That could not happen. Ever since Ali rescued her from oblivion, Hanna had vowed to never, ever be a loser again.
Hanna took a deep breath. “Sorry, Skidz,” she heard herself saying in a taunting and high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like her own. “I shouldn’t get too close. Germs and all.” She smirked.
Mike’s lips parted. His skin paled as if he’d seen a ghost—the Ghost of Bitchiness Past, maybe. Hanna whirled around and faced Naomi, Kate, Riley, and Courtney. See? she wanted to scream. She could make sacrifices. She deserved to be part of their group.
Naomi stood and brushed muffin crumbs from her hands. “Sorry, Han, you may be Skidz-free, but you’re still a freak.” She re-knotted her Love Quotes silk scarf around her neck and beckoned the rest of the girls to follow. Riley fell in line behind her, then Kate.
Courtney remained at the table for a moment longer, her blue eyes glued to Hanna. “Your hair looks really pretty like that,” she finally said.
Hanna touched her hair self-consciously. It looked the same as it usually did, blown out straight and styled with a dollop of Bumble & Bumble finishing serum. She thought again of that drawing Iris had done of Courtney on the attic wall, Courtney’s eyes huge and haunting. A shiver ran up her spine. “Uh, thanks,” she murmured cautiously.
Courtney held her gaze for a few minutes more, a weird smile on her lips. “You’re welcome,” she said. Then she slung her purse over her shoulder and followed the others down the hall.
7
NOEL KAHN, ROSEWOOD WELCOME WAGON
A few hours later, Aria trudged into study hall, her third period of the day. It was held in a health classroom, which was adorned with posters describing the various symptoms of STDs, the havoc illegal drugs can wreak on your body, and what happens to your skin if you habitually smoke. There was also a heavy, waxy yellow blob at the back of the room that was supposed to represent what a pound of fat looked like in your body, and a long poster illustrating the various changes a fetus undergoes while in the womb. Meredith, Aria’s pseudo-stepmother, was twenty-five weeks pregnant, and according to the Health chart, the fetus was about the size of a rutabaga. Fun!
Aria took a long sip of coffee from her thermal mug. She still ordered coffee beans from the little dive near where they’d lived in Reykjavík, Iceland. It cost a fortune just in shipping, but Starbucks didn’t cut it anymore. Aria sat down as more students swarmed in. She heard a clunk nearby and looked up.
“Hey.” Noel plopped into a seat across the aisle. Aria was surprised to see him—though Noel was technically in Aria’s study hall, he usually spent the period in the school’s weight room. “How are you doing?” he asked, his eyes wide.
Aria shrugged noncommittally, taking another hearty swig of coffee. She had a feeling she knew what Noel wanted to talk about. Everyone wanted to talk to her about it today.
“Have you talked to…you know, Courtney?” His lips twitched as he said the name.
Aria bit her thumbnail. “I talked to her a little. But hopefully I don’t ever have to again.”
Noel looked startled.
“What?” Aria snapped.
“It’s just…” Noel trailed off, fiddling with one of the Absolut bottle–shaped key rings on his backpack. “I thought you’d want to get to know her, being that she’s Ali’s sister and all.”
Aria turned away, staring at a brightly colored food pyramid display across the room. Her father, Byron, had said the same thing at dinner the previous night—that reaching out to Ali’s long-lost sister might help Aria heal from Ali’s death. Aria was pretty sure her mother, Ella, would say that, too, though she’d been avoiding her mom these days. Whenever she called Ella, she always ran the risk of getting her sleazy boyfriend, Xavier, instead.
The whole Courtney thing weirded Aria out: Courtney standing there at the podium, waving to the crowd. The DiLaurentises hiding her away for years without telling a soul. The press salivating at their every word. In the midst of the circus, Aria had glanced at Jason DiLaurentis. He had nodded along with everything his mom said, his eyes glazed like he’d been brainwashed. All remains of the burning crush Aria had on Jason vanished in an instant. He and his family were more messed up than she’d ever imagined.
Aria opened her bio book to a random page and pretended to read a passage on photosynthesis. Noel’s eyes were on her, waiting. “It feels weird to be around her,” she answered finally without looking up. “It brings back a lot of memories of Ali’s disappearance and death.”
Noel leaned forward, making the old wooden desk creak. “But Courtney went through that, too. Maybe it would be good for you guys to deal with it together. I know you’re not into the group therapy thing, but talking with her could help.”
Aria pinched the bridge of her nose. If anything, she needed group therapy to deal with Courtney’s arrival.
A scuffle at the front of the room made her look up. Kids started to whisper. When Mrs. Ives, the study hall monitor, stepped away from the door, Aria’s heart sank. Standing there was Courtney herself.
Mrs. Ives pointed Courtney to the only empty desk in the room, which was—of course—right next to Aria. Everyone in the class stared as Courtney started down the aisle, her hips swaying, her long blond hair swinging. Phi Templeton even snapped a quick picture of Courtney with her BlackBerry. “She looks just like Ali,” Imogen Smith hissed.
Courtney noticed Aria and brightened. “Hi! It’s nice to see a friendly face.”
“H-hey,” Aria stammered. She had a feeling the expression on her face right now couldn’t be categorized as friendly.
Courtney slid into the seat, slung her shiny reddish-pink tote over the chair, and removed a spiral-bound notebook and a purple pen from the front pocket. Courtney DiLaurentis was written across the front of the notebook in bubbly letters. Even her handwriting was identical to Ali’s.
Bile rose in Aria’s throat. She could not handle this. Ali was dead.
Noel twisted around and gave Courtney a huge smile. “I’m Noel.” He extended his hand, and Courtney shook it. “Is this your first day?” he added as if he didn’t know.
“Uh-huh.” Courtney pretended to wipe sweat from her brow. “This place is crazy. I’ve never been to a school where so many classrooms are in barns!”
That’s because you’ve never been to a real school, Aria thought, stabbing her mechanical pencil into a small indent in her desk.
Noel nodded enthusiastically, his face lit up like a Vegas slot machine. “Yeah, this place used to be a farm back in the day. At least the livestock aren’t still here!”
Courtney tittered as if this was the funniest thing in the world. She angled her body ever so slightly toward Noel. Ali used to do the exact same thing with boys she liked—it was her way of marking her territory. Was it intentional? Some weird twin connection? Aria waited for Noel to tell Courtney that he and Aria were dating, but all he did was give Aria a righteous look. See? his expression said. Courtney’s not that bad.
All of a sudden, a flood of bitter memories rushed back, fresh and sharp. In seventh grade, Aria told Ali that she had a crush on Noel. Ali assured her that she’d talk to him to see if he liked her back. But once she did, Ali told her, “Something kind of…weird happened at Noel’s house. I told him about you, and he said he likes you as a friend. And then he said he likes me. And I think I like him back. But I won’t go out with him if you don’t want me to.”
Aria had felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest and chopped into a billion pieces. “Um, okay,” she said quickly. What could she say? It wasn’t like she could compete with Ali.
Ali had gone on two dates with Noel—the first to see a chick movie of her choosing, the second to the King James Mall, where Noel waited patiently for hours while Ali tried on practically everything in Saks. Then, out of the blue, Ali broke up with Noel because she liked someone else—someone older. It must have been Ian.
And now history seemed to be repeating itself. Would Noel’s feelings for Ali resurface now that her doppelgänger was here?
Courtney and Noel were still joking about the journalism barn, which contained a hayloft and a pig trough from the days of yore. Aria cleared her throat loudly. “Um, Noel, I had some thoughts about the Valentine’s Day dance,” she said. “Were you thinking about wearing a tux or a suit?”
Noel blinked, cut off in mid-sentence. “Uh, usually guys wear suits, I think.”
“Cool,” Aria said sweetly. She kept her eyes on Courtney the whole time, making sure Courtney understood Aria’s intent. But instead of minding her business, Courtney pointed at something in Aria’s yak-fur bag on the wood floor. “Hey! You still do that?”
Aria stared into the bag. Tucked in one of the big pockets was a tangled ball of white yarn and two wooden knitting needles. She snatched her bag from the floor and pressed it protectively to her chest. You still do that? That was a strange way to word it.
“My sister told me you knit,” Courtney explained as if reading Aria’s mind. “She even showed me a mohair bra you made for her.”
“Oh.” Aria’s voice wobbled. The room suddenly smelled pungently of permanent marker and sweat. Courtney was gazing at her innocently and intently, but Aria couldn’t smile back. What else had Ali told Courtney about Aria? That she had been a kooky, friendless loser before Ali came along? That Aria had had a pathetic, teeming crush on Noel? Maybe Ali had even told her about the time they’d caught Byron and Meredith kissing in a parking lot. Ali had loved every minute of that—it was practically the only thing she talked to Aria about in the last few weeks before she disappeared.
Aria began to tremble. It was too much to sit here and pretend all of this was normal. When her Treo, which was sitting on the desk, let out a shrill chime, she nearly jumped out of her skin. A CNN news alert flashed across the screen. BILLY FORD MIGHT HAVE ALIBI.
Coffee gurgled in Aria’s stomach. When she looked up, Courtney was staring intently at the alert, too, her eyes wide and her face pale. For a split second Courtney looked as though she wanted to rip the phone out of Aria’s hands.
But in a blink, the look was gone.
8
SOME STRIPPING, NO TEASING
As Emily rushed to her Tuesday gym class, Aria caught her arm. “Look at this.” She thrust her Treo into Emily’s face.
On the screen was a recent newscast. “A critical and surprising development has arisen in the William Ford murder trial,” a reporter’s voice blared.
The camera cut to a shot of a convenience store parking lot. “A witness in Florida says he met with Mr. Ford outside this 7-Eleven on January fifteenth, the day the Pretty Little Liars discovered Mr. Ian Thomas’s dead body in Rosewood,” the voice-over explained. “The witness wishes to remain anonymous because the meeting had to do with the purchase of illegal drugs, but if investigators can corroborate the story, this alibi might be enough to exonerate Mr. Ford of Mr. Thomas’s murder.”
