Novels by Cecily von Ziegesar: Gossip Girl You Know You ... - Weebly

“What about drama? Your English grades are quite good, you must
like drama,” Ms. Glos suggested. “They’ve only been rehearsing this
one for a little over a week. It’s the Interschool Drama Club doing a
modern version of Gone With the Wind.” She looked up again. “How
’bout it?”
Serena jiggled her foot up and down and chewed on her pinky nail.
She tried to imagine herself alone on stage playing Scarlett O’Hara.
She would have to cry on cue, and pretend to faint, and wear huge
dresses with corsets and hoop skirts. Maybe even a wig.
I’ll never go hungry again! she’d cry dramatically, in her best
Southern-belle voice. It might be kind of fun.
Serena took the flyer from Ms. Glos’s hand, careful not to touch the
paper where Ms. Glos had touched it.
“Sure, why not?” she said. “It sounds like fun.”
Serena left Ms. Glos’s office as the final class of the day was getting
out. Gone With the Wind rehearsal was in the auditorium, but it
didn’t begin until six so that the students who did sports right after
school could still be in the play. Serena walked up Constance’s wide
central stairwell to the fourth floor to retrieve her coat from her
locker and see if anyone wanted to hang out until six. All around
her, girls were flying past, a blur of end-of-the-day energy, rushing
to their next meeting, practice, rehearsal, or club. Out of habit, they
paused for half a second to say hello to Serena, because ever since
they could remember, to be seen talking to Serena van der
Woodsen was to be seen.
“Hey Serena,” Laura Salmon yelled before diving down the stairs for
Glee Club in the basement music room.
“Later, Serena,” Rain Hoffstetter said, as she slipped past in her
gym shorts, heading for soccer practice.
“See you tomorrow, Serena,” Lily Reed said softly, blushing because
she was wearing her riding breeches, which always embarrassed
her.
“Bye,” Carmen Fortier said, chewing gum in her leather jacket and
jeans. She was one of the few scholarship girls in the junior class
and lived in the Bronx. She claimed she couldn’t wear her uniform
home or she’d get beaten up. Carmen was headed to the Art of
Floral Design Club, although she always lied to her friends in her
neighborhood and said she took karate.
Suddenly the hallway was empty. Serena opened her locker, pulled
her Burberry coat off the hook, and put it on. Then she slammed her
locker shut and trotted downstairs and out the school doors, turning
left down Ninety-third Street toward Central Park.
There was a box of orange Tic Tacs in her pocket with only one Tic