Free Almost Famous, a Talent Novel by Zoey Dean Page A

at Mac’s screen.
    To: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Subject: SAW THIS ON INTRANET THOUGHT U MIGHT ENJOY XOXO RG
    “Let’s just see what this is,” Mac said calmly, clicking on the link. She turned her iPhone horizontally and an online movie began to play. Mac’s nerves fired up when the credits flashed, in the exact same Courier font that Mac had used for her Team Mac T-shirts:
    “Le Slumber Party”
    Starring:
     
    MACKENZIE LITTLE-FARTSTRONG as the girl who is 2 cool 4 school!
     
    EVANGELINA BECKS as the girl who hearts Pinkberry! (A little too much!)
     
    CORDELIA “COCO” KINGSLEY as the girl you can Depends on!
     
    And introducing EMILY MUNGLER as Cat Girl! Or is that Brat Girl?
     
    Rated U for Unbelievable!
    Mac’s heart stopped for a moment and her breath came in short, staccato bursts as she put together the bizarre clues like a CSI detective: Pinkberry . . . Cat Girl . . . Depends. Suddenly, it clicked: They were talking about the Inner Circle slumber party! On the tiny screen, Emily appeared, doing her catlike imitation of Kimmie Tachman. Mac’s mind raced back to the prank they’d played on Ruby, and then she remembered with a jaw-dropping jolt: She had never logged out of the iChat! Everything that they’d done after that prank would have been recorded if the person on the other end hadn’t logged off. And of course Ruby had lurked.
    Mac looked at her friends, her throat drier than a Palm Springs cactus. Emily was ghostly pale, Coco looked like she was going to faint, and Becks was too angry to speak. Everyone’s face seemed to say the same thing: Whose fault was it?
    “Oh, jeez, did I mix that up?” Emily asked, her hands on her cheeks.
    “No, it’s my fault,” Mac said numbly, staring down at her phone. “I put you up to that in the first place.” Mac’s mind was throbbing. How, she wondered, could she have been so careless? This was such an amateur move.
    Mac pressed play again, and the video smash-cut to Becks and Coco chanting, in unison, “KIMMIE TACHMAN!” The impression had seemed funny at the time, but now it just looked mean, like the girls had nothing better to do than make fun of people. Clearly Ruby hadn’t just whipped up the video on her laptop. This monstrosity had been professionally edited.
    “But Ems made fun of us, too!” Becks said, pointing a shaky finger at the screen. “She didn’t just make fun of Kimmie!”
    “And we said nice things about Kimmie!” Coco wailed, wrapping her lithe arms around her body in a self-protective hug. “Ruby cut out all that.”
    “How do we know it was Ruby?” Emily asked innocently. Her eyes were wide open in horror and her leg was shaking. She looked like she was about to topple over.
    Becks and Coco shook their heads, as if to say, Poor little thing .
    “Welcome to BAMS,” Mac said sarcastically.
    But the video wasn’t over. Next there was Becks’s Pinkberry disaster. She leaned over her yogurt. “Pretend this is Austin,” she cooed. And there she was, slobbering all over her Pinkberry, looking insane and gross.
    “Oh no,” Becks whispered, pressing her hands to her heart. “I’m gonna be sick.”
    The next shot was of Coco, squeezing her legs, and Mac pointing out that she’d peed herself. Mac realized that the background “music” was actually an overlay of farting sounds. And then there was Mac’s voice, saying, “I’m lactose intolerant.”
    The denouement was Mac’s declaration, “Even after I win social chair I’m still going to hang out with you girls all the time. I have no interest in hanging out with anyone else at BAMS.” Ruby had actually subtitled this bit of dialogue so there could be no mistaking Mac’s conceitedness . As the girls screamed, “Tell us something we don’t know!!!” and laughed hysterically, everyone looked snobby by association.
    Finally, THE END popped up. The screen went black.
    Mac’s veins were pulsing out of her body. “It’s THE