“Are you scared?” Jason asked.
Aria giggled nervously. “I’m not that athletic.”
Jason smiled and took her hand. “It’s fun, I promise.”
Aria flushed with pleasure, thrilled Jason was touching her. She still had to pinch herself to make sure this was really happening.
One of the instructors, a dark-haired guy with a scruffy beard, came over with their gear, which included harnesses, helmets, and special climbing gloves. He asked which of them wanted to be hitched up first. Jason pointed to Aria. “Madame.”
“Such a gentleman,” she teased.
“My mom brought me up well,” Jason answered.
The instructor started to hook a harness around Aria’s torso. When he walked off to find a different clamp, Aria turned to Jason. “So how is your family?” she asked as casually as she could. “Are they…okay?”
Jason stared at a few climbers on the other side of the room for a long time. “They’re wrecked,” he said after a while. He raised his blue eyes to her and smiled sadly. “We all are. But what can we do?”
Aria nodded, having no clue what to say. A’s note from yesterday popped into her mind. Big Brother is hiding something from you. And trust me…you don’t want to know what it is. Aria hadn’t forwarded the note to any of her friends, for fear they would jump to conclusions about Jason. A had to be messing with them—that was Old and New A’s M.O., after all.
Aria assumed A was implying that Jason’s secret had to do with his and Ali’s “sibling problems,” as Jenna put it, but she wasn’t buying it. There was no way Jason and Ali had had anything but a loving sibling relationship. Aria had tried to mine her memories for times when Jason had been mean to Ali, but she couldn’t come up with a single incident. Instead, Jason seemed fiercely protective of his sister. Once, not long after they’d become friends, Aria and the others had been over at Ali’s house for a sleepover. They were planning to give each other makeovers, and everyone had brought over their makeup bags to share—except for Emily, because she wasn’t allowed to wear makeup yet. As they were oohing over Hanna’s Dior eye shadow, Mrs. DiLaurentis walked into the room. There was a frazzled look on her face.
“Ali, did you feed the cat a whole can of wet food?” Ali’s mom asked. Ali looked at her blankly. Mrs. DiLaurentis lowered her arms to her sides with a slap. “Honey, you’re supposed to mix dry food in, remember? And put a few drops of hairball medicine on top?” Ali bit her lip. Mrs. DiLaurentis let out a groan and turned. “You forgot that too? She’s going to have hairballs all over the new basement carpet!”
Ali tossed Hanna’s blush brush on the table. “Would you chill? I’m in sixth grade now, and we have a lot of homework! Sorry if I’m a little too distracted to remember how I’m supposed to feed the cat!”
Mrs. DiLaurentis had shaken her head, exasperated. “Ali, you’ve been feeding the cat this way since third grade.” Then she stormed away.
An instant later, Jason appeared from the kitchen, a bag of pretzels in his hand. “Mom’s in a mood, huh?” he said gently. “I can feed the cat for you for a while, if that helps.”
He touched Ali’s shoulder, but Ali shook him off. “Stop it. I’m fine.”
Jason recoiled, a wounded look on his face. Aria had wanted to leap up and throw her arms around him. Ali had behaved the same way the day Time Capsule was announced, too—Jason had approached Ali and Ian in front of the bike racks, telling Ian to leave Ali alone, and Ali had shooed him away, mocking him for caring so much. Maybe Jason had sensed that Ian’s feelings for Ali weren’t exactly innocent and wanted to protect her. Maybe Ali knew Jason had sensed it and wanted him off her back. If Ali and Jason had sibling problems, maybe Ali was the one creating them, not the other way around.
Or what if Jenna was lying? Maybe Jenna had made up Ali and Jason having sibling problems. Perhaps that was why Jenna was standing at the edge of Aria’s yard two days ago, a guilty look on her face. Maybe she wanted to tell Aria that what she’d told her in the art room a few months ago hadn’t been quite the truth.
But why would Jenna lie? Could Jenna have something against Jason, some reason to turn the girls against him? Could Jenna be A?
“You’re all set,” the instructor said to Aria, snapping her to the present. He was back, pointing to the large rope that was attached to both the ceiling and the middle of her waist. “Do you need a lesson?”
“I’ll teach her,” Jason said. The instructor nodded and went to get the clamps for Jason’s tethers. Then Jason crept closer to Aria and poked her side. “Don’t look now,” he said in a low voice. “But I think the old school nurse is here. I used to have nightmares about her.”
Aria glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, a stumpy, bulldog-faced woman was standing in the lounge next to a neon-lit Mountain Dew machine. “That’s Mrs. Boot!” Aria whispered.
Jason’s eyes widened. “She still works there?”
Aria nodded. “Whenever I see her in the halls, my scalp immediately itches. I’ll never forget lining up in her office in elementary school for lice tests.”
“I hated that.” Jason shuddered. They turned back to Mrs. Boot. She was scowling at the rock wall harshly, as if it were a Rosewood Day student feigning a fever. Then a little boy ran out of the locker room, straight into Mrs. Boot’s arms. The crusty old woman smiled slightly, and the two of them walked out of Rocks and Ropes together.