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taking this all wrong. Cressida wasn’t being bitchy,” Claude reassured me. “She wants us all to be friends. She just has a few issues with the, er, darker side of your aura.”
    â€œDarker side of my aura? But I’ve been really nice to her!” I said vehemently. “I’m always nice to her.”
    Why was I defending myself to my two best friends?
    â€œAwww, Ronnie, chill out,” Fleur laughed, leaping over and giving me a hug. “We’re not getting at you. It’s not that big a deal.”
    â€œThat’s right, Ronnie,” whispered Claude, grabbing my hand. “Don’t get upset. It’s just that, well, you have to admit Cressida must be lonely spending every lunch hour studying in the library.”
    â€œAnd when we invited her to eat with us,” continued Fleur, “she said . . . well, she said she didn’t want to increase the bad vibes.”
    â€œThere aren’t any bad vibes!” I said.
    â€œWe know,” said Fleur. “It’s just a silly misunderstanding.”
    â€œY’know what Cressida’s like—she’s just really sensitive,” Claude said rather fondly. “Let me talk to her.”
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    One week later, with our “silly misunderstanding” ironed out, the LBD swept into Blackwell’s lunch hall with Cressida Sleeth tottering daintily in our wake. Claude and Fleur were soooo happy. We had truly been honored, in their eyes. They didn’t raise an eyebrow when Cressida rejected 99 percent of the food offered because of her lacto intolerance, wheat allergies or vegetarian beliefs. Or when she bitched at Dolly the dinner lady about the “seventy-two different pesticides on a nonorganic apple,” or moved us from our usual LBD lunch table by the window because direct sunlight made her “sneezy.” She even began telling us how her dad worked alongside Panama Goodyear’s father at the pharmaceutical factory and that she’d started playing tennis with her!
    â€œWow! We’ll get all the insider gossip on Panama and her gang,” laughed Fleur. “It’ll be like having a double agent!”
    â€œHow cool is that?” beamed Claude, who I’d never had down as prize chump before.
    As Fleur yaddered excitedly about the invites she’d bagged for all four of us to Miles Boon’s birthday party, I pushed mashed potato around my plate, trying to appear chock-full of happy-happy-joy-joy vibes. This worked at first, but when the conversation flipped over to Cressida and Claude’s jam-packed study schedule, I started to feel rather hot and nauseated.
    Because things suddenly became crystal clear.
    Fleur Swan was one of the most beautiful, well-known girls at Blackwell School (after Panama Goodyear, of course, who is stunning yet clinically evil). Claudette Cassiera was the brainiest, most dedicated GCSE coach a pupil like Cressida could desire.
    Of course Ms. Sleeth wanted to hang with them both. But what did I have to offer?
    Nothing.
    Suddenly I was on very shaky ground.
    I was being phased out.
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    â€œWell, she sounds like a right manipulative little madam!” Nan says, throwing handfuls of plump sultanas into the mixing bowl. “There’s one around every corner, unfortunately. What happened next?”
    â€œIt got worse,” I say. “Much worse.”

the witch
    February came around way too quickly.
    Now, you could barely go five minutes at Blackwell without a teacher bumming your life out with a GCSE reminder.
    Thankfully, however, Mistress Minny III: The Witches of Philadelphia was finally hitting cinemas that Friday the 13th, and the LBD had a big girlie night out planned. Claude just loves Mistress Minny. She has read all the books ten times over and lurks about on the web message boards analyzing subplots and symbolism. What a geek! She even harangued Fleur and me to dress up like Mistress Minny for the