Carrie had made a practical, cynical decision to become a bad girl. So she told herself. She had watched the bad girls from afar, with their smokes and tight jeans, and had secretly envied them from her preppy refuge. Bad girls had more fun. Bad girls went out with boys, and didn't feel guilty about doing more than just kissing. Bad girls went all the way and were cigarette-skinny. Bad girls slept in late and rolled their eyes at the thought of homework. When everything that had been easy became difficult, Carrie told herself it was deliberate. She wasn't slipping, she was slacking. She was choosing this path, not the other way around. She started with eyeliner, more t-shirts and fewer turtlenecks. She sat under a tree away from everybody -- away from the rockers and the jocks and the preppies and the geeks -- let them come to her. She started smoking. There was a subtlety to cigarettes that she appreciated, a subtext, a complete language. Cupping a match in a stranger's hand. Lighting one off the next, forgetting you had one lit and lighting another. She observed the mannerisms, the dance of bumming smokes and bumming a light, the boys' Zippo tricks, the girl confronted with two flames and the way she made an event of choosing between them. Carrie practised lighter tricks at home -- something strictly in the boys' domain. One day, when she was ready, she left school, walking past the smokers and, without breaking stride, lit Trevor's cigarette -- a one-handed Zippo double-flip -- and kept going, not even glancing back for a reaction. The next day someone wandered past her tree on the way back from Becker's. One of the bad girls. Just when Carrie was pulling out a cigarette. The girl said nothing, just offered a light. Nodded as she went on her way. Carrie was in.

Never had she been accepted so seamlessly into a group. She didn't have to say a word, just nod, grunt, roll her eyes occasionally. Having a car helped, even if it was an old Escort. She got away with more misbehaviour than most of the kids, because everyone knew about her dad. Everyone. Teachers wouldn't take lip from other students, but this was a phase Carrie was going through. Such a sad situation. And so hard on the kids. Best to go a little easy on her, till she got herself back on track. Carrie could get away with murder.

She used this to her advantage.