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 a lunch detention and Faye's off doing something, so I'm eating in here,” she announced.
Diana looked up. “Fine,” she said evenly, then added, “This is my friend Cassie, Suzan. Cassie, this is Suzan Whittier.”
“Hi,” Cassie said, trying to sound casual.
There was a moment of tension. Then Suzan rolled her china-blue eyes. “Hi,” she said finally, and immediately sat down and began removing things from her lunch sack.
Cassie looked at Suzan unloading her lunch, then threw a quick glance over at Laurel. Then she looked at Diana and raised her eyebrows questioningly.
She heard the crinkle of plastic as Suzan produced the last item from her bag; then a piercing shriek from Laurel.
“Oh, my God-you're not still eating those! Do you know what's in those things, Suzan? Beef fat, lard, palm oil-and it's about fifty percent white sugar…”
Diana was biting her lip and Cassie was shaking silently, trying to keep a straight face. Finally it was too much, and she had to let the giggles escape. As soon as she did Diana burst into laughter too.
Everyone else looked at them, baffled.
Cassie smiled down at her tuna sandwich. After so many weeks of loneliness, she had found where she belonged. She was Diana's friend, Diana's adopted sister. Her place was here beside Diana.
Ten
That Friday, Kori came to the back room for lunch. She seemed in awe of the older girls and was even absently respectful of Cassie, which was nice. Certainly Suzan and Deborah had no such respect. The strawberry blond seemed unaware of Cassie's existence unless she wanted something passed to her or picked up, and the biker fixed Cassie with a surly glare whenever they passed in the hall. Deborah and Doug-the other Henderson brother-had appeared in the back room only once since Cassie started eating there, and they had spent the entire time arguing furiously about some heavy-metal band.
Neither Faye nor Nick, the dark, coldly handsome boy who'd rescued Cassie's backpack, showed up at all that week.
But Kori Henderson was nice. Now that Cassie knew, she could see the resemblance to Chris and Doug –the blond hair and the blue-green eyes that Kori emphasized by wearing a turquoise necklace and ring all the time. Kori wasn't as wild as her brothers, though. She seemed just an ordinary, friendly, going-on-fifteen girl.
“I've been waiting so long for it, I can't believe it's finally here,” she was saying at the end of lunch. “I mean, just think, next Tuesday's the day! And Dad says we can have the party down on the beach-or at least he didn't say we couldn't-and I want to make it really special, because of it being a holiday, too …” She trailed off suddenly. Cassie, following her gaze, saw that Diana had her lip caught between her teeth and was almost imperceptibly shaking her head.