What's Your Status? (34 page)

“Madison,” Melissa said, smiling easily. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

“You too,” I said.

“Nate and I had been talking about all of us getting together soon, and now we can! We can hang out together all night!”

“Hooray,” I said faintly as she gave me a bright smile. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Melissa seemed nice. I wouldn’t have expected Nate to have dated someone who wasn’t. But I really, really didn’t want her here, attending my prom with me and Nate. There was far too much going on already.

“Have you met everyone else?” Brian asked, stepping closer to Melissa and beginning to make the introductions.

“Mad,” Kittson whispered, tipping her head to the side slightly. I let go of Nate’s hand and walked a few steps away with her. I forced myself not to look at Melissa and tried not to notice how Brian—and most of the guys—were staring at her. I tried to focus on Kittson.

“The prom voting,” she said urgently. “I don’t know how, but it’s been fixed. The codes have been corrupted, so people’s votes aren’t going to go to the right person. Any vote for Justin is going to count as a vote for
Dave,
of all people.”

“
Dave
is going to be prom king?” I asked.

“That’s not all,” she said darkly. “Any vote for me—since whoever did this was assuming, rightly, that I would win—is also counted as a vote for someone else.”

“Who?” I asked.

Kittson looked at me in silence for a long moment, then finally spoke. “You,” she said.

CHAPTER 21

Song: Jesse Buy Nothing…Go To Prom Anyways/Hellogoodbye

Quote: “Bam, said the lady!”

—Nathan Fillion

“But that makes no sense,” I whispered to Kittson as I climbed out of the limo at the Hyatt. It had not exactly been a relaxing ride. Travis and Olivia had spent the entire time sniping at each other; Schuyler and Connor appeared to be barely speaking; and Jimmy and Liz had spent the whole ride making out. Kittson had glowered at me the whole time, as though trying to determine if I would be capable of rigging a prom queen election in my favor. Nate and I had ended up squeezed in next to Melissa and Brian, and Melissa kept leaning across Brian to talk to us. Needless to say, I had been very happy when we’d finally arrived.

We’d been stuck in a limo line for fifteen minutes, and as we got out, I could see the cars stretching back as far as I could see. The limos were mostly black, but there were a few white ones and one stretch Hummer that appeared to be blocking the fire entrance. All around me, people were getting out of limos, dressed to the nines. I
saw that it was going to be easy to tell the Putnam and Hartfield prom-goers apart. The Putnam people were dressed in normal prom clothes. But the Hartfield people had clearly embraced their eighties theme—I saw neon, crimped hair, and dresses with big puffed sleeves.

As I straightened my dress, I saw the white Putnam Pizza van rumble past. Back at Dave’s house, Dave and Lisa had ridden with us down to the bottom of the driveway, then had gotten out of the limo and driven to the prom in the delivery van. I watched the van disappear around the back of the hotel, heading for the service entrance.

I walked up the steps, still trying to talk to Kittson. I glanced behind me and saw that the rest of our group was moving more slowly. Melissa was talking to Nate as Brian hovered nearby.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Kittson snapped as we reached the lobby. I looked nervously toward the desk and saw that Mr. Patrick was working, speaking on the phone and frowning at the line of high school students filing past him. I tried to see if the door behind the desk—the one that led to the safe—was open. It didn’t appear to be. The wall behind the desk looked solid, completely hiding a room behind it. So presumably, the Hello Kitty crown was very secure.

“Kittson, I didn’t do this,” I said as we stopped to wait for the rest of the group. “I don’t want to be prom queen!”

“You certainly looked happy wearing the crown,” she said sourly. “I saw the pictures on Q-pic, Mad.”

Had
everyone
seen Ginger’s pictures? “But that doesn’t mean I want to be prom queen,” I said. “I don’t. I promise.”

Kittson looked at me a moment more, then nodded. “I believe you,” she said, a little grudgingly. “But somebody wants you to be prom queen. God knows why.”

“Or they
don’t
want you to be queen,” I said. Turtell was crossing the lobby toward us, and I looked at him closely. “How jealous
was
Glen about the fact that you might dance with someone else?” I murmured.

“Not possible,” she murmured back, but didn’t sound entirely sure. As Turtell joined us, she switched into prom-chairperson mode. “I’d better go make sure everything’s set up,” she said, hustling down the hall to the Rosebud Ballroom, Turtell following behind her.

“That way?” Jimmy asked, pointing to where Kittson was heading.

“That way,” I confirmed, and Schuyler and Connor also began making their way down the hallway. “Travis,” I said as my brother stomped up the stairs, “your ballroom is that way, down a very long hallway….” Olivia stormed past us without a word and headed toward the bat mitzvah ballroom. “What’s going on?” I asked Travis.

“What’s
going on
is that Olivia just broke up with me,” Travis said, his voice quavering.

“Oh, Travis,” I said. I suddenly felt bad about all the times I’d teased him about his relationship. After all, Olivia was his first girlfriend, and he was only thirteen. “I’m so sorry.”

“Well, not as sorry as you will be,” he said. His voice wasn’t quavering anymore. It was just very cold. “I have no reason now to keep lying for you, do I? I might just call Mom and Dad and tell them you’re not coming home tonight.”

He might have only been thirteen, but he was pure evil Demon Spawn. And I never should have let myself forget it. “Travis,” I said in my calmest voice. “You don’t want to do something like that.”

“Why not?” he said. “What’s to stop me?” He headed toward the endless hallway. “Have a good prom,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad you say hi.” I watched him go, cursing once again the fact that I had been saddled with him as my brother.

“There you are,” Nate said, coming up to me and taking my hand. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to smile at him as we made our way down the hallway. I looked back and saw Brian and Melissa following behind us.

“Can you tell me why Dave and Lisa left our limo and got into a van?” Nate asked as we headed toward the Rosebud Ballroom.

I smiled at him. “Need-to-know,” I said. “I wish I could.”

“Got it,” he said. “But just so you know, I’m intrigued.”

“Oh, are you?” I asked. I couldn’t help laughing at that. If he thought the van was intriguing, I could only imagine what he would say if he knew about everything that was happening: the Plan, the crown stealing, and
the fact that someone was apparently pulling strings to make me prom queen. Which was actually really,
really
strange.

“I am,” Nate said as we rounded the corner to the entrance of the ballroom.

I stopped, stunned, staring ahead at what was in front of me. It looked like a security checkpoint had been set up at the doors that led to the sitting area outside the Rosebud Ballroom and the grand staircase that led to the Lily Ballroom. The checkpoint was a long table, with Dr. Trent, Stephanie, and the woman who I assumed was the Hartfield High equivalent of Dr. Trent sitting behind it. People were being separated by school and having their tickets and IDs checked by the school administrators before they were allowed past. As I watched, every student was given a plastic bracelet before going through the doors and to their respective proms. Hartfield students were getting red; Putnam students were getting blue.

“What’s going on?” Nate asked me.

“I have no idea,” I said. I couldn’t stop staring at the bracelets. We’d had multiple meetings about prom security with Dr. Trent, and he had never mentioned bracelets. If they were to prevent people from moving from one prom to the other—and I assumed they were—our plan was suddenly in serious jeopardy.

“Hello, Madison.” I turned and saw Isabel standing behind me. She was wearing a long gold dress, tight-fitting but with exaggerated shoulders—clearly designer eighties wear. Her dark hair was in a complicated updo on top of her head.

“Isabel,” I said flatly. She smiled at me and adjusted the shoulder bag she was clutching, and I saw that there was a scarf tied to it. I looked more closely and realized to my horror that it looked very familiar. It was my dress. She’d cut up my
dress
for an ugly purse accessory.

“Nice dress,” she said, frowning. She was clearly wondering how I’d managed to get another one—and, frankly, a better one—on such short notice. “Where’s it from?”

“The Vault,” I said.

“Let me introduce you to my date,” she said smugly. She tugged on the hand of the guy standing behind her, who turned around to face us.

“Wot? Oh, yes, quite. Ever so charmed to meet you. I’m Marcus.” I bit my lip hard to keep from smiling. It was Mark Rothmann, almost unrecognizable in a tux with a neon blue bow tie, his hair parted sharply down the middle, and a very exaggerated English accent. Mark smiled at us pleasantly.

“Hey there, good to see—” Nate started. I squeezed his hand tightly, and he stopped in midsentence. “Meet you?” he amended quickly, looking at me. I nodded as subtly as I could.

“Darling, you can tell them your whole name,” Isabel said, threading her arm through Mark’s and smiling up at him. “He’s just modest. It’s so
English
of him.”

“Oh, rather,” Mark drawled. “Well, it’s all a bit…you know. Top-drawer, wot? But the whole bit is Marcus James Selwidge Rothschild. Bit much, eh?”

“Third earl of Essex,” Isabel said with a self-
satisfied smile. “So we should actually be calling him Lord Rothschild.”

“The Honourable Marcus Rothschild, actually, luv,” Mark amended. “That’s how it goes in the
Debrett’s
, wot?”

“Oh, of course. Of course,” Isabel said quickly.

“Really.” I stared at Mark hard. We hadn’t planned any of that. Mark had been told specifically to keep his real name. Whenever Mark starting going off book, disaster inevitably followed. “Selwidge, huh?” I asked. “Wow. That doesn’t even sound like a real name at all.”

“Well, he’s
British
,” Isabel said, as though I was very dim. Her eyes shifted to Nate. “And who’s this?”

“Nathan,” I said quickly. Nate shot me an incredulous look, and I just squeezed his hand again.

“Yes, I am Nathan,” Nate said to Isabel and Mark. “Nice to meet you both. For the first time.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Isabel said. Her purse slipped off her shoulder, and she grabbed for the chain, righting it. Her hand gripped the bottom of the bag a little too tightly. And now that I looked at her outfit, the bag seemed wrong for it. It was too bulky or something…. I watched her carefully adjusting the bag, and then it hit me: It was where she was keeping the crown. It had to be. If Mark could get to the bag immediately, this all might go more easily than I’d imagined.

“We should be going,” Isabel said, smiling at me again.

“What’s with the bracelets?” I blurted out before they could walk away. “They weren’t on any of our security plans.”

Isabel’s smile grew. “Oh, I know,” she said. “But when I told my headmistress that I was afraid of people trying to prom jump, she thought we’d better partner with your headmaster—”

“Assistant,” I said automatically.

“To make sure that everything ran smoothly. So now nobody gets a bracelet unless they have a date from that school. I hope that’s not a problem for you, Madison.”

I gritted my teeth. “Why would that be a problem?” I asked.

“Well, exactly. Why indeed? Enjoy your night,” she said, heading over to the Hartfield line, hand still clutching her bag.

“Awfully nice to have met you chaps. Cheers, eh?” Mark drawled, staying in character. Then he broke it for a moment, giving me a grin and a thumbs-up before trotting after Isabel.

“Okay,” Nate said, turning to me. “Please explain. Why is Mark pretending to be an earl?”

“Nate—”

“And if I’m going by Nathan, can I have an accent, too? Maybe this Nathan character, he is Russian.
Da?
”

“Nyet,”
I said, trying not to laugh. “I can’t tell you. But thanks for playing along. You were brilliant.”

“You’re going to have to explain this to me later,” he said as we moved forward in the Putnam line. “Because things are getting weird.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him they were probably only going to get weirder. “Speaking of weird,” I said, “it’s strange Melissa’s here.”

“I know!” Nate said, shaking his head. “Small world, right?”

“I mean…” I stopped, not sure how to put this. “It’s just that you’ve never really talked about her.”

Nate frowned. “You want me to talk about my ex-girlfriend?”

“No,” I said as we got closer to the table. “I mean, yes. I just want to know more about your relationship. I want to know…” I hesitated.
Did you sleep together? Did you love her? Are you over her?
But I couldn’t quite get the words out.

“Well, we can talk about it if you want, Mad,” Nate said. “But it’s the past. And I’m not sure it does any good to look back.”

“But—”

“Names?” Stephanie asked. I looked up and realized we’d made it to the table.

“Oh, hi,” I said. I handed her our tickets. “Madison MacDonald and date.”

“Hi there,” Stephanie said, smiling at me, taking my tickets, and crossing my name off a list. “Wrists,” she said. I held out my right wrist, and so did Nate, and she snapped the blue plastic bracelets around them. “I am to officially remind all students that there should be no wandering around to other areas of the hotel,” Stephanie recited, a little wearily. “No going to the Hartfield prom. No hanging out by the hotel pool. Any student found in an area they’re not supposed to be in will face serious consequences, including suspension or possible expulsion.” I stared at her, a little stunned by this speech.
It had just made our night
so
much harder. “Enjoy the prom,” she added. “Next!”