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one of Cleopatra’s ladies-in-waiting! Isn’t that freaky?”
    â€œHmmm,” I said, putting down the guitar. “Well, what’s freakier, I reckon, is how no one ever seems to have a past life working in a pie shop. Or as a public toilet attendant! Do nonglamorous people never get reborn?”
    Fleur’s face dropped. She usually laughs at my jokes. “Well, I’m really psyched about it anyhow,” she muttered.
    â€œOh . . . well,” I said quickly, realizing I’d somehow hurt her. “I’m sure it’ll feel amazing!”
    â€œI know!” Fleur said, brightening a little. “And I’ll get to see Cressida’s house too! It’s one of those big new ones on Larkrise Manor, down the road from Panama Goodyear’s mansion. Apparently Cressida has the entire basement all to herself! And they’ve got a hot tub too, so I’m taking my bikini.” “Cool,” I smiled, feeling slightly rattled inside.
    I couldn’t quite get my head around this whole Cressida business. I mean, okay, it wasn’t strange that Claude was studying with her—they had seven classes in common—but now Fleur was warming to her too! It was really unsettling. These days, whenever Claude, Fleur and Cressida came back from biology (a subject I was too thick to take) they always had a side-splitting story or a new-age tip to discuss. Or worst of all, a private joke they’d invented when I wasn’t there.
    But when I tried to be friends with Cressida, she just wasn’t interested.
    I tried inviting her to sit with me in German, the only class we had together, but she said she suffered migraines if she didn’t sit near the board. I offered to study vocab with her, but she said she didn’t need my help. But weirdest of all, whenever Cressida and I had to walk anywhere together, she’d say absolutely nothing at all.
    Not a word.
    So I’d yadder away, making jokes and telling stories, feeling stupider and more flippant by the second, trying to fill the silence. Eventually Cressida would finish these little agonizing one-on-ones by turning to me, forcing a smile and saying something like, “You’re very funny, aren’t you, Ronnie? You’re simply always the clown. It must be soooo exhausting being you.”
    What the hell did that mean?!
    The second we rejoined Claude and Fleur, she’d be charm personified, wowing them with tales of crystals and hot stone therapy.
    Was I just being paranoid?
    Maybe I was so pathetic and needy I just couldn’t cope sharing the LBD with anyone? Let’s face it: I couldn’t even handle Fleur visiting another girl’s house for a healing session! Ugh! How freakish and clingy was that?
    I vowed right then to try harder to be friends with Cressida Sleeth.

bad vibes
    It was a fortnight later, early last December, and the LBD were gathered in HQ, Fleur’s bedroom, to discuss some ultra-hot topics, namely:
    a. Jimi Steele being really distant and buttmunchy lately. Fleur reckoned he had Asperger’s syndrome.
    b. Claude’s mum’s boss, Mr. Rayner, running away to Bermuda with his twenty-seven-year-old big-boobed legal assistant, leaving Gloria Cassiera out of a job. And . . .
    c. Fleur’s new boyfriend, Thurston Barron, who was turning out to have very wandering hands and spent most dates, it seemed, trying to knead Fleur’s boobs into one big central one. Not nice. He had to go.
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    So, with all this business to deal with, why were we talking about Cressida?
    â€œHang on! What do you mean, I give out negative energy to Cressida?” I fumed as Fleur and Claude gazed at me sympathetically.
    â€œMmm, well, she wasn’t really specific,” Fleur mused. “Something to do with your chakras being out of alignment.”
    â€œOh, for the love of God,” I sighed, feeling my cheeks flush with anger.
    â€œHey, hang on, Ron, you’re