The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection

by Megan Mccafferty

  I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. It was Hope.

  “This should be interesting,” she said.

  “How so?” I asked.

  We set off down the hall together, me taking two steps for every one of hers. It’s not that Hope is a speed walker or anything, it’s just that her legs are, like, twice as long as mine are.

  “I’ve known Manda and Sara forever,” Hope said, weaving her way through the crowded hall. “There’s no way that they’re going to let this go without a fight. They’ll definitely seek revenge.”

  Hope darted left and just barely avoided getting sticked in the face by a pack of chatty field hockey players.

  “Revenge? On who? For what?”

  “On Bridget and Dori for stealing ‘their’ spots.”

  I cautiously sidestepped a kissing eighth-grade couple. What would make them do this right in the middle of the hall in front of everyone? Were they overwhelmed by the romantic atmosphere created by the trash cans and recycling bins?

  “But they were dismissed from tryouts for being late,” I said. “It was their own fault!”

  “They don’t see it that way. They see this as a wrong that was done to them. A wrong that needs to be righted. Right now. I guarantee they’re putting together a plan.”

  “What do you think they’ll do?” I asked.

  “That’s the only part I can’t predict.” She stopped and smiled slyly. “I don’t have a devious mind.”

  Then Hope waved good-bye and continued down the hall, a full head and shoulders above everyone else in the crowd. I admired how she didn’t slouch or try to hide her height in any way. Hope wore her differences proudly while I didn’t even have the nerve to wear my sister’s “interesting” vintage T-shirts.

  Anyway, Sara was conspicuously absent from homeroom. “Girl stuff” excuse again, I’m sure. I knew Hope was right. I bet I could find Sara in the girls’ bathroom with Manda. Planning. Plotting. Scheming.

  But I didn’t go looking for them. I stayed put in my seat because I didn’t want to get any more involved than I already was. And first period would come soon enough anyway.

  Scheme or no scheme, I figured there was no way they’d calm down before Language Arts. I was sure that they’d trick Miss Orden into thinking their psycho rants against “the suckiness of cheerleaders and the idiots who worship them” were actually about the Socs versus the Greasers in The Outsiders even though our class had already moved on to To Kill a Mockingbird.

  But they didn’t make any rants. They didn’t even make any ranty faces.

  There was just the petition.

  “Omigod! Hope! Jess! You have to sign the petition.”

  Now when I heard Sara say “the petition” I assumed that she was asking for the signatures of all Pineville Junior High students who wanted Bridget and Dori kicked off the CHEER TEAM!!! so she and Manda could have those spots—SPOTS STOLEN FROM THEM—instead.

  But it wasn’t that kind of petition at all.

  “The Pineville Junior High Spirit Squad?” I asked.

  Hope arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “It’s a new club we’re starting,” Manda said casually. “We need a minimum of twenty-five signatures from interested students included in our application. We already got twelve names and first period just started.”

  I was… surprised. And sort of impressed, to tell you the truth. Manda and Sara had turned anger into action in under fifteen minutes.

  Hope looked at the paper on the clipboard.

  “The Pineville Junior High Spirit Squad,” Hope read aloud. “An all-new, elite, invitation-only organization of…”

  She stopped reading, bit her lip, and shoved the petition in my face for me to finish.

  “An all-new, elite, invitation-only organization of…” I stopped, then struggled to get the last two words out, to succeed where Hope had failed. “… of…”

  “ATHLETIC SUPPORTERS!” Hope yelped.

  Okay. Manda and Sara should have put a little bit more thought into the petition before moving forward.

  Athletic supporters?

  We died laughing.

  “BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

  Seriously, we died. And we died again when Manda and Sara totally couldn’t understand what we were laughing at or why. They didn’t take too kindly to this and threatened to ban us from their club that didn’t even exist yet.

  “Go ahead and laugh, you two,” Manda said. “Just because you don’t have what it takes to be an athletic supporter…”

  Seriously. How many times could a person die of laughter in one day?

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to be”—I tried so hard to keep a straight face—“an athletic supporter.”

  “I am not the stuff,” Hope said, trying equally as hard, “an athletic supporter is made of.…”

  I swear we would have kept this up all day if Scotty Glazer, G&T’s top athlete, hadn’t told Manda that “athletic supporters” are more commonly known as “jockstraps.”

  “The thing we wear under our uniforms to protect our”—he paused—“you know.”

  “Ew!” Manda said.

  “OMIGOD!” Sara said.

  And Hope and I died laughing all over again, which really did not make Manda and Sara happy at all. So we made it up to them by signing the petition even though neither one of us had any intention of actually joining this club.

  “I kind of hate sports,” Hope whispered conspiratorially.

  “Me too!” I confessed.

  “If we’re lucky,” Hope said, watching Manda and Sara flit around the room for more signatures, “they’ll stay mad enough, long enough, and decide we’re not worthy of an invitation anyway.”

  Before today Hope had never spoken so openly about how… well… different she was from Manda and Sara. I was curious.

  “How did you all become friends?” I asked.

  “Manda lives on my block,” she said with a shrug. “Sara’s family used to live close by, too. Until her parents made all that Boardwalk money and moved to a fancy house.”

  She used a funny fake accent for the word fancy. Hope was funny. Really funny. I appreciated her sense of humor.

  Anyway, after a slight editing of the mission statement that changed “athletic supporters” to “sports lovers,” Manda and Sara had no problem getting more than enough signatures for their new club. They were already getting drunk on their power. They loved the idea of being the ones to decide who was cool and who was uncool. Who was in and who was out. The crazy thing is, the more exclusive they made the Spirit Squad sound to potential members, the more potential members were willing to sign.

  By the time eighth period rolled around, Manda was vowing to “end the CHEER TEAM!!! monopoly on school spirit and take them down once and for all.”

  Because nothing says school spirit like declaring war on your fellow classmates.

  So I was really dreading the inevitable scene when Bridget joined us at lunch. But that’s because I wasn’t giving Bridget enough credit to handle her own business. She had figured out how to deal with the situation for herself.

  “Would you be, like, mad at me if I sat with Dori during lunch?” She had caught me in the hall just outside the cafeteria doors. Her ears were bright red. “Not, like, every day! Just some days. Um, today.”

  I thought it was great that Bridget and Dori had rekindled their friendship. 3ZNUF! 4EVA! And yet I couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t invited me to join them. Before long, Bridget answered my unasked question.

  “You can totally join us if you want to, but we’ll probably be doing a lot of CHEER TEAM!!! talk and… well…”

  And as far as she knew I had tried out for the CHEER TEAM!!! and gotten nothing but an accidental nose job for my troubles. She had no idea that I was on the team, too.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I understand. Go.”

  It maybe came out more sharply than I had intended. Bridget took a few steps toward Dori
’s table, then stopped.

  “Are you sure?”

  And I said I was totally, totally sure even though I wasn’t. I don’t know what I was feeling at that moment exactly.

  In between.

  I didn’t say much back at the round table. I could sense Hope trying to catch my attention whenever Manda or Sara made a snide remark about Bridget sitting at the Not table with Dori… but I concentrated on my lunch instead. This was hard to do because I’d lost my appetite.

  Is this the IT clique I’m supposed to stick with?

  I’d ask Bethany, but I already knew what her answer would be.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I worked so hard. So so so hard. Honestly, I’ve never focused on homework like that in my life! Not in Language Arts, Español, or any of the other usual subjects.

  This was mascot homework.

  All week I studied professional mascots during whatever games my dad had on TV. I watched Bridget practice her cheers at the bus stop in the morning. I mimicked moves from videos of Bethany’s squad back in the day. This morning I chugged a gallon of performance-enhancing energy drink with extra vitamins, minerals, and caffeine.

  THE PEP RALLY WAS TODAY. AND I WAS READY.

  Putting my time and energy into pep rally prep had taken my mind off just about everything else going on. Like what? Oh, you know, like failing Woodshop, not having a clue how to pick my first boyfriend wisely, worrying that my fractured group of friends didn’t qualify as an IT clique, and so on. I think that’s what a hobby is supposed to do for you. It helps you stop thinking about things. Of course, this only works when your hobby isn’t thinking about things.

  Anyway, Miss Garcia had slipped me the key to the CHEER TEAM!!! changing room with instructions to get there right at the start of sixth period. She knew it would be empty because all the cheerleaders had worn their uniforms to school. She forbade me from seeing the bird suit until minutes before the pep rally began. She said it was because she didn’t want anyone to see me in the bird suit and spoil the secret. I did as I was told and arrived right at the final bell—on schedule but without much time to get ready. I didn’t hesitate to unzip one of two PJHS garment bags I knew had to be for me.

  ZZZZZZZIP! WHOOSH! ACHOOOOOO!

  Red, white, and blue feathers flew out of the bag as if they were still attached to real live birds. I sucked half a flock up my nose, which immediately and inevitably triggered the sneezing attack to end all sneezing attacks.

  And this was just the first bag.

  With a runny nose and watery eyes, I struggled to open the second bag. It was more gruesome than the first—like a cross between a backstage visit to The Muppet Show and a butcher’s shop. There was a bulgy-eyed, squeaky-beaked bird head; a set of fluffy slippers shaped like talons; and a pair of wings designed to slide over my arms like the most over-the-top prom gloves ever.

  There was no time to waste. The pep rally was already underway.

  “Cheer without fear,” I told myself. “Cheer without fear.”

  It took me about ten minutes and ten thousand sneezes to put the whole costume on. The whole time, I could hear Miss Garcia’s voice leading cheers on the loudspeakers.

  “A-W-E” [clap clap] “S-O-M-E!” [stomp stomp]

  When I turned to try to look at myself in the full-length mirror, my tail feathers brushed across a shelf and sent a decade’s worth of Pineville Junior High CHEER TEAM!!! trophies clattering to the floor.

  Whoops.

  But I didn’t have time to clean up my mess. I didn’t have any time to get used to my own body. I heard Miss Garcia’s voice calling my name over the speakers.

  “Mighty the Seagull! Where are yoooooooou?”

  It was now or never. Honestly, I would have chosen never. But that wasn’t an option. Where could I escape to wearing a red-white-and-blue-feathered bird suit that weighed more than I did?

  “Mighty the Seagull! Where are yoooooooou?”

  I channeled the team spirit of the Phillie Phanatic, the San Diego Chicken, and other great mascots that had come before me. I ran out to center court and opened my wings wide to the crowd as if to say, “Here I am, world! The mascot you’ve been waiting for!”

  I made it about five steps before tripping on my talons and falling beak over tail feather. Fortunately, feathers are excellent for shock absorption. Not only was I unhurt, I seemed to bounce off the ground and land right back on my feet. It’s like I had totally meant to fall down and the gales of laughter from the audience were exactly what I’d intended.

  I didn’t even have to consider whether I should try to fall again. It came all too naturally to me in these oversized claws. But, as before, I rebounded so quickly that I was able to do a sort of full-feathered equivalent of jazz hands when I got back up.

  “TA-DA!”

  I couldn’t really get a good look at the crowd, but I could hear them. And judging by their boisterous cheers and applause, the audience loved me. And they loved me even more when I heard music play the opening notes of the Pineville Junior High Fight Song! The choreography for this routine was a tradition and hadn’t changed since Bethany’s days on the squad. From watching her old videos, I knew every hip wiggle, every shimmy, every shake-shake-shake.

  I did them all.

  Once I’d gotten used to it, I was somehow more graceful in the bird suit than I was out of it. And it was after my perfectly executed stop-drop-booty-pop that I heard the first person in the crowd ask the question.

  “Who are you?”

  Others joined in.

  “Who are you? Who are you?”

  It gained momentum quickly.

  “Whooooooooooo are yoooooou?” the crowd roared. “Whoooooo are yoooooou?”

  Weird, right? That’s what Mr. Pudel had sung at me on my first day of school! I couldn’t help but wonder if my Woodshop teacher had somehow put the crowd up to this chant. But I quickly dismissed the idea because Mr. Pudel had no clue that I was the student inside the suit. It was just a coincidence.

  “Whooooooo are yooooou?”

  A freaky coincidence.

  And yet, the louder they chanted, the more I was tempted to say good-bye to anonymity. Why not remove the bird head and show the whole school that I, Jessica Darling, was the seventh-grade mastermind behind the most brilliant display of school mascotting since the invention of fake feathers? Miss Garcia would surely understand my quest for glory! I had just about settled on the idea when I discovered there was one major problem with this plan.

  The bird head was stuck.

  Like, really, really stuck. I don’t know if the feathers were caught in the zipper or what. All I knew was that I was trapped inside this bird head and the air quality inside the beak was already very poor and certainly wasn’t going to get better if I started up a full-fledged fit of a FREAK-OUT.

  Which is exactly what I did.

  “Whoooooo are yoooooou? Whoooooo are yoooooou?”

  I flapped my wings wildly to get the attention of the CHEER TEAM!!!, but they just played to the crowd, like, “Omigod! Isn’t our mascot hilarious? Aren’t we all so totally hot?”

  There’s no doubt that I was actually—not metaphorically—the hottest person in that gym. It had to be a bazillion degrees inside that bird suit and getting hotter by the millisecond. I used up what precious oxygen I had by calling to Bridget for help, but it came out sounding like this.

  “Hellllllblurgh!”

  No joke. I was having a total hyperventilating panic attack. Desperate, I started ramming my bird head into the cheerleaders’ faces, hoping to get their attention. I succeeded only in causing the collapse of the famous Pineville Junior High Pyramid of Perfection. Screaming cheerleaders toppled to the floor like bowling pins in a strike.

  How the audience reacted to this, I honestly have no idea. I couldn’t see or hear anything but my own blood boiling inside my eardrums and eyeballs. My survival instincts had kicked in and I was only concerned about self-preservation. With what remaining st
rength I had, I headed straight for the bleachers. There were hundreds of students and teachers in the audience. Surely one of them would rescue me! I tugged wildly at the bird head and yelled “Helllllblurgh!” to anyone who would listen. But everyone was too busy laughing and hooting to hear me.

  “Whooooooooo are yooooooooou? Whooooooooo are yoooooou?”

  It was at that moment that I accepted my fate. This seagull was dead meat.

  And with my last raggedy breaths I asked myself, “Whooooooooo am I? Whooooooooo am IIIIIIIII?”

  Yes, I decided to die with dignity. Or as much dignity as one can have when wearing a giant bird suit. I planted my fluffy talons on the first row of bleacher seats, saluted the crowd, then did a perfect swan dive—or, uh, seagull dive—right onto the CHEER TEAM!!! practice mat.

  Only I didn’t land on the mat. I was caught… by Miss Garcia!

  The crowd roared louder than ever as Miss Garcia dragged me by my wings all across the gym floor, through the locker room, and into the changing room.

  I could still hear them cheering, even behind the closed door.

  She locked the door and pulled the blinds closed before unhooking my bird head. She didn’t want to take any chances of spoiling my secret identity.

  “Do you hear that? They love you! I knew you were the right person for the job! I loved the dramatic improvisation!”

  I was still sort of dizzy from lack of oxygen so it was difficult for me to muster any enthusiasm besides a thumbs—or rather, wing—up.

  Miss Garcia reminded me of my “cover story” before I changed back into my regular jeans and T-shirt for seventh period. I had very little time to compose myself before facing my friends in the cafeteria.

  “Omigod! Jess! Where were you? You missed the craziness!”

  “What craziness?” I asked innocently, swatting an imaginary feather off my shoulder.

  “The pep rally!” Sara explained. “It was insane! Where were you?”

  I knew Sara would keep asking unless I said something. Fortunately, Miss Garcia had prepared me.