This chapter is dedicated to the wonderful XundecidedX! She was one of my very first fans. She's been following my story from the very beginning and witnessed the times when it had less than 200 reads. Not only is she very loyal and a committed commentatorette, she's also an amazing writer! If you wanna read a hilarious, fantastic, original and beyond well-written story, check out her "A Little Bit Ninja". It's one of my favorite wattpad stories and almost completed. *sniffs* But fear not, a new story has already begun: "A Little Bit Pyro" - a fun pyromaniac story, how cool is that? Go and read it now, you won't regret it! And if you do check one or both of her stories out, tell her SkyDancer sends her a bottle of Aqua di Gio. Hehe.
Chapter 14
“It’s settled then. Practice today after school. Since the painting and decorating work in our house is no way near finished, I’m out as your lovely hostess for the afternoon,” Dinah informed us while desperately trying to rub some blue paint off her shirt. “So what shall it be? Your place, Em? Or do we do it at yours, Sarah?”
“Brad is gonna have one of his friends over today,” I replied. “If we don’t want them having spy on us, we better not do it there.”
“Oh, too bad,” Emma said disappointed. “Your mom always buys the best cookies.”
I chuckled. Neither one of our mothers knew how to bake. “I’ll bring the cookies. And my speakers. They’re not as good as yours, Em, but if they get taken away or damaged, it’s not such a big deal.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” my best friend agreed. Then her dark green eyes drifted behind us, taking in the school’s hallway. “Oh look, there are our two boys. Finally! Hey guys!”
“Hey,” Brian and Aaron greeted us in perfect stereo.
“Ready for our next lunch table stop?” Aaron wanted to know. “Because I picked the perfect destination.” He grinned at us in a non-so-innocent way and rubbed his hands together in an evil fashion. Never a good sign. Never. Eventually, his eyes rested on mine, clearly challenging me.
“Do I even want to know?” I asked suspiciously with a frown on my face.
He laughed. He laughed! “I doubt it.”
Suddenly I felt my stomach turn itself into knots.
No. No, he wouldn’t dare. Aaron’s my friend. He wouldn’t choose the one table I was hoping to avoid till Christmas break. Especially not the very first time it was his turn to pick.
“Just tell us and don’t keep us in suspense,” Em begged him impatiently.
“Now, now. Where’s the fun in that?” The redhead replied, enjoying every single second of torturing us.
“Just tell them,” Brian sighed. Aaron simply shook his head, a huge grin plastered on his face. “If you don’t, then I will. I don’t understand what’s up with that, anyway,” Brian stated, right before confirming my deep-rooted fear and horrible premonition: “The debate team.”
He did dare!
In no time I slapped the laughing, traitorous and downright vicious Aaron as hard as I could before he had even the slightest chance to get away from me. I succeeded only twice, then someone stopped me.
“I’m out,” Dinah immediately called.
“Me, too,” I followed her lead, wiggling and struggling to get out of Brian’s firm grip. “Let me go! He deserves to be kicked. Aaron! Come back here, you coward!”
But the devil was now bent over in an unbridled fit of laughter, obviously enjoying my reaction too much for his own good. This only fuelled my anger at him even more.
“Brian, I don’t want to kick you, but I will, if you don’t let me go right now,” I threatened the boy behind me. He simply held me even tighter. No matter how hard I twisted and tried to move my arms, they didn’t give one inch. Why do even skinny boys get to be so much stronger than girls?
“Calm down, okay? And what’s wrong with the debate team? Does anybody mind filling me in?” My personal captor asked confused.
“It’s not the debate team. It’s more like one person on the debate team,” Em explained with a sigh. “James Freeman.”
“James? Our student council president? Why? He seems to be an okay guy,” Brian said perplexed. “Ouch! Sarah!”
“I’ve warned you,” I growled at him, still trying to escape his hold to no avail. “And you can’t be serious! James, an okay guy?!”
“He’s in most of my classes. And to me, he seems to be pretty dedicated and a nice enough guy. – Please don’t kick me again!” Brian pleaded, his head now right next to my left ear, holding me even tighter.
“Oh my god! I can’t believe it! You don’t know the art class story, do you, Brian?” Em asked astonished.
“Art class story?”
Em nodded, her black ponytail wipping from side to side.
“It happened Freshmen year,” Dinah began to elaborate. “Erin – you know, my best friend who moved away – Sarah and I were in the same art class as James. We had to build displays or models of a landmark of our choice. And James built a really good model of the White House out of toothpicks. No, they were matches, I think. Anyway, he had been working on it for weeks, building everything to scale. It was amazing! He even installed lights and the fountain was working, too.”
I huffed, glaring at Aaron who finally had stopped laughing, but was still keeping his distance from me. He will have to pay for it!
“Mr. Howards was very impressed and gave James an A+. He told James that he would like him to enter a nationwide competition with it as well.”
“Enter Erin and Sarah,” Aaron took over. He had approached us again, but he was still a couple of feet away from me. I yanked both my arms at once, hoping to surprise Brian. But his grip never loosened. “The girls were fooling around, running around in class, whatever. And you can surely imagine what happened next?”
“You damaged his model?” Brian guessed, turning me sideways so that he could look at me.
“Damage is too weak a word. Try ‘destroyed it completely’. Or ‘pulverized it’,” the redhead confirmed with glee. “You know Sarah. She doesn’t do anything halfheartedly.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose, okay? I tripped! I apologized to him a million times. But James has never forgiven me. He is convinced that he would have won that competition as well if only, yes, if only...,” I mimicked him and huffed. “Talk about a big ego.”
“Anyway,” Aaron chimed in, “ever since, James and Sarah don’t really get along. To put it nicely.”
“Not my fault. He’s the one holding a grudge for years and treating me like scum. I apologized a billion times, what else does he want?”
“That doesn’t sound like James at all,” Brian sounded very skeptical. “He’s polite and nice to everyone I know. I mean, he kind of has to, too – he’s our student council president.”
“Oh no, not to Sarah,” Emma informed him. “I can’t believe you didn’t know the story. But then again, they are both doing their best to avoid each other. As soon as they catch a glimpse of the other, they turn in the opposite direction.” She giggled. “And to think that Sarah even had a crush on him before the incident.”
“You did?” Brian asked me surprised.
“I don’t even remember. Maybe a tiny one. Minimalistic. Definitely smaller than even the smallest splinters of that stupid model of his the nurse had to pull out of me.” I groaned. “Thank god I got to see his true self before it turned into something bigger. James has a pitch-black soul and no heart. He is the pure definition of unforgivingness and evil.”
“Hm,” Brian pondered for a few seconds and turned his attention to our little Miss Arts. “What about you, Dinah? Why are you trying to avoid James? You weren’t involved in the incident, right?”
“No, I wasn’t,” she confirmed, twirling one of her brown curls around her finger. “But James is giving me the creeps. The way he talks to me,” she shuddered. “I think he’s trying to get on my good side in order to get revenge on Sarah.”
“You can’t be serious. That happened ages ago!” Brian retorted. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to get revenge.”
“As I said before, he sure knows how to hold a grudge. That butthole,” I muttered with disdain.
“Alright, enough chit-chat. It’s time to face your fears, Sarah,” Aaron said and clapped his hands together. “We’ll all be there with you,” he tried to appease me, his eyes a little bit worried.
“Nope, I most definitely won’t”, Dinah protested. “I’m gonna have lunch with some of my drama friends today. I’m not bound to Lizzy.”
Aaron sighed. “Okay, fine, Dinah. But you can’t get out of it, Sarah. It’s on your list. And you knew perfectly well that you would have to sit at his table sooner or later. You can’t avoid it forever. So let’s just get it over with. It’s time to settle this once and for all.”
“I don’t even think there’s anything to settle,” Brian added his two cents, reluctantly letting go of his grip. “I’m sure he doesn’t even remember the whole thing. As I said before, James is a decent and down-to-earth guy. I bet you’ve made a mountain out of a molehill and you don’t even realize it because you avoided him for so long. Let’s go.”
About ten minutes later, filled food trays in our hands, all of us – minus Dinah – were on our way to the table where most of the debate team was sitting. For a minute or two I had dared to hope that maybe James wasn’t there today. As if. Of course he was. I spotted him as soon as we had entered the cafeteria.
But maybe Brian and Aaron were right. I’ve been doing my best to avoid James for almost the last two years. Maybe I did make a mountain out of a molehill. It was an accident, a stupid accident, and happened years ago. Accidents happen. I apologized profusely. We were practically adults now. Soon to be college students. Surely James wouldn’t dare to treat me like his mortal enemy anymore.
“Hey there,” Brian greeted the debate team members politely as we finally arrived at their table. “Do you mind if we sit with you today?”
James looked up. “We’ve been expecting you,” he said gravely, mustering Brian, Aaron and Emma before his grey eyes narrowed, met mine and turned cold in an instant.
Well, there goes that little everythings-forgotten-theory out of the window. And gimme a break! ‘We’ve been expecting you?’ Where’s his swivel chair? Isn’t he supposed to be stroking a cat while saying that?
“You have?” Aaron said clearly as surprised by that statement as I was.
“Yes. You’re the drifters. I’ve noticed you,” our student council president let him know. “I notice everything that’s happening in our school,” he added with a meaningful look.
Oh my god. He can’t be serious! What, does he have surveillance installed everywhere? Little spy cams? Bugs? And is he auditioning for a villain in a James Bond movie? No one talks like that in real life!
“You may join us,” James addressed Aaron. “Please, sit down.”
Or maybe he has a Godfather complex? Hm, is there such a thing as a Godfather complex? I’ll have to ask my mom about it.
“Great, thanks,” my redheaded friend replied unfazed. “I’m Aaron, by the way, that’s –“
“I know very well who you are,” Godfather Junior interrupted him rudely. “Aaron, Brian, Emma – you’re more than welcome to sit here with us today.”
Yep, he’s definitely still holding onto his grudge, seeing that he wasn’t acknowledging my presence at all. I should have never thought otherwise. To make myself known, I cleared my throat. James glared at me and spat out my name under gritted teeth with visible disgust: “Sarah.” As if saying my name out loud makes him suffer unbearable agonies.
I hope it does.
We all sat down. I was firmly sandwiched between Brian and Aaron. 100 bucks that they did this on purpose. If they did it for my own good or for James’ protection, I couldn’t tell. James was sitting right across from Brian. This was the closest I had been to him for at least 20 months. He looked like the ultimate model student and student council president he was. A prep guy, through and through. He was wearing a navy blue polo shirt. I couldn’t see the rest of his attire, but most likely it was the typical belt, beige trousers and leather moccasins. His dark brown hair was parted on the side and short. Nice first impression. But he couldn’t fool me. Never trust a first impression.
“Hey, I’m Steve,” a skinny guy with shaggy-looking brown hair and metal-rimmed glasses introduced himself. “We’ve been debating why you guys move lunch tables so often.”
“You have?” Em asked surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Steve confirmed with a smile. “We like to debate during lunch about almost everything. It’s great practice. We’ve even formed two teams. Team A thinks you’re doing it out of curiosity. You want to meet everyone. That’s my opinion, by the way.”
I smiled at him. Steve seemed to be a nice guy. Unlike another person sitting way too close to me for my personal liking and comfort.
“What about the other team, what do they think?” Aaron inquired with genuine curiosity.
“Well, Team B is convinced that you are trying to manipulate people. That you have an ulterior motive. Maybe one of you is thinking about running for Prom Queen or something?”
I snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Or are you mad that we were able to see right through your little ploy,” James said smugly, his eyes piercing mine like poison darts.
“One: It is the epitome of ridiculousness, Team B - also known as James Prejudice Freeman,” I let him know with great restraint. I would not lunge at him, he wasn’t worth it. “Two: I am not mad because there is no little ploy or ulterior motive behind it. Ergo, you are not able to see right through ‘it’ because ‘it’ doesn’t exist to begin with. Three: Prom Queen? Really? That’s the best you could come up with?” I took a deep breath. “Why don’t you say what’s really bothering you, James? You’re afraid that maybe one of us is considering running for a position on the student council and challenging your petty position of power.”
The color drained from his face. He swallowed, his hands turned into little fists, knuckles white as snow. James tried his best to sound calm, but failed completely. His voice was layered with anger when he spoke up again: “Even if you were running for student council, smooth-talking every single student to get there, I would never let you ruin the good thing our council has going like you usually do, Sarah.”
“What?!” I cried out, losing my temper as well. “When have I ever done that?”
“Freshmen year? Model competition? Does it ring a bell?”
“You can’t be serious!” I exclaimed with fury, while both Aaron and Brian grabbed my arms and kept me planted on my chair in between them. “I’ve apologized a trizillion times, James! It was an accident. A freaking accident! What else do you want me to do?”
“Admit that you’re jealous of me. Always were, always will be.”
I gaped at him with disbelief. “You must be joking. Me? Jealous of you?”
“Of course! That’s the reason why you destroyed the White House in the first place, isn’t it?”
That boy needs help. Pronto! Someone call the straightjacket hotline.
“When does it get through your pigheaded skull? It was an accident! Ac-ci-dent! Meaning, I didn’t do it on purpose! And jealous? Really? What would I be jealous of? Please, enlighten me. Your stubbornness? Your extraordinary condescending way of treating people? Your tedious talent of bearing a grudge throughout the centuries? Or your boring collection of polo shirts and the way you pop up your collar?” I took a deep breath. “Or what about – hmpfmpg!”
“Sorry, we’ve gotta go now,” Brian said, his big strong hand clamped over my mouth. He pulled me out of my chair and away from the delusional demon whose eyes were throwing daggers and hurling shurikens at me.
“I’m onto you, Sarah! I’ll be watching you,” James chose as his parting words.
Despite my twisting and struggling, Brian kept on dragging me away behind one of the pillars, forcing me to look into his beautiful eyes which were filled with concern.
“I’m going to let you go now. You promise me that you don’t run back over there and say something that you’ll regret later, okay, Sarah?”
I remained still. I couldn’t promise him that.
Brian sighed, pushing a strand of his coal black hair out of his eyes. “You’re way better than him, Sarah. Don’t let him pull you down to his level. Ignore him and be the better person that you are.”
He really needed to go get a haircut again.
“I know you can do that. So let’s get back to our table and I go get our trays, okay?”
I nodded reluctantly. He was right, of course. Brian was always right. Pleased with my decision, he let go of me.
“That boy has some serious issues,” I muttered under my breath before making my way to our regular table.
To my surprise, Aaron and Emma stayed with the debate team for the rest of lunch. Afterwards, Em reported that James had finished his food in a record time and had left as soon as he was done. According to her, he was clearly embarrassed because he had lost his cools in front of his team members.
Aaron apologized sincerely for making me face James, all the while sheepishly holding out three of my favorite chocolate bars he had bought at the snack machine for me. Who needs olive branches? Chocolate, all the way! I accepted his apology, of course. Unlike some person who I won’t mention ever again, I know and, even more importantly, practice the good old concept of forgive and forget.
My chocolate-giving friend even managed to make me laugh when he told me that Steve, the one other debate team member I had been talking to, had been very impressed with my debating techniques. I didn’t know that pure anger and insults were considered debating techniques nowadays, but whatever.
Apparently, nobody else ever manages to keep James in check. That’s why Steve had asked Aaron to convince me to join the debate team.
Ha! Never. Not even when hell freezes over. I’m not taking any chances here.
All in all, that little lunch episode needs to be labeled ‘failure’. At least for me. I guess you can’t always win. Although the three chocolate bars had almost been worth it…
***
It is amazing how much of your high school life is taking place outside of the classrooms. Just think about the time before school begins and right after the end of last period; talking in the hallways in between classes; even bathroom breaks. And most importantly: the cafeteria. I’ve never really given it too much thought before. But as Dinah, Emma and I were just getting ready for our next Lizzy task, it dawned on me. After this, our almost anonymous state would be gone for good. And depending on the reactions of our fellow students, I might have to avoid our food source and social spot number one for the rest of my senior year. Or at least for the next couple of weeks.
I wasn’t worried about Dinah and Emma. Both of them could sing. Em was pretty good, actually. That’s why we all had decided that she would be the one to go first. Then Dinah. And just when we might have fooled the cafeteria crowd into thinking that they would be able to enjoy a nice surprise singing act, it would be my turn; destroying their hopes for good.
Yes, I’m sorry to say, but I’m a terrible singer. A damn shame because I love to sing! What I’m lacking in quality, I’m more than making up with volume and enthusiasm. Alas, this is not very appreciated by anyone who has witnessed my non-existing talent. I’m not tone deaf, definitely not. Only thing is, I can’t for the life of me manage to hit the notes the way they are supposed to be. No matter how hard I try. I may not be tone deaf, but I most definitely am tone mute. At home, I’m only allowed to sing in the shower since the rest of my family claims that they are getting headaches from my vocal chord exercises.
Unfortunately, my utter lack of melodic skills had slipped my mind when I had agreed on the singing in the cafeteria task. Come to think of it, I might have even been the one to suggest it.
Hey, I love to sing!
And apparently, I like digging my own grave as well.
On the upside: hopefully our little show act will help us to fulfill another one of our tasks – ‘be the number one topic of the rumor mill’. We girls had promised each other that we wouldn’t tell anyone the real reason for our impromptu performance. Brian and Aaron knew, of course, but they wouldn’t say a single thing as well.
It had taken us a while to choose a final song. Such a tedious task. Then, we had practiced at Emma’s on two afternoons that week. In middle school, we used to sing a lot together. Basically at every sleepover. Erin was still here back then. She was a pretty decent singer as well. It seems like most girls are.
Emphasis on most.
Anyway, we came up with our own choreographies and everything. Thankfully, I’m pretty good at dancing and most of the time, that’s the only thing I did – or shall I say: was allowed to do – during our performances. We adapted almost every song ever sung by a girl group. We were really into older bands. Dinah loves music and she would always come up with new material for us. I hadn’t even heard of most of the bands before she introduced us to them. We were the Spice Girls, Destiny’s Child, En Vogue, TLC and The Bangles. Actually, Walk Like An Egyptian was on our short list for the cafeteria. As well as a song by a Fifties band named The Chordettes. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them before, but of course I had listened to their ridiculously famous songs Mr. Sandman and Lollipop at some point because I knew them well. Two other songs which made our short list.
In the end, none of them was our song. Instead, we picked a relatively unknown number performed by a British band called The Pipettes. Their music was kind of similar to the Fifties and Sixties girl groups. Pretty cool. I don’t know how exactly Dinah had come across them, but they were a true find. And, another plus: It was a three-members girl group. They have their own little routines for each of their numbers and thanks to the internet, we had been able to check them out. Em, Dinah and I had the choreography down pretty quickly.
After a long debate, Em convinced us that the song Pull Shapes had to be it for several reasons. One, it was a fun happy tune with as little allotted singing time for me as possible. Two, it wasn’t that difficult to sing. In fact, some of my parts were more like talking aloud. Three, nobody else would know it, therefore minimizing the risk of students singing along. At first we had been trying to look for a popular and well-known song. Hence, our short list choices. But then we realized that this might cause huge problems for us if the whole cafeteria sings along. If they don’t know the song, the chances of others jumping on the tables and joining us were very slim.
We might be chickens, but Principal Finnegan is very strict. And though ‘get detention’ is one of our tasks, it is more than likely that we would have to face suspension if we spur on the whole student body. Hence, our song choice.
My two friends and I even had matching outfits for our big show. Our hair was pulled up in a ponytail and we had settled on dark blue jeans, flats and black fitted tees. All of us were still wearing our sweaters or hoodies on top, but we would have to take them off pretty soon. Time was ticking. The icing on the cake: a black and white polka dot hairband which we would put on right before our big act.
Everything had worked out perfectly so far. I had smuggled my iPod and speakers into the cafeteria in a bag. We didn’t have any microphones, even though Em really had been thinking about it for a minute. But the less equipment needed, the easer to slip it in unnoticed. Plus, singing loudly has never been one of my problems.
Aaron and even Brian grinned at us three in anticipation of our soon-to-be-performed performance. My eyes wandered around our cafeteria. Wow, it sure fits a lot of students. A lot! Was it always this crowded?
Dinah was pretty nervous. Yeah. I could totally relate to that. Emma obviously sensed what was going on and launched herself into one of her infamous pep talks: “We can do that, chicas! It’s just one little song. Just pretend to be back at my place. You can even close your eyes, if you want to. Let’s have some fun!”
Yeah, still not very much convinced. I intertwined my fingers, not knowing what else to do.
Brian piled up our empty trays and put them on the empty chair next to him. “You better rock!”
Surprised, I looked at him. That definitely wasn’t something I had expected Mr. Responsible to say. Yep, there was a very encouraging smile present, his eyes sparkling with joy. Well, if Brian approves of our little stunt, there was nothing wrong with it.
Aaron set up the speaker system. “Whenever you’re ready, girls.”
Dinah, Em and I exchanged glances. We grinned. Yes, we could do that! We were ready.
Ready as can be.
Em signaled Aaron to turn on the music. This was it.
Aaron grinned at us. “Give them hell!” And then he pressed play.
Show time.
Immediately, the familiar notes filled the room. Quite a couple of heads turned with wonder, trying to locate the source of the music. But most of them weren’t able to see the speakers right next to Aaron. Luckily, there wasn’t any singing in the beginning of the song which gave us a few seconds to take off our sweaters, prompting one guy somewhere behind us to whistle in appreciation. Next, we placed our beautiful hairbands on our heads. Then we took each others hands, Em in the middle, and stepped on the table, making ourselves known to the rest of the lunch crowd.
It seemed like everyone was now looking at us. People to the left, in front of us, to the right – all eyes were on us. The ones facing our backs I couldn’t see, naturally, but I think it is safe to say that they had their gaze directed at us as well.
Those looks alone were definitely worth it! This was fun.
We couldn’t stop grinning and began dancing along to the rhythm.
“Yeah!” Some guy called.
“Take off your clothes!” Another one.
Hormones. Making male teens yell obscene things since seven million years.
We simply ignored them and focused on the music and our dance moves.
Right on cue, Em started singing: “Dance with me, baby boy tonight, dance with me and we’ll be alright…”
We did our routine just the way we had done it countless times before. Practice doesn’t necessarily make you perfect, but at least it makes you confident. Everything was familiar. Except the setting, of course. Turns out, that really was only a minor detail, after all. Emma was right!
“Pull shapes!” We all sang at once while crossing our arms in front of us, our flat palms pointed towards the ceiling, to the left and to the right of our heads. Granted, I, for one, yelled that particular line; but hey, at least I was doing it right on time together with my two friends.
“I like to Rock’n’Roll,” Dinah sang.
I immediately followed her and cried out with all my heart my first solo line: “Well, I like to Hip Hop.”
Just as I was thinking that this was my best performance ever and much better than I’ve ever had sung a song before, Aaron roared with laughter. Lucky for me, unlucky for him, he was sitting right in front of me and I had no problem to kick him in the shoulder a little. That’s when I realized that he was holding a camera in his hands and filming our little act. Traitor!
He immediately jumped out of his chair to stand a couple of feet away out of my reaching distance, his camera pointed at us all the time.
Great, I just missed another “Pull shapes!” all three of us were supposed to be singing together. Focus, Sarah!
And that I did. As I scanned the room, I realized that Aaron wasn’t the only one recording our one-and-one-time-only act. Dozens of students had mobile phones in their hands, taking pictures or maybe even videotaping our show. Great. Sometimes new technology can be such a curse! I bet it’s gonna be on YouTube and Facebook in no time.
“Well, I just want to freak out,” I croaked with enthusiasm, my voice breaking. I so did that on purpose; that’s exactly the way you’re supposed to sing it. It is.
More laughter filled the room. But friendly laughter. In fact, tons of people were cheering, whistling, and encouraging us to keep singing!
It was great. We grinned and smiled and sang with all our might.
As soon as we started singing “Clap your hands if you want some more”, almost everyone clapped! I think only the students taping our show with their phones in their hands weren’t clapping. Understandable. Clapping with one hand isn’t easy as pie.
To our right, some girls had gotten out of their chairs, dancing along to the music and enjoying the moment. A couple more girls, mostly from drama group, followed their lead.
It was epic!
And fun!
Epic fun!
Much too soon, our song ended. Dinah, Em and I remained in our final pose for a couple more seconds, drinking in the cheers and applause, smiling like fools. Someone even started chanting “Encore!”
‘Singing in the cafeteria’ – check!
We climbed down the table giddy with excitement, our hearts beating fast, every single one of us on a total adrenaline high. Brian and Aaron immediately pulled us into a group hug.
“Well done, girls, well done! I’m proud of you,” Aaron praised our performance while crushing my ribs.
“What he said,” Brian grinned.
“Yeah, nice job. What inspired this little performance?”
All five of us turned our heads to the person asking that question. It was Nick. He was standing right next to us together with some other members of the football team. I hadn’t even realized that they had approached us.
Attracting half of the football team, getting them to pay a visit to your table? I don’t think that’s anything non-cheerleaders have ever achieved in the history of our school before. Way to go!
Emma shrugged her shoulders and replied with an innocent grin: “We just felt like it.”
“Really?” Nick wondered, mustering her closely before he tore his eyes away to study me. I tried my best to give off an aura of unsuspiciousness. Right, poker face. Really should work on that.
“It was great! You were great, Emma,” Mike complimented us.
“Yeah,” the rest of the jocks agreed, grinning.
“You too, Dinah,” the quarterback added with a friendly smile.
“And you, Sarah,” Josh began and trailed off. If he was going to tell me that I was a good singer, I swear to god, I will kick him. There’s nothing worse than liars and false compliments. “You were hands down the worst singer I’ve ever heard!” His lips twitched, he was trying desperately to stifle his laughter. “Seriously.”
In return, I attempted to give him my best evil stare, but failed miserably. Instead, I couldn’t help myself but join the rest of my friends who were all cracking up and practically screaming with laughter. Josh and the rest of the guys followed our lead right away. Eventually, Em started her snort-laughing hiccupping, causing me to split my sides laughing.
Yep, that was damn sure our best Lizzy task yet!
“Ahem,” someone behind us cleared her throat with much exaggeration.
I turned around to face that person. My laughter died down at once. The rest of our little group stopped laughing, too. All of the sudden the air was thick with tension. Shocking how quickly the mood can change.
“Emma, Dinah, Sarah, I would like to see you girls in my office. Now,” Vice Principal Mrs. Harris addressed us with a stern look on her face. This must be pretty difficult to accomplish considering that she had the googliest googly eyes I’ve ever come across. But Mrs. Harris was able to pull of the stern googly eyes look with no effort at all. The three of us simply nodded, unable to speak. “And bring along your audio system, please.” Then she turned around and left.
I swallowed nervously and peeked at my two friends. Dinah was a little bit pale and Emma was shifting her weight uncomfortably from one foot to another.
Well, we had known perfectly well that something like that was bound to happen. The fun was over.
It was time for us to face some other kind of music.
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Video on the right: Pull Shapes by The Pipettes
Time for another random question: Everyone's always wondering why Superman wears his undies on top of his clothes. But I wanna know from you: What's up with the cape, Super? Any ideas?
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