Classic (10 page)

“Welcome to the finals!” Jenny called out as Brett and Isaac approached the winner’s circle together. Brett looked tense,
her shoulders rigid and far too close to her ears. Next to her, Isaac was walking in that easy way of his, his maroon hoodie
zipped up over a button-down shirt, with the tails hanging over his dark-washed jeans.

And then he grinned, his smile lighting up his whole face as
his gaze met Jenny’s. A familiar rush of warmth rolled through her as his green eyes held hers for a long, delicious moment.
There was nothing weird or distant about that grin. Had she been giving her imagination a workout lately? Had she made the
whole thing up? Jenny smiled at him and stuck her hands in the pockets of her Lucky cords.

“You looked okay out there, Dresden,” Julian said carefully, as if discussing an NFL game with a member of the opposing team.
He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “But we’re about to enter the finals. Looking good isn’t going to win you
anything here in the big leagues.”

“Whatever,” Isaac retorted in the same tone. He moved from Brett’s side and put his arm around Jenny’s shoulders. He smiled
down at her, and the look in his eyes was affectionately teasing. “Jenny barely comes up to your knee!”

“Low blow!” Jenny cried.

“No pun intended,” Brett said dryly.

Jenny laughed, and caught Isaac’s eye. She was glad she hadn’t called him the night before to ask what was going on. Clearly,
nothing was. Her brother, Dan, always told her that guys were simple and direct.
If he said he was busy, it’s because he was busy.
Maybe one day she would start listening to him. Maybe.

“All right, Owls!” cried Miss Friedman, the phys ed teacher known for her sadistic insistence on four hundred sit-ups at the
first hint of any infraction of Waverly policy. She climbed up onto one of the lowest bleacher seats, sending a few wide-eyed
freshmen scrambling out of her way. She was tall and thin,
with one of those short, blunt haircuts that reminded Jenny of geometry exercises. “It’s time for the final race! All qualifying
teams, please line up and tie yourself to your partner.”

Isaac squeezed Jenny’s shoulder before he stepped away, relinquishing her to Julian. Jenny was sure it was the look he gave
her as he walked toward Brett that made her stomach feel fluttery—and not the way Julian moved close to her side and pressed
his leg against hers. She looked down at him, taking in his wavy hair and the faint smell of soap and sweat. She flexed her
leg against the rope, checking to see how tight it was.

“Trust me,” Julian said, looking up at her, his golden brown eyes warm. “I’m good at this stuff.”

For some reason, Jenny felt her breath catch. Maybe it was the weird sensation of being this close to Julian again. Maybe
it was just some kind of physical déjà vu.

“Better tie that tight,” Brett said, snapping Jenny out of her trance. She made a face at Jenny. “She’s so little, you might
step right over her without noticing it.”

“Ha-ha,” Jenny replied, rolling her eyes.

Brett caught her eye and mouthed the word
kidding.
Jenny smiled back, having taken no offense. This was a competition—and competitions meant some trash-talking. She’d been
known to do her share of it from time to time on the hockey field or with her family. It was a time-honored Humphrey family
tradition. She smiled to herself, thinking of how even Rufus abandoned his usual principles of love and peace to talk trash
during a competitive Scrabble game.

“Jenny and I have a foolproof system,” Julian continued,
grinning at Jenny as he straightened. He wrapped his arm around Jenny’s back, assuming the competitive three-legged stance.
Jenny slid her arm around his waist, trying not to notice how taut his back muscles were. Next to them, Brett and Isaac linked
up, but a bit more gingerly. “You underestimate us at your peril.”

“Still not scared,” Isaac tossed back at him with a grin. “Brett and I don’t need a system, because neither one of us is freakishly
too tall or too short.”

“We’re like a well-oiled, same-sized machine,” Brett added.

“Whatever,” Julian said dismissively. “I have the best partner ever!”

“I know you do,” Isaac agreed, and the look he gave Jenny then made her cheeks heat up.

“Hey!” Brett said, pretending to be annoyed at Isaac. She elbowed him in the side, hard enough to make him wince. “You have
a pretty amazing partner yourself. And I’ll remind you that you’re tied to me. If I trip, we both go down.”

“He doesn’t mean it,” Jenny told her, laughing. “You know he has to say it—total boyfriend law.”

Brett looked over at her and frowned. Jenny felt a flash of panic—was it too soon to call Isaac her boyfriend? But then the
starting whistle blew, and there was no time to think.

The race was on!

She and Julian fell back into their rhythm, which essentially consisted of Jenny clinging to his one leg while he made a medium-size
stride, then anchoring them while he made a huge, long stride with the full reach of his other leg. Jenny felt
a little bit like a monkey clinging to the side of a tree—though Julian was a very good-looking, very athletic tree.

“Your head is not in the game,” Julian chided her when they were about halfway down the racecourse. He had to shout over the
din of the Field House, which echoed with screams and cheers and silly songs from the watching Owls.

“Of course it is!” Jenny giggled. “Go, J-squared!”

“Totally lame,” Julian replied, but he was laughing, too.

Two of the couples near them crashed to the ground, having swayed too close together and getting overbalanced. It was Jenny’s
job to navigate Julian’s long stride around such obstacles, like a coxswain in a crew race.

“Go left! Go left!” she cried, acting like the pivot as Julian moved around the senior couple’s tangled limbs. His long legs
ate up the ground beneath them, leaving Isaac and Brett far behind.

Step, pivot. Step, pivot. The kids in the stands cheered and screamed. The Waverly band was blaring out a marching song. Jenny
looked up at Julian, and his lips curved into a smile. His arm tightened around her back, and she dug her fingers into his
side. And then they crossed the finish line!

“We rule!” Julian shouted in triumph. Jenny looked around wildly to see two couples in thrashing piles on the ground. Isaac
and Brett, each wearing fierce scowls of concentration, were just approaching the finish line. She whipped her head around
and realized that no one was ahead of them. They’d won!

“Your Three-Legged Race champions, ladies and gentlemen!” Miss Friedman cried into her bullhorn. “Jenny Humphrey and Julian
McCafferty!”

Jenny whooped for joy and hugged Julian around his lean waist. She felt a little buzz shiver through her limbs and laughed
up at him. He grinned down at her. Jenny leaned back to wave at all the Owls in the stands who were stamping their feet and
cheering. She was as proud as if she’d climbed Everest. And all she’d had to do was hang on!

Julian untied their legs and was still grinning down at her when Isaac and Brett crossed the finish line behind them.

“Your legs are way too long, man,” Isaac said, glaring at Julian in mock anger. “They should be outlawed, like steroids.”

“Nothing makes me happier than a sore loser,” Julian replied, grinning.

“This sore loser needs a drink,” Brett declared, fanning her face. The boys took off to grab waters from the nearby school-sanctioned
refreshment table, and Jenny watched them go, her eyes lingering on Isaac’s cute little swagger of a walk. She pulled out
a tube of Urban Decay lip gloss in her favorite color, Quiver, and applied it to her lips, rubbing them together.

“You’re lucky we’re friends,” she told Brett, sliding the tube back into her pocket. “Or I might have to be a little jealous
that you got to spend all that time essentially hugging Isaac in front of the entire school. You’ll be happy to know I trust
you both.”

She expected Brett to laugh, but instead she frowned. Jenny bit her lower lip and studied her friend’s face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked when Brett didn’t say anything. But Brett didn’t meet her eyes. She shook her head, her bright
red bob sliding forward like a curtain to hide her face.

“Nothing,” she said.

“You’re, like, scowling at your shoes,” Jenny pointed out. She didn’t want to push Brett or anything, but she had a weird
feeling that whatever Brett was frowning about had to do with her.

“I don’t mean to be,” Brett said. She looked at Jenny then, her green eyes serious. “I just think you shouldn’t get ahead
of yourself.” She nodded over toward Isaac, who was already on his way back, Julian right behind him. Isaac’s head barely
cleared Julian’s shoulders. “You know? Maybe you should just… see where it goes.”

Jenny opened and closed her mouth, like a goldfish. What was
that
supposed to mean? Was Brett…
warning
her?

But she lost her chance to ask, because Brett put on a smile for the boys, and Jenny had to gulp down her panic and confusion
and do the same.

“C
heck you out,” Tinsley said admiringly when Brett threw open the Dresdens’ back door with a little dramatic flourish. She
kicked the key under the welcome mat with her black Coach riding boots. “You’re like a spy.”

“I always wanted to be a spy,” Brett said with a giggle as she stepped into the dean’s house and paused, listening for any
sounds. She opened her oversize gray Stella McCartney coat as she strained to hear something from the depths of the house.
She knew that Dean Dresden was attending a function in New York City that day, and Mrs. Dresden was usually off-campus during
the day, but you could never be too careful while breaking and entering.
If you have the key, does it count as a felony?
Brett wondered as Tinsley closed the door behind them.

The Dresdens’ house was silent, save for the faintest hiss from the radiators and the usual noises of an old house settling
around them. There were no sounds of any people who might wander into the kitchen and discover Brett and Tinsley. Any slight
bit of guilt that Brett might have felt—and it was the barest sliver, growing smaller every time she recalled the sight of
Isla and Sebastian flirting in this very kitchen—was completely washed away when she thought about Isaac’s secret girlfriend
and how she’d had no choice but to keep quiet about her around Jenny yesterday.

She straightened her shoulders and moved farther into the house. Why should she feel guilty? Obviously, the Dresdens had some
genetic flaw that made them all liars and cheaters and who knew what else. Brett felt, as a member of the Disciplinary Committee
and an active part of the Waverly community, that it was her
duty
to expose the evil siblings for who and what they really were. She
owed
it to Waverly.

And if it made Sebastian think twice about hanging on Isla’s every simpering word, well… that was just a happy bonus.

Tinsley suffered no pangs of guilt whatsoever. Picking up her fellow students’ trash for a month in the freezing cold because
of Isla’s lies completely canceled out any wrongdoing she might commit today, she thought as she marched through the kitchen
and headed directly across the first floor toward their real destination: Isla’s ground-floor bedroom. It was time to snoop.

She pushed open the heavy wood door and entered Isla’s room. The first time she’d been in there, she’d thought it was weird
that a girl who seemed so badass—so, frankly, like herself—would live in a bedroom with a big, girly four-poster bed, complete
with tons of lace and Pepto-Bismol pink walls.
Now, however, she narrowed her eyes and thought that maybe, just maybe, the discrepancy was a clue she should have heeded
way back when—before she’d basically
allowed
Isla to take her down so easily.

“My God,” Brett said, walking through the door behind Tinsley and stopping dead in her tracks. “Which American Girl doll threw
up in here?”

“I was thinking more like Disney Channel,” Tinsley said, her hands on her hips as she slowly turned a circle in the center
of the room. Her gaze drifted over the Waverly calendar on the wall to the antique dresser to Isla’s stack of schoolbooks
on the rolltop desk. “Because I definitely get a little bit of a Hannah Montana vibe.”