21

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.

Tags: Kate Brian Private
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