Revenge of the Cheerleaders (8 page)

Monday at school things were worse than I expected. I'd known a lot of people had heard Rick's songs, but I hadn't expected so many people to be singing them in the hallway. Really. I caught snatches of it every time I switched classes. Naomi and her friends broke into, "She'll wink at you, but only if you're cool," whenever they saw me.

I tried to laugh it off and tell them, "You notice I'm not winking at you. You obviously didn't make the cool list." But it still bothered me. I mean, how far could a person's social standing slide in one weekend? It was like anyone who I'd ever slighted, every guy I'd ever turned down, and all the girls who tried out but didn't make it on the cheerleading squad went out of the way to rub it in.

From what I gathered—from those
who
were only too eager to tell me—Rick sang a couple more cheerleader songs after we left. There was "How to Feed Your Cheerleader (On Gossip and Lies)" and "This Skirt Means I'm Too Good for You." Apparently they were catchy tunes because several people had them almost memorized.

The other girls in my squad weren't nearly as bothered by it as I was. Samantha had a lot of noncheerleading friends and a boyfriend. Every time Logan passed Rick in the hallway he called out, "Heck yeah, she's too good for you! That's why she's dating me."

Rachel had come to school looking so forlorn that currently half a dozen guys from the football team trailed her around to cheer her up and snarl in Rick's direction.

Aubrie, eternally optimistic, actually enjoyed the extra attention. "There is
no
bad press," she said. I didn't point out that this only applied to movie stars, not high school students. At high school—oh yeah, there's bad press.

By lunchtime I knew I could no longer avoid it. I went to Mr. Mezterol's classroom to see if I could talk to him. He was there, standing by his filing cabinet going through sheet music. He wore a suit jacket and tie—I'd never seen him in anything casual, and his mustache was neatly trimmed. I used to think his mustache was actually a word filter because he always spoke so slowly. He told his classes that when conversing, it was important to choose exactly the right word, and you did get the feeling that he ran through a mental thesaurus every time he spoke. He looked up when I walked in, but then went back to his filing.

I stood before him, nervously clutching a CD of the song that I'd downloaded last night, and explained that I was trying out for the
High School Idol
auditions. I needed help with my voice. Did he have any time to offer me some pointers?

He turned, slowly, and considered me with reproach. " I 'm not sure, Chelsea. Many of my choir students are trying out, and I need to help them. My time is very limited over the next two weeks. You understand that my choir students have first priority."

I gulped, and grabbed my CD harder, but didn't leave. He had started his answer by saying, " I 'm not sure," which meant he could still be persuaded. "But it won't take long," I said. "And I used to be your student. How about I'll stay after school and help you grade papers so you'll have extra time. Or I could clean your classroom, or wash your car . . ." Or just grovel for a sufficient time for you to forgive me. "Please?"

He looked at me for a long moment, tapping his fingers against the sheet music in his hand. "Perhaps we could work out a deal. After all, I shouldn't turn down someone who's . . ." His mustache twitched. "Inspired so much music lately."

I blushed. "You heard about Rick's song?"

He turned back to his filing cabinet and placed the last piece of sheet music in the drawer. "Some girls in my second period class sung several songs to me. That 'Dangerously Blonde' one has a good beat."

I leaned against his desk. "Now you know why I've got to sing really well. I can't let Rick win a spot on
High School Idol."

"Mmm hmm." Mr. Metzerol shut the file then made his way around to the back of his desk. He sat down in his chair and clasped his hands in front of him. "It's a brutal thing to be on the wrong end of teasing, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said, glad that he understood.

"School should be a place of learning, of friendship, but words . . ." he shook his head sadly, "those take a toll on a person's self-esteem, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes," I said.

The corners of his mouth lifted, as though winning an argument. "It's so important to feel accepted by one's peers."

I'd already said as much, so I wasn't sure why he kept bringing it up. "You don't think I pick on people, do you?" I put my hand against my chest. "Because those things Rick said about me aren't true."

He didn't look convinced. "You try to include your peers whenever you can?"

"Yes." I should have seen it coming, really. I mean, I'd used the same put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is technique on Adrian.

"Then you won't mind helping me with a project. You're the perfect one to do it, in fact, since you know how it feels to be on the wrong end of teasing." He leaned back in his chair and stroked the ends of his mustache. "You see, I'm worried about a couple of my students, Molly and Polly Patterson. You know them, yes?"

Yes, I knew them. They were identical twin girls who'd moved into town this year and had the misfortune of being plain, frumpy, and on the overweight side. They'd immediately been dubbed Roly and Poly by some guys on the football team. "They're in my history class," I said.

"That's right," Mr. Metzerol said. "They have choir first period. Superb voices. Excellent harmony. I can't get either one to sing a solo though. They're too self-conscious. Too worried about what others might say."

"You want me to help them with singing?" I asked.

Mr. Metzerol leaned forward. "I want you to help them with life at PHS. I want you to be their friend."

"Oh." Adults love to say these kinds of things as though you could order friendship the same way you ordered a pizza. You didn't just decide to be friends with two people whom you'd hardly ever spoken to and probably had nothing in common with. Still, I couldn't explain this to Mr. Metzerol. Once people become adults they instantly forget what it's like to be a teenager.

Mr. Metzerol nodded appraisingly. "If they hang out with you, people will stop making fun of them."

Yeah, because they'd be too busy making fun of me. My popularity was already in a free fall. Thank you very much, Rick.

Still I couldn't turn Mr. Metzerol down. I needed his help, and besides, he was right. I knew how it felt to be called names. "I'll try to get to know them. I'll say hi in class and everything if you want me to."

"Yes, but we need . . ." He sat silently at his desk while I waited for him to finish his sentence. "Something . . . more." And then, as though it were already decided he added, "I'll take the liberty of asking Mrs. Addington to put the three of you together on your history project. That should give you an opportunity to become friends."

We were just starting a unit on technology in world history class and had to come up with a report and presentation. "But Samantha and I already decided to do our project together . . . " I said.

"Good, good," he said. "Samantha can help you befriend them. That will work out even better. I'll let Mrs. Addington know." He stood up as though the matter was closed. "Now then, you brought your music with you? Let's hear it."

I didn't argue with him anymore. As far as I was concerned, if he made me befriend Molly and Polly he had better give me a lot of good coaching advice in return.

I put my CD into the player that sat on his desk, took a deep breath, and belted out the song.

Mr. Metzerol watched me, frowning the entire time. When I finished he shook his head like a doctor examining a dying patient. "Chelsea, you're not utilizing your diaphragm. You're letting notes fall off left and right." He held his fingers together as though grasping something. "You've got to hold onto those notes." Then he sung out the words to a couple of lines in a booming, almost operatic voice. He nodded at me. "Now try it again without the CD. I want to hear you, not the CD."

I sang the song again, struggling to remember the words while concentrating on my diaphragm. Apparently I wasn't successful with that last goal because Mr. Metzerol kept yelling, "Hold onto it!" and "You're letting those notes fall!" and "God gave you a diaphragm, Chelsea! When are you going to use it?" He even took his conducting stick and held it to my stomach. "Here. Here is where you need to feel it. Stretch those notes out."

Which made me remember why I didn't take choir this year. The man was not above walking by and smacking us in the back if we slouched during practice, and he had this Nazi-like obsession with making us use our diaphragm.

After the fourth time through the song—both his fourth time and mine, because he had to keep showing me how it should be done—he finally said, "That's enough practice for today. You do your scales and your breathing exercises tonight, then come back in at lunchtime tomorrow and we'll see if it goes any better, all right?"

"All right," I said.

"And remember you're going to help Molly and Polly with . . ." Mr. Metzerol rolled his hand in the air, pumping his mental thesaurus. "Updating their look. Building their confidence."

As though you could just walk up to near strangers and say, Hi, I noticed you're ugly. Would you like some help with that? Honestly, Mr. Metzerol must have skipped out on his teenage years. "I'll try," I said. "I can't promise anything."

He sent me a calm smile. "Then neither can I."

You wouldn't think a teacher would blackmail you like that.

Chapter 8

I
met up with my friends on the main stairway, affectionately called Jock's Landing because all the jocks hang out there.

"Where were you at lunch?" Aubrie asked.

"I went to Mr. Metzerol's to get some voice coaching."

She blinked in concern. "Do you think the rest of us should go in and see him too?"

"Only if you want to subject yourself to an angry little man repeatedly poking you in the stomach."

I leaned over to Samantha, who wasn't paying attention to me because she was talking to Logan. "Hey, I hope you don't mind, but since Mr. Metzerol is helping me with my singing, he's arranging to have us do our history project with Molly and Polly Patterson." And then I added a little more tentatively, "Mr. Metzerol wants us to be friendly to them, you know, help them fit in at PHS."

Samantha shrugged. "Okay." Then she went back to talking with Logan.

At that moment I really respected Samantha. She wasn't at all concerned about having to hang out with Molly and Polly or how their lack of popularity would affect us. Which made me feel worse that my own first reaction had been different.

She'll wink at you but only if you're cool . .
.

It wasn't true, was it?

I took a deep breath. First reactions didn't define a person. It's what you did—how you acted around others—that was important, and I'd said I'd be friendly to Molly and Polly. So Rick wasn't right about me.

In world history class Mrs. Addington called us up to her desk in groups. Earlier we'd submitted our report topics for her approval.

She called Molly, Polly, Samantha, and me up to her desk last. "Now then," she said with a smile, "I know you didn't request to work together, but since Molly and Polly are still fairly new here, I thought it would be a good idea to put you all in a group together." She looked directly at me. "That's all right with you, isn't it?"

I smiled back at her. "Sure."

Samantha nodded. "That's fine."

Molly and Polly glanced at each other and then suspiciously at us. "I guess that's okay," Molly said. At least I think it was Molly I couldn't really tell them apart. They both had mousy brown hair pulled back in ponytails and identical wire-rimmed glasses.

Mrs. Addington said, "Great. I'll let you guys get to the library and decide whether you want to work on . . ." She peered down at a paper on her desk. "The history of space flight or inventions that spurred on the industrial revolution. They're both good topics."

We picked up our books and left the room. While we walked in the hallway, Molly and Polly kept two paces ahead of us, talking together and glancing back at us.

"Remember," I whispered to Samantha, "we're supposed to give them some pointers about fitting in here."

We reached the library door and Molly and Polly stopped to face us. "Look, you can be in our group," Molly said. "But we're doing the report on space flight, and we're not letting you cheat off of us." Then they pushed the library doors open and walked in.

We stood there in the hallway staring after them. "Well," Samantha finally said. "I just thought of their first pointer for fitting in."

I folded my arms. "Because we're cheerleaders we're automatically cheaters?"

"Shhh," Samantha said. "You don't want to give Rick any more song ideas."

We walked into the library, put our books on a table with Molly's and Polly's, then went and found books on space exploration, all of which, I'd like to point out, looked so boring they could be officially classified as sleep aids. We took notes, and in between jotting down things about
Sputnik
and Neil Armstrong I tried to make small talk with our new study partners. At first they answered all of my questions coldly, like they were just waiting for me to be rude, but after fifteen minutes they loosened up.

Molly kept saying snarky asides that made me laugh. "If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they put them all there?" And, "Well, of course the Soviets made it to space first. They were Russian."

She was as bitingly funny as Polly was tenderhearted. Polly kept ohhhing and ahhhing over the pictures of Laika the first astronaut dog.

And yes, in case you didn't know, they really did send a dog orbiting around the earth. Or as Molly pointed out, not only the Russians, but the canines, beat us into space.

When class was nearly over, I said, "Some of us are getting together to go to the movies this weekend. Do you want to come?"

"Who are 'us'?" Molly asked.

" I 'm not sure about everyone who's going," I said, because I'd just planned this off the top of my head and hadn't actually asked anyone. "Samantha and I—"

"And Logan," Samantha said.

"Right, and Logan . . . Aubrie, Rachel—whoever Rachel is currently stringing along in her football harem—"

"Sorry," Polly said. "We don't . . . um . . ." She glanced at her sister.

"Go anywhere near football players unless we're forced to by teachers or natural disasters," Molly finished.

Polly leaned over to her sister. "Not all the football players are bad."

Molly rolled her eyes, then turned her attention back to me. "Is Joe Diaz going to be there?"

Joe was a wide receiver, and not a bad one at that, although it was his twin brother, Garret, who got the most attention on the team. Garret was the quarterback. Plus, Garret had this tall-dark-and-handsome thing going for him. Joe and Garret weren't identical twins though, and Joe, well, Joe was just tall and dark.

"I could invite him if you wanted," I volunteered.

"No," Polly said quickly. "No, that would be awkward. If he wanted to talk to me again he would have by now."

"Again?" Samantha asked. Her voice had a tell-me-more lilt to it.

When Polly didn't volunteer any more information, Molly leaned forward, conspiratorially. "They once had a ten-minute conversation in English about why being a twin is the pits."

"It was nothing personal," Polly told her sister.

"Yeah, I'll remember that if you ever need a kidney," Molly said.

I shrugged at Polly. "Maybe he just needs an opportunity to talk to you again. Why don't you come with us to the movies, and I'll invite some of the guys—"

"No, I can't." Polly held up both hands to stop me. "I get nosebleeds when I'm nervous. Really bad. In my last school they called me A+ Polly—and they weren't talking about my grade point average. This school is already bad enough. I don't need any more nicknames."

Samantha said, "You shouldn't let a few names stop you from doing what you want."

"You just need some confidence," I said. "Hanging out with friends is nothing to get nervous about."

You would have thought I'd just told Polly to fly. She looked at me in total disbelief. "No offense, but it's easy for you to have confidence. You're both . . ." She waved a hand in our general direction. "Cheerleaders. You don't know what it means to have people make fun of you."

Which made me laugh out loud. "We don't just have nicknames," I said. "We've got an entire CD dedicated to us." Molly shook her head. "Yeah, but those songs are about how cheerleaders think they're better than everyone else. In the long run they'll probably just make you more attractive to high school guys. No one has ever accused us of thinking we're better than everyone else. How do you get that gig?"

I guess it was the fashion designer in me, but without thinking I said, "If you lost the sweatshirts and stood up straight every once in a while you'd find out."

"What?" Polly said.

Samantha put her hand over her face. She'd heard me give enough critiques that she knew where I was going with this.

"Those sweats aren't slimming. They actually add bulk. You need to get some shirts that taper in at the waist. Also your hair doesn't add anything when you just pull it back like that. Hair should frame your face, give it some lift and balance. Your hair isn't doing its job."

Molly and Polly both stared at me with their mouths slightly ajar. Since they weren't talking I figured I'd just finish off my critique. "And a good makeover would help. You're in high school. It's okay to wear makeup."

Molly let out a grunt. "You think a makeover would change anything? We slap on some mascara and suddenly guys stop calling us names and ask for our phone number?"

I
said, "If I slouched around in sweats and didn't do my hair or makeup, I wouldn't be dating anyone—well, okay, actually I'm
not
dating anyone, but you know what I mean." I sat back in my chair and surveyed them. "Why don't you let Samantha and me do makeovers on you? We could go clothes shopping too. It would be fun."

Samantha snapped her fingers while she thought. "I bet we could get them in at the salon with Dotti." To the twins she said, "That woman can work miracles with highlights and a haircut."

"Wait a minute." Molly held up one hand. "Suddenly we're talking scissors?"

I nodded. "And you ought to consider contacts. You have really pretty eyes."

Polly touched the frames of her glasses and looked back at me wistfully. "You honestly think so?"

Molly elbowed her sister before I could answer. "Contacts are little pieces of plastic that people shove into their eyes. Hello, that won't feel good."

"Doing a makeover would be lots of fun," Samantha said. "Chelsea's really good at picking out clothes."

Molly and Polly glanced at each other again. It made me wonder if all those stories about twins and telepathy were true because I could almost see the communication passing between them. Polly teetered on the edge of indecision, but Molly stood firm. She said, "It won't make a difference, and if we let them start changing things now, they'll do something awful like rip out half our eyebrows."

I nodded. "You do need a wax j ob on your eyebrows, yes."

"See," Molly said. "And when it's all said and done nothing will change except my eyebrows will be sore for a week."

And people on TV always seem so excited and grateful when someone offers them a makeover. How was it that I'd run into the two people on the planet who didn't want one? "If I can prove that makeovers make a difference, will you agree to have one?" I asked.

The class bell rung. Everyone around us gathered up their books but none of us moved. "Well?" I asked.

Molly looked at me doubtfully. "How are you going to prove it?"

"Meet Samantha and me after school and we'll run an experiment," I said.

As we went to our next class, I explained the experiment to Samantha. Then she explained why she didn't want to be my friend anymore, but I knew she was just kidding.

After school I waited for everyone by Samantha's car. Samantha and Logan were the first to appear. Logan kept shaking his head as he walked up. "I leave you alone for one night and you join a rock group," he told Samantha. "Now we're apart for a few hours and you're running experiments on how to pick up guys?"

"Well, yeah," she said, "but you don't have to worry because I'm going to be the ugly one who doesn't get picked up."

"It's all in the name of science," I added.

Logan glared at me, then returned his attention to Samantha. "How are you making yourself ugly?"

" I 'm going to take all of my makeup off, pull my hair back, wear your sweatshirt, and borrow some glasses."

"And that's going to do it?" he said. "That's your secret ugly disguise?"

"Right," she said.

He shook his head. "I've seen you without makeup and with your hair pulled back. I hate to break this to you, but a sweatshirt and a pair of glasses are not going to make you ugly."

Samantha took a step closer to him and a smile slid across her face. "You're so sweet."

He looked like he was about to kiss her, which frankly I see enough of and which I shouldn't have to endure because I have no boyfriend. I made shooing motions in his direction. "Yes, it's wonderful that love is blind, but stop trying to ruin my experiment. She's supposed to be acting self-conscious and insecure, not radiant."

Logan didn't kiss Samantha, but he did take hold of her hand. "Where are you running this experiment? I may want to stop by and pick you up."