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come thisclose to crushing her prized possession.
    I sit up in bed.
    Who will not hesitate to lecture any teacher who gets one fact wrong?
    Who would berate a plumber about the destructive force of a truck colliding with a bike?
    Drew.
    She would grab her bike and take off for . . . where?
    Not home. Not when she's fighting with Jayne. And not Rusty if she has to bike twenty miles.
    So why didn't she come to dinner? I start to wonder if my dad has a good point. If Drew wanted to make Jayne sweat--really twist the knife--she could pretend to run away. Again. And she didn't tell me about her plan because I'm part of it. My search for Drew is supposed to scare Jayne. And Drew won't call my house because of my mom.
    I throw back the covers.
    The Physics lab. Drew stayed after school most days, working on projects and tutoring numbskulls. What if she wheeled her bike into the lab? Hiding out late during the dance until Jayne got so distressed she lost her drunken mind.
    The cold floor stings my raw toes. I suck air through my teeth, slipping out of my pajamas and back into my sweats. When I pick up my shoes, tiptoeing down the servant's stairwell, I can hear the wind whistling over every stair that squeaks.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Thirty minutes before midnight, my neighborhood looks like somebody pulled a plug and drained all the color. Black pavement. Black sky with white stars. One long string of street lights, like pearls pulling me down the road. The only things with any color are the leaves blowing from the trees.
    I run. My feet ache.
    Between the gusts of wind, I hear my breath and the slap-slap-slap of my All Stars. It hurts too much to bend my toes. Of course, the bike would've worked better. But my mom's insomnia is often worse than my own, and my parents' bedroom window looks out over the back patio and alley.
    By the time I get to St. Cat's, sweating and panting, the dance is still going strong. Cars fill the parking lot outside the gym, including a half-dozen limos. Slowing to a walk, I keep my eyes on the two people who guard the gym's double doors.
    Our headmaster, Mr. Ellis.
    And his assistant Mrs. Parsons, otherwise known as Parsnip.
    Ellis speaks first. Naturally.
    "Miss Harmon," he says. “Very nice to see you. But the dance has a dress code.”
    Parsnip giggles.
    "Yes, sir.” I wipe the sleeve of my sweatshirt across my forehead, mopping the sweat and the shame Ellis has thrown my way. "I’m not here for the dance.”
    Parsnip's pinched face, by some miracle of genetics, can pinch even further. “You’re simply out running around town—at this hour?”
    Like Ellis, Parsnip dangles this kind of shame all the time. You're supposed to reflexively feel so bad about yourself you’ll do anything they say. But it doesn’t usually work on me; I feel too bad about myself already.
    "I need to get something inside the school,” I explain.
    “Absolutely not,” Parsnip says.
    "You know the rules, Miss Harmon,” Ellis chimes in.
    “It'll only take a minute."
    "Did you not hear us?" Parsnip says.
    I consider explaining the whole situation. But that’s the nuclear option. After Drew ran away in sixth grade, she sparked a potentially fatal amount of electricity between herself and Ellis. Our headmaster likes to remind us how St. Catherine's prides itself on being the best and oldest girl’s school in Richmond. So great that Lady Astor went here, way back when.
    "Can't you make one exception?" I ask. “It’s an emergency.”
    But Parsnip has shifted her squint toward the parking lot. “Who would dare drive up this late?”
    A white stretch limo has pulled to the curb. The driver jumps out, hustling to the back door and holds it open.
    "I might have guessed," Ellis says.
    MacKenna Fielding stumbles out. She grabs the door, waiting for her date. When he lurches out, she grabs his arm. She giggles. The two of them shamble toward us. MacKenna's crimson gown shimmers like fresh blood.
    "Miss Fielding," Ellis intones.