Never Have I Ever: A Lying Game Novel. Sara Shepard

team, turned around and smirked triumphantly at Emma. Her eyes flashed with pure hate, which sent a ripple of fear through Emma’s chest. It was clear Nisha and Sutton had some seriously bad blood between them—Nisha had been giving Emma the evil eye ever since she stepped into Sutton’s life.

      Looking away, Emma positioned a gray clay blob in the center of the wheel, cupped her hands around it, and slowly let the wheel turn until she had a bowl-like shape. Laurel let out a low whistle. “How do you know how to do that?”

      “Uh, beginner’s luck.” Emma shrugged like it was no big deal, but her hands trembled slightly. A headline popped in her head: Master Pottery Skills Expose Emma Paxton Posing as Sutton Mercer. Scandal! Emma had taken pottery back in Henderson. She’d spent hours using the wheel after school; it was a welcome alternative to going home to Ursula and Steve, the hippie foster parents she’d lived with at the time, who didn’t believe in bathing. The No-Suds rule applied to them, their clothing, and their eight mangy dogs.

      Emma sliced her hand through the bowl and let out a fake sigh of disappointment when it collapsed. “So much for that.”

      As soon as Mrs. Gilliam disappeared into the kiln, Emma eyed Madeline and lifted her foot from the treadle. Madeline and the others still made the most sense to be Sutton’s killers. But she had no proof.

      Wiping her hands on a towel, she pulled out Sutton’s iPhone and scrolled through the calendar feature. “Uh, guys?” she said. “Does anyone know when I had my last highlights appointment? I forgot to put it in my calendar and I want to make a note for when I need to go in next. Was it … August thirty-first?”

      “What day was that?” Charlotte asked. She looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept at all the night before. She mashed her hands way too hard into the clay, turning the bowl she was making into a soupy pancake.

      Emma tapped on the phone again. “Uh … the day before Nisha’s party.” The day before Mads kidnapped me at Sabino Canyon, thinking I was Sutton. Or maybe knowing I wasn’t Sutton. “Two days before school started.”

      Charlotte glanced at Madeline. “Wasn’t that the day we—”

      “No,” Madeline snapped, shooting Charlotte an icy glare. Then she turned to Emma. “Neither of us know where you were that day, Sutton. Someone else will have to cure your amnesia.”

      Fluorescent light gleamed over Madeline’s porcelain skin. Her eyes narrowed at Emma, as though challenging her to drop the subject. Charlotte glanced from Emma to Madeline, looking suddenly alert. Even Laurel’s back was stiff in front of them.

      Emma waited, knowing she’d hit on something and hoping someone would tell her what it was. But when the tense silence persisted, she gave up. Take two, she thought, reaching into her pocket and wrapping her fingers around the silver train charm. “Whatever. So I was thinking it’s time for a new Lying Game prank.”

      “Cool,” Charlotte murmured, her eyes focused back on the spinning lump of clay in front of her. “Any ideas?”

      Across the room, a girl washed her hands at the sink, and a loud crash sounded from the kiln. “The prank where we stole my mom’s car was awesome.” She remembered seeing a video of the girls doing just that on Laurel’s computer. “Maybe we should do something like that again.”

      Madeline nodded, thinking. “Maybe.”

      “Except … with a twist,” Emma went on, saying the words she’d rehearsed the night before in Sutton’s bedroom. “Like, we could leave someone’s car in the middle of a car wash. Or drive it into a swimming pool. Or abandon it on the train tracks.”

      At the word tracks, Charlotte, Laurel, and Madeline tensed. A hot, sharp pain streaked through Emma’s gut. Bull’s-eye.

      “Very funny.” Charlotte slapped her clay down with a thwap.

      “No repeats allowed, remember?” Laurel hissed over her shoulder.

      Madeline swiped the back of her hand across her forehead and glared at Emma. “And are you hoping the cops come again, too?”

      The cops. I tried my hardest to force a memory to the surface. But that flash I’d gotten about train tracks had faded into dust.

      Emma looked at Sutton’s friends, her mouth feeling cottony dry. But before she could assemble her next question, feedback screeched through the PA system.

      “Attention!” spoke the tinny voice of Amanda Donovan, a senior who read the daily announcements. “It’s time to announce the winners of the Homecoming Halloween Dance Court, voted in by Hollier’s talented boys’ football, soccer, cross-country, and volleyball teams! It’s in two weeks, ghosts and goblins, so get your tickets today before they sell out! My date and I already have!”

      Madeline’s lips pursed in disgust. “Who could Amanda possibly be going with? Uncle Wes?”

      Charlotte and Laurel snickered. Amanda’s uncle was Wes Donovan, a sportscaster who had his own Sirius radio show. Amanda name-dropped him so often during morning announcements that Madeline swore they were secret lovers.

      “Please join me in warm congratulations to Norah Alvarez, Madison Cates, Jennifer Morrison, Zoe Mitchell, Alicia Young, Tinsley Zimmerman …”

      Every time a name was called, Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel pantomimed a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.

      “… and Gabriella and Lilianna Fiorello, our first Homecoming Court twins ever!” Amanda concluded. “A warm congratulations, ladies!”

      Madeline blinked several times as if waking up from a dream. “The Twitter Twins? On the court?”

      Charlotte sniffed. “Who would vote for them?”

      Emma looked back and forth between them, trying to keep up. Gabby and Lili Fiorello, the Twitter Twins, were fraternal twins in their grade. They both had big blue eyes and honey-blonde hair, but each girl also had other features all her own, like the mole by Lili’s chin or Gabby’s Angelina Jolie lips. Emma still was unclear whether Gabby and Lili were in or out of the clique; they’d attended Charlotte’s sleepover two weekends ago, when the anonymous attacker nearly strangled Emma to death, but they weren’t members of the Lying Game. With their dopey expressions, twin-brain mentality, and iPhone addictions, they struck Emma as all fluff and no substance, the girl equivalent of low-calorie Cool Whip.

      I wasn’t sure about that, though. If there was one thing I was learning, it was that looks could be deceiving ….

      As if on cue, four sharp ringtones filled the room. Charlotte, Madeline, Laurel, and Emma all fumbled for their phones. On Emma’s screen were two new texts, one from Gabby, one from Lili. WE KNOW WE’RE GORGEOUS!

      Gabby’s said. CAN’T WAIT TO WEAR OUR CROWNS! Lili wrote.

      “Divas,” Madeline said next to her. Emma glanced at her screen. Madeline had received the same texts.

      Charlotte snorted, staring at her phone, too. “They should go as twin Carries. Then we’d get to dump pig’s blood on their heads.”

      Emma’s phone chimed once more. Lili had sent her an additional missive. WHO’S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL? TAKE THAT, QUEEN BEE-OTCH!

      “Well, now they’re officially not coming camping with us after the dance,” Charlotte declared.

      “We’re doing that again?” Laurel said, wrinkling her nose.

      “It’s tradition,” Charlotte said sharply. She looked at Emma. “Right, Sutton?”

      Camping? Emma raised an eyebrow. These girls didn’t seem the outdoorsy types. But she nodded along. “Right.”

      “Maybe we could try those awesome hot springs on Mount Lemmon,” Madeline said, twisting her dark hair into a bun. “Gabby and Lili say they’re filled with natural salts that make your skin feel amazing.”

      “Enough talk about Gabby and Lili,” Charlotte groaned,