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the bracelet s silver chain press gently into her arm. She had
to get out of here while the Japanese girls were still bustling
around the counter. The salesgirl hadn t even looked back in
her direction.
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All right, Mona said dramatically. She handed the ring
holding it by its diamond, which even Hanna knew you
weren t supposed to do back to the saleswoman. These
diamonds are all too small, she said. Sorry.
We have others, the woman tried.
Come on, Hanna said, grabbing Mona s arm.
Her heart hammered as they wove their way through
Tiffany s. The charm tinkled on her wrist, but she kept her
sleeve pulled down. Hanna was a seasoned pro at this first
it had been loose candy at the Wawa convenience store, then
CDs from Tower, then baby tees from Ralph Lauren and
she felt bigger and more badass every time. She shut her eyes
and crossed the threshold, bracing herself for the alarms to
blare.
But nothing did. They were out.
Mona squeezed her hand. Did you get one too?
Of course. She flashed the bracelet around her wrist.
And these. She opened the coin purse and showed Mona
the earrings.
Shit. Mona s eyes widened.
Hanna smiled. Sometimes it felt so good to one-up your
best friend. Not wanting to jinx it, she walked quickly away
from Tiffany s and listened for someone to come chasing
after them. The only noise, though, was the burbling of the
fountain and a Muzak version of Oops! I Did It Again.
Oh yes, I did, Hanna thought.
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4
Spencer Walks the Plank
Honey, you re not supposed to eat mussels with your hands.
It s not polite.
Spencer Hastings looked across the table at her mother,
Veronica, who nervously ran her hands through her perfectly
highlighted ash-blond hair. Sorry, Spencer said, picking up
the ridiculously small mussel-eating fork.
I really don t think Melissa should be living in the town
house with all that dust, Mrs. Hastings said to her husband,
ignoring Spencer s apology.
Peter Hastings rolled his neck around. When he wasn t
practicing law, he was furiously cycling all the back roads of
Rosewood in tight, colorful spandex shirts and bike pants,
shaking his fist at speeding cars. All that cycling gave him
chronically sore shoulders.
All that hammering! I don t know how she ll get any
studying done, Mrs. Hastings went on.
Spencer and her parents were sitting at Moshulu, a restaur-
ant aboard a clipper ship in the Philadelphia harbor, waiting
for Spencer s sister, Melissa, to meet them for dinner. It was a
big celebratory dinner because Melissa had graduated from
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U Penn undergrad a year early and had gotten into Penn s
Wharton School of Business. The downtown Philly town
house was being renovated as a gift from their parents to
Melissa.
In just two days, Spencer was starting her junior year at
Rosewood and would have to surrender herself to this year s
jam-packed schedule: five APs, leadership training, charity
drive organizing, yearbook editing, drama tryouts, hockey
practice, and sending in summer program applications ASAP,
since everyone knew that the best way to get into an Ivy was
to get into one of their pre-college summer camps. But there
was one thing Spencer had to look forward to this year:
moving into the converted barn that sat at the back of her
family s property. According to her parents, it was the perfect
way to prepare for college just look how well it had worked
for Melissa! Barf. But Spencer was happy to follow in her
sister s footsteps in this case, since they led out to the tranquil,
light-flooded guesthouse where Spencer could escape her par-
ents and their constantly barking labradoodles.
The sisters had a quiet yet long-standing rivalry and Spencer
was always losing: Spencer had won the Presidential Physical
Fitness Award four times in elementary school; Melissa had
won it five. Spencer got second place in the seventh-grade
geography bee; Melissa got first. Spencer was on the yearbook
staff, in all of the school plays, and was taking five AP classes
this year; Melissa did all those things her junior year plus
worked at their mother s horse farm and trained for the
Philadelphia marathon for leukemia research. No matter how
high Spencer s GPA was or how many extra- curriculars she
smashed into her schedule, she never quite reached Melissa s
level of perfection.
Spencer picked up another mussel with her fingers and
popped it into her mouth. Her dad loved this restaurant,
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with its dark wood paneling, thick oriental rugs, and the
heady smells of butter, red wine, and salty air. Sitting among
the masts and sails, it felt like you could jump right over-
board into the harbor. Spencer gazed out across the
Schuylkill River to the big bubbly aquarium in Camden,
New Jersey. A giant party boat decorated with Christmas
lights floated past them. Someone shot a yellow firework off
the front deck. That boat was having way more fun than this
one was having.
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