The Birch House

Chapter One

Evie's P.O.V.

On the day I became a member of the Birch House, somebody stole my laundry.

When I reached into the crappy, beat-up washing machine, I found nothing but the wet slick sides of the drum, and - like a bad joke - the worst pair of underwear I owned, plus one sock. I was in a hurry, of course - there were only a couple of machines on this top floor of Saints Hall, the least valued and most run-down rooms in the least valued, most runned down dorm. Two washing machines, two dryers, and you were lucky if one of them was working on any given day and didn't eat your coins.

'No,' I said out loud, and balanced myself on the edge of the washer to look down into the dark, partly rusted interior. It smelt like mould and cheap detergent. Getting a closer look didn't help.

One crappy pair of underwear, fraying at the seams. One sock.
I was missing every piece of clothing that I'd worn in the last two weeks. Every piece that I actually wanted to wear.

'No!' I yelled it into the washer, where it echoed back at me, and slumped back down, then kicked the washer violently in the dent made by all the other disappointed students before me. I couldn't breathe. I had some other clothes - a few - but they were last-choice clothes, oh-my-god-wouldn't-be-caught-dead clothes. Pants that were too short and made me look like a hick, shirts that were too big and too stupid, and made me look like my mum had picked them out. And she had.

I had about three hundred dollars left to last me for, well, months, after the latest round of calling out for pizza and buying yet another book for Professor Clueless Shane, who didn't seem to have figured out yet what subject he was teaching.

I supposed I could find some clothes, if I looked around, that wouldn't totally blow my entire budget. After all, downtown Mystic, Texas, was the thrift shop capital of the world. Assuming I could find anything I could stand to wear.

Mum said this would happen, I thought. I just have to think. Keep my cool.

I threw myself into an orange plastic chair, dumped my backpack on the scratched linoleum, and put my head in my hands. My face felt hot, and I was shaking, and I knew, just knew, that I was going to cry. Cry like the baby they all said I was, too young to be here, too young to be away from Mummy.

It sucked to be smart, because this was where it got you.

I gulped deep, damp breaths and sat back, willing myself not to bawl (because they'd hear), and wondered if I could call Mum and Dad for an extension on my allowance, or use the credit card that was 'just for emergencies'.

Then I saw the note. Not so much 'note' as graffiti, but it was addressed to me, on the painted cinderblock wall above the machines.

Dear Dork, it read, We found rubish in the machines and threw it down the chute. If you want it, dive for it.
'Shit,' I breathed, and had to blink back tears again, for an entirely different reason. Blind, stupid rage. Millie. Well, Millie and her bitches, anyway. Why was it the hot mean girls always ran in packs, like wolves? And why, with all the shimmery hair and long tanned legs and more of Daddy's money than Daddy's accountants, did the have to focus on me?

No, I knew the answer to that.
I'd made Millie look stupid in front of her friends, and some hot upperclassmen. Not that it had been all that hard; I'd just been walking by, heard Millie saying that World War II had been 'that dumbass Chinese war thing'.

And by simple reflex, I'd said, 'It wasn't.' The whole lot of them, slouched all over the couches in the dorm lobby, looked at me with as much blank surprise as if the Coke machine had just spoken up. Millie, her friends, three of the cool older frat boys.