Revenge of the Cheerleaders (7 page)

It hurt to swallow. In another moment I would break into a thousand pieces. I turned to the guy, but only for a second. "I've got to go."

"Right now?" he asked.

"Sorry." I walked past him, making my way around the refreshment table.

"What's your name, at least," he asked, but I was not about to tell him my name was Chelsea when Rick was up in front of the room slandering it.

"Sorry," was all I could get out and I hurried away from him.

I took a deep breath. I had to make it to the door without bursting into tears or finding something to hurl at Rick. I could do this.

I would have to leave Adrian here. I wasn't about to walk up to the stage in front of everyone and cause a scene by trying to haul my sister away. It was bad enough that Rick had set his disdain for me to music. I wouldn't make it worse by showing everyone how it affected me.

I had just gone out the door when my friends caught up to me. Even Rachel came, which meant she had left the blond guy to talk to me.

Aubrie hurried to my side. "Chelsea, are you all right?"

"No," I said, and then the tears I'd held back spilled over anyway. I couldn't see but kept walking toward the parking lot.

"He's such a jerk," Aubrie said, and then Rachel added several more adjectives, most of which Rick had already set to music in songs about us.

Samantha glanced over her shoulder at the restaurant to make sure we were alone. "We need to go somewhere and talk. We can't let him do this to Chelsea. What if Rick actually makes it through the
High School Idol
auditions? We can't let him sing that song on national TV."

"How are we going to stop him?" I asked.

She looked around the group and then gazed at me. "I think you already know the answer to that question."

I held up my hands, using them to ask the question. "We cough on him and give him laryngitis?"

"No, Chels, you've got to sing. You've got to beat him at the auditions."

Chapter 7

W
e drove to Samantha's house, then sat cross-legged in her bedroom discussing the details.

"You still have two weeks to memorize a song. It will be easy," Samantha said. "You memorized 'Be True to Your School' without even trying."

"But Rick wrote his own song. How can I top that?"

Rachel waved off my question, like it was silly. "You're better looking and have nice legs. You don't think Britney Spears got where she is because she wrote her songs, do you?"

Aubrie considered me with her head tilted. "You'll need something sparkly to wear. Something that looks rock star. We'll look on the Internet."

"What if the
High School Idol
judges are mean?" I asked. "They chew people up and spit them out on those reality shows. I don't want the whole nation making fun of me because I forget a word, or drop a note, or pass out during the audition. I don't know if I can do this."

"Sure you can," Aubrie said. "We'll be your backup singers."

Samantha and Rachel shot her angry looks. Clearly, they were less than thrilled with the idea of being my backup singers.

"Oh come on," Aubrie said. "We do dances all the time. It will be just like one of our pep assembly routines."

"Except for potentially performing in front of millions of viewers," Rachel said.

Samantha let out a sigh. "Aubrie is right. We're in this together. Rick didn't just attack Chelsea. He wrote at least two songs about cheerleaders and who knows how many more that we didn't hear. Maybe he'll sing about all of us tonight. He wants to take us on, I say we make sure his stupid songs never see the light
of
day. It will be our revenge."

"Revenge of the cheerleaders," Rachel said, and we nodded in agreement.

After that we spent the next hour on the Internet. We looked at dozens of songs, trying to find something that was in my vocal range, with a good dance beat, and recognizable but not played out. I wanted to find a song about evil band members entitled "Dangerously Stupid," but apparently nobody has written that song yet.

Finally, and after much discussion, we chose Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)." It was fun, bouncy, and had a strong backup part. And besides, the words seemed easy to memorize.

I only had to sing a few lines before my friends came in with their response, and then so much of the song worked like a conversation.

Not really all that frightening if you took out the part where we had to do it in front of people.

"I'll sign us up for the audition," Aubrie said.

"I'll ask Mrs. Jones to help us come up with a routine," Rachel added.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

Samantha let out a sigh. "Remember when you quit choir, you were so glad you never had to sing for Mr. Metzerol again?"

"Yeah," I said. I knew what she was going to say, and dreaded it before she opened her mouth again.

"Go ask him if he can coach you through the song."

When I got home my mother asked me where Adrian was. I told her I didn't care because I was never speaking to Adrian again, and then, even though I thought I had finished crying, I cried all over again when I told my mother what had happened.

Mom listened, shaking her head. "How could he do such a thing?" she asked. "What's wrong with him?" And then finally she threw her hands up and said, "Well, that's the last straw. Adrian is not seeing that boy anymore. He is no longer welcome in our home."

An hour later Adrian came home. By that time I was up in the bathroom brushing my teeth. I heard Mom's voice, low and angry, talking to my sister, and then Adrian's voice, louder and defensive, saying, "It's just a song. Besides, she insults him all the time."

"That isn't the same," Mom said. "You know that isn't the same."

Something slammed. Probably the coat closet. "How come you always take her side?"

"And how come you never do?" Mom snapped back. "She's your sister. And until Rick apologizes to Chelsea and promises not to sing that song, you won't see him. Is that clear?"

I heard footsteps storming down the hall then Adrian yelled, "You're trying to ruin my life!"

As if she needed any help doing that.

Adrian walked by the bathroom and saw me rinsing out my toothbrush. She paused by the doorway, her breath still coming out quickly. "So now you're taking Rick away from me."

"I didn't make him sing that song."

"But you told Mom about it. You blew it all out of proportion. It's not like he said anything that isn't true."

I stared at her, then shook my head. How could she see things that way? How could she have so much hatred for me that she thought her boyfriend was justified in singing trash about me in front of everybody? At that moment I wanted to hurt her as badly as she hurt me. With an even voice I said, "Tell me, how many songs did Rick write about you on his new CD?"

"What?" she asked.

"Did he write any songs about what a wonderful girlfriend you are?"

She let out an exasperated grunt, "The CD is called
Cheerleaders in Action.
I'm not a cheerleader."

"Oh. Well doesn't it seem a little obsessive that your boyfriend wrote a bunch of songs about your sister? Maybe you should think about that."

When her face flushed red I knew my words had hit their mark. Still, she wasn't going to let me have the last word in the argument. She took a step toward me. "Rick isn't interested in you. He wrote those songs about cheerleaders because he's sick of watching the way you and your friends walk over everyone else."

As if. I would have loved to hear about just who she thought I'd been waltzing over, but I wasn't about to let myself get distracted. Instead I shrugged, "So you're saying he does think you're a wonderful girlfriend?"

She lifted her chin as though daring me to contradict her. "Yes. He loves me."

"Well, since he doesn't want to lose you, he shouldn't have a hard time apologizing to me and switching songs for the audition, should he?"

She rolled her eyes. "You don't think he'll do it? You think you've gotten rid of him just because you told Mom about that song? Well, even though you've never apologized to him for the way you look down at him all the time, and even though 'Dangerously Blonde' is his best song, he'll do it if I ask him to."

I smiled at her. "Mmm hmm. Why don't you go call him now?"

Even though I didn't show any confidence in her assertion, I really did hope she was right. And I didn't even care about the apology. I just wanted him to never sing that song again. If he would promise not to sing it, that would mean I didn't have to shove myself into something tight and sparkly and sing "The Shoop Shoop Song" in front of heaven knew how many people.

Adrian went into her room and shut the door. I leaned against her door frame and tried to hear as much of the conversation as I could. Was there a sparkly outfit in my future or not?

Adrian, sniffling, told Rick about Mom's edict. She ended with, "It isn't fair to you. I know it isn't, but can you please tell them that you won't sing that song again?"

There was a moment's silence then Adrian said, "But you have other songs—you have tons of other songs you can perform."

A pause, then Adrian's voice grew louder. "Does your artistic freedom mean more to you than seeing me?"

Another pause. "Well, it must if you're not willing to sing a different song."

Now her voice grew choppy with anger. "I can't believe this. Chelsea told me you wouldn't change songs, but I didn't believe her. You don't love me at all, do you?"

Hardly a pause. Whatever Rick said, she cut him off. "Fine, then I don't care if I never see you again. And another thing, Rick, how is it that you wrote a whole CD worth of songs about my sister and not a single one about me?"

She didn't give him time to answer. Even from where I stood I could hear the phone slam against her desk.

I turned and walked slowly back to my room. Funny how things turn out sometimes. Adrian finally was free from all Rick's bad influences, but me, well, I was going to have to face him head-on. I lay in bed, but didn't fall asleep for a long time. The words of "Dangerously Blonde" repeated over and over again in my mind.

I spent most of Saturday at Rachel's house with my friends, practicing the song and combing through Internet sites trying to find outfits that were flashy but not slutty. As it turns out, those are very expensive. We found some dresses that would be perfect, and which could be mailed to us on time for a mere one hundred and eighty dollars apiece. I think they may have originally been figure skating outfits, but hey, they were sparkly and looked liked they'd stay put on your body even if you did leg kicks. Trust me, those are hard to find.

At noon we went over to Mrs. Jones's house. Rachel had called her in the morning and she'd agreed to give us an hour of her time to help us do some choreography. The hour stretched into three hours, which was really nice of Mrs. Jones, since I'm sure she's very busy doing whatever it is that teachers do on the weekends.

By the time I finally went home I felt confident. Confident about the routine, confident about the outfits, confident that my friends could pull off the backup part—the only thing I didn't feel confident about was my singing voice.

"You have potential," Mr. Metzerol had told me back when I'd taken choir. "But potential must be shaped."

Instead of shaping my potential by joining show choir, like he wanted, I'd dropped the class altogether this year. I knew he was disappointed in me. Whenever he passed me in the hallway his gaze revealed his sense of betrayal.

If I asked him, would he agree to help me or would he just rub it in that my potential was still a massive unshaped blob?