Free The Prom Queen by R.L. Stine

for trying to save your life?”
    â€œThank you,” she muttered. She avoided my stare, her eyes welling up with fresh tears. “How could he do this to me?”
    My heart was no longer pounding against my chest. I felt angry at Rachel—but also very relieved.I toweled my hair briskly. “What happened?”
    Rachel didn’t answer. When I removed the towel, I saw that her face was contorted by crying. She was crying the kind of tears that are so painful they’re silent.
    â€œRachel,” I said gently. “It’s not so bad. I promise.”
    She turned over and buried her head under an old brown gorilla pillow her mom had sewn for her when she was a kid. Her sobs came in painful bursts. I sat on the bed and put a cold hand on her shoulder.
    â€œRach,” I said. “Come on. What happened?”
    â€œHe’s dropping me for Elana,” she said into the bedspread.
    â€œHe’s what?”
    â€œYou heard me.”
    â€œI don’t believe it,” I said. Rachel and Gideon had been going together almost as long as I could remember. If any relationship seemed solid, it was theirs.
    â€œHow did it happen?”
    â€œI don’t know!” she wailed. “They’ve been working together on a social studies project and . . .” She didn’t have to describe the rest. “Elana,” she said bitterly, raising her voice. “She thinks she can have anything she wants. But she can’t have—”
    She was sobbing again, even louder this time. She pounded her gorilla pillow with both fists.
    â€œEasy, easy,” I told her gently. I kept my hand onher shoulder, but she was really starting to shake. I couldn’t calm her down. Everything I said only seemed to make it worse. I probably should have kept my mouth shut and just let her cry. But instead I said, “Well, I know a good way to get revenge. Beat her out for prom queen.”
    Rachel raised up on her knees and jerked away from me. “Are you crazy?” she cried. “Gideon was the only good thing in my whole rotten stupid life. Who cares about being prom queen? I won’t even have a date for the prom!”
    â€œI don’t have a date, either,” I said. I suddenly felt like crying myself. I was remembering the day Kevin found out he was moving to Alabama. That day Rachel had sat on my bed while I cried.
    I tried to think of something comforting to say. “I’ll be your date,” I told her.
    â€œTerrific.”
    She finally pulled herself together a little and apologized for making me come out in the storm. I told her I’d call her in the morning and headed back to my car.
    The storm was still raging as I drove home. But at least I wasn’t terrified now, knowing that Rachel was okay. Her heart was broken, but compared to what I thought had happened, a broken heart seemed minor.
    I ran into the house, pulled off my soggy windbreaker, and stood looking for a place to hang it. My dad called out to me.
    Uh-oh, I thought. Here comes a major lecture.
    I had run out at night and taken the car without telling them.
    He called me into the den. I entered reluctantly, knowing I was in big trouble.
    But to my surprise, he was sitting at his desk with a big ear-to-ear grin on his face. He was wearing his favorite ratty old red bathrobe, the one with the ships’ anchors all over it. In front of him his computer monitor was on and filled with figures. He’s an accountant and is always really busy.
    â€œDid you hear?” he asked as soon as I entered the room. “They caught the guy who killed those girls.”

Chapter

12
    I should have been overjoyed. But I felt my heart start to pound all over again. I was almost afraid to ask who it was. The image in my head was of a boy with brown hair and eyes set too close together—Lucas.
    â€œIt was on the news,” Dad said. “It was some guy who escaped from the state