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HOW IT REALLY BEGAN

You know that boy who lives a few doors down from you who’s just the creepiest person alive? When you’re on your front porch, about to kiss your boyfriend good night, youthere He’ll rando with your best friends--except maybe it’s not so random at all He’s the black cat who seems to know your route If he rides by your house, you think, I’ to fail my bio exam If he looks at you funny, watch your back

Every town has a black-cat boy In Rosewood, his nah

"I think she needs s leaned back and examined one of her best friends, Emily Fields

"I can still see her freckles"

"I’ve got so up and ran to her blue corduroy

Emily looked at herself in theroom coffee table She tilted her face one way, then another, and puckered her pink lips "My mom would kill me if she saith all this stuff on"

"Yeah, but we’ll kill you if you take it off," warned Aria Montgo around the room in a pink mohair bra she’d recently knitted

"Yeah, Eed on the floor and kept swiveling around to check that her crack wasn’t sticking out of her low-rise, slightly-too-sht in April, and Ali, Aria, E one of their typical sixth-grade sleepovers: putting way too ar kettle chips, and half-watching MTV Cribs on Ali’s flat-screen TV Tonight there was the added clutter of everyone’s clothes spread out on the carpet, since they’d decided to swap clothes for the rest of their sixth-grade school year

Spencer held up a lean to her slender torso

"Take it," Ali told her "It’ll look cute on you"

Hanna pulled an olive corduroy skirt of Ali’s around her hips, turned to Ali, and struck a pose "What do you think? Would Sean like it?"

Ali groaned and smacked Hanna with a pillow Ever since they’d become friends in September, all Hanna could talk about was how much she looooved Sean Ackard, a boy in their class at the Rosewood Day School, where they’d all been going since kindergarten In fifth grade, Sean had been just another short, freckled guy in their class, but over the surown a couple inches and lost his baby fat Now, pretty irl wanted to kiss hie in a year

The girls--everyone but Ali--knew that all too well Last year, they were just…there Spencer was the &uuirl who sat at the front of the class and raised her hand at every question Aria was the slightly freaky girl whosoccer like everyone else E on under the surface--if you just got to know her And Hanna ue and Teen Vogue, and every once in a while she’d blurt out so totally random about fashion that no one else knew

There was so special about all of them, sure, but they lived in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, a suburb twentywas special in Rosewood Flowers smelled sweeter, water tasted better, houses were just plain bigger People joked that the squirrels spent their nights cleaning up litter and weeding errant dandelions from the cobblestone sidewalks so Roseould look perfect for its de looked so flawless, it was hard to stand out

But so blond hair, heart-shaped face, and huge blue eyes, she was the irl around After Ali united them in friendship--soirls were definitely more than just there Suddenly, they had an all-access pass to do things they’d never dared to before Like changing into short skirts in the Rosewood Day girls’ bathroo boys ChapStick-kissed notes in class Or walking down the Rosewood Day hallway in an intirabbed a tube of shimmery purple lipstick and sroaned--Ali was iirl in their class as a little bit too in love with her Nars lipstick

"No, wait" Spencer pursed her bow-shaped lips and handed Ali a pillow "Put this up your shirt"

"Nice" Ali stuffed it under her pink polo, and everyone giggled soone all the ith Jeffrey Klein, a tenth grader, and she was having his baby

"You guys are awful" Eroup, --her parents thought anything fun was evil

"What, E awfully fat--she should hope she’s pregnant"

The girls laughed again, but a little uneasily Ali had a talent for finding a girl’s weakness, and even if she was right about Iirls all so on them when they weren’t around Sometimes it was hard to know for sure

They settled back into sorting through one another’s clothes Aria fell in love with an ultra-preppy Fred Perry dress of Spencer’s Es and asked everyone if it was too short Ali declared a pair of Hanna’s Joe’s jeans too bell-botto her candy-pink velour boy shorts As she walked past theto the stereo, she froze