Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan

could try sitting with Holly in this class, instead of letting her stick around by the door so she can watch you go off and sit with Amber again?”
    Kami snorted. “You’re ridiculous. And I am going to class.” She headed toward her classroom like a homing pigeon for learning, and did not give Jared a backward glance. She gave him a backward thought, though.
You should go to class too
.
    If you insist
, Jared grumbled.
Kami? Try not to undress for anyone else today
.
    Oh, hilarious
, said Kami, and bumped into Holly at the door.
    “Hi, Kami!” Holly turned in a sunburst of curls and wide eyes. She had been standing by the door, Kami noticed. “I haven’t found Jared today. But I asked him to have lunch, on Friday. I was thinking if you wanted to catch us in the cafeteria, you could interview him then. I mean, if you don’t have lunch plans.”
    “Don’t worry about it. I found him,” said Kami.
    “Oh,” said Holly.
    “He said you guys were having lunch together,” Kamiwent on, and thought,
Hot girl with a bike
. “You could both come up to headquarters and have lunch?”
    Holly frowned. “Headquarters?”
    “Oh, Room 31B,” said Kami. “We’re calling it the headquarters now. Well, okay,
I’m
calling it that. But I’m sure it will catch on any day. Or, ah, you guys could have lunch together and you could do the interview yourself if you wanted? You’ve been doing all the running around after him; I think it’s only fair. And I don’t want to be in the way of your lunch with the guy. You said you thought he might be fun.” There. She’d chosen her words carefully and well, as a journalist should. Giving Holly her due and not a hint of being judgmental, plus she was helping Jared with his floozy ambitions.
    What is wrong with you?
Jared demanded.
I thought we were having lunch
. She hadn’t realized that Jared had meant he’d be canceling lunch with Holly. Possibly he’d been too distracted by the thought of Holly’s hotness to make himself clear.
    You are just never ever happy
, Kami told him severely.
    Holly snorted explosively, making her curls fly up as if in a sudden gust of wind. “The Vale’s full of guys. I’d much rather have lunch all together. Would it be okay if you did the interview? I could watch and learn how to do it right. I don’t want to mess up the paper. Because the paper is awesome.”
    “You’re so right.” Kami beamed at her, and took a chance to prove Jared wrong. “Uh—do you want to sit together?”
    Holly lit up as if she had a lightbulb under all that hair. “Absolutely.” She made an imperious motion at Eric Dawkins,who was looking at her longingly, and he hastily went and sat beside Amber Green.
    Amber, despite having had a boyfriend since she was five, looked delighted. Kami began to darkly suspect Amber Green of being a floozy. Of course, she felt generally gloomy about the fact that Jared might have been right. She made for a desk in the front, and Holly slid in beside her, still glowing.
    “So, what do you think about the Lynburns being back?” Kami said. “My mum doesn’t seem too thrilled.”
    “My parents aren’t either,” said Holly. “I don’t blame them. My uncle Edmund, I don’t know if you’ve heard about him?”
    “My dad said he used to go out with Lillian Lynburn,” Kami offered cautiously.
    Holly nodded. “He left town and left her. The Lynburns did not take the insult well. My dad’s not all that rational on the subject, but the way he tells it, you’d think the Lynburns made his crops fail. They definitely called in debts and took a lot of our land.”
    The Prescotts lived on a small struggling farm outside of town. Everybody knew that Holly’s father drank; Kami had put the struggles down to that.
    “Not the nicest people in the world, then, the Lynburns.”
    “I can see why everyone’s afraid of them.” Holly shrugged. “They’ve got money and they own half the town. You don’t get away from that in a couple of