The Art of Being Emily - Katie MacAlister Page 0,14

life?”

“No, of course not, but I hardly see how my driving you to school is going to ostracize you from your friends.”

“I don't have any friends here, that's just the point,” I said, grabbing my purse and PDA. Mom made a hurt face, so I decided to give in. “Oh, all right, if you absolutely insist, you can drive me, but you have to let me out a couple of blocks away so no one sees me with you.”

“Thank you, Emily. You've made me feel so special.”

Mom dropped me off a block from the school. We had to wait for a bit until there was no one who could see me get out of the car, but I made it there without anyone spotting her. I toddled in to the office to check in per instructions from Brother.

“Are you Williams?” a tall, dark-haired girl came up and asked me. She wore a little hat, had the end of her tie tucked into her shirt, and carried a clipboard.

I smiled my nicest smile (the one where I look like Taylor Swift) at her. “Yep.”

“Thought so.” She eyed me from my toes to my hair, and wrinkled up her nose like she smelled something bad. “You look like an American.”

“Really?” I glanced down at myself. I wasn't wearing anything with stars and stripes.

“Yes, really. Could you have on more makeup?”

I blinked at her, totally blown away. I mean, all I said was hi, and she started jumping all over me! It was like some horrible first-day-of-school nightmare that I couldn't wake up from.

You'd be proud of me, Dru. I didn't say one mean thing to her, I just raised my chin and looked down my nose at her like she wasn't worth the trouble to talk to. Well, OK, if I'm being truthful—and you know I always am with you—I didn't say anything because I couldn't think of what to say. Which should tell you just how shocked I was.What's the matter, cat got your tongue? Oh, it's no matter, it's better if you don't talk. Follow me. I'm the prefect for the fifth form. You have to go to your form room before lessons start.”

“Whatever,” I said, trying hard to look like I didn't want to cry.

BTW, I have no idea what prefect means, unless it's “evil, bossy girl who sucked up to some teacher until she was made Official Teacher's Pet.”

“Right, pay attention Williams. I'm only going to do this once. Those are the ICT rooms,” Duff the OTP said, pointing down a hallway. “Over there is maths, history, general studies, and Latin.”

Uck. A school with Latin. Like living with Brother spouting Latin every opportunity he gets isn't enough torture?

We went up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Most of the other kids looked OK—definitely younger than me—but all of them turned around to stare when we passed. Either they'd never seen anyone wear the ghastly school uniform with such coolness or else the Duff was right, and I look somehow different. Do you think...no, never mind. If there's one thing I know, it's makeup, right? Right.

“Down there is Religious Ed and Sociology. This is Mod Lang, and to the right is the science wing.”

“Mod Lang?”

She sighed like it was such a hard thing to talk to me. “Mod Lang as in Modern Languages. This will be your form room. You're to report here every morning for registration and assembly.”

She stopped in front of the door and turned to squint her mean little eyes at me. “Gobottle School doesn't allow students to wear cosmetics, so you'd best wipe that off before the head of form sees you. She doesn't tolerate sluts in her class. Girls’ lavatory is at the end of the hall.”

Slut! I am so not a slut! I really wanted to tell her off, but figured that she had to be the school bully, and you know how school bullies are—if I ignored her, I'd show her that she was a tiny little speck of dog poop that didn't matter in the least to me.

There were about twenty others standing around in the room, mostly girls (just my luck, although I don't know why I care, they're all younger than me, and you know I don't go for younger men), so I sat down to wait and see what the routine was. In walked this tall, horsey woman—I mean, she had a long face like a horse, and her hair kind of looked like a mane—and