Psycho Killer (8 page)

Just wait until he sees the mess she left in the elevator.

Serena smiled winningly in reply and hurried up Fifth Avenue toward school. Across the street in Central Park the Hamptons-tanned moms were already out jogging around the reservoir while their attentive nannies pushed their charges toward the playground. Autumn leaves rustled on the bridle path as yellow taxis and loud buses roared past. Serena inhaled deeply, the sights and sounds and smells of the city a tonic to her tormented soul. Oh, it was so good to be back!

And with a bit of Irish luck she’d make the ten blocks to Constance without shedding any more blood.

“Welcome back, girls,” Mrs. McLean said, standing behind the podium at the front of the school auditorium. “I hope you all had a terrific long weekend. I spent the weekend in Vermont, and it was absolutely heavenly.”

All seven hundred students at the Constance Billard School for Girls, kindergarten through twelfth grade, and its fifty faculty and staff members tittered discreetly. Everyone knew Mrs. McLean had a girlfriend up in Vermont. Her name was Vonda and she drove a tractor. Mrs. McLean had a tattoo on her inner thigh that said “Ride Me, Vonda,” with a picture of two naked women with snakes for hair and wolf heads, long riding whips grasped in their talonlike hands, straddling a John Deere.

It’s true, swear to God.

Mrs. McLean, or Mrs. M, as the girls called her, was their headmistress. It was her job to put forth the cream of the crop—send the girls off to the best colleges, the best marriages, the best lives, despite their uncontrollable tempers and mental instabilities—and she was very good at what she did. She had no patience for losers, and if she caught one of her girls acting like
a loser—persistently calling in sick, doing poorly on the SATs, or trying to cut off one her classmates’ fingers—she would call in the shrinks, counselors, and tutors and make sure the girl got the personal attention she needed to get good grades, high scores, no criminal record, and a warm welcome to the college of her choice.

Mrs. M also didn’t tolerate meanness. Constance was supposed to be a school free of cliques and prejudices of any sort. Her favorite saying was, “When you assume, you make an
ass
out of
u
and
me
.” The slightest slander of one girl by another was punished with a day of isolation in a dark basement chamber and a letter of apology, written in blood. But those punishments were rare. Mrs. M was blissfully ignorant of what really went on in the school. She certainly couldn’t hear the whispering going on in the very back of the auditorium, where the seniors sat, dissecting the social dramas of the day.

“I thought you said Serena was coming back today,” Rain Hoffstetter whispered to Isabel Coates.

That morning, Blair and Kati and Isabel and Rain had met on their usual stoop around the corner for cigarettes and coffee before school began. They’d been doing the same thing every morning for two years, and they half expected Serena to join them. But school had started ten minutes ago, and Serena still hadn’t shown up.

Blair couldn’t help feeling annoyed at Serena for creating even more mystery around her return than there already was. Her friends were practically squirming in their seats, eager to catch their first glimpse of Serena, as if she were some kind of celebrity. If Serena wound up killing them, they totally deserved it. Or maybe she’d do it herself.

That’ll teach ’em.

“She’s probably too drugged up to come to school today,” Isabel whispered back. “I swear, she spent like, an hour in the bathroom last night at Blair’s house. Who knows what she was doing in there.”

“I heard she’s selling these pills with the letter
S
stamped on them. She’s completely addicted to them,” Kati told Rain.

“Wait till you see her,” Isabel said. “She’s a total mess.”

“Yeah,” Rain whispered back. “I heard she’d started some kind of voodoo cult up in New Hampshire.”

Kati giggled. “I wonder if she’ll ask us to join.”

“Hello?” said Isabel. “She can dance around naked with chickens all she wants, but I don’t want to be there. No way.”

“Where can you get live chickens in the city, anyway?” Kati asked.

“I don’t know, Brooklyn? Ew,” Rain said.

“Now, I’d like to begin by singing a hymn. If you would please rise and open up your hymnals to page forty-three,” Mrs. M instructed.

Mrs. Weeds, the frizzy-haired hippie music teacher, began banging out the first few chords of the familiar hymn on the piano in the corner; then all seven hundred girls stood up and began to sing.

Their voices floated down Ninety-third Street, where Serena van der Woodsen was just turning the corner, cursing herself for sleeping late.

Never mind the little hold-up in the elevator.

“
Hark the herald angels si-ing!

Glory to the newborn king!

Peace on Earth and mercy mi-ild
,

God and sinners reconciled
.”

Constance ninth grader Jenny Humphrey silently mouthed the words, sharing with her neighbor the hymnal that Jenny herself had been commissioned to pen in her exceptional calligraphy. It had taken all summer, and the hymnals were beautiful. In three years the Pratt Institute of Art and Design would be knocking down her door. Still, Jenny felt sick with embarrassment every time they used the hymnals, which was why she couldn’t sing out loud. To sing aloud seemed like an act of bravado, as if she were saying, “Look at me, I made these hymnals. Aren’t I cool?”

Bossy and defiant at home with her father and brother, Jenny rarely spoke at all in school. She had only one friend in her class, a pushy, awkwardly overconfident girl named Elise. Mostly Jenny watched the popular and beautiful older girls, like Blair Waldorf, Kati Farkas, Isabel Coates, and Rain Hoffstetter, studying them with hungry intensity, hating them and loving them, mimicking them and dreading them. She wanted desperately to be a part of their special world, but at the same time they terrified her into a sort of rigor mortis. To them she was smaller than a pimple. She was practically invisible. A curly-haired, tiny freshman with boobs so unfortunately gigantic they were her only noticeable feature besides her big brown baby seal eyes. She was like the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, except instead of a sponge with feet and arms she was a walking pair of boobs.

JennyBetty BoobyPants?

“
Hark the heavenly host proclaims
,

Christ i-is born in Beth-le-hem!
”

Jenny stood at the end of a row of folding chairs, next to the big auditorium windows overlooking Ninety-third Street. Suddenly a movement out on the street caught her eye. Blond hair flying. Plastic Burberry coat. Scuffed brown paddock boots. New maroon uniform—odd choice, but she made it work. It looked like… it couldn’t be… could it possibly… No!… Was it?

Yes. It was.

A moment later Serena van der Woodsen pushed open the heavy wooden door of the auditorium and stood in the doorway, looking for her class. She was out of breath and her hair was windblown. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were bright from murdering that poor redhead and running the ten blocks up Fifth Avenue to school. She looked even more perfect than Jenny had remembered. When it came down to sublime beauty and absolute coolness, Serena van der Woodsen blew every last one of the other senior girls away.

Literally. Just watch.

“Oh. My. God,” Rain whispered to Kati in the back of the room. “Did she like, pick up her clothes at a homeless shelter on the way here?”

“She didn’t even brush her hair,” Isabel giggled. “I wonder where she slept last night.”

Mrs. Weeds ended the hymn with a crashing chord.

Mrs. M cleared her throat. “And now, a moment of silence for those less fortunate than we are. Especially for the Native Americans who were brutally slaughtered in the founding of this country, of whom we ask no hard feelings for celebrating Columbus Day yesterday,” she said.

What about the native Upper East Siders who were slaughtered?

The room fell silent. Well, almost.

“Look, see how Serena’s resting her hands on her stomach? She’s probably pregnant,” Isabel Coates whispered to Rain Hoffstetter. “You only do that when you’re pregnant.”

“She could have had an abortion this morning. Maybe that’s why she’s late,” Rain whispered back.

“My father gives money to Phoenix House,” Kati told Laura Salmon. “I’m going to find out if Serena’s been there. I bet that’s why she came back halfway through term. She’s been in rehab.”

“I hear they’re doing this thing in boarding school where they mix Comet and cinnamon and instant coffee and snort it. It’s like speed, but it makes your skin turn green if you do it too long,” Nicki Button piped up from the seat in front of Blair. She tugged on the huge Swarovski crystal icicle pendant she’d brought back from her family trip to Russia this summer. “You go blind, and then you die. That kid Jeremy? He was totally addicted.”

Blair kicked the metal legs of Nicki’s chair in annoyance. Comet and cinnamon? Try a maniacal blond bitch on a killing spree. Her friends could be so clueless sometimes.

Mrs. M turned to nod at Serena.

“Girls, I’d like you all to welcome back our old friend Serena van der Woodsen. Serena will be rejoining the senior class today.” Mrs. M smiled. “Why don’t you find a seat, Serena?”

Serena walked lightly down the center aisle of the auditorium and sat in an empty chair next to a chronic nose-picking second grader named Lisa Sykes.

Jenny could hardly contain herself. Serena van der Woodsen! She was there, in the same room, only a few feet away. So real, and so mature-looking now. And what was that on her shirtsleeve and spattered on her cheek?
Blood?

Well, it certainly isn’t ketchup.

Sordid stories about Serena had already trickled down to the ninth grade, along with the tale of Jeremy Scott Tompkinson’s messy demise. To a young girl like Jenny, nothing was more alluring than a scandal-ridden older girl who might also very well be a dangerous killer.

She’s come back to rescue us from those mean senior girls
, Jenny mused.
She’s going to kill them and set us all free
.

Still staring at Serena, Jenny uncapped her favorite black calligraphy pen and began to doodle a soaring blond angel in the margin of her hymnal. Blood dripped from the angel’s hands and from the knife tucked under her wing.

How cool
, Jenny thought. Hands down, Serena van der Woodsen was absolutely the coolest girl in the entire world. Definitely cooler than any of the other seniors. And how cool to come in late, in the middle of the term, looking like that.

Boarding school does have a way of grungifying even the most beautiful souls. Beautifully damaged soul, in this case.

Serena hadn’t had a haircut in over a year. Last night she’d pulled her hair back for the Waldorfs’ party, but today it was down and looking pretty shaggy. Her blood-spattered white boy’s oxford shirt was frayed at the collar and cuffs, and through it, her purple lace bra was visible. On her feet was her favorite pair of brown lace-up boots, and her black stockings had a big hole behind one knee. But her new uniform was what stuck out the most.

The new uniforms were the plague of the sixth grade, which was the year Constance girls graduated from tunics to skirts. The new skirts were made out of polyester and had unnaturally rigid pleats. The material had a terrible, tacky sheen and came in a new color: maroon. It was hideous. And it was this maroon uniform that Serena had chosen to wear on her first day back at
Constance. Plus, hers came all the way down to her knees! All of the other seniors were wearing the same old navy blue wool skirts they’d been wearing since sixth grade. They’d grown so much their skirts were extremely short. The shorter the skirt, the cooler the girl. Blair actually hadn’t grown that much, so she’d secretly had hers shortened.

“What the fuck is she wearing, anyway?” Kati Farkas hissed.

“Maybe she thinks the maroon looks like Prada or something,” Laura sniggered back.

“I think she’s trying to make some kind of statement,” Isabel whispered. “Like, ‘Look at me, I’m Serena, I’m beautiful, I kill people, and I can wear whatever I want.’ ”

And she can
, Blair thought. That was one of the things that always infuriated her about Serena. She looked good in anything.

But never mind how Serena looked. What Jenny and every other person in the room wanted to know was:
Why is she back?

They craned their necks to see. Did she look stoned? Did she have a black eye? Did she have all her teeth? Was she pregnant? Had she stabbed anyone recently? Was there anything truly different about her at all?

“Is that a scar on her cheek?” Rain whispered.

Blair glared at her, wondering when everyone was going to stop talking about Serena. So she was back? Big deal. Time to move on, people.

“She was knifed one night dealing drugs,” Nicki Button turned around to whisper, her crystal icicle pendant swinging from her neck. “I heard she had plastic surgery in Europe this summer, but they didn’t do a very good job. And now she like, kills boys to get revenge. She’s totally lost it.”

Mrs. McLean was reading out loud now. Serena sat back in her
chair, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes, basking in the old familiar feeling of sitting in this room full of girls, listening to Mrs. M’s voice. She didn’t know why she’d been so nervous that morning before school. She was home now. This was where she belonged.

“Oh my God, I think she’s asleep,” Kati whispered to Laura.

“Maybe she’s just tired,” Laura whispered back. “I heard she got kicked out for sleeping with every boy on campus. There were notches in the wall above her bed. Her roommate told on her—that’s the only way they found out.”

“Plus, all those late-night chicken dances,” Isabel added, sending the girls into a giggling frenzy.

“The notches were for all the boys she killed,” Nicki insisted. “She was the one who came up with the Comet and cinnamon thing. It was her invention.”