Pretty Ugly

by Karyn Langhorne Folan

  “An hour?!” someone yelled. Others mumbled and whispered angrily.

  “That’s long enough for you to figure it out. Help each other. That’s what a good team does. If one member is attacked, you’re all attacked. How can we build a pyramid on the field if you don’t trust each other? How can you fall from the top of the pyramid if you can’t trust who will catch you? Now someone is spreading some hurtful stuff about two of your teammates. It’s wrong and cowardly and has no place on this squad. If you work together to find out who’s doing this, you’ll grow as a team and be successful. If not, you’ll have a year to think about it. ”

  The crowd grumbled again, and Coach Seville gazed at them with a grim, knowing smile.

  “Good luck, girls. I’ll be back with Ms. Spencer in an hour,” she said and walked out.

  Chapter 10

  Everyone looked at each other in silence.

  Amberlynn, Angel, and Jamee stared hard at Vanessa. And for the first time, so did Kym, Renita, and Tasha. Jamee noticed that several of the other girls were watching her too, including Nia and Marcie, the two girls she had spoken to yesterday.

  “Well,” Vanessa said when the room got heavy with tension. “I guess you’ve ruined it for all of us, Tasha. ”

  “What?” Tasha cried. “Me? ”

  Vanessa shrugged. “You’re the one who’s always bragging about your phone. Weren’t you taking pictures with it in here the other day?”

  “I can’t believe you!” Tasha howled. “I might have taken the picture, but I didn’t do nothing with it! The whole thing was your idea, Vanessa. You’re the one who wants to control the whole cheerleading squad. You’re the one who hated Angel from the start. You sent the—”

  “Great,” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Now that you’re about to get caught, you’re going to blame me? ” She shook her head. “I don’t even have a cell phone. This is all you, girl, and you know it. Ain’t that right?”

  Renita and Kym nodded, but neither of them looked up at anyone in the group.

  Tasha’s face crumpled. “I know it looks bad, Angel, but I’m telling you, I didn’t do it!” she wailed. “I know I was kind of mean to you before, and I did take that picture. But I never sent it around the school. I swear. ”

  “I believe you,” Angel said.

  Tasha looked relieved. “Thank you, Angel,” she said. “I’m serious. I’m not lying—”

  “Yes you are,” Vanessa interrupted. “All Coach Seville has to do is look at the messages you sent and she’ll see—”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about her phone, Vanessa. ”

  Jamee had been thinking the same thing, but it was Nia who said it. She folded her arms over her chest and shook her head. “We’ve all seen you borrow it from her a bunch of times. ”

  “And maybe the reason you know what the teachers are gonna find is ’cause you put it there,” added Nia’s friend Marcie.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Girl, I know because she told me what she was gonna do. ” Once again, she looked back at Kym and Renita. “You guys were there. Remember when she told us?”

  “Why do you keep asking them?” Another girl spoke up this time. “It’s like you can’t even say a sentence unless you have someone to back you up. ”

  “I don’t need anyone to back me up. ” Anger tainted Vanessa’s voice. “I’m just telling you all what happened so we can stay on the team—”

  “No, you’re just tellin’ us your version so you can stay on the team,” Amberlynn said. “I’ve seen how you been treating Angel. Even if Tasha did it, you were running the show. I wouldn’t trust either of you behind my back when I’m getting changed. How am I gonna know you ain’t takin’ pictures of me?” A number of girls mumbled in agreement.

  “Didn’t you listen?” Vanessa snapped. “Tasha just said she took the picture!”

  “But she said you’re the one who sent it,” Angel cut in.

  “And I told you I didn’t!” Vanessa hissed, her eyes pointed like two daggers aimed at Angel. “Kym and Renita got my back, so whatcha gonna say now?”

  “They’re lying! They’re all lying,” Tasha protested. “I didn’t do it. ”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Vanessa scoffed, studying the crowd of girls staring at her. “I don’t believe Coach Seville anyway. They can’t cancel cheerleading. They’re just trying to scare us. Even though you did it, Tasha, I ain’t gonna say anything. If you all knew what was good for you, you wouldn’t say nothing neither. ” Vanessa crossed her arms and acted as if she was above everyone else, in charge somehow.

  Jamee could see Vanessa calculating, trying to find a way to save herself. She knew Vanessa would never come out and tell the truth. Jamee had counted on it.

  “What if you’re wrong?” Kym said then.

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time,” added Renita.

  “Then we tell her the truth,” Vanessa said with a sly smile. “Tasha did it. ”

  Thunk!

  The steel gym door clicked and swung open. Coach Seville marched in with Ms. Spencer right behind her. Jamee saw a cell phone in the principal’s hand.

  “Well, ladies,” Coach’s voice sounded even louder in the stillness that fell over the group. “Ms. Spencer is aware of our problem. ” She paused. “Have you determined who is responsible?”

  There was a long silence. Jamee wanted to say something, but she knew she couldn’t. One of the other girls would have to speak up. Tasha shifted nervously, and Jamee could see that she wanted to tell the truth, but Vanessa’s threat seemed to work. Tasha didn’t say a word. Angel shifted nervously next to her.

  Jamee glanced over at Marcie and Nia, then at Kym and Renita, and the rest of the new cheerleaders. All their heads were down. Their eyes seemed to be glued to the floor. The only other person with her head up was Vanessa. She stared around the room like the silence meant she had won something. Jamee couldn’t take it. She had to act now.

  “Coach Seville?” she asked, standing up in her seat. “I know that you’re trying to help us, and I understand you’re trying to teach us about teamwork. But these girls have worked hard to be on this squad. I don’t think it would be fair for all of them to lose their places just because someone don’t like me. So I quit. ” She stepped off the bleachers and stood alone on the floor.

  Murmurs spread across the bleachers.

  “Jamee?” Coach Seville shook her head. “I can’t stop you, if that’s your choice. But that doesn’t solve our problem—”

  “I’m quitting, too,” Angel stood up and joined her. “Jamee’s right. It’s not fair. ”

  “I can’t be on the team if these girls leave,” Amberlynn spoke up. “They didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, I don’t want to cheer with people I don’t trust. ”

  “Me either,” Nia said.

  “Or me,” added Marcie.

  Two more girls popped up after them and then several more. They came to stand with Jamee and Angel. Soon Vanessa, Kym, Renita, and Tasha were the only ones left sitting on the bleachers.

  Tasha stood up then. “I really wanted to be a Bluford cheerleader, and I worked hard for it, but I did something wrong and stupid. I . . . took the pictures—”

  Murmurs erupted from the crowd. Tasha raised her voice to speak over them.

  “But I never sent them, Coach Seville. I swear. I lent my phone to Vanessa and she—”

  “You’re lying, Tasha!” Vanessa screeched. “Tell them she’s lying. Kym? Renita?”

  All eyes in the gym focused on them. Under the scrutiny, they seemed to shrink. For a moment, the gym was silent. Finally Kym broke the silence.

  “It’s gone too far, Vanessa. It ain’t right to blame Tasha alone for what you did. ” She then turned to Coach Seville. “We were there, Renita and me. We saw Vanessa send the pictures from Tasha’s phone. ”

  “No! They didn’t,” Vanessa fumed. “They’re just blaming me to save themselves!”

  “Vanessa, just let it go. It’s over,” Renita sa
id.

  “Tasha, I’m going to need to see your phone,” Ms. Spencer said gravely. “Come with me to my office, Vanessa. Kym and Renita, you’re coming, too. We need to have a long talk. ”

  The girls filed out of the gym with their heads down. Vanessa shot Jamee an angry look, but it didn’t matter. The truth was finally out. Vanessa had been caught. The fight was over. The gym door slammed shut and the four girls were gone.

  “Congratulations, ladies,” Coach Seville shouted. “You’ve just become a team. ”

  The coach then began to clap. Crystal and the other senior cheerleaders joined in. Then the applause spread to the girls on the gym floor who had left the bleachers, girls who were ready to quit the team because they felt it was the right thing to do.

  Jamee felt a lump in her throat as the applause grew louder and seemed to focus on her until the gym itself echoed with the roar of hands clapping.

  “Excellent!” the coach said. “I’ll see you all Monday right after school for our first practice. Congratulations again!”

  The cheerleaders began dispersing and heading back into the hallway. Jamee was about to join them when she heard the coach call out to her.

  “Jamee, can I see you for a minute?”

  She had expected the coach to smile and to say something about how they had handled Vanessa, but Coach Seville’s expression was grim.

  “Jamee, Mrs. Guessner spoke with me and Principal Spencer a little while ago. ” She winced as if what she had to say pained her. “I’m afraid we have another problem. ”

  “I can’t believe it!” Jamee’s father yelled. “After everything your mother and I talked about, you still disobeyed us!”

  Jamee didn’t even try to defend herself, not when her parents were this upset.

  “Mrs. Guessner called me at work, Jamee,” her mother chimed in. “At work! I thought something bad had happened. Scared me half to death! Then to find out you been lying to us again?”

  “Calm down, Mattie. You know it ain’t good for you to get so upset. ”

  “How can I not be upset, Carl?” Jamee’s mother cried. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this child. We tell her to do something, and she goes off and does whatever she wants to. ” She shook her head. “You and your sister couldn’t be more different. ” She pointed at Darcy. “Darcy’s been working hard all afternoon on her schoolwork, while you were out there jumping around with your friends!”

  “Mom, Dad,” Darcy interrupted. “That’s not fair. There’s a lot going on at school right now—”

  “I don’t care what’s going on at school, Darcy,” her mother snapped. “That’s no excuse to lie to us, to lie to a teacher, and to accept an F when a teacher offered to help her. What’s the matter with you, Jamee? Don’t you care about your future? You wanna fail ninth grade? Is that what you want?”

  Jamee slumped in the living room chair. Did they even want her answer? She had tried to explain once, but her parents were just too angry to listen. Angry because they left their jobs, angry because they couldn’t afford to miss work with a baby on the way, angry because they had been lied to. Jamee heard it all already.

  “Well, is that it?” her mother demanded. “You’ve got nothing to say?”

  “There’s more to life than school and grades, Mom, okay? I wish you guys could just see that and be proud of me for what I’m good at—”

  “What? Doin’ splits?” her mother said. “That ain’t gonna get you into college. ”

  The comment stung. Jamee felt as if Mom had kicked her in the stomach. She couldn’t speak.

  “But Mom. I spoke to her friend Crystal,” Darcy interrupted again. “There really is something you should know—”

  “Stop trying to defend her, Darcy!” Mom cried. “We told her to take that test after school yesterday and she didn’t do it! What else is there to say?” She leveled a finger at Jamee’s face. “From now on, home and school. That’s it, Jamee. No cheerleading, no football games, no Niko’s, no boys, no nothing. Understand?”

  No cheerleading.

  Jamee had suspected it from the beginning, but the words still hurt. They were taking away the one thing she enjoyed, the one thing she liked about school, the one place where she had fought for something important and won. Her parents would never understand that.

  She nodded slowly, holding back the tears that gathered in her eyes. “Can I go to my room now?”

  Her father sighed as if someone had settled a heavy weight on his back, as if Jamee was suddenly a burden to him. “Go. We’ll talk more about this later. ” Mom complained some more, something about not having guests over, but Jamee didn’t listen. She headed down the hall toward her room, barely hearing the doorbell ring.

  Jamee passed Grandma’s room, gazing at the awful emptiness where her grandmother used to live. If only she were still alive, Jamee thought. She’d listen. She’d understand.

  Voices filled the living room as Jamee reached her doorway. She thought she recognized one. Could it be? She turned around and headed back.

  A woman stood in her living room. Next to her was Angel and her little sister, Dionne. Both girls smiled as Jamee approached.

  “You must be Jamee,” said the woman. Her face was just like Angel’s— round and smooth but without glasses. The rest of her was round and soft too, as if she had a pillow tied to her stomach beneath her purple dress. The woman moved quickly toward Jamee and took her hand. “When Angel told me about what you did today, I just had to come and thank you. Monday morning, I’m gonna go over to that school and tell the principal and the coach and anybody else that needs tellin’ that this girl shouldn’t be punished for what she did. They ought to give her a medal!”

  “I hope you’re not mad,” Angel added quietly. “But Amberlynn told me about Mrs. Guessner and the algebra test. I told my mom everything. Maybe after Mrs. Guessner finds out what happened, they’ll let you back on the team. ”

  Jamee shook her head. “It won’t matter. My parents are making me quit. ”

  “Quit?” Angel said. “Why?”

  “After all she done, she’s gonna quit? That don’t make any sense,” said Angel’s mother.

  Jamee felt her parents staring at her.

  “Done?” Dad asked, his brow crinkled in confusion. “What did she do?”

  “She got those mean bully girls to leave my sister alone!” Dionne exclaimed in a loud childish voice.

  “It’s true,” Angel said, then launched into the full story from the beginning. From time to time, Jamee’s parents interrupted to ask questions, but mostly they listened. Every now and then, one of them would glance at Jamee as if they had never seen her before.

  “That girl Vanessa is scary,” Darcy added. “If I were a freshman, you wouldn’t catch me near her. I don’t know how you stood up to her all this time. I’d a stayed out of her way. ”

  “That’s ’cause you’re smarter than me,” Jamee answered.

  “So that’s why you skipped the test?” Jamee’s father asked. “So you could confront these girls after school?”

  “I just didn’t want Angel to quit because of them,” Jamee said, squirming under all the attention. “And I couldn’t let them think that I’d quit because of them. It didn’t seem right. ”

  “But why didn’t you tell that to your teacher? Or us?”

  “Mrs. Guessner wouldn’t understand. ”

  “But we would have,” Mom said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I tried,” Jamee shrugged. “But you wouldn’t listen. I was wasting my time ‘doing splits,’ remember? All you, my teachers, and Aunt Charlotte want is another Darcy. I told you. I can’t be her, Mom. I’m someone else. ” As she spoke, Jamee felt her eyes stinging, but she blinked back her tears.

  Her parents looked at each other. Dad shook his head heavily. Mom’s eyes widened as if she figured out something that had been a mystery to her. The frustration on their faces moments ago suddenly disappeared. In its place was something else. Concern. Appre
ciation. Understanding. Instantly Mom reached out and hugged her.

  “You got it all wrong, Jamee,” Mom blurted. “But it’s our fault. We love you so much. We just wanna see you make it in this world, to be happy, that’s all. That’s why we push so hard. But we got so caught up in everything goin’ on around here, we stopped listening to you. And for that we’re sorry. You hear me?”

  Mom’s hands held Jamee’s face. She could feel the warmth of Mom’s palms sinking into her, the pressure of Mom’s pregnant belly pressing gently into her stomach.

  Jamee nodded, her throat suddenly tight, her eyes moist.

  “I know what it’s like to be in your sister’s shadow. I felt like that my entire childhood,” Mom admitted. “I never wanted to put that burden on you. ”

  Dad was there, too. Jamee felt his hand rub her back. “It’s tough out here in the adult world. Believe me, I know. Getting your education is one way to make sure you don’t end up like me, struggling for work all the time, worrying about bills,” he explained. “But there are more important things in this world than grades. You just reminded us of that today, and we’re proud of you. ”

  “Me too. Like I said, I could never do what you did today,” Darcy said sincerely, hugging her.

  Jamee was speechless. In the embrace, Jamee felt the resentment and anger she’d carried for so long beginning to thaw. For a moment, the living room was quiet.

  “Well,” Mrs. McAllister said, stepping toward the door. Jamee had almost forgotten that she and her family were still there. “We got to be going. We just had to come by and say thanks. And Jamee, on Monday, I’m gonna talk to your teacher. She needs to know what’s been going on. ”

  “We’ll be there, too, Mrs. McAllister,” said Mom. “Maybe we can turn this thing around. ”

  Angel gave Jamee a quick hug. “See you Monday at lunch?”

  “I’ll be there,” Jamee said, hugging her back hard. “Thanks, Angel. ”

  When the door closed, Mom wrapped her arms around Jamee again. “We got a lot to talk about. But I promise you from now on, we’ll be listening. But you gotta promise me something back. You’re gonna do your best. You don’t need to be Darcy. But you do need to be the best that Jamee can be. ”