Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies

Chapter 1

Maggie Cartwright felt the right time had come to broach a delicate topic. The mood was high among the cheerleaders, and the discussion had turned to party invitations without her prompting. She wouldn’t find a better time to appeal to the girls’ nicer sides.

Trying to sound casual, Maggie asked, “Can I invite Sandy to the party?”

Her question brought an awkward silence to the room, and Maggie looked around, finding all of her friends watching her with dismayed scowls.

She joined in the scowling contest and asked, “What?”

“Can’t you leave her out of our social lives?” asked Trisha Cooper. “Just because you’re best friends with Sandy Morrison doesn’t mean we have to like her.”

“I’m not asking you to like her, Trish,” Maggie said. “I don’t care if you do or not. But she is my friend, and she’s never been to a house party even though we throw them all the time.”

“Yeah, and there’s a reason for that,” said Cynthia Matheson, her copper-tanned face wrinkling in an ugly look of disgust. “She’s a freak.”

“She is not!” Maggie huffed, wondering once again why she bothered talking to the other cheerleaders.

It had been at least two years since they could be called friends except in the most superficial sense. Maggie had more in common with her online friends than she did with the other cheerleaders, and she saw them now as hateful harpies who were too cool for everyone who wasn’t a part of their tiny social circle.

She’d often suspected that she was only on the squad to keep it from being monotone, and given that she and Juanita Sanchez were the only cheerleaders who weren’t white, her theory seemed disturbingly accurate.

She was pretty enough to make the team, and would be even if she didn’t straighten her hair or polish her dark brown skin to be blemish free. She did it because she worried that her extra bulk made her less attractive. She had always been called big boned, and indeed, when she’d tried dieting during her early teens, it had made her look awful.

It was Trisha who had taken her aside and said, “Mags, some girls need a little padding to look good. You lost your pads, girlfriend, and you look like poop.”

Trisha had been the one to insist that Maggie join the squad in junior high. The other girls had been outright hostile for taking on “a chunky girl,” but Trisha had said, “Okay, but she looks awful as a skinny chick, and she’s super strong! So she can keep me up for a proper pyramid, unlike you weak-ass skinny stick girls.”

Whether friend or foe, Trisha’s tongue had no dull side to offer anyone when she was in a foul mood, and she hacked down the squad until they’d let Maggie join. Trisha was also the one to go to bat for Juanita when she’d moved into town the previous year. Trisha insisted that Juanita had “unearthly rhythm and a fantastic voice.”

The other girls felt she was too plain. But it was the tone of the other girls’ complaints that made Maggie suspect racism might be involved. It wasn’t good enough to just be pretty or polished to make the team. Maggie understood that, but lots of girls of color were turned away from the squad who she thought should have made the cut. If Maggie pressed for a reason, one was produced easily enough, and it was never, “she’s too dark.” But sometimes the reasons felt too easy, even if they had the ring of truth.

“She’s too quiet.”

“She has bad balance.”

“She slouches too much.”

All were somehow just valid enough that Maggie couldn’t press the issue. And, since she was on the squad, at least she was able to represent for her family and her people that they were good enough to compete. Pressing the issue might make the rest of the team hostile, and then she would have to leave too.