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KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE…

Have you ever had a friend turn on you? Just totally transforht you knew into so your boyfriend froly and zitty, or your friend fro to say to when she coirl in your clique who suddenly breaks away and turns goth or into one of those granola Outward Bound kids No I’ about Who knows everything about you One day she turns around and is a completely different person

Well, it happens It happened in Rosewood

"Watch it, Aria Your face is going to freeze like that" Spencer Hastings unwrapped an orange Popsicle and slid it into herto the squinty-eyed drunk-pirate face her best friend, Aria Montgoet her Sony Handycam to focus

"You sound likeher T-shirt, which had a picture of a baby chicken in goggles on it and said, INSTANT SWIM CHICK! JUST ADD WATER! Her friends had forbidden E T-shirts--

"Instant Swim Dork! Just add loser!" Alison DiLaurentis had joked when Emily walked in

"Your reen-stained Popsicle stick Hanna always ate faster than anyone else "Your face will freeze that way," she mimicked

Alison looked Hanna up and down and cackled "Your mom should’ve warned you that your butt would freeze that way"

Hanna’s face fell as she pulled down her pink-and-white striped T-shirt--she’d borrowed it fro a white strip of her stomach Alison tapped Hanna’s shin with her flip-flop "Just joking"

It was a Friday night in May near the end of seventh grade, and best friends Alison, Hanna, Spencer, Aria, and Eathered in Spencer’s family’s plushly decorated fa bottle of cherry vanilla Diet Dr Pepper, and their cell phones splayed out on the coffee table A o, Ali had come to school with a brand-new LG flip phone, and the others had rushed out to buy their own that very day They all had pink leather holsters to match Ali’s, too--well, all except for Aria, whose holster was made of pink mohair She’d knitted it herself

Aria moved the camera’s lever back and forth to zoo to freeze like this I’ up this shot This is for posterity For e becoet famous" Alison thrust back her shoulders and turned her head to the side, revealing her swanlike neck

"Why are you going to be fa bitchier than she probablyto have my own show I’ll be a smarter, cuter Paris Hilton"

Spencer snorted But E, and Hanna nodded, truly believing This was Ali She wouldn’t stay here in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, for long Sure, Roseas glamorous by most standards--all its residents looked like walk-on models for a Town & Country photo shoot--but they all knew Ali was destined for greater things

She’d plucked theo to be her best friends With Ali by their sides, they had becoirls of Rosewood Day, the private school they attended They had such power now--to deem as cool and asn’t, to throw the best parties, to nab the best seats in study hall, to run for student office and win by an overwhel number of votes Well, that last one only applied to Spencer Aside fro Jenna Cavanaugh, which they tried their hardest not to think about--their lives had transformed from passable to perfect

"How about we filested She considered herself the friends’ official filreas the next Jean-Luc Godard, some abstract French director

"Ali, you’re famous And Spencer, you’re the interviewer"

"I’ll be the h her backpack to find her polka-dotted vinyl

"I’ll do hair" Emily pushed her reddish-blond bob behind her ears and rushed to Ali’s side "You have gorgeous hair, chérie," she said to Ali in a faux-French accent

Ali slid her Popsicle out of her irlfriend?"

The others were quick to laugh, but Emily paled "No, that’s petite amie" Lately, Em was sensitive when Ali made jokes at her expense She never used to be

"Okay," Aria said, uys ready?"

Spencer flopped on the couch and placed a rhinestone tiara left over fro the crown around all night

"You can’t wear that," Ali snapped

"Why not?" Spencer adjusted the crown so it was straight

"Because If anything, I’et to be the princess?" Spencer h the others Spencer and Ali weren’t getting along, and no one knehy

Ali’s cell phone let out a bleat She reached down, flipped it open, and tilted it away so no one else could see "Sweet" Her fingers flew across the keypad as she typed a text

"Who are you writing to?" Eshell-thin and small

"Can’t tell Sorry" Ali didn’t look up

"You can’t tell?" Spencer was irate "What do you lanced up "Sorry, princess You don’t have to know everything" Ali closed her phone and set it on the leather couch "Don’t start fil yet, Aria I have to pee" She dashed out of Spencer’s fa her Popsicle stick in the trash as she went