What If... All Your Friends Turned On You (18 page)

Coco's calorie crunching has clearly gone too far, but what should Haley do about it? If you think she should talk to Coco directly, in private,
CONFRONT COCO
. On the other hand, confronting her could backfire. Coco has a very controlling personality and does not always welcome Haley's input. If you think Haley should stay out of this one, especially knowing how cranky Coco's been acting lately,
CALL THE NURSE
.

If you think Haley should forget about Coco's
problems and go spy on Reese's basketball performance instead, turn to,
RIDGEWOOD RIVALS
. Finally, if you want to meet some new boys from another school and forget all about the hotties of Hillsdale High for a while, turn to,
MUSICAL VALENTINE
.

H
aley was shocked when she walked down the hall at school and spotted Coco pressed against Devon in a corner. What was that about? Haley bristled. No way was Coco into Devon, and no way Devon was into Coco. But why was she whispering seductively into his ear?

On closer inspection, Coco wasn't whispering at all, she was commanding. Devon was wearing a Team Coco T-shirt he'd made as a joking commentary on Coco's war against Spencer. Coco loved the shirt and,
from what Haley overheard, she was asking—no, demanding—no, begging—Devon to produce as many more of them as he could. Coco would even foot the bill; Devon could hand out the shirts to the student body for free.

“How many more?” Devon asked.

“Let's start with three hundred,” Coco said.

“No problemo,” Devon said. “For the right price.”

It turned out Devon was making the shirts at Jack's, the vintage clothing store where he worked after school, using an old silk-screening machine Jack had recently bought and handed over to Devon to use.

“Money is no object,” Coco said. “I want this school flooded with Team Coco tees by the end of the week.” She stuffed a wad of bills into Devon's pocket and walked away.

Devon caught Haley watching and grinned. “Jackpot,” he said, winking at her flirtatiously.

“Looks like someone's found a new source of income,” Haley said, marveling at how confident and alluring Devon suddenly seemed.

“How can I say no to cold, hard cash,” he said, throwing up his hands. “Maybe you'll let me buy you dinner one of these days.”

Haley blushed as he walked away without waiting for her answer.

Devon was as good as his word. By the end of the week, Haley noticed Team Coco shirts all over school.
Coco used them as a conversation starter—and the conversation usually went something like this:

“Did you know I dumped Spencer's sorry butt right after New Year's? I don't care if his mother is governor, he's a total deadbeat. He'll be lucky if he even graduates next year. All he does is smoke pot and drink his way through school. Oh, and did I tell you, he's got problems in the bedroom? Yeah, no wonder he orchestrated all those shots of him with those models in Nevis. It's like he has to prove his manhood or something.”

The exchange usually ended up with the classmate joining in with Coco's insults and then complimenting her polished taste and sense of style, which made Coco beam with joy. Meanwhile, Spencer skulked around the school like a wanted criminal, avoiding social confrontations whenever possible. Not like the superconfident, even egotistical, old Spencer at all.

Apparently, Alex Martin had noticed the shirts too. “Mrs. Eton was wondering why Spencer hasn't seemed like himself lately,” Annie Armstrong reported to Haley. “So Alex told her about the Coco shirts and the rumors she's been spreading about Spencer. So Mrs. Eton told Alex to fix the situation immediately and handed him a stack of petty cash.”

“But how's he supposed to fix it?” Haley asked. Alex had a thing for Haley, it was true, and she had
personally witnessed him performing miraculous feats in his attempts to get her to date him. But restoring Spencer's street cred after Coco publicly shamed him? Even Haley thought the job might exceed Alex's abilities.

“He's going to bribe Devon to halt production temporarily on Team Coco shirts and switch over to make Team Eton shirts—with an even cooler design, of course,” Annie said.

“Wow, Devon must be swimming in money,” Haley mused out loud.

“That must be a new feeling for him,” Annie said.

By the next day, the first hundred Team Eton T-shirts appeared. Soon there was an all-out battle taking place in the halls of Hillsdale High. As Team Eton shirts sprouted everywhere, especially on boys supporting Spencer's lavish bachelor lifestyle, Coco fought back with ever more Team Coco shirts, in baby-doll sizes and appealing bright colors. The school became divided into Coco and Eton camps and, Haley soon realized, you could be on only one team or the other. You had to state your position.

Coco even reinstated her blacklist. She roamed the halls with a clipboard in hand, monitoring student loyalties. She wrote down the name of every boy or girl she caught wearing a pro-Spencer shirt, and she didn't count “irony” as an acceptable excuse. You were either with her or against her, and either way, she would never, ever forget it.

What should Haley do? Do you think she should invest in a T-shirt? Her sympathies may lie with Coco, but what does she think of Coco's methods? Is Coco taking this revenge thing too far, or not far enough? And if Haley doesn't join in the boy bashing, will she lose a spot in the sisterhood?

Haley's big seventeenth birthday is coming up, and she's got a few decisions to make about how to spend it
.

If you think Coco has done a great job of alienating the boys, who totally deserve it, and that Haley should join the sisterhood to take revenge even farther, turn to,
MUSICAL VALENTINE
. Haley's got other boys besides Spencer to think about. If you think she was impressed with how Alex jumped right into Spencer's social life and saved his reputation, turn to,
CANDLELIT BIRTHDAY
, to help Haley turn seventeen in a romantic setting with a smart high school senior. Lastly, if you think Devon's business model and creativity were by far the coolest aspects of this whole battle of the sexes, turn to
HOT PURSUIT
to see if Devon makes an effort on Haley's birthday this year
.

“W
hat do you mean, you want more?” Irene said. “Devon obviously likes you. He's spending less and less time with Darcy. You've practically got him in the palm of your hand.”

“I guess,” Haley said. “But I want him to obsess over me. I want to know he's chosen me of his own free will, and that he doesn't have even an ounce of regret.” They were hanging out by their lockers after art class, watching a parade of Team Coco and Team
Eton shirts go by. Haley was sick and tired of waiting for Devon to get up the nerve—or energy, or whatever it was he lacked—to show her how he really felt about her. She kept thinking he liked her a whole whole lot, but he was always too chicken to do anything about it.

“Just keep doing what you've been doing,” Irene said. “And he'll obsess over you, believe me. Keep playing it cool. Always. Never show any kind of reaction if possible, good or bad. If you absolutely must respond, err on the side of being a malcontent.”

“But won't that turn him off after a while?” Haley asked. “Won't he just think I'm a brat?”

“Just the opposite,” Irene said. “With someone as shy and detached as Devon, you have to beat him at his own game. You have to master his art form.”

“His art form?”

“That whole ‘too tragically hip to communicate' shtick he uses to keep everyone at arm's length. Like, ‘I'm too deep to talk to girls as if I like them. I'm too deep to date.' You know what I'm talking about.”

Haley knew exactly what Irene was talking about. Devon's too-cool attitude had been driving her crazy all year.

“Just remember,” Irene said, “even when Devon starts to show signs of liking you, act like you don't care in the least. Like you barely even notice him. He's totally under your radar. Got it?”

“Got it.”

That afternoon, as Devon was walking to his car to head to Jack's, he spotted Haley across the parking lot and called out, “Later, Haley.” She didn't respond. In fact, she acted as if she hadn't even heard him speak.

Devon stopped in his tracks. “Haley?” he yelled. “Need a ride?”

The hair on the back of her neck tingled. Irene's plan was working already! Devon rarely offered her a ride home. She wanted to say, “Yes! And guess what? My birthday's coming up and I'm going to get my license and maybe a car of my own! And then I can offer you a ride. I'm so excited!” But a cucumber would never gush that way, and she was supposed to stay cucumber-cool. A reaction like that would have been highly uncool.

Instead, Haley kept her composure and didn't look up from the book she was reading. She just shook her head and said, “No thanks.”

She played the cool game for three days in a row. By the following week, the week of her birthday, which was also Valentine's Day, Devon was showing clear signs of interest. “Don't get excited,” Irene warned her. “Don't react. Just keep telling yourself: I don't like him. I don't care about him. He's a slug under the heel of my boot.”

“A slug under the heel of my boot,” Haley echoed. “But look!” She pulled a homemade CD out
of her backpack. She'd found it in her locker that morning with a note from Devon:
I just threw this together. Some of my favorites. Thought it might make a nice sound track for your b-day
.

“A
mix CD!” Haley nearly squealed. “And it has the most amazing songs on it. The last one is, like, totally romantic.”

“Haley, listen,” Irene said, shaking her. “Snap out of it. Stick to the plan. Remember: do not react. Don't even thank him for it. It's just a stupid CD. It probably cost seventy-five cents and took him, like, three minutes to burn.”

“Don't thank him for it?” Haley said. “But isn't that rude?”

“It's totally rude,” Irene said. “And it's going to make him crazy for you. You're building up tension, like putting air inside a balloon. If you get all gushy on him now, he'll lose interest so fast it'll be like letting the balloon go before you've tied it off with a knot. All the air will rush out and what have you got? A limp, soggy piece of rubber.”

“Ew, I don't want that,” Haley said.

“No, trust me, you don't.”

When Devon saw Haley in the art room later that day and said, “Hey, did you get the CD I left you?” Haley barely glanced at him.

“The what?” she said.

“The CD. With songs on it? I made it for you myself.”

“Oh, that. Is that what it was?” Haley said in her coldest voice. “Um, thanks.” It took every ounce of strength not to tell him how she really felt. She did, however, allow herself to sneak a peek at Devon's baffled face before he turned away. He looked miserable. The pressure was starting to build.

On Valentine's Day, Devon walked up to Haley at her locker and cleared his throat nervously. She thought he was wearing a slightly more carefully chosen outfit than usual. Still slouchy, but the vintage blazer was pretty sharp and more formal than his usual ratty sweatshirt.

“Hey—I hear it's your birthday,” Devon said.

Inside Haley's head a voice squealed,
Oh my God, he remembered my birthday!
She couldn't wait to find out what kind of surprise he had in store for her. But Irene's stern voice overrode Haley's excitement.
Remember: do not react at all
, she reminded herself.

“Yeah, it's today,” Haley said in as blasé a manner as she could muster.

“Well, listen,” Devon said. “There's this photo show at MoMA I've been really interested in seeing, and I was wondering … I was wondering if you wanted to come with me. We could make a night of it, you know…. The museum's open till eight, and then we could grab something to eat in the city….”

Haley was dying to say yes, but she controlled herself, Irene-style. “Sorry, I can't,” she said coldly. “I've got a family obligation.”

“Oh. Okay.” Her heart both ached and was thrilled to see the disappointment on Devon's face. “Maybe another time, then.”

She didn't answer, so he walked away dejectedly. She sighed as she watched him go. Irene's plan wasn't easy. She would have loved to spend her birthday in the city with Devon. But according to Irene, he wasn't smitten enough yet. She had to soldier on.

After school that day, Haley's dad picked her up and drove her to the DMV. She took her driver's test and passed. She was a little shaky on three-point turns, but the woman scoring her road test didn't seem to pick up on it. At the end of the test, Haley ran outside to the waiting room and waved her brand-new driver's license at her dad.