could feel something bubbling up inside her like the carbonation in a bottle of soda. Girls who had actually turned their backs and scuttled away from her last week were now listening avidly to Diana's monologue, nodding as if they were part of the conversation.
"Well, I guess I'd better go - I'll meet you at eleven fifteen for lunch," Diana said.
"Where?" Cassie asked, almost panicking as Diana got up. She had just realized she'd never seen Diana - or Laurel or Melanie either - at lunch.
"Oh, in the cafeteria - the part in the rear. Behind the glass door. We call it the back room. You'll see it," Diana said. The girls around Cassie were exchanging looks of astonishment. As Diana walked away one of them spoke.
"You get to eat in the back room?" she asked enviously.
"I guess so," Cassie said absently, watching Diana.
"But..." Another look passed between the girls. "Are you in the Club?" one of them finished.
Cassie felt uncomfortable. "No... not really. I'm just friends with Diana."
A pause. Then the girls settled back, looking bewildered but impressed.
Cassie scarcely noticed. She was watching the door, and the girl who'd walked in just as Diana reached it to walk out.
Faye was looking particularly beautiful this morning too. Her black hair was wild and lustrous, her pale skin glowing. Her lips looked more sensuous than ever, emphasized by some new shade of berry-red lipstick. She was wearing a red sweater that clung to every curve.
She stopped in the doorway, blocking it, and she and Diana looked at each other.
It was a long, measuring glance, hooded golden eyes locked with green. Neither of them said anything, but the air between them almost crackled with electricity. Cassie could almost feel the two strong wills fighting for dominance there. Finally, it was Faye who moved aside, but she gestured Diana through the door with an ironic flourish that seemed more like contempt than courtesy. And as Diana passed by, Faye spoke over her shoulder, without turning to look.
"What did she say?" one of the girls asked Cassie.
"I couldn't hear it," Cassie said.
But that was a lie. She had heard. She just didn't understand. Faye had said, "Win a battle; lose the war."
At lunch, Cassie wondered how she hadn't seen the back room of the cafeteria before. She understood, though, how Diana and her friends hadn't seen her - the entrance to the back room was swamped with people. People standing around, people hoping to be invited in, or people just hanging out on the fringes. They blocked any view those seated inside might have of the cafeteria proper.
It was easy to see why this room was the favorite gathering place. There was a TV mounted on one wall, although it was too noisy to hear it. There was even a microwave and a Veryfine juice machine. Cassie was aware of stares on her back as she went in and sat down beside Diana, but today they were stares of envy.
Melanie and Laurel were there. So was Sean, the little slinking boy who'd urged her to go to the principal. So was a guy with disheveled blond hair and slightly tilted blue-green eyes - oh, God, one of the Henderson brothers. Cassie tried not to give him a look of alarm as Diana nodded at him and said, "That's Christopher Henderson - Chris, say hi; this is Cassie. You moved her white Rabbit."
The blond guy turned and stared defensively. "I never touched it. I didn't even see it, okay? I was somewhere else."
Diana and Melanie exchanged a patient look. "Chris," Diana said, "what are you talking about?"
"This chick's rabbit. I didn't take it. I'm not into little furry animals. We're all brothers, okay?"
Diana stared at him a moment, then shook her head. "Go back to your lunch, Chris. Forget it."
Chris frowned, shrugged, then turned back to Sean. "So there's this new group, Cholera, right, and they've got this new album..."
"Somebody did move my car," Cassie offered tentatively.
"He did it," Laurel said. "He just doesn't have a very good memory for reality. He knows a lot about music, though."
Sean, Cassie noticed, was a different boy in here than he'd been by the lockers. He was excessively polite, seeming eager to please, and frequently offering to get things for the girls. They treated him like a slightly annoying little brother. He and Laurel were the only juniors besides Cassie.
They'd been eating just a few minutes when a strawberry-blond head appeared in the doorway. Suzan looked cross.
"Deborah's got