I realize what she is getting at. Kenzie saw me looking at Kyle’s test paper, and she’s going to tell on me. If I did something like that to her, I would be tormented for it. But Kenzie can get away with anything.
“Please don’t do this.” I hate to beg her, but I can’t have another scandal at the school. I can’t. “I wasn’t… I mean, maybe just one or two answers, that’s it.”
She shrugs. “I know what I saw, Addie.”
Kenzie strides out of the classroom, going much faster than me with her long, slender legs. She really is just physically so obnoxiously perfect. I can’t even blame Hudson for liking her. Even though I hate her.
“Kenzie…” I am huffing and puffing to keep up with her as she walks down the hall, in the opposite direction of my next class. I’m probably going to end up being late, but I need to prioritize. “Please don’t talk to Mrs. Bennett. Please. I’ll do anything you want.”
Kenzie comes to an abrupt halt. She turns to look at me, her blue eyes flashing. “Anything?”
“Yes! Anything.”
“Fine.” She taps a finger against her teeth. Her nails are painted ice blue. “When we get to English class today, I want you to get down on your hands and knees and lick the floor.”
My mouth falls open. “Lick the floor?”
She nods. “For sixty seconds.”
I don’t even know what to say. If it were some other class… Well, I’m not sure I would do it, because, like, gross. But I definitely am not going to lick the floor in front of Mr. Bennett. God, what would he think of me?
“I’m not doing that,” I say.
“In that case…” Her eyes twinkle. “I guess Mrs. Bennett and I are going to have a little talk.”
“Please, Kenzie,” I whimper. “I made a terrible mistake. I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m not a bad person.”
“That,” Kenzie says, “is debatable.”
With those words, she turns away from me, practically smacking me in the face with her long blond hair. Why does Kenzie hate me so much? I never did anything to her. And it doesn’t seem like she would do this because of Mr. Tuttle. It must have something to do with Hudson.
Is it possible Hudson told her our secret?
If that’s true, I have even worse problems than Mrs. Bennett finding out that I cheated on the trigonometry midterm.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Thirty-Two
ADDIE
WHILE I AM SITTING in Mr. Bennett’s English class （not licking the floor, even though Kenzie keeps shooting me pointed looks）， a student enters the room with a folded piece of paper in her hand, interrupting Mr. Bennett right in the middle of discussing a Robert Frost poem. When he raises his eyebrows, the student says, “I have a note for Adeline Severson.”
Mr. Bennett takes the note. He opens it up and reads the contents, and his lips turn down. For a moment, his brown eyes meet mine. “Thank you,” he says to the student. “I’ll make sure she gets it.”
I’ve never wished for superpowers before, but right now, I would give anything for X-ray vision to let me see what was on that piece of paper. But Mr. Bennett puts it down on his desk, and he goes right back to discussing Robert Frost. As if I could concentrate on how nothing gold can stay right now.
Sure enough, as soon as the bell rings, Mr. Bennett cocks his finger at me. I trudge over to his desk, and he holds out the note to me. I can’t stop my hands from shaking slightly as I read the contents:
Adeline,
Please come to my classroom immediately after your last period.
Eve Bennett
Oh no. I can’t believe Kenzie told her so quickly.
“What’s that all about?” Mr. Bennett asks me, although his voice is gentle. There’s a tiny crease between his eyebrows.
“I have no idea,” I lie.
Mr. Bennett doesn’t look like he believes me, but he doesn’t push me further. “If you have any problems, you know you can tell me, right?”
His offer is so nice, I almost burst into tears. But the worst part is that if he knew what I did—that I copied off another student—he would be so disappointed in me. I wouldn’t want to get his help for that reason alone. Then again, Mrs. Bennett is his wife. There’s no confidentiality here, and if she thinks I did something wrong, she’ll tell him all about it. She’ll tell everyone.
“I’m fine,” I say. It’s another lie, but whatever.
Mr. Bennett’s eyes are on my back as I walk out of the room. I try to tell myself that this could be about something else. The ominous note does not necessarily mean that Mrs. Bennett knows I was copying Kyle’s paper. Maybe she just wants to help me with some tutoring suggestions. But then why would she ask to see me “immediately” and have another student send me a note?