The Aristobrats
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Solow
Cover and internal design © 2010 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Dawn Pope/Sourcebooks
Cover images © Veer; Highhorse/iStockphoto.com; LenLis/iStockphoto.com; vladacanon/iStockphoto.com
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
Fax: (630) 961-2168
www.jabberwockykids.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.
Source of Production: Versa Press, East Peoria, Illinois, USA
Date of Production: August 2010
Run Number: 13086
Table of Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part II
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part III
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
The Aristobrats Essential Guide to Terms, Abbreviations, and Otherwise Completely Made-Up Words
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
Dedication
For Tommy, Griffin, and Tallulah
Chapter 1
Exsqueeze-ay moi? Some people are getting dressed in here…”
Parker Bell’s mother, Ellen, had an unfortunate habit of opening her daughter’s door without knocking. Parker was still in her pajamas and her room was a mess. Clothing rejects were all over the floor, draped over the antique chaise and dangling from the mahogany Darcy chair. The desk looked like something had exploded on it, and maybe it had—Parker seriously couldn’t remember.
Ellen, a neat freak who’d have a hairy nip fit if the Egyptian cotton bath towels weren’t folded in thirds, frowned at the unrecognizable floor and the searing beauty tools on the furniture. She looked like she might crack in half.
“I may need a search party the next time I come in here, Park.”
Parker offered a morsel of wisdom she’d read once in CosmoGirl. “They say a messy room is the sign of a brilliant mind, Mom.” She tossed a feather-light pashmina into the air and watched it float gracefully onto the ground.
Ellen ignored her compulsion to pick up and fold. “Then you must be a very smart girl,” she said.
“Thank you.” Parker grinned. Another mother-daughter point: scored.
“I just came in to tell you,” Ellen said calmly, “that Armada will be driving you to school tomorrow because I have a meeting at Siddie’s in the morning.”
Siddie was Sir Sidmund Stryker, aka Sid Stryker, the front man of the legendary band, the Rebels. And Ellen was his architect. Sid hadn’t made a public appearance in nearly a decade, ever since his mother published her tell-all memoir, Rebel Without a Cause: My Life with Sid Stryker. He’d begun renovating the old mansion he bought in Wallingford around the same time and now it was nearly finished. There were only a few people in the world the rock star trusted and Ellen was one of them. She had the alarm code to his house, the floor plans for his bedroom, swatches of fabric for his curtains, and her own schnuggly name for him. Parker found it all a little embarrassing.
“Why tomorrow?” Parker asked. She shouldn’t have cared either way; it wasn’t like she needed her mother to drive her to school. It was the first day of eighth grade, not kindergarten.
“I can move my meeting, sweetheart…” Ellen softened her tone. “If you want me to?” She seemed almost hopeful.
“You don’t need to move your meeting.” Parker tried to sound convincing. Sid was her mother’s only client—Parker knew she had to make accommodations. “It’s just school, Mom. No biggie.”
She collapsed onto her bed and kicked off the furry slippers, looking up through the sheer drapery panels of her canopy bed toward the cottage chandelier that hung from the middle of the ceiling. The polished crystals sparkled in the morning sun. She tried to channel her inner-hypnotist: I am Parker Bell. I am confident, cool, and on top of things.
Ellen cleared a space for herself on the corner of the bed next to Parker’s school uniform. The black watch plaid kilt was made from fine merino wool instead of the cheap polyblend you get now, and the knife pleats were sharper and narrower than the newer ones. It was completely impossible to come by the pure wool version of the Wallingford Academy uniform, unless of course it had been handed down to you.
Parker was a third-generation Wally—one of just a handful of legacy students at the school: an Aristobrat, as most non-legacies called them, usually behind their backs. The title had its advantages but also came with responsibilities—being a legacy wasn’t always as easy as it seemed.
“Who do you think you’ll have for homeroom this year?” Ellen asked. “Death Breath? Barn Yard?” Ellen knew all of the teachers’ nicknames—they hadn’t changed much since she was a Wally.
“That’s as easy to answer as who’ll win the award for Best Liplock.” Parker couldn’t begin to worry about teachers—there was enough to stress out about already. “I mean, you can make an educated guess but you don’t know for sure until your name is called.”
Ellen rolled her eyes at the remark.
“Did you see my note?” Ellen nodded at Parker’s laptop, an ultra-slim, 17-inch, top-of-the-line Orion notebook in a hot pink protective case. “I sent it last week.”
“I’m…not sure.” Parker lied on the grounds that the truth may incriminate her. “I’m so backblogged it’s not even funny.”
Ellen rested her hand on her hip and raised a suspicious eyebrow. She took a deep breath, surveyed the messy room once more, then puffed out her cheeks like she was about to deliver some earth-shattering news.
“Eighth grade is a tough year, Park,” Ellen warned for about the hundredth time in a month.
Like I need to be reminded.
At Wallingford Academy, eighth grade was the most important year of school (understatement), and very possibly of your whole life (seriously). When you thought about it (which Parker did several dozen times a day for the last three years), it was the last time in your life you didn’t have to stress about the big stuff: directed study proposals, application deadlines, dieting for prom, dieting for college, dieting
for glamorous fund-raisers…adulthood. On the other hand, it was the year when who you were—and who you ever would be—was pretty much set in stone. Success or failure hinged on the tiniest moments, the smallest details. Long story short? If you ruled eighth grade, the rest of your future was pretty much golden.
“And I know the possibility of leaving isn’t something you really want to talk about, sweetheart,” Ellen said gently. “But we have to talk about it eventually.”
Parker closed her eyes tightly and tried to push the painful thought away. It was easy to pretend they were just like everybody else, but they weren’t. The big house, and everything in it, was all they’d inherited from Parker’s grandmother when she’d died. And an antique chair or a crystal wall sconce didn’t pay the tuition at Wallingford; Ellen did. They weren’t poor, but compared to Parker’s friends, they might as well have been. Parker had always known that Siddie’s remodeling gig would be over one of these days—and one of these days was getting closer and closer.
“We’re okay on taxes for now. That should take us through the fall,” Ellen said. “So at least we have that.”
The fall? Parker tried to picture where that would get her.
“You could sell my furniture on eBay,” Parker suggested. “I don’t really need it.” She tried to look sincere but it was hard sitting there on her canopy bed leaning against her goose down pillows. Frankly, she looked like someone who needed furniture.
“I hate the idea of leaving as much as you do. I know how hard it will be.” Ellen smiled. It was a sympathetic-mom smile, the kind moms give you when your goldfish dies. “I just want things to be perfect for you, Parker.”
“Things are perfect,” Parker assured her. “Absolutely, totally, unbelievably perfect.” She thought about school and her friends and the bottom nearly dropped out of her stomach. “I need this year, Mom. I’ve been waiting forever for it.”
Ellen smiled again. This time it was the I-was-your-age-once smile. “You just promise me you’ll make the best of whatever time you have left at Wallingford. There are great opportunities there for you,” she said. “And you shouldn’t waste a second of it on things that don’t matter. You hear that, Park?”
Parker resisted the temptation to pull out an enormous pair of aviator sunglasses and hide behind them until the next century. “I wasn’t planning on wasting anything,” she reminded her mother. It’s me, remember?
Ellen stood up from the bed and buttoned her suit jacket in Parker’s mirror. “And who knows…maybe Siddie will want to rip everything out and start over.”
With any luck.
Ellen reached over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “You’re sure you don’t need me to move my meeting?” she asked.
Parker shook her head. “I’m fine.”
She could smell the lingering gardenia of her mother’s perfume. The sweet and familiar scent always made her feel happy and sad at the same time—like looking at an old photo album or winding up the music box beside her bed.
“Everything will work out, sweetheart.” Ellen folded the pashmina back into a proper square and placed it back on the shelf in the closet where it belonged. “I know it will.”
“Me too,” Parker said as her mother walked out. She called out in a clear voice, confident, cool, and on top of things, “Say hi to Siddie for me!”
Chapter 2
Parker stood at the foot of her bed and studied the clothes she’d laid out for the next day. After the exhausting morning of work, the look was finally coming together.
A uniform could say a lot more about you than most people understood. If the kilt was just a few inches too long, for instance, you might as well eat lunch in the social donut hole of the East Alcove. Or if your button-down shirt was too silky and tight then everyone assumed you went to Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School because that’s how they wore them there. And if you got your blucher mocs from Value City Shoes…hello, people could tell.
Image counted if you wanted to be the best, and Parker got that, maybe more than anyone at Wallingford Academy. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in class, or the smartest, and certainly not the richest, but there was no doubt about it—this was eighth grade; she could finally be as high up the populadder as she wanted to be.
The secret was pretty simple—wearing the right clothes wasn’t as important as how you felt in them. Being beautiful was about what you did with what you had. Popularity was like that too—it was all about attitude. You had to picture who you wanted to be and then just imagine that’s who you already were.
Parker opened her jewelry box and placed her Tiff’s locket at the spot where her neck would be then added a delicate pair of silver earrings she’d gotten in Vineyard Haven over the summer. The cashmere pullover she’d decided on was new and oversized just enough to hang flawlessly down her back, but not so big to scream XXL. The button-down shirt she’d picked out was crisp cotton, white as teeth, and so starched it could have stood up and gone to school by itself.
She held the sweater up to her chest and put her hand lightly on her hip. It was her magazine cover pose (or Academy Award acceptance pose, whichever came first). Her skin was tan from a summer at the beach and her hair was loosely curled under from the morning’s blow-dry with a thermal boars-head round brush. An extra swipe of bronzer powder along the bridge of her nose made it look smaller than it was. And the classic, regulation colors of the Wallingford uniform went well with her coloring (that was just luck, not work). Altogether, the look said confident but not stuck-up, pretty but not self-obsessed, excited but not super-anxious about it. Although would staring at myself in the mirror for twenty minutes make me stuck-up or merely demonstrate my commitment to excellence?
Parker set the pullover back down on the bed and opened her laptop.
It didn’t take an Einstein to know that the care and maintenance of one’s Facebook profile was essential to assuring a top position on the populadder. And it wasn’t the quantity of time that mattered; it was the quality. There were new albums to add, Friends to confirm, photos to tag, groups to join, and countless invitations to RSVP to. Good manners were crucial—especially online.
And then there was the time-gobbling task of sorting through the people you may know section, which changed daily. (This was always the creepiest part, Parker thought. How did Facebook know that she knew them?) It was a necessity to continuously update and polish her profile—how else could people ever get to know the continuously updated and polished Parker Bell?
Parker tagged a few photos and sorted through the last of the morning’s Friend requests, confirming seven new ones and ignoring some guy who lived in Paraguay. She looked at the final thumbnail photograph for the third time this week and the only hopeful Friend still waiting for an answer. She clicked open the pending request for the third time this week.
Ellen Bell—0 mutual friends
Her own mother! It was mortifying.
Why do they let mothers have their own profiles? Parker shook her head. It was something she would never understand. (Facebook should have a mandatory retirement age, she thought.) She left the pending request hanging out there in Facebook limbo and clicked back to the home page and to the toughest assignment of the day.
What’s your status right now?
Parker twirled the silver friendship ring on her finger and wiggled her toes, now freshly pedicured a pale ballet pink. She only had a few minutes left before she needed to run out to meet her friends but she had to let the answer come to her. Thinking too hard ruined it. Not thinking hard enough and you were cheating yourself and your Friends. But it was more difficult today for obvious reasons. Updating her status didn’t usually make her this nervous. Parker bit her lip and tried to concentrate.
What’s your status right now?
Parker is…
She looked at her reflection in the screen, flipped her silky hair over one shoulder and
put her fingers to the keyboard.
Parker is…ready.
Yes. One word. Powerful. True. Telling. Plus, she felt proud of herself for resisting the temptation to add:
…sort of.
Chapter 3
The five rules of La Coppa Coffee Tuesday:
It must be Tuesday.
It must be at La Coppa Coffee.
You must bagsy the comfy couch even if it means resorting to ugliness.
24-hour cancellation policy. No exceptions.
What’s said at La Coppa Coffee stays at La Coppa Coffee.
Parker couldn’t believe it was finally the day before school started: the first La Coppa Coffee Tuesday of the school year. After seven years of waiting, eight if you count kindergarten, the moment had arrived. She was only minutes away from seeing her three best friends for the first time as official eighth graders. Parker walked quickly past World of Beauty, Baby Cakes Bakery, and Hemingway’s Books. Wallingford Towne Centre was filled with so many Wallingford students that you could smell the new leather of everyone’s shoes.
Her phone buzzed as she walked past the Orion Computers Retail Store and through the courtyard toward the coffee shop on the other side. The texts from her friends had been building up all morning. Her message box was in need of a serious purge.
Wher R U?!
M$ULkeCRz
5 mins L8
And they all signed off the same way. Always.
LYLAS
Love you like a sister.
Initially it was just the simplest way for the four best friends to text good-bye, and then, one of them, Parker didn’t remember who first, said it aloud—like a word:
“…Talk to you later. Lylas.”
After that, it became part of their vocabulary.
“…See you then. Lylas.”
“…I’m sooo excited! Lylas.”
It was easy to forget it was an acronym because it sounded more like a name. Singular: Lyla. Plural: Lylas. Together, they were a unit. Parker never screened their calls and they never screened hers. If you created a group, they joined it. If you sent them Links, they clicked them. When your wall was blank, they filled it. It was who they were and how they signed off. Sometimes they added a :-) or a ;-)) or a ~:->