I wasn’t just doing this for me, I was doing it for Loretta and Greg and Andre and all the other scholarship students they’d tortured.
My opportunity for revenge came three weeks after the party. In homeroom, Mr. Dexter announced that Saturday was our first parents day for the year. Parents were allowed to visit the academy at any time of the year, but I’d noticed very few of them did. I guessed they were all too busy with their perfect rich-people lives.
Twice a year, Derleth held a parents day, where the school would put on special activities. All the parents came, and then went to a big catered alumni party in the evening, with an open bar, so they could all relieve their school days.
It seemed to be a day especially concocted to torture poor orphaned scholarship kids, but it would also give us the perfect stage for revenge. In order to hit the Kings where it would hurt most, we couldn’t destroy their property – we had to make them feel small. And in front of their powerful parents was just the place to do that.
Both of us had full jars of rose hips hidden under our beds. Greg secured his lab time to process the hairs inside the fruit into a powder. As he passed my locker to collect me for rehearsal, he lifted the flap of his bookbag to show me two jars of dark powder nestled between his textbooks.
“I hope this works,” he said. “I’m ready to see Trey Bloomberg squirm.”
* * *
Members of the maintenance staff drove the official school vehicles down to the bottom of the peninsula to pick up the parents from the fancy hotel in Arkham where many of them were staying. Some parents decided to brave the journey in their own vehicles, and a steady stream of Maseratis, Porches, and Lamborghinis rolled into the visitor parking lot.
Derleth Academy pulled out all the stops with a busy schedule of activities throughout the entire day, starting with a Champagne breakfast, then a tour of the school – including demonstrations and presentations of recent student projects – followed by a catered lunch in a tent on the grounds, where many of the music and drama students would provide entertainment. The day would finish with a centuries-old tradition where the lacrosse team would play a team made up of past alumni. All men, of course, because feminism clearly hadn’t yet visited the hallowed halls of Derleth.
At breakfast, the scholarship students took our usual table. I tried not to give the monarchs the satisfaction of staring at their rich, perfect families, but curiosity got the better of me. I watched over the top of my orange juice glass as Trey’s parents shoved their way to the head of the monarch’s table.
“My other son, Wilhem, is interning at my company,” the man who I guessed was Trey’s dad – Vincent Francis Bloomberg the Second – told Courtney’s mother, his voice booming across the room. He looked like an older version of Trey – the same brown hair that changed color under the light, the same ice eyes flecked with gold, the same self-satisfied smirk. “He’ll be taking an executive position within the next six months, that’s for certain. But then, I’m not surprised. He inherited the brillaint Bloomberg mind. Trey here takes more after his mother.”
I understood that comment was a veiled insult by the way Trey’s whole body stiffened. It was weird, because Trey was many things – a bully, an asshole, a manwhore with an incredibly hot body – but he was not stupid. I’d seen him answer enough questions and present enough assignments to know he was top of our class for a reason. His father continued talking as if Trey wasn’t there, while his mother was deep in conversation with several other women wearing identical beige pantsuits.
Meanwhile, Quinn was cracking jokes like they were going out of style. He had a slim, beautiful woman on his arms with identical emerald eyes, and he looked at her with a serious reverence I’d never seen in him before. He clearly loved his mother a lot. It was kind of nice to see, given how he treated all other women like they were disposable.
A few people down the table, the man I’d identified as Quinn’s father leaned over Tillie’s mother, his hand practically brushing her cheek as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, lingering for longer than necessary. He had Quinn’s dirty blond hair and handsome face, but there was a cruelness in the tug of his mouth that was chilling.
Interesting.
Between his two friends and their families, Ayaz sat with a stiff back and blazing eyes. He didn’t have anyone with him, although Trey’s father kept leaning over and nudging him into the conversation. Ayaz would always smile for a moment, then return to his stony brooding face.
I remembered that Trey’s parents put up most of the money for the scholarship program, and that Quinn had said Ayaz was a scholarship student, and that the two of them were like brothers. Maybe Ayaz had some private arrangement with Trey’s family. Vincent Bloomberg II certainly seemed to have some hold over him.
A hand waved in front of my face. “Earth to Hazel,” Greg called out. “What’s going on in that head of yours? You’ve been drinking from an empty glass for the last five minutes.”
“Nothing.” I slammed my glass on the table and focused on my rapidly cooling breakfast. A few moments later, my gaze slid back to their table, drawn by Trey’s dad loudly discussing his eldest son’s achievements at college. It’s weird the oldest son wasn’t called Vincent, too. Why was Trey given that honour instead of his brother if his dad didn’t care about him?Vincent Bloomberg II kept leaning over to Ayaz and talking about which medical schools he should apply for, but he never said anything to Trey.
“Stop staring at them,” Loretta hissed. “You’ll draw attention to us.”
“You mean more than this stupid parents’ event already does?” I growled, because surely the school knew how insensitive this could be for people like us, who’d lost our parents. Of course they knew, they just didn’t care. We were there to make them look good, end of.
“Personally, I’m enjoying myself,” Greg said. “It’s fascinating to listen on these conversations. Some of the most powerful people in the world are standing in this room. The deals made over handshakes at these events could change our future.”
Beside him, Andre nodded. Because of his disability, Andre was always listening. Last week in the library I asked him if he ever got sick of just listening all the time. He wrote me back a note that said, “Sometimes. But then I think about all the things I’ve learned because I’m not wasting my energy trying to think up a reply.” Andre was wiser than all of us.
“They’re also dicks,” I said, watching Quinn’s dad hold a glass of Champagne for the other woman to drink from his hand. He spilled a little into her cleavage, licked his fingers, andran it over her breast, right in front of his wife. Quinn’s mouth set in a firm line, but he kept on making his mother laugh.
“No argument,” Greg said, flashing me a knowing look. Loretta glanced between the two of us, suspicion in her eyes.
As we left the hall, Greg winked at me and patted his bag. While the rest of the students and parents headed toward the main academic wing for the morning activities, Greg ducked away to the locker room, where the lacrosse team had already stashed their clothing prior to the game.
I didn’t see Greg again until our performance. He waved at me from across the wings, and my chest burst with pride. Despite being the leads in the production, Greg and I were placed in the chorus for today because we didn’t have any family attending. We danced and sang our hearts out in the back row, and pulled faces at each other from the wings.
At the end of our performance, all the parents clapped. Except for Trey’s dad. When Trey and Ayaz walked off the stage, I overheard Vincent Bloomberg II say, “You were excellent, Ayaz. Trey, I can see all that money I spent on voice tutors was wasted. No wonder you didn’t win the lead.”
Trey had been note-perfect, sweat trailing down his gorgeous face as he performed a complex dance routine. His dad was even more dicksome than his son.
I had to leave to race to the next classroom, where Ayaz and I were giving a short report about the Salem witch trials. Greg shot me a thumbs up and darted off to his next activity.
