teachers are trying to see how bad they can freak the students out. But everyone is reading their letters with interest, and no one else seems weirded out by them. Crissa’s even got a little smile on her face as she reads hers. Figures. She’s probably happy she has someone to flirt with, since she had such a bad breakup. She catches me looking at her, gives me a snotty look, and then folds her paper up carefully.

  Of course I’d get the only psycho at Brookline Academy for Boys.

  “You’re lucky,” Amber says later at lunch when I’m done filling her in about my crazy letter. “At least it’s interesting. My pen pal sent me a very long letter about himself.” She pulls it out of her book and clears her throat. “Listen to this. ‘Dear Secret Pen Pal, My name is Stu. Actually that is not my real name, it is the nickname I am using for this exercise, since I have always wanted to be called Stuart. I am in the eighth grade at Brookline Academy for Boys. I like to play chess, and my dog’s name is Muggles.’” She throws the paper down in disgust. “It goes on for three pages. I mean, hello. BOR-ING.” She takes a bite of pudding from the little paper cup in front of her.

  “At least it’s not crazy,” I say, picking up her letter. “He sounds nice.”

  “It’s semicrazy,” she says. “He ends it by saying I have pretty handwriting. I think it was his idea of letter flirting or something.”

  “Amber! You have to give him a chance.”

  “Why?” she asks. “I don’t see you giving your guy a chance.”

  “My guy doesn’t want to flirt with me,” I say. “He just wants to freak me out.” Although it is kind of cute. And mysterious. Amber’s right, I could have a pen pal who writes me super long boring letters (snooze.) And he seemed perfectly normal in the first letter. Maybe I should be thankful that my pen pal has a little spark to him.

  “He wants to entertain you and be creative,” Amber says. “Now, that is pretty cool.”

  “Do you think they’re really dating?” I ask Amber. “Mr. Lang and Miss Cardanelli?”

  “Well, did you ever stop to wonder how Miss Cardanelli got those letters to us so quick? Obviously they’re meeting up somewhere to do the exchange.”

  “I wonder what he looks like,” I say.

  “Your pen pal?” Amber asks.

  “No!” Although the thought did cross my mind. Not that it matters, since, you know, we’re never going to meet. “Mr. Lang. I wonder if he and Miss Cardanelli are in love.” True-to-life romance! I love it. “Maybe you could write a book about them.” Amber looks skeptical. “Why not?” I ask. “You’re on newspaper, and you’re always scribbling in your journal.”

  “Writing in a journal is a lot different from writing a novel, Scarlett,” she says. But before she can say anything else, a shadow falls across the table. I look up to see a very tall, very mean-looking girl standing over us. It takes me a second to realize it’s the girl from basketball, the one who whispered to me before we started our suicides.

  “Are you seriously going to eat that?” she asks, looking down at my plate. There’s a blue keychain dangling from her backpack that says “Andrea” in swirly letters.

  “Why?” I ask, horrified. “What’s wrong with it?” Maybe she found out about some sort of weird thing going on in the kitchen. Or maybe there’s mad cow disease going around here. I saw that on the news once, about how mad cow disease can live in your body for, like, twenty years.

  “Um, it’s red meat?” She gives me a look like I’m totally stupid.

  “Ohhh,” I say. “Are you a vegetarian?” I almost became a vegetarian once. After I learned about the mad cow disease. Maybe this Andrea from basketball is some kind of animal-rights activist. I practice looking interested and concerned.

  “No,” she says. “I just don’t eat things that will make me slow during practice. But I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re going to be riding the pine the whole time.”

  She trounces off, her bookbag bouncing against her back.

  “Wow,” Amber says. “What was that about?”

  “She’s on my basketball team,” I explain. “And I guess I’m supposed to be like, on a training diet or something. Although I’m not sure what riding the pine means.”

  “I think it means that you’re not going to be playing at all,” Amber reports.

  “Great.” I sigh and pull a french fry through my ketchup. I glance around to make sure Andrea’s not lurking around somewhere, and then pop it into my mouth. “It’s so weird, they all seem to be taking it so seriously, and I have no idea why. When I signed up, it seemed like they were desperate for players.”

  Amber frowns. “Basketball is the most competitive sport here. The team takes itself really seriously—they’ve been undefeated for, like, five years.”

  “So then why are they so desperate for members?”

  “Because they’re so tough—no one wants to join, because the girls that are already on the team are supergood and super cliquey. And the coach works them to death.”

  “Ugh.” I drag another french fry through the ketchup. It’s probably full of bad fats and things that are going to make me a horrible athlete. Am I going to have to become vegan or something? That definitely does not sound like fun.

  “So what are you going to do?” Amber finally asks.

  “I guess just try to do the best I can in practice. It’s definitely too late to switch into something else.”

  “No.” Amber holds up the letter. “I mean about this.” She takes a closer look. “‘You have until Monday to figure it out,’” she recites. “Well, that one’s easy enough. Just ask Miss Cardanelli if she has a boyfriend.”

  “Oh, right,” I say. “How could I do that? ‘Hi, I got a strange letter and I need to know if you’re with Mr. Lang, otherwise darkness will befall me or something.’”

  “There are ways,” Amber says. “I’m sure we can figure out something.” She drains the last of her milk. “You wanna get out of here? We could go work on our math in the library.”

  “Sure,” I say, but the wheels in my head are turning. Amber’s right. I mean, asking Miss Cardanelli if she has a boyfriend wouldn’t hurt anything, right? And it will give me something to keep my mind off of everything that’s going on at home. Besides, I definitely don’t want to come to some sort of bad end. I smile. It is kind of cute, what my pen pal’s doing. That decided, I pick up my tray and follow Amber toward the trash can. As I do, one of my fries bounces off the tray and onto the floor. Yikes. I hope that’s not some kind of sign.

  The next morning, I get called down to the headmistress’s office before class. Getting called down to the headmistress’s office is never good. Either something horrible has happened, or you’re in deep, deep trouble. To make matters even worse, Crissa was the o
ne who told me I had to go down there. Apparently she’s a runner for the main office, which means she goes down one morning a week to run messages from the office to students. She showed up at our door this morning with a big grin on her face. She knocked on our door (yes, the door to her own room! She was totally doing that just to seem important) and said, “Rise and shine, Scarlett!”

  I’d been up until two in the morning doing homework, and even then I didn’t get all of it finished. I was hoping I’d be able to work a little bit more on my math this morning, but it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get a chance, now that I’m wanted in the office.

  When I get there, the secretary, Jill, ushers me into the headmistress’s office. The headmistress looks up from the papers she’s going over, and gestures at me to take a seat at one of the chairs in front of her desk. Jill sets a glass of water down for me on the table next to my chair and then slips back out the door.

  Wait a minute. Maybe I’m not in trouble at all. Maybe this is just one of those I want to make sure you’re doing okay in your new school, Scarlett, since I’m friends with your mother kind of things. And then I’ll be all, “Well, there’s a little problem with Crissa Bacon” and Headmistress O’Neal will be all, “Well, she’s probably threatened by your good looks and your obvious ability to adapt to any social situation.” And then—

  “Scarlett, I know this must be a very big transition for you, moving from your old school to an environment that you’re not used to,” Headmistress O’Neal is saying. It’s kind of scary, her being behind that big desk like that. Very regal, with her gray suit and wire-rimmed spectacles and a big, important-looking painting hanging on the wall behind her. Some kind of abstract art.

  “It is,” I say, nodding and putting a sad look on my face. She’s obviously setting it up to tell me what a fab job I’m doing here.

  “And that’s why I’m going to go easy on you,” she says. Go easy on me? What is she talking about? She leans back in her swivel chair, removes her glasses, and sighs. “Scarlett, here at Brookline we keep the focus on academics. Do you know what I mean by that?”

  “Not really,” I say. I want to ask her if she thinks Crissa being so mean to me makes me able to really focus on my academics, but I realize now’s not the time.

  “What I mean is, we try to make sure the girls don’t get distracted from their studies by frivolous things.” She raises her eyebrows at me. They’re perfectly plucked. I wonder if it would be inappropriate to ask her where she gets them done. My mom’s coming to visit soon, and I could definitely use a trip to the salon.

  “Right,” I say, not sure what this has to do with me.

  “Scarlett, we’ve had some reports of you …” she trails off. “Well, let me see.” She picks up a sheet of paper sitting on the desk in front of her, and slides her glasses back onto her nose. “For example, it says here you shared your shampoo with someone the other day? In the shower?”

  “Right,” I say. “Someone on the other side of the shower forgot their shampoo, and asked if they could borrow it, so I threw mine over.” I’m in trouble for sharing my shampoo? No wonder people at this place aren’t so friendly. They get in trouble for being nice.

  “Which is great,” she says. “Except your shampoo was something that cost at least sixty dollars a bottle.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I say. “Maybe like thirty. Although I’m not really sure; my mom buys it for me.” I don’t mention that maybe after this thing with my dad plays out, I might not be able to have that thirty-dollar shampoo anymore anyway. I’m sure she’s aware of my financial situation.

  “And,” Headmistress O’Neal says, looking back down at her sheet. “It seems like you’ve also been giving some of the students here makeovers?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Well, we’ve had a complaint from a student that these makeovers are very distracting. That students are coming in to class all made up, and causing quite a stir.” A complaint from a student? She’s got to be kidding me. Since when does a little eye shadow equal distraction? And then I remember the look on Crissa’s face when she realized I’d made over Rachel. Of course she would complain about it. She doesn’t want me having anything that’s going to help me make friends.

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it a stir exactly, it’s more like a little ripple of interest.” I pull on the bottom of my uniform nervously. Please don’t ask me to stop, please don’t ask me to stop, please don’t—

  “Scarlett, I’m going to have to ask you to stop with the makeovers.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “But my decision’s final.”

  In English, I write back to Number Seventeen.

  Dear Number Seventeen,

  I think you might be a little mental. (Of course, my judgment could be clouded by the fact that I just got in trouble for giving people makeovers here, and so I’m kind of in a “glass is half empty” kind of mood, but probably not.) However, my friend Amber (are we allowed to use names, even for our friends?) thinks that it’s kind of cute and charming what you are doing. She’s not really the best judge, since she got a very ridiculous letter from her pen pal, which was full of boringness. So I’m going to go along with your little game.

  But like I said, I would still like the record to show that I think you are crazy. Which is fine. I’m used to being the sane one in my interpersonal relationships. I will mail you back on Monday with anything I’ve discovered about Miss Cardanelli and Mr. Lang.

  In the meantime, would you like to tell me anything else about yourself? I’m surprised you don’t have that many secrets.

  I have lots.

  Talk to you soon,

  Number Seventeen

  P.S. I think you should tell your friend the

  truth about his shirt.

  Before basketball practice that day, I realize that Juicy tracksuits should definitely not be used for running. They get way too sweaty. They’re more for airplane rides or, like, has-been celebrities who are going to be photographed by the paparazzi.

  But I don’t have anything else to wear. Amber’s at newspaper, so I can’t borrow anything from her, and I don’t really feel comfortable enough with anyone else here to ask them to borrow their clothes. I’m rummaging through my drawer, hoping that something appropriate will appear, even though the chances of that are zero. It’s like when you’re hungry and there’s no food in the house, but you keep staring into the refrigerator for, like, half an hour before you resign yourself to ordering Chinese.

  Crissa’s on her bed, talking on her cell to someone. Sounds like maybe to her old roommate, Marissa. They talk on the phone a lot. And text. Crissa has a special ringtone for her and everything. I weigh the options—interacting with Crissa, or getting in trouble with Coach Crazy.

  “Um, Crissa?” I ask sweetly. “Is there any way you’d let me borrow some of your clothes?”

  “My clothes?” she asks, throwing her head back and laughing. “Why would you want to borrow something of mine?”

  “I need them for basketball,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes. “Second drawer.” She turns immediately back to her conversation, something about how she hopes next year she gets to pick her own roommate.

  I open her drawer, which is filled with brightly colored T-shirts and shorts, all folded neatly and sorted by colors. Hmm. I select a pink T-shirt and a pair of black cotton shorts. I push them into my bag, and sprint over to the gym. Everyone is dressed and ready. Except for me. “Nice of you to join us, Northon,” Coach Crazy says. “Extra suicides since you’re late.” Great.

  “It’s just something I overheard Miss Cardanelli saying today,” Amber says. We’re in the newspaper office after dinner. I’m doing my math homework, and Amber’s working on a story about school lunches for the paper. Why are there always stories in the paper about school lunches? There should totally be a gossip column. But when I brought this idea up to Amber, she said they tried that once, but Crissa�
��s mom and the board shut it down because it distracted from the academics. Figures.

  “What was she saying?” I ask, wondering if it has anything to do with my English grade. We haven’t had any real English assignments, but maybe I’m getting behind anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Well, this morning I was in here before school, because we had this story I wanted to finish up, and Miss Cardanelli was there, because she’s the advisor, right?”

  “Right.” I definitely should have joined newspaper. Much better. Sitting in a nice office at a nice computer all day, instead of spending your afternoons running around practically killing yourself. I feel like my legs are going to fall off. After Coach made me run extra suicides, I had to do the mile run with everyone else, and then shooting drills until I felt like my arms were two strands of spaghetti. To add insult to injury, Coach kept saying, “Northon, keep your arms up!” and “Northon, that’s not the way to hustle!” And “Northon, you’re not in elementary school anymore!” Every time she’d shout something, I’d get more and more nervous, and I’d drop the ball. And the girl who yelled at me at lunch the other day, Andrea Rice, kept slamming into me when I’d go and try to take a shot, and then Rory or Nikki would jump in the air and yell, “THAT’S DEFENSE, BABY!” I don’t understand. Defense against your own team? Why do we play against each other in practice? That makes no sense whatsoever.

  “So I’m sitting here at the computer,” Amber says, “and Miss Cardanelli gets a call on her cell phone, and she goes, ‘Excuse me, Amber, I have to take this’ and I said no problem, even though teachers are totally not supposed to have cell phones in front of the students, much less be taking calls on them during school hours.”

  “They’re not?”