“Oh.” Knowing why someone was a total jerk to you sometimes doesn’t help. Jessie stares down at her hot pink nail polish in disappointment. But then she looks up at you, horror creeping over her face. “Oh God, I was sooo awful to you and you were just trying to help me. I’m sorry! I was acting like we were on The Hills or something. So much drama!”
You wave her apology away, acting like it was no big deal. “Please. Don’t even worry about it. I knew you’d eventually stop being a total nut job.” You smile good-naturedly and playfully push her shoulder.
“Gee, thanks,” she says, giving you a gentle shove back. “But now what do I do? If I don’t go to the audition, it’ll look like they scared me off. But if I do…” She trails off, the possibilities being too horrible to mention.
“Don’t worry, I have that under control too,” you assure Jessie. “Did I mention that I signed up to be a student judge?”
Jessie’s eyes bug out of her head. “You did?” You nod. “Oh, you’re the best!” she cries and gives you one of her patented Jessie Miller bear hugs.
You spend the next few minutes going over the Miley Cyrus song that you think Jessie will sound much better singing since it’s more in her range. She doesn’t really have any time to practice, but with a loyal friend like you by her side she’s willing to give it her best shot. You know your fellow judges will expect you to vote for Mona just because they are—but unlike some of them, you have a mind of your own.
Finally! You’ve exposed the mean girls in your midst for the troublemakers they are, and you have patched things up with your BFF, Jessie. Even Amy Choi’s meddlesome ways came in handy for once. Now that you and Jessie are back on track, everything seems right with the world again. But not so fast! You’ve still got the audition coming up. After finding out that Lisa and Maria were conspiring against her (and hearing what they really thought of her singing), Jessie still has enough guts to hit the stage, this time with a new song that doesn’t make her sound like a banshee. It may not be too late to score one for your group of indefinables after all. But will Jessie be able to pull off the upset of a lifetime?
QUIZ TIME!
Sorry, no quiz this time. You and Jessie are fresh out of choices. Nothing left to do but cross your fingers and hope for the best! Head to the auditions in Chapter 23.
From Chapter 8: You must have your reasons, but you’re not always the most loyal person on earth. Sometimes it isn’t smart to be loyal, especially when it puts you in a bad spot. But if you stick by people when they need you, you might find that they are more loyal to you when you really need them.
From Chapter 10: Your favorite game must be Simon Says, because you like being a follower. Whether that is because you’re insecure or you just prefer going with the flow, you go along with the crowd. Being able to follow someone’s lead can be a good thing (like on the dance floor or if you’re on a rowing crew). But following blindly can get you into trouble. It’s fine to be a team player, but try testing out your own leadership skills so that you can see what you’re made of.
From Chapter 11: Do you ever get your way? It seems like you always give in to what everyone around you wants. Because you are unwilling, unable, or afraid to speak up, you must end up doing a lot of things you don’t want to do. It’s classic peer pressure and you aren’t the first to fall victim to it. Perhaps you think your friends won’t like you as much if you don’t give in. But ask yourself this: What kind of friends would pressure you to do anything you don’t want to do? If they’re your real friends, they won’t mind if you say no once in a while so that you can do what’s right for you. In fact, they might respect you more for standing up for yourself.
You are sitting at the judges’ table in the now-crowded auditorium feeling more uncomfortable than ever. The moment the whole school has been waiting for is finally here: the choir auditions. It seems like every student in the building is crammed into the auditorium like sardines. Even Holly and Mary, the gloom-and-doom duo, are here, sitting right up front. You search the crowd for Jimmy’s face, knowing that he would give you a reassuring smile and maybe a goofy thumbs-up, and you would instantly feel better. But then you remember that Jimmy must already be at the community center, dealing with his own stress. You’re on your own.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Jessie waiting for her turn onstage. She is bouncing up and down on one foot and then the other, cracking her neck, like a boxer before a fight. And Lena is right by her side, patting her on the back one minute and then stopping to huddle with Charlie, no doubt about the blog. You are positive that Jessie is trying to make eye contact with you, maybe hoping for a little encouragement. But you just can’t bear to face her, especially with Lisa and Maria sitting right next to you being all chummy. You know the only reason they are letting you into their little clique is that they want you to vote for Mona. If only there were a trapdoor beneath the judges’ table. You would gladly go sailing through it right about now.
After a few hopeful younger kids audition, all of them getting mediocre reactions from the crowd, Mona Winston makes her way to the stage. She stands confidently behind the mike and announces, “I’ll be singing ‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus.” Then she nods to an older boy sitting at the piano. She came prepared with sheet music and an accompanist? Sheesh. How is anyone supposed to compete with that?
You close your eyes and hope against hope that Mona’s singing is as awful as her personality. But as the first few words reach your ears, you have to face the terrible truth: Mona isn’t half bad. Actually, she’s pretty good. Not mind-blowing or anything, but much better than you thought she’d be. After she finishes, the crowd cheers for her like crazy and a few of your fellow judges give her a standing O. You’d like to think most people just liked the song, not necessarily the singer. But you can’t deny that Mona did it justice. Annoyingly, she blows a few kisses to the audience before taking a little bow and exiting the stage with a smug grin on her face.
After Mona’s audition you have to suffer through Mark’s extended version of the Little Mermaid classic “Part of Your World.” (It’s pretty excruciating, but Mark isn’t taking his audition too seriously.) The guys from his baseball team do the wave in his honor as Mark leaves the stage triumphantly.
Next up is Lizette singing “One Step at a Time” by Jordin Sparks. Celia and Delia, Lizette’s twin cousins, hit the stage with her. (According to Lizette, they insisted that she needed backup dancers and she got tired of arguing with them.) It’s actually a pretty cute performance. That is, until Celia accidentally steps on Delia’s foot and they start bickering onstage, forcing Lizette to stop singing just as she’s hitting the big notes at the end. “One step at a tiiiii—” she begins, cutting herself off abruptly to drag her ever-embarrassing cousins off the stage, one twin at a time. Once they’re off she grabs each one by an ear and escorts them out of the auditorium, muttering angrily the whole way. The audience can’t help laughing and neither can you. That whole episode really helped break the tension in the room.
Finally it is Jessie’s turn. You feel pretty good about the fact that she is following that disastrous incident. Maybe she won’t sound so bad after that. But when Jessie gets to the middle of “You Belong with Me,” the sound is just as bad as you expected—a fact she seems blissfully unaware of. As she belts out the chorus—“Why can’t you seeee-eee-heee, you belong with meeee-eeeee-eeeee-eee?”—you actually hear groans from the crowd, and you see a few of the cheerleaders plugging their ears. Thankfully, Jessie’s eyes are squeezed shut almost the whole time. When she finally finishes the song and opens her eyes, Lisa and Maria each give Jessie a big fake thumbs-up while secretly bumping fists behind the chairs. Jessie smiles radiantly, her blond ponytail bouncing with glee.
Meanwhile, you are in friendship hell. You’re not sure who you are more furious with: the girls sitting next to you at the judges’ table for tricking Jessie into going with a song that makes her usually melodic voice sound like screaming
monkeys, or yourself for not telling your BFF the truth and sparing her this lesson in mortification. As much as you hate the popular girls in this moment, Jessie is your friend, so the blame falls right on your already-sagging shoulders.
After Jessie leaves the stage and takes a seat next to Charlie and Lena, Jasmine Viera tentatively makes her way to the mike. Since she’s a little shorter than Jess, she has to pull it down to her level.
“All right, Ms. Viera,” Mr. Parker says into his own microphone. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Jasmine gives a quick nod, clears her throat, and then starts belting out “Apologize” by One Republic. The previously noisy room suddenly quiets down so much you could hear a pin drop. Jasmine’s voice rocks! As she sings, “It’s too late to apologiiiize. It’s too laaaaaate,” she hits all the high notes effortlessly and emphasizes all the right words. She’s actually better than Mona and Jessie put together! It’s pretty obvious who should win.
But just when you’re thinking about casting your vote for Jasmine, Lisa pointedly slides her ballot in front of you. Under “Soloists,” she has checked the box next to Mona’s name. When you look from the ballot to Lisa’s freckled face and bright red hair, she leans over and whispers, “Remember: Voting for Mona is the key to a whole new social life. Think about it.”
If the voting were done by secret ballot, you wouldn’t care what Lisa said. But Mr. Parker already explained that he’ll go around and ask everyone for their vote—meaning that everyone will know who you choose.
Mr. Parker gives all the judges a few minutes to make their selections. You agonize over your choices. You could vote for Jessie, but you would be the only one. And even though Jasmine deserves your vote, what would be the point of going against the other student judges? Jessie still wouldn’t win and you’d just make enemies out of Maria and Lisa. (Not to mention Mona, who already hates your guts.)
First Mr. Parker announces the lucky kids who will get to be in the choir. Lizette made it in, despite her audition fiasco, as did Kevin Minks, Melanie Sawyer, Sanjay Hirash, and a bunch of younger kids you don’t know very well. Then the faculty judges reveal their votes for star soloist. Some of them vote for Mona, but most vote for Jasmine. Then it’s the students’ turn. Surprisingly, Shawna and Dionne both vote for Jasmine, causing a stir around the room. But Adam, Lisa, and Maria all vote for Mona, bringing the score to a tie. And guess who gets the tiebreaker vote? Got a mirror handy? Because you guessed it: It’s you.
You glance over at Jessie and see Lena squeezing her hand. Jessie looks close to tears. Everyone in the room seems to be holding their breath. You can’t put it off any longer.
You hold up your ballot and announce, “I voted for Mona.”
Immediately the silence is broken and kids everywhere start congratulating one another, or consoling the ones who didn’t make it (like Mark). As you scan the auditorium, you happen to lock eyes with Lena, whose disappointment in you is written all over her face. Shawna and Dionne seem pretty distant all of a sudden too. You aren’t sure what feels worse: letting all of them down, or letting yourself down.
Yikes. Everything about that audition process was harsh. Listening to Mark Bukowski butcher a Disney classic? Painful. Failing to warn Jessie that she was about to humiliate herself in front of the whole school? Heinous. And finally, casting your vote for Mona instead of Jasmine or Jessie just because you want to stay on Planet Popular? Brutal. The worst part is that all this could have been avoided if you had not given up on your own singing dream quite so quickly. Oh well. You can’t change anything you’ve done today. But unlike what One Republic thinks, it’s never too late to apologize.
QUIZ TIME!
Didn’t you read the last line above? Go to Chapter 16 and apologize to your friends, pronto!
No matter how hard you try, you’re bound to make some mistakes. Not that you need anyone to tell you that—you made a ton of mistakes today! You haven’t been the best friend you could be, and let’s face it—the lure of popularity steered you away from who you really are. Or at least who you hope to be. The beauty of making mistakes, though, is that you can learn from them and try to do better next time. And if you have really good friends, once you apologize they might just forgive you.
You know exactly where to find Jessie: the girls’ bathroom on the basement level of the school. You both know that no one ever comes down here because it’s so out of the way. Plus this bathroom is always freezing. For those reasons, it is the perfect place to come when you need to cry but don’t want anyone to walk in on you doing it.
Walking in on Jessie will be one more thing you have to apologize for, but what’s one more “sorry” when you already owe Jessie a million of them? You swing open the door and sure enough, there she is, sitting on the oversize counter next to the sinks sobbing into her hands. It has been ages since you’ve seen Jess cry like this (the last time being when she accidentally threw out her Justin Bieber concert tickets and couldn’t go see the show), and you feel pretty crummy for being the cause of her tears now.
“Hey, Jessie,” you say hesitantly, still holding the door open. “Mind if I come in?”
Jessie doesn’t remove her hands from her face. Instead she lifts them along with her head and peers at you through her spread fingers, the way you would peek at a horror movie. You can’t blame her. You have been kind of scary today.
“It’s a free country,” she says finally, turning away from you so that you can see only her profile. Her button nose and bony chin seem so delicate. And the brightly colored hoop earrings dangling from her ears look way too happy to be worn by a person who is crying this hard.
You let the door swing shut behind you as you edge closer to the window, rubbing your arms for warmth. Seriously, is the principal storing frozen food down here or what? You sit down on the windowsill next to your BFF, talking to her back.
“Look, Jessie, I’m sooo sorry about the way I acted. I was a jerk.”
“A huge jerk,” Jessie corrects you tearfully.
“Yeah, a huge jerk.”
“You really embarrassed me.”
“I know.”
“In front of everyone!”
“I know.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“So far I’m not too impressed with this apology,” Jessie says, dabbing at her eyes with a wad of tissues.
She’s right. You’re totally blowing this. Time to dig deep.
“Well, see, it’s like this,” you begin, searching for the right words. “I think…I just got so caught up in the clique stuff that I went a little cuckoo.” Even though Jessie isn’t looking at you, you make the universal sign for “crazy” by whirling your index finger in a circle next to your temple. “I guess this social-status stuff matters more to me than I thought,” you admit sheepishly. “Try saying that three times fast.”
“Social-status stuff, social-status stuff, social-slatus shtuff…,” Jessie attempts immediately. “Dang! Almost had it.” You giggle. It’s like she’s forgotten for a moment that she’s mad at you. But once she remembers, she grows quiet again.
“Anyway, I know I made all the wrong moves today. But you and Lena mean the world to me and I would never do anything to hurt you—at least not on purpose. You know that, right?”
Jessie finally looks at you through puffy blue eyes. She nods. “I know.”
“Good,” you answer, relief washing over you. For a minute there you thought you were going to lose her. “I’m really, really sorry, Jess. Because you and Lena are my best friends in the whole world and I’m just really, really, really sor—”
“All right! All right! I get it!” Jessie interrupts you. “You’re sorry. Stop being such a sap.” She gives you a sarcastic eye roll accompanied by a half smile so that you know she’s kidding. Then, looking serious again, she says, “I’m sorry too. I know it was my idea to go after the cliques in the first place, but I got sucked in as much as you did.” Jessie bites her
lip. “Remember back in second grade when all of us were friends and the only thing you needed to be cool was a really big box of crayons?”
You smile at the memory. It’s true. Back then any kid with a box of sixty-four Crayolas and a crayon sharpener was a superstar. “Definitely.”
“I miss that.”
“Me too,” you tell Jessie. “But at least we’ll always be friends. And we can pinkie-swear on that.” You hold out your pinkie just like you used to do in second grade. Jessie reaches out her pinkie and gives yours a good shake. And little by little, things between you start to go back to normal.
“Sooo…do you wanna go to the auditorium?” you ask.
“Negative,” Jessie answers, making a giant X with her arms. “The auditions are over now anyway.”
“True.” That means no Carnegie Hall for either one of you. Nice going. “Did I mention how sorry I am?” you repeat for the millionth time.
Jessie balls up her fist and shakes it at you. “If you apologize to me one more time…”
“Okay, okay.” You giggle. “No need to get violent.”
“Hey, I know where we could go to cheer ourselves up,” Jessie says with a devilish grin.
“Great. I’ll go anywhere to get out of this ice-cold bathroom! What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I’ll give you a hint: There will be lots of stuff on the walls, it’ll smell like paint, and a certain comic-book geek with butterfingers will be there.”
OMG! She’s talking about Jimmy’s art exhibit. So much has happened today, you almost forgot! In a flash you grab Jessie’s hand and pull her out of the bathroom. “Let’s go!”
Good girl. You owned up to your bad behavior and made amends with your bestie. You did manage to wreck the plan to overrule the power cliques. And you both missed out on your chance to set the music world on fire, but who needs props, fame, and fortune when you’ve got each other? Okay, okay, fame and fortune might have been nice, but if it’s meant to be, there will be plenty of other opportunities. For now you’re more than happy to hang with your real friends…and support your favorite artist.
Your Life, but Cooler Page 12