Free Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer Page A

looked over her shoulder to see Boodawg handing Kathryn a glass that looked like it had wine in it. To Chloe, Kathryn was just somebody new to talk about. A pledge for her little junior class sorority. I thought about trying to explain what Kathryn was to me, but I knew she would never understand.
    â€œJust because I like her doesn’t mean you have to make her into a project,” I said.
    â€œKathryn isn’t a project , Brooke. I’m trying to be nice.” Chloe squinted at me. “What were you planning to do with her, hide her someplace and only let her come out when you say it’s okay?”
    â€œNo…,” I said. Putting it like that made the whole thing seem shallow and stupid.
    â€œI like her,” Chloe went on. “Dina likes her. You obviously like her. There’s no reason why we can’t all hang out, right, Brooke?”
    Okay. On the surface, she was right. Perfectly reasonable. And I had to agree, because keeping up the argument would only make me look stupid. But watching from across the room while Kathryn talked to Miles and Dina in that dress and those boots, I didn’t feel reasonable at all. What I really felt was scared.

BROOKE
    IT’S MONDAY. THE MONDAY AFTER the pool party, and everybody’s wondering when Kathryn will come back to school. She stayed home Friday, which got the rumor mill going good. In just a couple days, the story has gone from a bloody lip and a bump on the head to a weekend at the hospital on life support. That one scared me when I first heard it. What if she really did get hurt? What if she got water in her lungs or went too long without air and had brain damage? I tell myself it can’t be that bad. Anderson would have said something, and he hasn’t mentioned Kathryn at all. What he did say, Friday at the end of choir, was that we’d be getting the repertoire for fall contests today.
    Sure enough, when we walk in at the start of class there are black folders stacked on top of the piano. For a few minutes, they’re what everybody’s talking about. Until Kathryn walks in. People start whispering, lookingfor signs of a near-death experience. She doesn’t look like she’s had any major injuries, though. She keeps her eyes down and stays quiet. She doesn’t look at me at all.
    The folders are stacked by section. I take mine back to my seat and flip through it. Brahms, Bach, a couple of contemporary pieces. Anderson waits until everybody’s got one, then he steps up to his music stand.
    â€œLet’s begin with the Vivaldi.”
    We sight-read the first couple of pages. When a new movement starts, my eyes go down to the second staff, looking for the alto part. There’s nothing there. I look at the soprano staff. The notes go on all by themselves across the top of the page. Right above the time signature is the word “solo.”
    â€œKathryn,” says Anderson. “Go ahead and take this.”
    I flip ahead in the music. Nothing there, so I search through the rest of my folder, looking for my piece. If Kathryn gets a solo, Anderson always evens it out by giving me one, too. It’s like this unspoken balance he’s set up. Like he knows about this thing between us and wants everything to be fair.
    But this time it isn’t.
    Maybe he feels bad about what happened at the pool. Maybe Kathryn got to him somehow—told him she wanted a solo and got him to agree. Or maybe he thinks Kathryn is better than me.
    It can’t be that. It better not be. Kathryn starts to sing and the sound of her voice is terrifying. She obviously spent all summer practicing. A few chairs over, Laura Lindner rolls her eyes at me. Normally I’d be all over anything that knocks Kathryn off her precious little pedestal, but today she sounds way too good.
    Kathryn’s always been a threat but now, with the Blackmore coming up, she just might be my biggest competition.
    Two hours later when school