How To Be A Perfect Girl (30 page)

Sure enough, one pimple-faced Senior made a
motion to replace the club President—Colin—and, once the motion was
seconded, named himself as the candidate for replacement. The vote
failed; Colin didn’t look surprised or fazed by the attempt to
depose him.

There were two more attempts to replace
Colin, and one to replace Addison as the Vice President, but they
all failed. “Alright,” Colin said, “Seeing that we have no more
motions, let’s move onto voting to replace the current vacancies.
We have a couple: Treasurer and Recorder—which is a single
position, mind you—and Student Liaison. The Treasurer and Recorder
position is pretty self-explanatory; the Student Liaison is a
relatively new position we created for Charity February. The boy or
girl selected for the position will act as NHS’ face, freeing
Addison and I to focus on fundraising. So, let’s have some
nominations.”

“Do you want to be Treasurer or Liaison?”
Derrick asked, jerking his head towards Colin.

“Um—“
I don’t really want either position;
the Treasurer job seemed tedious, whereas the Liaison would
clearly be nothing more than a figurehead.
At least as Liaison I’ll still have a position, and I might
not win.
“Liaison, I guess.”

“Alright,” Derrick raised his voice, “I
nominate Valentina for Student Liaison.”

Colin nodded, “I guess we’ll vote on that
first, then. Any other nominations for Student Liaison?” The room
was silent; Val looked around, wondering whether everyone else
thought the position was meaningless, as she did, or whether they
didn’t want to run because of the extra responsibility. “Last
call,” Colin announced after a few seconds; no one else moved or
spoke, so he said, “Well then, everyone meet your new Student
Liaison! Val, get on up here!”

Val took a few steps that took her to the
front of the room, where Colin was smiling. She turned around,
giving the rest of the club a subdued smile and simple wave.

“Whoo, Val!” Derrick cheered, inspiring fits
of laughter.

“Thank you, Val,” Colin said, “If you’d just
stand next to Addison here—“ he pointed to Addison’s left side, and
Val took her position as instructed. They voted on the next
position; Val was amazed when four people were nominated or
nominated themselves. Because there were multiple candidates, Colin
asked everyone running to give a short speech, which ended up
taking up nearly the entirety of the club’s allotted time. Val
didn’t pay much attention, so she was unprepared when Colin pointed
the winning Treasurer and Recorder to a spot beside her, and Ethan
lumbered over.

“Whoa, fancy that,” the tall senior laughed,
“Such a small world.”

Val cleared her throat, “Yeah, I guess.”
Colin gave a short speech and dismissed the club members.

Before Val could leave, Addison put a hand
on her forearm, “I heard about what Porter said to you. You didn’t
deserve that.”

“Thanks,” Val wondered how
many people had heard about the incident;
if Addison knows, probably a lot.
A
dull part of her was curious if the rumor of Porter being mean to
her had spread faster than Friday’s rumor.

“Porter is—“ Addison gulped, “—when I was a
freshman, I dated him for four months. It—“ she laughed
emotionlessly, “—it didn’t end well.”

“Oh,” Val attempted a concerned look, “Why
not?”

“He cheated on me,” Addison shared, “With my
best friend. I guess I’m just saying, you were lucky.”

Val certainly didn’t feel lucky, “Oh,
thanks.” Addison didn’t say anything else, and after a respectful
amount of time had passed, Val left to change for Soccer. Practice
didn’t go well at all. Val blamed her emotions, but Mr. Swinn
wouldn’t accept the excuse (“You should be able to channel all that
hurt and anger into kicking the ball”). Val tried, but after
sending the soccer ball soaring off into the distance multiple
times she realized that loosing her emotions was not the right
decision.

As a result of the lousy practice, Val was
feeling worse than ever when the team hit the locker room.

Her favorite person in the world was
waiting; “I hear you’ve been having a horrible day,” Avery pouted,
making her mock-sympathy apparent.

Val glared at the girl, “So what?”

“So nothing. I just enjoy it when a good
plan comes together,” Avery beamed.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know—I’m not
saying that I told Porter I’d forgive him if he told you off—and I
won’t, by the way, although I appreciate his gesture—and I’m also
not saying that I told Jenny exactly what to say to win back those
stupid little girls you call friends. But if someone
did
do that,” Avery’s
smile widened, “They’d be pretty clever.”

“You did that?” Val looked at the older
girl, dumbstruck.

“No no; aren’t you listening? That would
have been harassment, and you could go to the Principal. I’m simply
saying that if I were behind what happened today, I would be pretty
happy.”

Rather than anger, Val
actually found the revelation made her feel better; knowing Porter
had been put up to saying what he had, and that Jenny had not acted
entirely of her own accord either, was oddly comforting.
They may not be the nicest people in the
world,
Val thought,
but at least they still qualify as people, unlike
Avery.

“Well?” Avery looked at Val with raised
eyebrows, “Don’t you have anything to say?”

Val refused to let the other girl see how
much damage she had truly done; she forced herself to shrug, “I
never liked Porter anyway.”

Avery laughed, “Right.” She leaned in close,
whispering so that only Val could hear, “Just think, little
Freshie, this is just the beginning. I have so much more planned
for you—this was just me stretching my muscles. The true game is
about to begin.”

Chapter 20

“You excited about tonight?” Alex asked as
he packed up after Algebra.

No, not at all.
“I guess.”

“You don’t seem that excited,” Alex grinned,
“Come on, there’s gonna be drinks and a pool, and girls!” He
laughed at Val’s nonplussed expression, “Okay, maybe girls isn’t a
selling point for a girl, but you get what I mean—it’ll be
fun.”

“If you say so,” the closer Alex’s party
came, the more Val found herself dreading it.

“I promise it will be. If it isn’t—if it
isn’t I’ll give you a lap dance.” The joke managed to elicit a
smile from Val.

“I have to get to Geography,” she said,
still smiling, “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Agreed. Wear something seductive—that dress
you wore to Aaliyah’s party was nice, but I prefer a little more
cleavage,” he winked.

Val scoffed; “You’d probably have me show up
naked, if it was up to you.”

Alex rubbed his chin, “You know what, that’s
a good idea. Why don’t you do that?”

“Because it would be—“ Val laughed,
“Whatever, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.”

In Geography, a couple of students attempted
to derail Mr. Andrews again, with little success; instead, they
were treated to a lesson on plant life at different altitudes. Val
tried to replicate the pictures he put up on the whiteboard in her
notebook, but when she looked over the drawings at the end of class
she found it hard to discern between any of them.

Everyone else’s drawings
were coming along in Val’s Drawing class—Miss Andrews insisted they
come to her for approval before they started on the actual project,
and Val had tried five times with no success. Even Miro had gotten
approval for something he wanted to do—although he’d scrapped the
idea of a floating arm after Miss Andrews yelled at him for goofing
off. Val spent half the period frowning at her still-dilapidated
butterfly,
it’s imperfect, just like
me.
She finally decided to take it up to
the teacher and ask for approval one more time.

“Okay, I think I wanna make a bigger version
of this,” Val announced, setting her drawing down on Miss Andrews
desk.

“Miss Hunter, this is the exact same piece
you wanted me to approve yesterday.”

“Yeah, I know, but—I know it doesn’t look
like a beautiful butterfly, but maybe it could be like an
expression of how I’m feeling now?”

The teacher nodded, “Fascinating, truly
fascinating. Hmm, I suppose I will let you move ahead with that,
but don’t use it as an excuse to produce subpar work.”

“I won’t,” Val promised;
she breathed a sigh of relief as she returned to her spot next to
Miro,
now I’ll only be a couple of days
behind everyone else
. Sophia didn’t say
anything as she sat down; Val didn’t expect her to. They all worked
quietly; Val tried not to count down the minutes until the bell
rang, but with no conversation to keep her mind occupied, it
wandered to other matters.

The Trio didn’t get up and move when Val sat
down with them at Lunch, but they did their best to ignore her.
When Jenny arrived, the conversation picked up, but they did their
best to make it clear that Val was not welcome.

“So my dad is taking my sister and I to the
coast this weekend,” Ella said, “Anyone wanna come?”

“No thanks,” Jenny declined; Zoey and Sophia
declined as well.

“Sorry, I won’t be able to come either,” Val
apologized, not sure if the offer had even included her in the
first place.

“Darn, that sucks,” Ella looked at Jenny,
Sophia, and Zoey in turn, “You’re sure you can’t come?”

Val’s curiosity got the
best of her; she had to know how far Jenny’s speech yesterday had
lowered her in the other girls’ estimation, “Well, I
could
go.”

Ella coughed, “Um—“ she frowned, “It’s
really a close friends and family thing. It’s cool that you want to
go though, I appreciate the sentiment.”

So, Ella, at least, doesn’t
even think of me as a friend anymore.
“Why
are you guys acting like this?” she asked blatantly, “I mean, first
Sophia ignores me in Drawing, now you don’t even want to hang out
with me—“

“You broke girl code,” Ella answered.

“Exactly,” Jenny agreed, “That and you’re a
major bitch.”

Val gasped, “No I’m not—“

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve missed the part
where they teach that it’s nice to pretend to be someone’s friend,
insult her, and then steal all her friends.” If looks could kill,
Jenny’s would have reduced Val to a pile of ash.

“I’m—Jenny, can I talk to you in the
hall?”

Jenny shook her head, “Anything you have to
say, you can say here.”

Val sighed, “I’m sorry I
said those things to you. And I should have apologized earlier, I
know. But—I guess that’s it, I’m sorry.”
At
least my parents would be proud,
Val
thought; to her, the apology seemed like submission—Jenny had
practically forced her into it.

“I—don’t accept your apology,” Jenny
smirked, “Go tell it to someone who cares.”

Val looked around the
table, hoping to find a friendly face, but came up empty-handed.
Without another word, she got up and went to the library to work on
homework; at least, that was her plan. As she sat at one of the
study tables, Val found herself planning ways to get revenge on
Jenny; she was convinced that was the only way to win back the Trio
and return things to the way they’d been just a week ago.
But how to do it?
Val
came up with a plan that revolved around provoking Jenny the way
she had before; she knew the other freshman was sensitive to jokes
about her appearance.
Maybe if I start
calling her Pig-snout, and just make fun of her every time I see
her, like Dylan does to me—

The sixth period bell rang; preoccupied as
she was by her thoughts, Val barely heard it. She meandered into
English, where Miss Donnely split the period between more
discussion on Romeo and Juliet and a lesson on how to write essays.
“We will be writing an essay next Friday,” the English teacher
announced, “So be prepared.”

English ended, and Chemistry flew by as Val
considered how to bring Jenny down; it helped to have her in the
class, since Val could look back at the lab where Jenny sat and
think of particularly nasty and appropriate insults.

“So I told Porter we’d pick you up around
six,” Keenan said after class, “Does that work?”

“Yeah,” Val shrugged,
“I’ll be ready.” She went straight home,
I
don’t think Eco Club is the club for me anyways,
she thought as she passed Noah on his way up the
stairs to the club’s meeting room; he smirked knowingly. Val almost
turned around just to prove his prediction wrong, but realized how
petty that would seem—to spend an hour around the awkward, bookish
types in that club to disprove a nerd whose opinion she didn’t care
about—and continued out to the parking lot. She called a car, and
went home; it was only two-thirty. Val wasn’t used to having so
much time on her hands.

After much consideration,
she headed to her room and booted up her laptop;
maybe there will be some good revenge ideas
online.
There weren’t—or at least, Val
couldn’t find them despite numerous searches—so she wound up
surfing random sites instead. It was a good way to waste time, and
before Val knew it her parents were leaving for—she couldn’t
remember where they were going. She checked the time on her
computer: 5:06pm. Val got up and walked over to her dresser; she
retrieved the clothes she’d been planning to wear to Aaliyah’s
party,
Since Dad’s not here,
she reasoned,
he won’t
have to worry about what I go out in.