“Yeah it seems to be coming over by-” Liz pointed her manicured index finger at me, dropped it and said, “Oh I’m sorry, Ash, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but there’s a huge stench coming off of you. There’s this thing called the shower. It’s a scientific miracle. You should use it some time.”
“Wow. You used the word stench. That’s a big word for you!”
“Oh shut up. It’s not as if you’re a straight A student,” Liz bored her icy eyes into me.
“Do you agree that most things we learn in life come from real life experiences?” I looked at Liz with the same icy stare.
“Whatever, sure.” I could tell Liz said this with a lot of confusion.
“Well unless you learned it from Lena, I don’t see how you couldn’t have learned the word “stench” from anything other than that lotion you wear.”
“Ugh! This is Devotion, you obviously have no taste!” Liz’s sapphire eyes looked like marbles. I thought she was going to break down and cry!
“Then whoever created it must have been devoted to a garbage dump because that’s what you smell like,” It looked like Liz was going to tackle me right there, because a lot of guys started to make a circle around us. They probably thought we were going to strip down and mud wrestle. Why they would get that idea, I don’t know.
“Come on, we have a show to do! Ten minutes and counting!” Lena pulled on Liz’s bony arm and dragged her across the field. I looked over at them to see if they were still looking at me, which they weren’t. I swung into action looking around for something to use. I saw some of Liz’s lotion! I looked around for something other than lotion to fill it with. To the right of me was a shed. I opened it up and looked around. There was paint remover, water, and…. SUPER GLUE! Perfect. This was excellent. I ran over and poured out the lotion, it really did smell awful. Then I put the super glue in it. I was careful to not get any of it on myself. I put the bottle back where I found it and headed back towards my friends. If only I had a camera!
The half time show music started, and I saw Liz and another girl putting on the “lotion!” They started to dance around in their little outfits with all their stuff hanging out, when Lena jumped up into Liz and the other girl’s hands. They held her up while she stood with her arms up in triumphant pose. She tried to jump up and then be caught by the girls, but she couldn’t move. She leapt up, losing her balance, bringing Liz and the other girl down with her. The music stopped, and shocked silence passed over the crowd. The girls kept struggling to separate themselves from Lena’s feet, but no matter what they did, they were stuck!
“A little help here!” Lena shouted as everyone started to laugh hysterically. I looked up in the stands to see all my friends holding their sides because they were laughing so hard. I smiled from my victory.
“Lena! Stop moving! You’re hurting my hands,” The other girl screamed.
“What did you two idiots do? You will not hear the end of this, as of now you are off the squad!” Lena screeched pulling grass out of her hair. “Look at me! I have grass stains all over my new uniform!
“You can’t kick me off the squad,” Liz challenged.
“Oh yes I can! I got you on and I can take you off,” Lena narrowed her eyes. Everyone had quieted by this time to listen to what they were saying as the coaches ran onto the field to try and assist the girls.
“Unless you want everyone to know all of the surgeries you’ve had I suggest you keep me on the squad!” The other girl sat their silently listening to Liz and Lena verbally duke it out.
Lena gasped, “You wouldn’t!”
“Oh wouldn’t I?”
“You are the most wretched person I’ve ever met!”
“Oh please! You’re no picnic yourself. Besides it’s not my fault that we’re stuck to you!”
“Oh yeah, and whose fault is it then?” Lena looked down to meet Liz’s eyes.
“I don’t know! Maybe it was something in my lotion. Maybe we could sue the company for a lot of money or something.”
“Money won’t bring back my good reputation, Liz!”
“Give me a break! You have as good a reputation as Jerry Springers’ guests!”
“You take that back you tramp!” Lena kicked Liz, which in a way made it look like Liz was hitting herself with her own hand. They started to hit and smack each other. This made the crowd go nuts. One side was rooting for Lena. The other was rooting for Liz. And the poor other cheerleader was trying to stay out of it, but her hands wouldn’t let her. The coaches finally came to break it up. No matter what they did, they couldn’t get the girls to stop fighting.
“I bet you 10 bucks that as soon as Liz is free she’s going to pile drive Lena onto a table!” I could hear Big Al challenging the rest of my friends up with the rest of the crowd.
“I don’t know, man! Lena’s got a lot of anger pent up in that little body of hers!” Ben replied. “I’ll take that bet.”
“Could you please hurry up? I have a party to go to!” Lena demanded. She took her shoes off and stomped off the field, but when she saw the applause, she smiled and waved. “Oh, it was all a plan of mine!” I just looked at her and laughed.
The football game pretty much was over after that. The football player’s went on and played, but everyone was too busy watching the doctor’s trying to disconnect the other girls from Lena’s shoes. I kept walking past them trying to listen in on what Lena and Liz were arguing about now.
“You know it might not have been my hands! It could have been your feet!” Liz looked at Lena accusingly.
“I don’t have to listen to this! The only reason I’m still here is because those shoes cost a fortune and I need medical attention. I ache all over!”
“Oh who are you trying to kid! Those are 100% Payless.”
Lena huffed, “You can’t prove anything.”
“Can’t I? I believe there’s a Payless price tag inside this shoe!”
Ripping it off Lena replied, “Not anymore, there isn’t!”
“What are we spewing about?” Liz’s face softened.
“I don’t even know anymore,” Lena giggled. “You’re the one with my shoe on your hand.” They started laughing hysterically; sadly I think they were friends again. I liked it a lot more when they were enemies. It was so much funnier.
“Who do you really think did this?” Liz looked at Lena.
“I don’t know. What did you do right before we went to start our routine?”
“Well, I put on deodorant, spritzed on some perfume, put lotion on my hands so they wouldn’t chaff…”
“Liz! What lotion did you use?”
“Devotion is the only type I use. You know the one that Ashley-Oh my gosh! What a little wench!” At that instant they both looked around searching for me. I, of course, was ready and willing for this great attention. I started to whistle really loudly so that they could hear me. They were so stupid though that they didn’t even notice that I was there.
Finally I yelled, “Oh girls!” They swung their heads around and gave me the coldest stare I’d ever had the pleasure of seeing from those two ditzbags. I winked and waved saying, “It looks like I was wrong, Liz.”
“About what? That you do actually smell and I was right?” Liz sneered at me.
“No.”
“Oh? What then? You realize that my taste was superior to yours?”
“No, yours is still inferior.”
“But you just said…”
“Whoever created that perfume was devoted to two things.”
“Beauty and Splendor?” Lena asked with mock curiosity.
“Well for one thing they were devoted to your shoes, Lena.” Lena looked at me with this oh-you-think-you’re-so-funny stare.
“What would the other one be?” Liz asked, unable to stop herself.
“It was also devoted to sticking to you because it’s super glue.” I smiled at how they both wanted to charge at me, but knew they couldn’t. “Tah-tah, girls!” At that moment I wa
s happier than I ever thought I could be. I had finally gotten revenge against Lena to the point where she couldn’t pin it against me. There were so many people there, that anyone could have done it.
The next day was kind of a blur with all the action that was going on. I’d never seen so many popular people look at me with these severely arctic glares. They knew what I had done, but no one could really prove it. It was the best day of my life. All my friends were praising me, and begging me for details. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing because if I did someone might overhear me. Or worse, they might even record me without my knowledge.
I was expecting Lena and Liz to stay home sick from their injuries, but I guess they weren’t as ashamed as I’d have hoped. They looked a lot worse than I was hoping too, which made my victory twice as sweet. Let me just describe as vividly as I can for you how overly dramatic and wimpy these girls are.
Lena had her hair up in a tight pony tale with as much make-up on as possible. She must have had some shiner on her eye because there was a purple ring that was still visible even though she tried to hide it under fifty layers of foundation. Although, I think she got that from Liz, and not from her rather embarrassing fall. Her neck was enclosed in a brace. “Doctor’s orders,” She’d say in a flirty/giggly way. She was wearing an extra tight halter-top. Which just made me realize that no matter what; Lena was always going to be sleazy. Then she had on really tight pants and two different shoes. One was normal size and the other one was a type of sandal cast thing. Her foot had swollen like a balloon from trying to kick Liz.
Then Liz’s appearance was twice as sad. She had her hair down in a loose braid. She had it at the side of her head in an attempt to cover up the fact that she had bruised the entire right side of her face. Her neck was fine and she had on a normal T-shirt. Her hands were wrapped in at least twelve inches of first aide bandages because the removal process of her hands from Lena’s shoes was partially “unsuccessful.” All day I heard her yelling at Lena, “Open my purse for me! I can’t use my fingers!” And then Lena would say, “Well, why should I? You made fun of me!” But Liz would yell back, “I thought we’d gotten over that, already!” Liz then had on tight black pants and regular high-heeled shoes.
I walked up to Lena and said, “Well don’t you look absolutely ravishing today, Lena!”
“Bite me!”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say! Why I think that neck brace really accents that beautiful purple hue you have around your eye.”
“You can’t see that! I covered it up.”
“Then you must have done a bang-up job! I can still see it,” I walked away as Lena struggled trying to get into her purse and pull out her compact mirror.
The rest of the day was spent enjoying the dirty looks I received from the queens of skankiness. Now, I know what you’re thinking. The girls may be awful, but they didn’t deserve this, right? Well there are some things that you don’t know. So please don’t just side with them because you think what I did was low. They were really awful to me in fifth grade. There are some things that I just can’t bear to relive.
The day was really going well until I got called down to the Principal’s office at the end of the day. Other than yesterday, I hadn’t done anything wrong. There’s no way that anyone could have known about what I’d done. I looked to make sure that no one saw. And also, I could blame it on anyone that was actually at the game, plus everyone hates Lena and Liz.
Still, I had been called down to the office so I went. I noticed that anytime that someone is called down to the office that there’s always a secretary sitting outside of the office that tells you to wait in a chair until the principle is ready to see you. Also, there’s always someone sitting in the other available seat waiting for the same thing you are.
“What are you in for?” this guy with a pink Mohawk asked me.
“I’m not really sure. I haven’t done anything lately, so I don’t know what I should be worried about.”
“That sucks. I put a stink bomb in the teacher’s bathroom.”
“Well how did you get caught then?”
“Um…”
“Well?”
“Miss Rosemary was in there.” He looked at me with sad, defeated eyes. I started laughing right in his face. “Hey don’t laugh at me. How was I supposed to know that the principal would be in there, huh?”
“I’m sorry. I think that it’s just a little too perfect don’t you? I mean of all the times that you could’ve done that you had to choose when the principal was in there! I feel for you, but at least you know what kind of sentence you’ll get.”
“No I don’t.”
“Oh, well, you’ll probably have to write a one-hundred word essay, clean desks for a month, and serve detention every Saturday for a month.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve been there before. You see…”
“Ashley?” I turned to see Miss Rosemary staring at me from underneath her geeky glasses.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I can see you now. I think we need to have a talk.” She closed the door to her office.
“Yes Ma’am.” I said a little too late. I looked over at the Mohawk dude. “Nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, whatever. Good luck with…well…whatever you’re in for. I’m sure it can’t be good if Rosemary asked you to come in after school to ‘talk.’ You know?”
“Yeah, well, bye.” I walked into Miss Rosemary’s office to find her sitting at her desk typing into the computer.
“Have a seat, Ashley.” She removed her glasses. I went to sit down and found what was left of Lena sitting in the other chair. My eyes widened, but I carefully sat down as Lena stared at me with a smirk on her face.
“So I hear that you’ve been causing some trouble, young lady.”
“Me?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes. Lena tells me that you put super glue in Liz’s lotion to purposely harm them.”
“Do you believe everything Lena says?”
“Ashley,” Miss Rosemary said in a warning tone. “I’ve had trouble with you two before. I don’t know what made you two hate each other as much as you do, but I thought you were past these childish pranks,” She frowned at me.
“I am Ma’am, but-”
“And I thought that this whole thing was over with, and you had matured enough to know that these kind of things aren’t funny. They hurt people.”
“I understand that, but-”
“I don’t want to have to punish you anymore and I hope that we can put this behind us and move on without any more problems?”
“Yes.” I said.
“You’re not going to punish her, Miss Rosemary?” Lena asked indignantly.
“No. I believe that Ashley doesn’t want to take this matter any further than you do. Right, Ashley?”
“Right.”
“But I-”
“That’s enough, Lena. You’re both excused. And no more of this nonsense.”
“Yes Ma’am,” we said together as we both left.
“You’re not getting off that easy, Ashley!” Lena had fire in her eyes. “I’ll get you back for what you did to me.”
“You haven’t changed a bit, Lena. Once a baby, always a baby. And a tattle-tale is also part of your résumé now too, huh?” I looked at her coldly as I walked away from her. I had a feeling Lena wasn’t going to stand for this, but what was she going to do to me?
“I’ll get you. Don’t worry about that. One way or another I’m going to get you!”
“Nice. Why don’t you go steal the lyrics from another song Lena, at least take one from someone who’s popular today.” I yelled over my shoulder. And as I walked away I could feel her eyes boring holes in to my back.
Chapter 2
Homecoming Week
Homecoming week is one of the best and worst weeks that anyone could ever go through. It’s the week where seniors think they’re hot stuff, and freshman pee in their pan
ts. Many freshmen will object to this, but come on; during homecoming week you can’t go anywhere without hearing some freshman say to another, “I hear that all the seniors are planning to egg us as soon as we leave the school grounds!” If that isn’t paranoia, I don’t know what is. Each day before the homecoming dance has a certain theme. Today’s was Color Day. This was a day where each class was assigned a certain color. Seniors were black, juniors: red, sophomores: blue, and freshman: brown. This was the day that seniors tried to knock the freshman down by giving their year a bad color so that they would know how low they were. I’d done the same thing every year. I’d wear black.
“Good morning! How are you-Whoa! Black! I like it!” Keri’s opened her coat to show me her defiant black outfit.
“Keri!”
“Great minds think alike. All the freshmen said they’d wear black, but they probably won’t,” Keri looked at me, her eyes laughing. As we reached school, I noticed no freshmen had worn black, like Keri had predicted.
“I told you so,” Keri read my mind.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you think the freshman this year are so gutless? It’s just a color,” She glanced at me.
“You’ve heard the rumors,” I gazed at Keri.
“Oh that’s true. Did you hear the one about how all the freshman are going to get egged after school?
“Yep,” I laughed. (Am I right, or am I right?) As we walked into the cafeteria, we went over to sit at the table where all my friends met before school. We were the last of the group to show up. We took off our coats, and as we did this, everyone turned to gawk.
“What are you doing? Do you know what the seniors will do to you?” Jennifer whispered in an urgent tone.
“Can it,” Keri rolled her eyes, “It’s not like we’re freshmen. Do you know what happens to them if they do anything to us?”
“They’re going to! I’m friends with them! You don’t understand. They’ll get really mad,” Jennifer bit her thumbnail with anxiety.
“They’ll get expelled if they do anything to us,” Keri and I said together.
“No they won’t.” Jennifer argued back, “They’ll get you.”
A Life Like Mine Page 2