What happened? This morning, you and your two best friends were all on the same page. Jessie was just as gung ho about breaking up the cliques as you were. But now she seems to be joining one instead. And what really hurts is that it looks like she has no intention of inviting you along for the ride. She is still talking to you and all, but she is having way too much fun with the in-crowd-including Adam, a guy she knows you think is pretty easy on the eyes. As far as you’re concerned, this has gone too far. It feels like you should do something about it. Or should you let the chips fall where they may? Take the quiz to find out if you take action, or let it happen.
QUIZ TIME!
Circle your answers and tally up the points at the end.
You’re the editor of the school newspaper, and you have a ton of work to do if you want to get the paper out by the deadline. Your friends offer to help. Do you accept?
Uh-uh. No way, no how. They’d only mess it up, creating even more work for you. You’ll get it done much faster on your own.
Yes, but you watch all of them like a hawk, hovering over their shoulders. You insist on approving every little thing they do. They might not like it, but the paper is your responsibility and you have to make sure it comes out right.
Sure, but you enlist one of your more reliable friends to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing while you finish up the layout. It makes you a little nervous to leave things up to anyone else, but you trust your pal to let you know if there are any problems.
YES! You gratefully put them all to work before they have a chance to change their minds, and just pray they know what they’re doing. You can use all the help you can get!
When getting your hair done at the salon, what is your MO?
Salon? Please! You can’t trust a stylist with your locks. You do your own hair at home. It’s hard to imagine anyone else being able to do it right.
Insist on sitting between two gigantic mirrors so that you can watch every single snip. One wrong stroke of the scissors and you’re outta there.
Rip a picture of a model sporting the cut you’d like out of a magazine, then give it to the hairstylist and let her work her magic. If you come out looking even half as good as the photo, you’ll be pleased.
Ask her to give you a great new look and don’t even peek until she’s done. She’s a professional, after all. You’re sure she’ll turn you into a total hottie.
Your birthday is coming up and you want it to be really special. What are you hoping for?
To plan everything yourself and then just invite people to your masterpiece. You’re a great party planner, so you don’t mind. Besides, if you leave it up to anyone else, you might not get what you want.
To go over everything with your friends and family. You want to make all the final decisions, but you’re happy to let them help.
To let your friends plan everything while you kick back and watch. It’s really fun to see them put everything into place—although you had to veto the strawberry cheesecake they wanted to order. Don’t they know you’re a chocoholic?
A surprise party! Not knowing where or when it’s going to happen and even having the guest list be a total surprise is the best. Plus, less work for you!
If someone were to look through your backpack right now, they would find:
your pencils neatly arranged in pencil holders, all your books covered and labeled (arranged in size order, of course), and your notebook color-coordinated by subject with assignments meticulously arranged. Organization is everything!
only the stuff you really need, with maybe a snack thrown in. If you keep it simple, it’s much easier to find the things you’re looking for when you need them.
kind of a mess during the week, but you usually clean it out over the weekend.
a total wreck! You’re amazed you can find anything in there.
When you’re on the treadmill at the gym, you prefer to:
keep it on manual and choose your own exercise regimen. You want to be in control of which workouts you do and how long you do each one. And you definitely want to set your own pace.
keep it on manual most of the time but also select a routine or two. You like being in charge of your own workout, but it doesn’t hurt to try some stuff you’re not used to doing.
pick a routine for most of your workout, but tone it down if you find it to be too hard. That’s the great thing about having a machine instead of a real person as your personal trainer: You can just turn it off whenever you want!
randomly select a workout program and follow it, no matter how hard it is. That way after a while you’ll be prepared for anything!
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 D.
—If you scored between 5 and 12, go to Chapter 22.
—If you scored between 13 and 20, go to Chapter 24.
You’re aiming for the top of the social ladder and you won’t stop until you get there! Yes, sometimes that means ditching longtime friends or bailing on responsibilities, but you feel that the end justifies the means. Your desire to be seen at the coolest places, with the coolest people, doing the coolest things is certainly understandable. Who wouldn’t want to experience the fabulous life for a change? But you might want to be careful about who you step on to get there, since you might see them again on your way back down. And losing friends who have less flash but more substance isn’t cool at all.
You’re sitting right smack in the middle of Planet Popular—and you like it. This might be the first time ever that you’ve had lunch with Shawna Levin, Dionne Williams, Steven Oh, Adam Arap, Lisa Topple, and Maria Santos. You do feel kind of bad about blowing off your usual friends—especially Jimmy, who is shooting confused looks your way—but you just had to join your fellow judges. They might need to discuss important audition stuff—your choosing to sit with them is strictly business.
Well, okay, maybe not entirely. It turns out the grass really is a little bit greener on this side of the lunchroom. For starters, their table is right by the window, so the whole section is bathed in sunlight (instead of the sick fluorescent stuff you and your friends have to settle for on the other side of the caf). And all that light helps you to see the super-cute Adam Arap, who is sitting right across from you adjusting the sweep of his light blond hair every few minutes and then drumming his slim fingers against the table. He barely speaks, but he seems to be moving constantly. (Maybe he plays the drums, you think, and that’s why he’s always drumming his fingers against things. He’s probably in a band and one day you’re going to see him performing on MTV’s Video Music Awards. And now you’ll be able to say, Yeah, I used to eat lunch with that guy. How cool is that?)
“All right,” Shawna calls out, interrupting your daydreams, “if you can all look away from your mystery-meat cheeseburgers for a minute…” She pushes away her lunch tray with a look of mock disgust, which makes Dionne laugh. “…We should really come up with a list of criteria to judge the singers who are going to audition today.”
“Ooh, ‘criteria,’” Steven says, adjusting his red baseball hat, which teachers are constantly making him take off during class. “Big word, brainiac. Did you learn that on Sesame Street?” With his shoulder he nudges Adam, who smiles with only one corner of his mouth, just like Kris Allen from American Idol. Adam gives Steven a big high five. Then he runs his hands through his hair again, gives the table a quick tap-tap-tap, and slowly blinks his sleepy-looking hazel eyes.
Shawna doesn’t look fazed at all. Without missing a beat, she replies smoothly, “No, I got it from this thing called a book. We can’t all spend every waking minute playing Madden Football. Some of us actually have to read.” She says that last word with the same exaggerated look of disgust that she gave the cheeseburger, and then she gives the boys a wide smile.
“Hey, I’m not always playing Madden,” Steven protests.
“No, you’re right,” Shawna answers sincerely. “Sometimes it’s
Zombie Warriors.”
With that the whole table cracks up, and Steven stands, takes off his hat, and does a minibow to Shawna, admitting defeat. You’re starting to see that having thrown the greatest party in the world over the summer is not the only reason Shawna is popular. She’s confident and is always ready with a quick comeback for everything. She is your new hero.
“Can we get back to the list now?” Lisa Topple chimes in. “You know, while we’re still young?”
“Right,” Shawna says, pulling a spiral notebook with a scene from the latest Twilight movie out of her bag, followed by a purple pen. “Let’s get started.” At the top of the page she writes Criteria and below that a small purple 1. “What kind of things will we be looking for as judges?”
“No BO,” shouts Lisa, who is sitting next to you.
“If you’re not gonna take this seriously—” Dionne begins.
“I am serious!” Lisa insists. “There’s nothing worse than having to spend all that time in the choir standing next to someone who’s never heard of deodorant. Am I right?” Lisa says to you, raising her auburn eyebrows.
You think solemnly for a moment. “Well, she does have a point. We don’t want half the audience to pass out when our choir lifts the trophy in the air.”
Across from you, Adam, who had been quietly eating his french fries all this time, actually laughs. He smiles his half smile at you and says, “Good one.”
You made Adam laugh! He found something you said amusing! And he looked right at you too. You’re so in. Good thing you’re much too cool to geek out about it. Instead, you just nod as if to say, I drop hilarious gems like that all the time. It’s no biggie.
“Okay, fine,” Shawna says, taking up her pen to write. “Personal hygiene. Next?”
Maria, sitting next to Steven, raises her hand as if she’s in class and waits for Shawna to point at her. “Well, I think we need to choose people who have some style. I mean, have you seen the gross outfits last year’s choir wore? Lime green shirts and floor-length black skirts or khakis? Puh-leease!”
Dionne, who seems to be Planet Popular’s voice of reason (aka their version of Lena), sighs and says, “Maria, I’m pretty sure the choir director is the one who chooses the outfits.”
Maria folds her arms huffily. “Yeah, well, maybe if there were people in the choir who knew a thing or two about fashion, they could suggest a choir makeover to Mr. Parker and our school wouldn’t have to look like a giant tennis ball in the competition.”
That part you think Jessie would have in the bag. No way would she let any choir she was a member of hit the stage looking like they belonged at the U.S. Open. By the time Jessie was done with them, they’d all be ready for the red carpet instead of the green Astroturf.
Shawna nods begrudgingly. “That is true. All right. Number two: fashion sense. Let’s move on to number three. I think we should look for showmanship.”
“Showmanship?” Steven repeats. “You mean like someone who’s going to tap-dance and juggle while they sing?”
“Noooo,” Shawna says, throwing a french fry at Steven’s forehead. “I’m just saying that whoever’s singing the lead should grab our attention, you know?”
Steven shrugs.
“Do you know what I mean?” Shawna asks you, clearly looking for a little support.
“Totally,” you answer quickly. “Even the best song on earth won’t help if the person singing looks like a dead fish.”
“Exactly!” Shawna exclaims. “I’m so glad you signed up to be a judge,” she continues as she writes NO DEAD FISH!!! in big capital letters in the number-three slot. “You get it.”
You try not to let the compliment go to your head, but you can’t help it. You feel your face light up as you grin at your half-eaten pizza.
After Shawna underlines the no-dead-fish rule three times, she looks up at Adam. “You’ve been pretty quiet. What do you think we should look for?”
Adam makes a quick swipe through his hair and tap-tap-taps the table, looking uncomfortable at having been put on the spot. “Uh…yeah…this might be too obvious but, how ’bout somebody who can sing good?”
Well, you can practically hear Lena correct Adam in your head. Sing well.
But Shawna doesn’t correct him at all. She simply nods enthusiastically and says, “Now you’re talking. Unfortunately, that’s not too obvious at all. Some people around here seem to think all they need to do is open their mouths and scream out any ol’ Disney tune and they’re in.”
There are two seconds of silence when everyone at the table looks at one another before blurting out, “Mark!” all together. The table erupts in giggles. You feel bad laughing about Mark behind his back, but he’s been killing everybody with his Little Mermaid one-man show. Besides, the fact that these kids have been having the exact same conversation you had this morning with Lena and Jessie makes you see that you and your crew are not so different from the kids who live on Planet Popular after all.
You’ve always thought of Shawna as this untouchable girl, too cool to even talk to. But it turns out she’s pretty down to earth and friendly. Actually, they all are. And they seem to like you too. You haven’t gotten a single dirty look or snide comment about how you belong over on the misfits’ side of the lunchroom. Could it be that you’ve misjudged them all this time? Could an invite to their parties be far behind?
Just when you’re beginning to indulge in a daydream about your social ranking getting a major upgrade, Lisa clears her throat to interrupt the laughter. “A-h-h-hem! Aren’t you guys forgetting something? Mona is competing. So I don’t know why we’re bothering with a list of cri-te-ri-a”—she rolls her eyes sarcastically—“when I’ll be voting for Mona no matter what, and you should too.”
Okay, you did not see that one coming. And it could be your imagination, but you feel like Lisa directed that last part especially at you. “Whoa, whoa, whoooa,” Dionne says, holding up her smooth brown hands. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.” But looking around the table, you see some nervous shifting, and no one is exactly rushing to say that they haven’t at least thought about just handing the solo spot to Mona.
“If you’ve got any brains you will,” Maria continues. “Lisa’s right. If you don’t want to deal with Mona and her major ’tude for the rest of the year, you’ll vote for her. She never does any after-school stuff because she’s so busy modeling, but she got special permission for this. She even skipped lunch today so she could go practice. She expects to win. You know how she is.”
The miserable looks on all their faces say that yes, they know exactly how Mona is. And so do you.
“I would think you at least would be smart enough to vote for Mona and try to get on her good side,” Lisa says to you.
Maria moves her tray out of the way so that she can lean in closer across the table. “Yeah. We heard you stole Jimmy from her over the summer. And didn’t you try to steal her modeling job too?”
Your jaw drops open. “What? It—I—It wasn’t like that at all!” You didn’t steal any modeling job from Mona. Yes, a model scout did approach you in the mall over the summer, but you didn’t exactly drop out of school to become Heidi Klum. And you didn’t steal Jimmy. It isn’t your fault that he and Mona had a big fight before Shawna’s birthday party, or that you and Jimmy have become friends since then. But you can tell by the curious stares on Shawna’s and Adam’s faces that it would be pretty pointless to try to explain what really happened.
Maria shrugs. “Maybe not,” she says a little too sweetly. “But I guarantee you that’s how Mona sees it. So if I were you, I’d vote with us. Mona is so much easier to get along with when she gets what she wants.”
True. But still, you don’t think it’s fair to reward Mona for being a bully. And you definitely don’t think it’s right to decide to vote for her before the audition has even started—although that’s totally what you were thinking of doing for Jessie.
You look over at Shawna to see what she’s goin
g to say, and she and Dionne start debating about the pros and cons of voting for Mona. But all you can think about is Jessie walking into a contest that’s been fixed. Almost as if Lisa is reading your mind, you overhear her whisper to Maria, “At least we know Jessie won’t be any competition for Mona. I can’t even believe she bought it when we told her she sounded great this morning. I mean, did you hear her?”
“Yeah, she sounded like a hyena!” Maria laughs meanly.
You feel your fists clench and the heat rise on your neck. They must have been listening when you asked Jessie to give you a preview of her audition. You’re just about to tell them off for lying to your friend…when you realize that you did the same thing. When Jessie sang for you earlier, you smiled in her face and told her she sounded awesome even though nothing could have been further from the truth. You droop in your seat like a wilting flower. Suddenly the grass on this side of the lunchroom isn’t looking so green after all.
Some friend you are. First you back out of auditioning, forcing Jessie to pick up your slack. Then you lie to her about her singing abilities. Then to top it all off, you ditch your real friends (even Jimmy!) at lunch in order to sit with the in-crowd. Sure, you can tell yourself you just wanted to get to know your fellow judges, but the truth is that you saw a chance to climb up the social ladder and you took it. Yes, you did enjoy feeling like part of the gang and even having the incredibly cute Adam acknowledge your existence. But was it worth it? You are now being pressured to vote for Mona, of all people, and Lisa and Maria are trashing Jessie in the process. And you’re not even defending her! Right now, you could be placed firmly in the frenemy camp, a place you never thought you’d be. But what do you do now that you’re here? Should you follow the crowd, keep Jessie in the dark, and vote for Mona in hopes of getting on her good side and securing your spot in the cool clique? Or should you risk your newfound status by blazing your own trail? Take the quiz and find out what you would really do.
Your Life, but Cooler Page 8