“Well, I don’t care what Peter says,” Beth began, and then stopped, realizing she sounded just like Tracy Sturgess. “I … I mean we don’t really go out every day. Just sometimes.” Then she had an idea. “You could go with us sometime if you want to.” Peggy said nothing, but her face blushed pink, and Beth belatedly remembered what Peter had told her. “Uncle Phillip wouldn’t fire Peter,” she blurted out. “Really he wouldn’t.”
The red in Peggy’s face deepened, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Why don’t you just go away?” she demanded. “We were having fun until you showed up!”
“But we’re supposed to be friends,” Beth protested. “You’re supposed to be my best friend!”
“That was when you lived on Cherry Street. You were just like us then. But now you live up on the hill. Why don’t you be friends with Tracy Sturgess?”
“I hate Tracy!” Beth shot back, on the verge of tears herself now. “I hate her, and she hates me! And I’m not any different than I ever was! It’s not fair, Peggy! It’s just not fair!”
Rachel Masin, looking from Peggy to Beth, then back to Peggy, suddenly stooped down and picked up her lager. “I gotta go home, Peggy,” she said hurriedly. “My—” She searched around for an excuse, and seized on the first one that came to mind. “My mom says I have to baby-sit my little brother.” Without waiting for either of the other girls to reply, she ran off down the street and around the corner.
“Now look what you did,” Peggy said, glowering at Beth. “We were having a good time till you came along.”
“But I didn’t do anything. How come you don’t like me anymore?”
Peggy hesitated for a moment, then planted her fists on her hips, and stared at Beth.
Beth stared right back.
The two girls stood perfectly still, their eyes fixed on each other, each of them determined not to be the first to blink. But after thirty seconds that seemed like ten minutes, Beth felt her eyes beginning to sting.
“You’re gonna blink,” Peggy said, seeing the strain in Beth’s face.
“No I’m not!”
“You are too. And if you do, you owe me a Coke. That’s the rules.”
Beth renewed her concentration, but the harder she tried not to blink, the more impossible it became. Finally giving up, she closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her fists.
“You owe me a Coke,” Peggy crowed. “Come on—you can ride me down to the drugstore.”
The spat forgotten, Peggy climbed onto the rack that was mounted over the back fender of the bike, and wobbling dangerously, Beth pedaled them away. Ten minutes later they were in their favorite booth in the rear corner of the drugstore, sipping on cherry Cokes.
“What’s it really like up there?” Peggy asked. “I mean, what’s it like living in that house? Isn’t it scary?”
Beth hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s not really scary. But you have to get used to it. The worst part is Tracy Sturgess.”
Peggy nodded wisely. “I know. Peter says she’s the meanest person he ever met.”
“She is,” Beth agreed. “And she really hates me.”
“How come?”
Beth shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she thinks Mom and I are just hicks. She’s always acting like she’s better than everybody.” Then she grinned. “But wait till next year—she’s going to be going to school right here!”
Peggy’s eyes widened in astonishment. “You mean she isn’t going back to private school?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Wow,” Peggy breathed. “Wait’ll the other kids hear about that!” Then she snickered maliciously. “And wait till the first day of school. I bet everybody cuts her dead.”
“I hope they do,” Beth said, her voice edged with bitterness. “I hope they’re all just as mean to her as she is to me.”
Peggy nodded, then sighed despondently. “But they prob’ly won’t be. They’ll prob’ly start kissing up to her just because she’s a Sturgess.” She sucked the last of the Coke through the straw, then tipped the glass up so that the crushed ice slid into her mouth. She munched on it for a minute, then looked across the table at Beth again. “Do you know what really happened to Jeff Bailey?”
Beth felt a slight chill go through her. “I—he just tripped and fell, didn’t he?”
“Search me,” Peggy replied. “But I heard my parents talking about it last night, and they kept talking about the other boy that got killed in the mill—”
“Uncle Phillip’s brother,” Beth put in.
Peggy nodded. “Anyway, my mom said that she didn’t think