“Look, Jessie, you know I always tell you the truth. And I wouldn’t have said anything if I weren’t your friend. You get that, right?”
Jessie continues to stare at the floor, her head barely moving as she nods.
Encouraged, you keep going. “I think I can help you…if you’ll let me.” You stick your pinkie out to hook with hers. The pinkie shake is how you and your friends used to call a truce when you were in kindergarten. You remember friendship being a lot less complicated back then.
Jessie allows herself a grudging half smile. “Aw, now you’ve brought out the pinkies, so I guess I can’t stay mad, can I?”
You break the tension with a ginormous (as Jessie would say) smile. “Nope! You sure can’t. So how about we head back to homeroom before Ms. Campbell gives us detention? We can work on the song selection there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jessie says, reaching out her pinkie and giving yours a nice hard shake.
By the time the homeroom bell rings, you have figured out Jessie’s problem. It isn’t that she can’t sing. It’s just that the song you chose is way out of her range. Jessie is an alto, so she needs something in a lower register. Something like…Miley! Of course. Why didn’t you think of that sooner?
As you and Jessie make your way toward history class, you quickly run through your iPod playlist, the two of you sharing your headphone earbuds. Thanks to Jessie, who still buys Miley CDs just so she can read the liner notes, you have a selection of her best songs at your fingertips. When you get to “7 Things” you know you’ve hit pay dirt.
“This is it!” you exclaim. “This one would be perfect for your voice.” You pull Jessie over to a spot near the water fountains right before you get to class. “Why don’t you try singing the chorus so I know for sure?”
She nervously hikes her JanSport backpack farther up on her shoulders, not making a peep. Wow, you never realized how easily her confidence could be shaken. She always seems so sure of herself. You guess you aren’t the only one who sometimes feels like chickening out.
“Come on, Jess. Just trust me.”
“All right, fine.” She shrugs. “But if you laugh you’re toast.”
As soon as the first few bars leave her mouth, you realize you’ve struck gold. She sounds awesome! Nothing at all like what you heard during homeroom. You’re about to tell her how incredible she is when someone else beats you to it.
“Oh my freaking God, Jessie, was that you singing just now? That was amazing!”
“Yeah, I totally thought Miley Cyrus was in the hallways for a second there.”
Incredibly, these comments are coming from Lisa, Maria, and Shawna, three of the most popular girls in school. And you can tell by the sincere awe on their faces that they aren’t being sarcastic at all. They’re actually impressed.
“Oh wow, thanks!” Jessie yelps a little too loudly, clearly caught off guard. “I’m, uh, well, I’m auditioning for a solo today, so I was just trying out my song.”
Lisa, looking downtown chic with her bright red curls and tiny hoop earrings, offers her a delicate smile. “Well, they’d be fools not to give you a solo with a sound like that. You just have to come to lunch with us today. Can you?”
Maria, also very pretty (think Angelina Jolie as a thirteen-year-old), nods her head. “Definitely. You have to come. We won’t take no for an answer.”
The girls are pointedly looking directly into Jessie’s eyes and ignoring you completely (their way of making it very clear that they are talking to Jess, not you). Your shock at hearing them suddenly invite Jessie to lunch, after years of barely acknowledging her existence, only intensifies when Jessie quickly says, “Sure! See you in the caf!”
Okay, is there a full moon outside? Has the whole planet shifted on its axis? Something must be up, because never have these girls invited Jessie to sit with them at lunch. Well, not since second grade anyway (pre-cliques). You’ve always thought of Jessie as all that and a bag of chips, but for them to think it now is just…weird.
“Cool, see ya later, then,” Shawna says smoothly as she and the other girls head off to their own class. She at least waves to you quickly.
You turn back to Jessie, expecting her to be all What the heck? after her earlier rant about taking down the popular kids. But to your surprise, Jessie can hardly keep her eyes in her head, and she’s having trouble closing her mouth. “Did that just happen?” she asks. “How cool!” Without waiting for you, she heads into history class sporting a whole new strut.
Hmm. Guess even Jessie is not immune to the lure of the popular clique. She seems not to have noticed that you weren’t really part of that little lovefest. To answer her question, yes, that did just happen. You saw it with your own two eyes. You’re just not sure why it happened.
Thank goodness you and Jessie are close enough friends that you can tell each other the truth and survive. She was mad at you at first for dissing her singing ability, but thankfully, she came around and let you help her. And now she sounds amazing! Everything seems to be looking up until Lisa and Maria come out of nowhere and throw you for a loop. Since when have they invited Jessie into their inner sanctum? You’d like to think their motives are pure, but you’re just not sure what to believe. Do you take their actions at face value, or do you smell a rat? Maybe you’ll be less confused after the quiz.
QUIZ TIME!
Circle your answers and tally up the points at the end.
You get an e-mail that says if you forward it to twenty people, you’ll have good luck for seven years. If you don’t, you’ll have bad luck for life. Do you forward the e-mail?
Totally! The world is tough enough as it is. You really don’t want to bring on a guaranteed lifetime of bad luck.
Sure. You only forward it to your closest friends, though. You don’t want any bad luck, but who has time to send an e-mail chain to twenty people?
Well, you forward it to your best friend just in case. But you’re not too worried. It probably won’t affect you at all. You hope.
No way. You don’t believe that forwarding e-mails can bring you good luck. As a matter of fact, you’re a firm believer in making your own luck.
A girl at school who has always been awful to you gives you a heads-up that there’s going to be a pop quiz in math today. She even offers you her notes. You react by:
thanking her and inviting her to your lunch table so that you can study together. Maybe she’s not so bad after all.
thanking her and gratefully taking her notes. You’re not sure why she’s being so nice, but maybe she’s had a change of heart.
thanking her for the info but telling her you’ll use your own notes. If she’s telling the truth, you appreciate the warning. But what if her notes are full of wrong answers and she’s trying to set you up?
refusing her notes in case she’s feeding you wrong answers, then immediately asking around to see if anyone else has heard about a quiz. Most likely she just lied to see if you would panic.
Your favorite tabloid has a great section that lists all the new gossip—who’s dating who, who’s feuding with who—you know, the good stuff. How much of it do you believe?
All of it! The celebs might try to deny the stories, but the mags wouldn’t print them if they weren’t true, right?
Almost all of it. The part about your two favorite singers being nuts was probably blown out of proportion, but you wholeheartedly buy the rest.
Most of it. The cast members of that new show are definitely dating one another. But the celebrity feuds rundown was probably made up to boost sales.
You don’t believe any of that mumbo jumbo. Everybody knows the tabloids can’t be trusted. But they sure are fun to read!
You’re the leader for a group project in school. Johnny, a notorious slacker, is in your group. He has a major role in the presentation and promises to pull his weight. So you:
trust him completely. If he says he’ll come through, then you’re sure he will. You’re glad to be able to relax and focus on your own
share of the work.
believe him, but check in on his progress every few days just to make sure.
let him handle his part, but secretly prepare his section on your own, just in case he slips back into his lazy ways. You know he has the best intentions, but he doesn’t have the best track record.
assign him a less important role in the project—like announcing your group name or something. No way are you leaving your grade in Johnny’s hands. You doubt he’ll deliver.
A new sneaker just came out that promises to make you run faster, jump higher, and be cooler. Do you buy them?
Of course! You’re sure that as soon as you lace those puppies up, you’ll be able to run a mile a minute!
Yes. Even if they don’t make you jump any higher, they’re bound to score you some cool points at school.
Maybe. You don’t really think they’ll help your softball game at all, but if there’s even the slightest chance that they will, you’ll give them a shot.
Nah. No sneaker can make you run faster. Those ads always exaggerate the truth.
Give yourself 1 point for every time you answered A, 2 points for every B, 3 points for every C, and 4 points for every
—If you scored between 5 and 12, go to Chapter 9.
—If you scored between 13 and 20, go to Chapter 8.
Liar, liar, pants on fire. It’s understandable that once in a while you tell little white lies to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. (Who doesn’t?) But sometimes you tell some whoppers that make it hard for people to trust you. Don’t allow insecurity, boredom, or fear of not being liked to rule you, ultimately forcing you to mask who you are. The real you is worth knowing—as are your real opinions.
Jessie is staring at you expectantly, waiting for your response. You should tell her she’s awful, terrible, really bad. You should tell her you’ve heard car alarms that sound better than she does. But what comes out is:
“Wow! That was really…great!” You shout it out with a hollow clap, hoping she won’t notice that you’re cringing inside.
She claps along in glee. “You really think so?”
Here’s yet another chance to tell her the truth. Come on, you can do it.
“Most def. You’re going to be a star!”
Okay, maybe we should have established the definition of “truth” first. You do own a dictionary, right?
“I knew it!” Jessie yells, jumping up and down. “I won’t let you down!” She swoops back into homeroom, floating on air, while you follow her in feeling like you’re sinking in quicksand. You really want to be honest with Jess, but you just don’t have the heart. How do you tell someone they aren’t soloist material without wrecking their confidence? More important, how do you tell one of your best friends in the whole world that her singing stinks without making her hate you forever?
There has to be a better way. And after the bell rings, cueing the change of classes, you think maybe you’ve found it. As you walk by the bulletin board again, spying Jessie’s fancy signature on the solo sheet, your eyes drift over to the sheet next to it, the one for student judges.
Already it is reading like a who’s who of popular kids. Lisa Topple, Maria Santos, Shawna Levin, Steven Oh, Adam Arap, Adam Arap, Adam Arap…
No, there aren’t three Adams signed up. You’re just reading the name over and over again because you secretly think he is pretty cute. At first glance, Adam seems like a total preppy, with his khaki pants, blue polo shirt, and neat, silky blond hair that falls in a swoop over his left eye. But something about his tendency to never say more than a few words at a time, and his habit of tapping his fingers against things as if he’s playing the drums, gives him a sort of rock-musician swagger. Maybe it’s just the fact that when he smiles he reminds you of Kris Allen, one of the most adorable American Idol winners in the show’s history. If you weren’t already crushing on Jimmy Morehouse, Adam would definitely be next in line. As for the other people on the list, you’ve always reluctantly admired them (they’re the closest thing your school has to celebrities, after all), but other than borrowing the occasional pencil, you never really have an excuse to talk to them. Even though you were all friends in second grade, somewhere along the way they became part of one camp and you became part of another, and up until now it seemed like it would always be that way.
But that’s not why you find yourself grabbing the pen next to the sheet and signing your name under Adam’s. You do it because it hits you that signing up as a judge is the only way Jessie will have a fighting chance at the auditions. Even if no one else votes for her, you will, so at least she won’t be completely shut out. It’s a brilliant plan, one more thing you’re willing to do for the cause. Getting to sit next to Adam at the judges’ table will merely be a perk, a little reward for your selflessness.
You’re about to head off to class when Shawna Levin and Dionne Williams come by to check out the lists. “Hey,” Shawna says, “you’re going to be a student judge too?”
You shrug shyly. “I guess so.” Shawna was only sort of popular last year. But after she threw the birthday party of the century over the summer, she reached legendary status.
“Cool,” Dionne says. “I’m glad I’m not the only jock signing up to judge instead of sing. Can you believe Mark is going for it? Would someone tell that kid he can’t sing already?”
You laugh in relief. They aren’t planning to make fun of you for thinking you can infiltrate their clique—they’re actually including you.
“I know, right?” you say. “Wait, you think I’m a jock?”
Dionne and Shawna look at each other in momentary confusion. “Well, yeah,” Dionne answers. “You are the MVP on the girls’ soccer team, aren’t you?”
Oh yeah. Of course you are. But you had never thought of yourself as part of the “jock” clique because of it. You just play because you love it. But maybe you haven’t been as off the popular kids’ radar as you thought.
“Yep, that’s me!” you exclaim proudly. “Somebody’s gotta make the goals around here.”
Dionne laughs. “Finally! Someone who understands. See, Shawna? It’s not that I want to be the star server on the volleyball team. It’s just that somebody has to step up, so it might as well be me.” She pats her microbraids, batting her eyelashes furiously.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Shawna answers. “You’re a regular Gabrielle Reece.”
You are clearly overhearing a conversation that the two of them have all the time. Kind of the way you and Jessie always give Lena grief over her obsession with Shakespeare. You’re being included in their private joke, and you have to admit it feels pretty good.
So good, in fact, that when you reach the end of the hallway, you’re a little disappointed to find they are turning left and you’re heading right.
“We’ll see you around, okay?” Shawna calls as they walk off.
“Yeah, us student judges have to stick together!” Dionne adds, holding up a peace sign.
You flash one back, and for the first time in who knows how long, you feel…cool.
After your next class, you text Lena to let her know that you signed up to be a student judge—although you don’t tell her you did it because Jessie is a terrible singer. (As far as she knows, it’s all part of the plan.) You also leave out the brief but meaningful exchange you had with Shawna and Dionne. You’re not sure why. Maybe you think Lena would be jealous, or that she’d be suspicious of your new friends. But it could also be because this morning you vowed to bring down all the powerful cliques in the school. And now that you’re sorta kinda friends with Shawna and Dionne, you don’t exactly want to anymore. Not now, when you might actually have a chance at being at the top of the totem pole for once.
You really hate to admit this, but maybe your signing up to be a student judge didn’t have anything to do with Jessie at all. Maybe you just wanted to be part of that in-crowd. You are still trying to figure yourself out as you enter the cafeteria for lunch. Perhaps you should have thought this whole
thing through a little more before you walked head on into a social war zone.
After you get your tray of food (cold pizza, green beans, and chocolate milk), you look up to find two groups of people waving you over to join them. On one side is your usual crew: Jessie, Lena, Charlie, Lizette, and Jimmy—who is looking adorable as ever with little splotches of red paint in his dark hair. He’s wearing a beat-up plaid button-down over a plain white T-shirt, which makes his deep green eyes look even greener.
Usually it would be a no-brainer to go sit with them. But on the other side of the cafeteria, in front of the windows, you see Shawna and Dionne, who have saved you a seat across from the unnaturally cute Adam Arap. Next to Adam are Maria and Lisa. And suddenly it dawns on you why you are being invited over: They are student judges, so you actually have a good reason to join them. Maybe they want to talk about official judge stuff and it’s very, very important.
All right, even Lena’s cat wouldn’t buy that one. If you do sit by the windows, it won’t be because you think you have some duty to your fellow judges. It’ll be because you are really tempted to spend some time over on Planet Popular. Who wouldn’t be?
Aside from Jessie, Lena, Charlie, Lizette, and Jimmy, that is.
Where is a good clone when you need one? You feel like you’ve been put in one awkward position after another today. You managed to get out of auditioning, only to find yourself having to lie to one of your best friends in the world. And now you’re being torn between two cafeteria tables. You don’t want to diss your buds, but you also don’t wanna miss out on a chance to be superpopular, if only for one lunch period. It’s the ultimate social dilemma: Do you stick with the true-blue team you’ve got—or do you take a shot at the big leagues? Still haven’t decided? Let the quiz choose for you.
Your Life, but Cooler Page 4