Double Date by Melody Carlson Page B

“But besides my family, no one believes me.”
    â€œYou had nothing to do with it?” Cassidy asked.
    â€œ Nothing. ” Felicia firmly shook her head. “Those pictures weren’t even of me. Not the bodies anyway. Someone pasted my head onto someone else’s creepy photos.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought too,” Emma declared. “It looked totally fake to me.”
    â€œIt was all fake. Everything they wrote too. I never said any of that stuff.”
    â€œDo you know who did it?” Cassidy asked.
    Felicia slumped down into a hot-pink beanbag chair and sighed. “Not really.”
    â€œBut you suspect someone?” Emma asked.
    â€œMaybe . . .”
    â€œWe want to help you,” Emma told her, “but you have to tell us everything you know.”
    â€œFor starters, Felicia, can you tell us why you changed your appearance so dramatically?” Cassidy asked.
    â€œYou remember how I used to dress?” she asked them. “Well, my mom always picked out all my clothes. Sometimes I’d get teased for looking like a little girl.”
    â€œYeah,” Emma admitted. “I do remember how you mentioned that to me.”
    Felicia’s forehead creased. “So I wanted a makeover.” She looked down at her lap. “I just wanted to be more like you guys.”
    â€œ What? ” Emma was shocked. “You think we dress like . . . well, like you were doing?”
    â€œI don’t know about that, but I knew you guys figured out how to get boys to pay attention to you. You were the first ones to get dates to the homecoming dance and then to the masquerade ball. I just wanted to be like you. I wanted the boys to notice me too.” She pointed at Emma. “I was so impressed by how you changed your appearance earlier in the year. Remember how I asked you about it? And we talked together . . . like we were friends. You made me think that you were going to help me too.” She made a sad little sigh. “But then you didn’t.”
    Emma bit into her lip. That was all true. Emma had acted like she wanted to help Felicia, and then she’d let her down. Big-time. “So that’s why you started to dress like that?” Emma asked meekly.
    â€œI just wanted to look pretty.”
    â€œBut your clothes . . . they were so . . . well, I’m sorry tosay this,” Cassidy made a grimace, “but they were kinda, well, skimpy.”
    Felicia frowned. “Yeah, I guess so. It didn’t seem like it at the time. Not to me anyway. Oh, my parents wouldn’t have approved. But they’d like to keep me dressed like I’m still seven. So I had to sneak my new wardrobe to school and get dressed in the bathroom.”
    â€œYou changed your clothes at school?” Emma tried to imagine Felicia dressing in the dimly lit bathroom where the mirror above the sinks only reflected from the shoulders up. Even less if you were short like Felicia. No wonder she looked so strange.
    â€œBut where did you get those clothes?” Cassidy asked.
    â€œI studied what girls were wearing in magazines and on fashion websites. Then I bought some things online and at a thrift shop. I thought I was doing it right.” Felicia pointed at Cassidy. “You changed your looks too. Remember? I just wanted to step up my game. You know?”
    â€œI get that now,” Emma told her. “That explains a lot. But we’re not here to talk about your clothes. So you really did not put that crud on MyPlace? You had absolutely nothing to do with it, right?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œBut it’s why you were expelled?”
    Felicia shrugged. “First I got a warning about my clothes—the school day was almost over and I promised Mrs. Dorman that I’d wear acceptable clothes the next day. Then I got called back to the office in the middle of seventh period. I thought it was