I cough. “Pardon?”
“The rule we set up for testing new members. The member who opposes the proposed new initiate has to go head-to-head with her in a series of dares. If you win, Laurel’s out. But if Laurel wins, she’s officially a part of the Lying Game. For good.”
A siren shrieks in the distance. The neighbors’ sprinklers kick on with a steady hissing sound. “That’s not in the rules,” I say in disbelief.
“Oh yeah?” Madeline cocks her hip again, then pushes open my front door. “Let’s go have a look at the handbook.”
I shove past her and sweep inside. “Great. Let’s.”
I lead them inside and up the wide-planked staircase to my bedroom. As I slam the door, I catch sight of the Scooby-Doo stuffed animal Thayer won for me at the fair last year propped up on my bed. I get a pang, remembering the day it happened, but then I push it down deep. I had a great date with Garrett tonight . . . and Thayer’s with someone named Mary. Maybe we’re both moving on.
I pull the handbook from a locked drawer in my desk. It’s an oversized scrapbook filled with scribbled notes, clips from any news mentions of successful pranks, receipts, props . . . basically a Lying Game Greatest Hits and how-to collection. The back pages of the book are computer printouts of our rules and minutes. Some pages are wrinkled and stained with age, like the ones detailing the original rules, but as I flip through, newer pages show clauses we’ve added over the years: like not messing with anything super-valuable, for one, like Char’s dad’s Ferrari, or not pranking on birthdays. I still have to fight back the urge each time one rolls around.
On the very bottom of the very last page, I find it: scrawled in red ink in Charlotte’s handwriting, almost like an afterthought, is the Sudden Death Clause. And it reads exactly like Madeline said it did, word for word.
“I don’t remember this at all,” I say, suspicion bubbling inside me. “When did you write this?”
“I don’t remember,” Charlotte answers. She points at the book. “But since it’s there, it’s gospel.”
It seems like they’re trying to hold in a giggle. My stomach lurches. There’s no way the Sudden Death Clause is legit. My friends wrote it here when I wasn’t looking—or maybe wasn’t around. Perhaps they were in the house with Laurel earlier tonight while I was out, and they hatched this plan then. I can just picture them sitting around Laurel’s room, giggling about their brand-new Sudden Death Rule, Charlotte running in here and writing it into the book as quickly as she could. Who knew how they got my lockbox open, but Laurel probably had a solution for that; I’ve caught her snooping around my room hundreds of times.
I clench my hands into tight fists. I’ve never felt so betrayed. Mads and Char are supposed to be my best friends, not Laurel’s. Do they now prefer her, too, just like everyone else does?
Suddenly, tears rush to my eyes, and I have to blink to hold them back. Madeline glances at Charlotte, giving her a worried look, almost like she realizes they’ve gone too far. But the last thing I want is for my friends to see me crying—or to know they’ve hurt me. It’s kind of like how I handled Thayer: be strong, carry on, move on. Thayer can’t bring me down, and they can’t, either.
I straighten up. I’ll honor this stupid Sudden Death Clause—if I don’t, I’ll look like a wuss and a coward. And I’ll win. There’s no way I’m going to let my baby sister beat me.
“Get Laurel,” I growl.
Madeline scampers from the bed, knocking Scooby to the floor in the process. I hear a knock at Laurel’s bedroom door, and then a split second later, my sister appears in my doorway, her honey-blonde hair perfectly straightened and her eyes bright with expertly applied makeup. It’s like she did herself up knowing this moment was coming. Once again, I feel a bolt of betrayal, as sharp and acidic as lemon juice in a wound.
She looks at me cautiously for a moment. I give her a steely stare. “I’ve decided to indulge your silly little whim,” I say primly. “We’ll go head-to-head on some challenges, even though it’s a really stupid idea. You’re going to lose.”
“Yes!” Laurel chirps. She turns to Mads and Char. “So what’s our first challenge? Something in town? Something at school?”
Charlotte laughs. “Oh, we’re not doing this in Tucson,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. “As Sutton always says, the Lying Game has standards. Sudden Death is not just an ordinary prank war.”
“So what are you saying?” I ask impatiently. Personally, I would like Sudden Death to be ordinary. The sooner we get this ridiculousness over with—and the sooner Laurel is ousted from the Lying Game, once and for all—the better.
Charlotte grins knowingly. “I think we all need a change of scenery.”
I consider this. “Road trip?”