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Authors: Lauren Henderson

Kiss of Death

BOOK: Kiss of Death
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ALSO BY LAUREN HENDERSON

Kiss Me Kill Me
Kisses and Lies
Kiss in the Dark

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2011 by Lauren Henderson

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web!
www.randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89948-5

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

TO MY DARLING GREG—
SCARLETT’S FOUND HER TRUE LOVE,
AND SO HAVE I.

LUCKY US.

Acknowledgments

Sad as it was to write the last Scarlett Wakefield book, it was also hugely satisfying to weave all the threads together, and to bring all the characters together for the final showdown—especially as it meant that I got to spend some time with my sister and her family in Edinburgh researching locations! Holyroodhouse, the Scottish Parliament, Arthur’s Seat, and the cemetery are all as described, as are Leith and the Shore bar and restaurant. My nephew Ewan Macintyre very kindly drove me to the quarry party location and gave his name to the Ewan of the book; like that Ewan, he’s a very talented musician, singer, and puppet maker. You can find him at ewan-macintyre.co.uk. Thanks to Kim and Symon for putting us up—if you like puppetry, you should visit their site,
puppetlab.com
. And, not wanting to leave out anyone in their very artistic family, I should mention my niece Rachael’s online magazine, Brikolage (
brikolage.co.uk
). If you’re an aspiring artist or writer, it’s a great place to submit your work. Nuala Kennedy is a real person, and her music is just as beautiful as I describe it in the book; you can find her at
nualakennedy.com
. The main license I’ve taken is to move the time and location of the Celtic Connections festival, which actually happens in Glasgow around January and is superb—I really strongly recommend it.

Right, that’s all the Edinburgh info done! I need to thank Stephanie Lane Elliott, Krista Vitola, and Beverly Horowitz at Delacorte Press for being such strong supporters of Scarlett Wakefield’s adventures. Delacorte are a real powerhouse, and I’m very lucky to be with them now and for the future. My American agent, Deborah Schneider, and her right-hand woman, Cathy Gleason, always have my back, and I love them both to pieces. Chanchal, Gabrielle, Bonnie, Lauren, Cecilia, Damaris, Heather, Brooke, Amanda, Paula, Maggie, Dyanhea, Rebecca, Erin, Carlie, Dyana, Kelly, Cynthia, Nikki, Lucia, CNH, Zoe, Gabriella, Magda, Starr, Chelsie, Stephanie, Laura, Lisa Marie, Tia, Carolina, your lovely messages on MySpace were a real source of encouragement to me as I wrote this series—thanks so much! Randon Burns, thanks so much for your unflagging, puckish support and enthusiasm for my YA books. And Claudia Gabel, without you Scarlett would never have existed. Thank you so much for your help, encouragement, and tough love!

Now that I’ve come to the end of Scarlett’s adventures, I’m really excited to be starting a new series—set in Italy, featuring four English and American girls, mystery, adventure, sun-kissed days and sultry nights, dark family secrets, and, of course, quite a few hot Italian boys! Look for the first book in the series this time next year.…

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

One - Blast from the Past

Two - “They’re Very Famous in Norway”

Three - “Good Friends Tell You the Truth”

Four - There’s Always A Plan B

Five - “In Austria There are Many Princesses”

Six - “Misfortune Soothed By Wisdom”

Seven - “You’ve Always Hated Me”

Eight - An Unkindness of Ravens

Nine - “This Isn’t A Coincidence”

Ten - Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

Eleven - Schrödinger’s Cat

Twelve - “What If I’m Not the Heroine?”

Thirteen - I Might as Well Just Fall

Fourteen - “I Love You, Scarlett”

Fifteen - “Ghosts and Ghoulies”

Sixteen - Something’s Very Wrong with Me

Seventeen - “I Love You Very Much, Scarlett”

Eighteen - “Like There’s No
There
There”

Nineteen - Boring and Normal

About the Author

one
BLAST FROM THE PAST

This is absolutely the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

In the dark, I look sideways at Taylor, who’s staring straight ahead, her body stiff with horror. I can tell that she feels the same as I do. She and I have been through so much together; you’d think we’d be immune to anything life can throw at us. We were warned, I suppose. But nothing could have prepared us for this level of atrocity.

I pull out my silenced phone and glance down at it. Oh God. I turn the face to Taylor, nudging her, so that she can see it too. In the glow from the phone, her lips are stretched back over her teeth in a grimace, her eyes narrowed in almost physical pain. She looks like a gargoyle. The bluish light makes her seem even more eerie.

“I can’t
bear
it!” she whispers.

“We have to,” I say grimly, looking from side to side just to confirm what I already know: there’s no escape.

The clock on my phone is telling me there are fifteen more minutes of this. Fifteen more minutes of sheer hell.

I close my eyes to block out the sight. But then I have to listen to the sounds, and they’re even worse without the visuals. Hell, I imagine, is probably something along these lines. Trapped forever, forced to endure this torture, without ever being able to put an end to your misery.

And—an extra twist of the knife—having to watch your best friend go through it too.

A particularly excruciating screech snaps my eyes open in reflex. Nails scraping down a blackboard are soothing compared to this. And yet, if I had to describe the single worst part of the scene in front of me, I actually don’t think it would be the noise they’re making, atrocious and earsplitting though that is.

It would be the clothes.

I really don’t know much about Norway. It has fjords, apparently, and lots of snow, and the people are tall and blond and very, very white: that was pretty much the limit of my Norway Fun Facts up till this moment. But now, looking at the four members of the Norwegian folk group Hürti Slärtbärten (or something like that—I may have got some of those umlauts wrong) sawing grimly away at their violins onstage, I can add that apparently, Norwegians have no access to anything resembling modern fashion. They look as if some major blockade isolated them in the late 1980s. The two girls are wearing deeply unflattering red taffeta dresses with square-cut bodices, drop waists, and flouncy skirts, the kind of frocks a vengeful bride would choose for the bridesmaids she’s being forced to include in her wedding. And the two boys, in shiny red shirts tucked into black pleated trousers, could be the waiters at the same event.

They
are
all tall and blond; I got that part right. And they’re smiling and nodding at each other as they stand in line, dragging their bows over the strings, deliberately sawing out the kind of noises that would make any normal person stop in horror, stare at their violin, and apologize to the audience for having completely forgotten to tune it before going out on stage.

Taylor and I are right in the middle of the row of seats, thoroughly wedged in by other Wakefield Hall girls. And Miss Carter has strategically placed herself on one end of the row, with Aunt Gwen on the other. To get out, we’d have to clamber over everyone, plus face the wrath of the scariest teachers in the school. I actually duck down and look under my seat, wondering if it might be possible to crawl underneath it—there aren’t that many rows behind us, maybe I could sneak out that way.…

But then, as I’m curled over, head between my knees, I realize something’s happened onstage. There’s rustling all around me; people are sitting up straighter. The screeching of the violins is even shriller and less tuneful, if that’s possible. Narrowly avoiding cracking my head on the seat in front as I straighten up again, I catch sight of the stage just in time to join, gobsmacked, in the collective gasp as the girls fall back to one side, the boys to the other, and a fifth member of Hürti Slärtbärten appears from the wings.

He’s wearing the same silky red shirt as the other two boys, but its sleeves are belled out, then gathered back in at the wrists, making it, technically, more of a blouse. And if that weren’t bad enough, it’s accessorized with a black bow tie at the neck. His hair is gelled up and spiked out as if a pineapple had exploded on top of his head. And though he’s tall and blond like the other group members, I can’t honestly say that he’s as white as they are, because his face is a mass of acne breakouts that match the flaming red of his shirt.

He struts out to the middle of the stage, wiggling his hips and waggling his violin, like he’s some sort of pop star. He ducks and grins and winks at both of the girls, flirting with them; then he dances over to stand with the boys and leads them in a trio, chasing the girls around the stage, following them like he’s enacting some bizarre courtship ritual, all of them still sawing away at their instruments. Every so often, he turns to wink at the audience, as if he’s convinced we’re all hypnotized by his sexiness and charm.

I’m paralyzed. My jaw’s still dropped. I think every single member of the audience is in exactly the same situation: unable to believe that this boy with a faceful of spots, dressed like a really camp ice dancer, is acting like he’s so gorgeous we’re going to start screaming and rushing the stage any second now.

And then, farther down the row, I hear something. The unmistakable, high-pitched sound of mocking laughter.

There’s a first for everything, I suppose. I’d never have thought that I’d be grateful to hear Plum laughing sarcastically. But right now, the sound is manna from heaven, because it releases the pressure on my rib cage, which has been almost suffocating me. Like a line of dominoes toppling, every single Wakefield Hall girl starts laughing, giggling at first, and then increasingly loudly till we’re howling with laughter. It’s a wave, rippling through us, then spreading; I can see the shoulders of the people sitting in front of me rocking as they start laughing too.

“Sssh!” hiss Miss Carter and Aunt Gwen furiously. “Sssh! It’s not
funny
!”

But that just makes us even more hysterical. The lead violinist is prancing now, up on his toes, making charges at the two girls as if he were a bull; they’re turning away, looking back at him over their shoulders, and shaking their skirts in would-be seductive motions that cause Plum to reach a pitch almost as high as the wail of their so-called music. The violins squeak up the scale, and so does Plum; by the grand finale, as the spotty boy stands triumphantly between the two girls, both of them playing their violins frantically in his direction, tears are streaming from my eyes, I’m laughing so hard.

They end on a last, screeching, out-of-tune note so painful that I wince and choke momentarily on my own snot. The whole audience has the same reaction, I think; there’s a split second of silence as we all wrestle with the impulse to clap our hands over our ears.

“Bravo! Bravo!” Plum is clapping wildly and making whooping noises.

She’s a twisted genius. We all join in, of course. I drum my feet on the floor. Taylor contributes a cheerleader’s “Yay!” that only Americans are unself-conscious enough to yell in public. The entire row of Wakefield Hall girls screams for Hürti Slärtbärten as if we’re hard-core fans with posters of them on our bedroom walls covered in lipsticked kisses.

And Spotty Boy totally believes it. He flourishes a long bow, he winks at us again, he waggles his hips; and then, unbelievably, he takes his violin, puts it between his legs, and plays a few chords on it, thrusting it out toward us sexily.

We all collapse. The lights come up and Hürti Slärtbärten leave the stage, but we’re past it now. We’re lying limp in our chairs, our faces red and wet with tears, trying desperately to catch our breath.

“That was
shocking
behavior,” Aunt Gwen says angrily.


Really,
girls,” Miss Carter chimes in.

“To be fair,” Miss Carter’s girlfriend, Jane, says from her seat next to Miss Carter, “they weren’t actually terribly good, Clemency. I mean, they weren’t in
tune
.”

“It’s the Scandinavian folk-music style,” Miss Carter says, sounding a little embarrassed. “The dissonance is deliberate, I believe.”

“Well, if you’re not used to it,” Jane persists, “it does rather sound like them being out of tune. And when he put his fiddle between his legs, I couldn’t blame the girls for getting a little carried away.…”

Plum shrieks with laughter, remembering this. And Plum’s laughter, as I’ve said, is very distinctive.

“Plum?”
exclaims a voice from the other side of the auditorium.

Taylor and I jump. Wiping our eyes, we look over to the other side of the aisle, where a girl is standing up, staring in our direction. And we recognize her immediately. It’s Nadia Farouk. I’d know that stunning fall of shiny blue-black hair, that exquisite makeup, that gold jewelry and chic black-clad body anywhere.

I should. I went to school with her for seven years.

“Oh my
God,
” Nadia breathes, her eyes narrowing.

Plum sits up as straight as if someone just rammed an iron rod down her spine, tossing back her hair as she always does before she declares war. The two girls are deadly enemies; last year, Plum had some dirt on Nadia, which Nadia convinced me and Taylor to steal and destroy for her. What we didn’t know is that Nadia also had dirt on Plum, which she promptly deployed, causing Plum to be kicked out of her and my previous school, St. Tabby’s, and end up at Wakefield Hall Collegiate with me and Taylor.

Basically, we shot ourselves spectacularly in the foot. Or feet.

As Plum and Nadia size each other up, my gaze slides beyond Nadia to the girls sitting next to her. I recognize several faces from my year at St. Tabby’s. But I don’t expect to see the two that make my heart stop for a moment, then speed up, pounding as if it’s trying to escape from my chest.

Alison and Luce. My two best friends from St. Tabby’s. I spent almost every waking moment with them: in class, gymnastics practice every day after school, then going back to one or other of their houses to do our homework and have dinner, staying out as long as I could because all I had to go back to was the converted attic of a friend of my grandmother’s in Holland Park.

Alison and Luce took me in, befriended me, gave me something that resembled the family life I lost when I was four years old and my parents died. We were three leotard-wearing, totally uncool, hardworking best friends; going back on the bus after gymnastics training, sweaty and giggling. We always had each other’s backs through multiple competitions; we watched each other flip and somersault on the terrifying balance beam, fall on our bums over and over again, and get shouted at by Ricky, our coach. We knew all each other’s weaknesses, and we
definitely
knew each other’s strengths.

And I rewarded them by dumping them cold the moment a more glamorous option presented itself. Nadia, prompted by Plum, asked me to a party she was throwing, making it clear that Alison and Luce weren’t included in the invitation, and I went. Pathetic, but I got my comeuppance. I kissed a boy at that party—gorgeous, sexy Dan McAndrew, the boy I’d had a crush on for years—and he promptly dropped dead at my feet.
Huge
uproar. I got kicked out of St. Tabby’s, packed off to Wakefield Hall—the boarding school my grandmother runs. And to Alison and Luce, I was as dead as Dan.

I was alone and friendless, thinking I’d killed someone, until I met Taylor and—after some head-butting—gradually bonded with her. Eventually, the two of us found out the secret behind Dan’s death. But I don’t blame Alison and Luce for my loneliness. Not at all. I let them down. We might have been three musketeers, but I definitely didn’t come through with the crucial all-for-one-and-one-for-all part of musketeering.

Instead, I showed them that hanging out with the smart set meant more to me than my best friends.

I deserved to have them drop me like a stone.

And now I can’t take my eyes off them.

Luce still hasn’t got boobs. But then, she never thought she would; her mum’s flat as a board. She looks so much more grown-up, though; she’s a tiny little thing, with brown hair that she always used to wear in bunches that made her look years younger. Now her hair’s been cut close to her head in a pixie crop like Audrey Hepburn’s, and she’s actually wearing makeup. She looks … 
sophisticated.

Amazed, I glance next to her, at Alison, who’s undergone some sort of before-and-after,
Britain’s Next Top Model
transformation. Her curly red hair has been straightened into a smooth curtain held back with a wide black velvet band, and not only is she wearing mascara, it looks as if she’s darkened her eyebrows, too. The change is extraordinary; her pale ginger lashes and brows tended to wash out her face, making it hard to see her features. Now she’s really striking, in a sixties sort of way.

They haven’t seen me yet; everyone from St. Tabby’s is focused on Plum, who, as usual, is relishing the drama of the confrontation.

“Hey, Nadia,” she calls in an icy voice, raising one hand and fluttering her fingers dismissively in Nadia’s direction.

I’m still staring at Alison and Luce, amazed by how different they look. And the intensity of my stare attracts their attention, because their heads turn a little more, beyond Plum, and their eyes meet mine.

I see their shock. And then, as the shock fades, I see their anger.

They’re still furious with me.

I want to look away, but that would be cowardly. But I don’t want them to think that I’m being confrontational either. So I’m incredibly grateful when the lights dim once more, Nadia sits down, and we settle back into our seats.

“Och, you’ve been a great audience!” coos the woman behind the mixing desk in the kind of lovely Scottish brogue that immediately makes you feel relaxed and happy. “Thanks for coming to Celtic Connections. This is always a very special evening for us here at the music festival, because tonight’s the showcase for upcoming young artists. It’s a treat to see the folk stars of tomorrow, isn’t it? And here come our last group, who already took first prize in the Stornoway Folk Festival’s Young Talent category, five bonny laddies with a real future ahead of them. Put your hands together for Mac Attack!”

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