Alice

By A.K. Albaari

Claire Woods had the friends, the looks, and the status. She was at the top of the social ladder at Summit View High School. At Summit View, everyone respected the laws of High School Hierarchy. Claire and her entourage dominated the game for as long as anyone could remember. Claire truly had it all, or so she thought. Suddenly the tides shifted, changing Claire from top girl to public enemy number one. Her fall from grace stripped her of her friends, her status, and her identity. But then Alice Monroe moved into town. Alice was everything but socially acceptable at Summit View. She was eccentric, tough, and witty. Her style is something between scene and emo; all of which is the exact opposite of Claire. But through a peculiar sequence of events the two become very close. And Alice gives Claire a solution to all of her social problems: kill the competition. Anyone who crossed Claire or simply got in her way became fair game for the murderous duo. But as the bodies pile up Claire loses herself in all the carnage. As her conscious slowly returns she begins question Alices true motives. Is she simply trying to help a friend or is there something else Alice isnt telling her? When will the havoc become too much for Claire? With a rollercoaster ride of a story and with a twist that will leave you stunned . . . to say the least, Alice is a raw, gritty, and exciting tale of loyalty, death, morality, and the loss of innocence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450052863

A.K. Albaari

Adam Ketema Albaari was born on August 27, 1995 in Miami, Florida. He lived there until the age of 7 when he moved to Canton, Michigan, an area not too far from Detroit. A. K. is currently a freshman in high school and lives in Columbia, Maryland.

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Copyright © 2010 by A.K. Albaari.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Part One Death

Part Two Rebirth

Part Three Deeper Down The Rabbit Hole

Part Four The Grand Finale

Dedication

First and for most I would like to dedicate this novella to Lance E. Taweel, who, without his help, I would not have been able to fully complete this novel. Secondly I would like to thank all of my other friends who were very supportive of my endeavors. And of course, without my loving parents I wouldn’t have been able to do this at all. Lastly but of course not least, I would like to thank Nediva Sokoll-Ward, who was the first person to ever read the rough draft of Alice and give me enough courage to keep writing.

Part One

Death

The way I see it, popularity isn’t about happiness (that’s a very common misconception). It’s all about survival. I wasn’t always at the top so I can say from experience that being someone without a status is a lot like going into a blizzard naked. You’re unprotected, unlikely to survive, and useless; in short, it’s suicide. We all choose our place in High School Hierarchy. Either you get with the program early, or you spend the rest of your high school career trying to catch up with the people who saw their way in and took it. People like me. I was girl number one of Summit View High School. Claire Woods was the most spoken name out of the 3000 other names of students at Summit View. It was the biggest school in our district, with 3 middle schools feeding into it. From the outside you would mistaken it for a convention center or even a multiplex. The exterior was almost entirely made of glass and stainless steel, with gleaming silver. 260 rooms, 4 floors and 650,000 square feet: it was a steel kingdom and I was the queen, and only a junior.

My entourage consisted of Paige Wilson and Holly Langley. Paige Wilson the original material girl. She was filthy rich; Prada heels, True religion jeans, and the finest apparel from Burberry and Ralph Lauren. She was pretty, the average blonde, but I had the body. Her purse was her trademark. A fine brown leather Gucci purse she wouldn’t let anyone even touch; well, except me. My third in command was Holly Langley. She was famous for getting every guy at our school from the football team to the basketball team. You name a sport; she’s done it (that pun was intended). It’s not like she was any better looking than me, she was just more . . . available. She had brown hair that went down to her shoulders. It accented the long blond hair that Paige and I had. I was tan and Paige was pale as ghost, but she could pull it off. Holly and I both had bright green eyes. But Paige was the blue eyed blond in our group. Together we made up the top of the social ladder at Summit View High. The only time we weren’t together was during math class, I was taking AP Calc so I didn’t have it with either of them. Math was the easiest class of the day for me; it just came naturally. At the end of the day I would walk home with Michael, the baseball star and my boyfriend for about 4 months, and head home. Doing homework was a breeze; I didn’t even have to try when it came to school. I was just that perfect. And some days, just before dinner, I would lie on my bed in my perfectly organized room (the book shelf was alphabetically organized and digitally cataloged, my closet was color arranged.) and simply smile as I thought of how incredibly remarkable I was. I had everything going for me. No day was a bad day, not for this material girl. If my life were a mountain, I didn’t need to climb it; I was flying to the top.

*

It’s funny how so much can go wrong in such a small amount of time. Take for example the events that took place after gym. I had exited the steel labyrinth that was the girl’s locker room and was heading to art class when Lisa Wong stopped me. Lisa was one of those people who I would put in the Should-Have-Been category. As in she should have been popular but she was just too much of an airhead to be a material girl. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to pass a brain exam to be one of us, (Holly was a perfect example) but you couldn’t be totally retarded. And Lisa was, without a doubt, totally and completely retarded. I saw her speed walk towards me with her long black pony tail moving back and forth like the bell on a grandfather clock.

Claire! Claire! she said in her high pitched voice almost out of breath.

Hey Lisa, I said. Something happen?

We need to talk in private. Come with me. She pulled my hand towards the nearest bathroom. For girls in Summit View High all of the important facts were shared in the bathroom. It served as a cone of silence. Before I knew it I was between the white washed walls of the poorly lit bathroom in hallway A1. Yes, the school was big enough that is was necessary to name the hallways.

Okay, I think I should tell you what’s been going on behind your back because it’s like not cool. So the past couple of weeks I’ve been seeing Michael and Paige talk a lot since Paige’s locker is like two away from mine. First it didn’t seem weird because they have like every class together. But then I was walking to my math seminar on the first floor and when I passed by the utility room I saw the door was open. Which is like so weird because it’s like never open so I decided to just walk in because I was like curious or whatever and that’s when I see Paige totally like making out with your boyfriend! When she finished I realized she hadn’t taken a single breath the whole story. I just looked at her for a while before I said anything. Her eyes were wide open and she was breathing really fast. She was defiantly on Ritalin, but then again so was everyone else. I trusted her word, Lisa Wong was a lot of things but she wasn’t a liar. I didn’t entirely believe her because there were a few holes in her story. First off, I was defiantly better looking than Paige, and Michael was totally gaga over me. I had him totally whipped. Secondly, it was Paige. I don’t think we’ve been in a single argument since 7th grade. She’s been my best friend since elementary school. It just didn’t add up. I mean Holly I could understand but Paige? It didn’t make any sense at all. But just to be sure I needed to find out if it was true. The last thing I want is to be made a fool of by Paige, anybody but her. So when lunch time rolled around I confronted her in my usual way of confronting a friend. I had just finished a joke about how ridiculous Sammie Carson’s Capri pants were. Everyone laughed at the round table in the dead center of the cafeteria. When it died down I continued talking.

You know what else is ridiculous? I said as I finished my chocolate milk. This stupid rumor Lisa Wong told me after gym. Paige played right into it.

What’d she say? I hear she’s always on Ritalin.

It was actually about you, Paige. I said looking straight into her blue eyes. Her smile faded a bit. She knew exactly what was coming.

Well come, on tell me. She said with a