Dangerously Alice

Chapter One: Labels I had to hear it from Pamela. But then, the fact that she told me, and that she wasn't going back, sort of put a seal on our friendship. Ours was the real McCoy. So I couldn't figure out what was bothering me most: that Liz and I hadn't been invited or that our old gang was breaking up. She told us about it on our ride to school that Monday. And to make things worse, we were riding the bus -- one of the last places you want to be when you're a junior. Seniors would walk to school in snow up to their knees before they'd be seen on a bus. But Pam and Liz and I don't have cars of our own, and there was no one that morning to drive us. We sat close together on the back seat. "This is the second time they've done it," Pamela went on as we listened uncomfortably. "Very hush-hush. The rule is that no one can speak. You can't move a deck chair or make any kind of noise, but you can do...well...almost anything else in or out of the water." She laughed. "And everyone's naked?" Liz asked. "In the pool, yes." I couldn't help smiling a little -- partly remembering the skinny-dipping we'd done at Camp Overlook two summers ago and partly thinking how Mark Stedmeister's parents were pretty strict about alcohol and drugs at their swimming pool, but completely oblivious to the fact that Mark and some of his friends were having midnight swims in the nude. It was too painful to ask Pamela outright why Liz and I hadn't been invited, too scary to think that Pamela was being pulled away while we were being left behind. So I took the mature route and said, "Well, it sounds fun to me, Pam. Why do you say you're not going back?" "For one thing, when you know you weren't invited the first time around, you can't help but feel that your invitation is borderline," she said. "But afterward -- when we put on our clothes and drove to the soccer field so they could smoke and drink and talk -- it was nothing but a big, malicious gossip fest. Boy, Jill and Karen...Brian, too...can rip into somebody faster than a tank of piranhas. Just mention a name -- any name of anyone in the whole school -- and in a matter of seconds, he's totaled. And you get the feeling everyone's expected to take a bite." "I didn't think guys did that," said Liz. "I always knew that Jill and Karen were into it big-time -- who's in, who's out -- but I'm surprised that the guys are interested." "Hey, they're interested inJill-- her body, anyway. And Karen, now that she's practically Jill's twin -- hair, clothes, makeup, nails -- parrots whatever Jill says. Whatever turns girls on turns guys on, you know that," Pamela said. "So how did you get invited?" Liz asked. "And what did they say aboutus?" Pamela just shrugged it off as though it wasn't important, but we weren't letting her off that easily. "I'd overheard Jill and Karen talking about the 'Silent Party,' or 'SP,' as they call it," Pamela explained. "I was nervy enough to ask what it was, so Karen described it for me -- probably wanting to see if I was shocked. And when I wasn't, she asked if I wanted to come. I said 'Sure,' and asked if you guys were going to be there. She made this sort of face and looked at Jill, and Jill shook her head and said 'No.' And then she added, 'DD.' And they both laughed and walked off." I tried to think what DD could possibly stand for. Dried dandruff? Dead as a doornail? Liz and I looked at each other, clueless. "They speak in acronyms these days," Pamela went on. "When Jill and Justin and Mark and Brian and Keeno and Karen and some of Brian's other friends get together, they've got the whole student body divided up into groups, and each group has a label." "Oh, every school does that," I said. "Walk in any high school, and they'll point out the Geeks, the Goths, the Nerds, the Brains, the Jocks, the -- " "That's not the kind I'm talking about," said Pamela. "Jill and Company divide the kids into theNaylor, Phyllis Reynolds is the author of 'Dangerously Alice' with ISBN 9780689870958 and ISBN 0689870957.