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current state of excruciating pain hovered over me. Kiran was pounding a red and black steel drum with the handle end of a pair of scissors. Noelle had folded something white and ruffly over her arm. Taylor held a Dust-?Buster with grim determination, her eyes hollow and rimmed with hangover red. Natasha gripped my covers in her hands at the end of my bed--thus the goose bumps and shivers.
'What the hell are you guys doing?" I whimpered, squeezing my eyes closed. The banging, mercifully, had stopped. I pressed both palms into my forehead to keep my brain from gouging its way out.
“It's chore time, new girl,” Noelle said.
As my brow screwed up in confusion, I felt another shock wave of pain through my temples. “What?”
She grabbed both my wrists and yanked me up into a seated position. My head exploded and I was seized by an overwhelming urge to heave. As I gasped for breath, sweating and praying that I wouldn't puke in front of everyone, Noelle slipped her frilly something over my head, then tied it behind my back. When I was able to open my eyes again, I was wearing a white French maid--style apron over my pajamas. Pinned to the left strap was a big red button that read NEED help? just ask! my name IS GLASS-?licker.
I groaned. It was about all I could summon the energy to do.
'You didn't think you were done, did you?“ Kiran asked. Her highlighted hair was piled atop her head and her dark skin shone against the white silk of her robe as if it had been polished. The girl had imbibed more than anyone last night and yet this morning she looked gorgeous enough to be photographed. ”No, no, no, no, no. Why did you think we let you in here? Now we have access to you
22
twenty- four seven. And that means that you get to do whatever we ask you to do twenty-?four seven. That is how it works, isn't it?" she asked with mock seriousness, looking around at her friends.
“Well, yes. I believe it is,” Ariana said, her light southern accent softening the betrayal of her words.
They had to be kidding me. They were really going to drag me out of bed in the middle of my first hangover to work? After everything I had done for them just to get in here, there was still more? I had thought this proving-?myself thing was over. That I was officially one of them. Apparently the torture was just beginning.
Suddenly I felt hollow inside, which, on top of the excruciating head pain and the gut-?clenching nausea, was not fun. But what was I going to do? Say no? Yeah, right. I'd be back in Bradwell and at Sophomore-?Nothing status before you could say, “Suck it.”
“Here,” Taylor said, shoving the Dust-?Buster at me. Her hangover had aged her normally nubile and chipper self at least ten years. “I haven't dusted under my bed since I've been here. It's starting to affect my sinuses.”
Dumbly, I took the contraption from her and held it against my chest, petrified of what might happen if I moved again. The detachment of my head from my body seemed likely.
“And when you're done with that you can make all the beds,” Noelle said. “And vacuum the halls before breakfast. The real vacuum is in the hall supply closet.”
I stared up at them, my temples throbbing, hoping they would all laugh and tell me it was just a joke. They gazed back at me with impatience.
23
“You're serious,” I croaked.
Noelle scrunched her nose, waving her hand in front of it. “I suggest you Listerine first,” she said. “I don't want your toxic breath stinking up my room.”
“Glass-?licker, huh? Still?” one of the nameless girls asked, tilting her head. “Don't you think we should change the nickname
to something more apropos? Like Glass-?cleaner?”
“Or Glass-?scrubber,” Taylor suggested.
“Glass-?wiper?” Natasha added.
Noelle narrowed her eyes, considering. “Nah. They just don't have the same ring. She's Glass-?licker all the way.”
I flinched as she patted my shoulder. Hard.
“Let's go, ladies,” Noelle sang.
Together they all traipsed out. Everyone but Natasha, who dropped my sheets on the floor and stepped on them with her bare feet on her way to our shared bathroom. I wanted to get up. I did. But between the pain in my skull, the churning in my belly, and the dryness in my throat, it didn't seem physically possible.
“Oh, and if you don't get it all done before breakfast, you'll be taking a toothbrush to the toilets tonight,” Noelle said, pausing by the door. “Your toothbrush.”
“I'm up!” I said, standing straight. Instantly the entire room caved in around me, crushing my cranium. I closed my eyes against a new wave of nausea.