Page 18 of The Serpent King

Lydia’s mouth dropped open. “Wha—Lydia Chl—You did it again! You made an extremely hilarious joke by rhyming my name with a funny sex disease! Tremendous!”

“You’re tremendous,” Tyson said. Another snicker from Madison. This one was louder and more pointed, as though he was finally treading the territory she hoped he would.

Something surged through Dill. Not courage exactly. More the realization that he had nothing to lose by getting kicked out of school. Maybe that was what God wanted for him anyway. He might be able to land a punch on Tyson before Tyson could react. He wouldn’t be expecting Dill to do anything. Even Christ had chased the moneylenders from the temple, and Lydia’s friendship was a temple to him.

Dill rose. He felt Lydia’s hand, warm on his arm. He sat, his head spinning with adrenaline, trying not to visibly shake.

“Yeah, Dildo. Do it. Bring it,” Tyson said.

Lydia crossed her legs, holding her knee and rocking back casually. “Tremendous, huh? Let’s go with that and say I could lose, oh, twenty pounds. I can easily do that by not eating chess pie or bacon or any of the other things that make life worth living. But you”—she pointed at Tyson with an elaborate flourish—“are dumb. And there’s nothing you can simply not eat that will make you any smarter. You’ll die an idiot.”

“You’ll die from too many french fries, fatass Lydia Chlamydia.”

“Do you really want to do this?” She wagged her finger between them. “A battle of wits? It’s not even fun to destroy you because you’re too dim to understand you’re getting destroyed.”

Madison lunged forward, her face resembling a spray-tanned fist. “You’re an ugly person. Inside and out. You think you’re better than everyone here because you’ve been interviewed in the New York Times and you’re famous on the Internet.”

Lydia studied Madison with the look she’d give a clogged toilet. “Since I know that you don’t equate ‘smarter’ with ‘better,’ I’m going to say that that’s not true.”

“This is why no one can stand you,” Madison said.

“Fabulous. I’d hate for it to be because of halitosis or something.”

“Nice witch tights, by the way,” Madison said, her voice dripping with scorn. “They come from the trash?”

“No, they were a gift from the Rodarte sisters. They’re last season, but I hoped no one at Forrestville High would notice.”

“All your fancy friends,” Tyson said. “You gonna go cry about us on your blog now?”

Lydia gave Tyson a condescending smile, furrowing her brow. “Oh. Bless your heart. You think you’re important enough to talk about on my blog. You are still very important, though, you special widdle guy.”

Travis walked up, looking exhausted. “Hey.”

“Tyson, do one of your name jokes for Travis,” Lydia said with a wicked grin. Travis’s fight with Alex may not have raised his social status, but people still feared him. Travis had at least eight inches and almost a hundred pounds on Tyson.

Tyson grabbed Madison’s hand. “Y’all can blow me. We’ve wasted enough time with your queer asses.” They stalked off. Madison flipped Lydia the bird over her shoulder. Lydia, Dill, and Travis flipped them the bird to their backs. Dill’s heart still thumped from the encounter, but he breathed again. Maybe God had a different message for him.

“They’re really not over that interview, are they?” Lydia said.

“You did call Forrestville High a ‘fashion wasteland,’ ” Travis said.

“Full of outlet mall–clad drones who smell like survivors of an Axe body spray tanker truck crash with a school bus,” Dill said.

“Aw, you guys read it!”

“Why don’t you unleash all your blog fans on the people who give you trouble?” Travis asked.

“Well, first off, the people who like my blog aren’t very good at cyberbullying, which is fine. I would hate to be liked by people who are good at it.”

They got up and walked to the school, a large, nondescript, 1970s-era building. It had all the charm of a state-run asylum.

“I gotta head this way, y’all,” Travis said.

“Hey, why do you look like you got fifteen minutes of sleep last night? You okay?” Lydia asked.

“I was up late talking with friends from the Bloodfall forums. No big deal. Meet y’all after I get off work?”

“Yep,” Dill said. He and Lydia kept walking. Lydia said nothing. She had the air of a boxer who’d won a bout: triumphant but bruised. That’s how Dill felt.