by Kailin Gow
Lacey shrugged. “Well, he only lives across the street. It’s really not that big of a deal.”
The others obviously didn’t believe her on that point, but they didn’t say anything. Lacey decided to press on.
“Anyway, Landers cooked, and-”
“He can cook?” Sandy sounded a little surprised, which was just the effect Lacey had known that news would get. “Properly? Not something out of a packet?”
Lacey nodded. “He made spaghetti with meatballs. I got to meet his brother, and we all watched TV until Landers’ parents came home.”
“At which point they threw you out?” Valerie asked. She didn’t sound like she wanted it to be true, but she did sound a little like she couldn’t believe that the evening had ended any other way.
“No,” Lacey said. “They were actually really nice. Landers’ mother even got this weird idea that we were… well, boyfriend and girlfriend. She said that she approved.”
Penny smirked. “So let me get this straight. You met with a good-looking, clever, popular guy at the beach. He invited you back to his house, where it turns out that he can cook, and then even his mother likes you. In what way is this not a date?”
“Penny!”
Valerie chimed in. “You’re probably the luckiest girl in school right now, Lacey.”
“Sure.” Though, to be fair, Lacey certainly felt it. Right then, she wouldn’t have traded in a second of the previous evening.
“I don’t think she’s going to admit it,” Sandy said. “Come on. We’ve got Phys-Ed next. We don’t want to be late. I’ve heard rumors about what Mrs. Hamm can be like if you’re late.”
“How have you heard rumors about her?” Penny demanded. “We’ve only been here a day.”
“I hear rumors fast.”
“Coming, Lacey?” Valerie asked.
“I’ll just get my gym bag and catch up with you.”
The others hurried off while Lacey was busy getting her gym bag out of her locker. She ran after them, and had almost caught up to them when someone grabbed her, twisting her arm painfully and shoving her into the nearest girls’ bathroom. When they let go, Lacey looked around, and saw Tempest Tatou, staring at her with fury in her eyes. Annoyingly, she still looked pretty even when she was angry.
“You think I didn’t hear all that?” Tempest demanded. “About you spending time with Landers yesterday?”
Lacey wasn’t about to back down and start apologizing. She had nothing to be sorry for, after all. “What about it?” she retorted. “We’re in the same class.”
Tempest took a step towards her. “Don’t give me that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You like him, Lacey. You’ve always liked him. I saw the way you were flirting with him in that stupid ice cream parlor of your parents’.”
Lacey shook her head. “Then you saw what you wanted to see, Tempest, because nothing happened there.”
“Just like nothing happened at the beach yesterday?” Tempest’s hands balled into fists, and for a moment, it looked like she might lash out at Lacey. Lacey found herself wishing that Valerie were there. Valerie spent a lot of her time taking various martial arts’ classes, whereas Lacey had never been in a fight in her life.
Even so, she was determined not to let Tempest see that she was scared. “I don’t have to answer to you, Tempest.”
“You will if you don’t stay away from Landers,” Tempest promised. She sounded like she meant it.
“What’s wrong?” Lacey demanded. “Are you afraid that he might actually like me?”
“Like that could happen.” Tempest stepped back, preening. “He’s way out of your league.”
Lacey couldn’t help herself. “Out of yours too, if what happened at the shop is anything to go by.”
For a moment, Tempest looked shocked. “So that’s it, is it? Little Lacey Lu thinks she can compete with me. How well do you think that will work out? Any of the guys in this school would love the chance to take me out even once, let alone actually be my boyfriend. All you have is that rag-tag group of friends of yours.”
Lacey wanted to lash out at the insult to her friends, but she could already feel how heated things were getting. One of them had to be the reasonable one, and it certainly wasn’t going to be Tempest.
“If you can have any boy in school,” Lacey asked, “why do you want Landers so badly? Why does it matter?”
Tempest shrugged. “Why not? He’s the captain of the football team. He’s good-looking. Between those things, he’s always going to be the most popular boy in school. Why wouldn’t I want him?”
To Tempest, that kind of logic probably made sense. Landers was the most popular boy, she was the most popular girl, so they were supposed to be together. Despite that, Lacey decided to try to make her see reason.
“But if you’re already popular, why do you need to go out with Landers?”
“It’s not about needing to,” Tempest shot back. She smiled, not very nicely. “I want to. For one thing, you’ve had a crush on him for as long as I can remember. It makes it far sweeter, every time I go out with him, knowing that you aren’t, Lacey.”
So that was it. Tempest was clinging onto Landers at least partly to spite her. From anyone else, it wouldn’t be believable, yet it was exactly the kind of petty thing Tempest might do. Even so, Lacey couldn’t see the point of it.
“Why, Tempest?”
“Why what?” Tempest’s smile widened. “Why are you such a loser?”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“Maybe you’re just easy to hate.” Tempest admired herself in one of the bathroom mirrors. “Had you thought of that?”
Lacey moved a little closer to her. She needed an answer. “Seriously, Tempest. Did I do something to upset you? Did I do something that made you act like this?”
“Do something?” Tempest shook her head. “You didn’t have to do anything, Lacey. That’s just the point.”
“I don’t understand.”
Tempest jabbed her finger at Lacey. “You were always so… so perfect. So pretty and good. So likeable. All without even trying. I remember all the time that I had to hang around with you, with you being the popular one.”
“But I never meant to-”
“Do you think that somehow makes it better?” Tempest demanded, her voice rising. “That you could manage to be that well-liked without even making an effort? Well, I did make an effort. And now I’m better-looking than you anyway. So I’m going to enjoy it.”
“By being mean to me?”
“Not just you,” Tempest said. “That bunch of losers you hang out with, too. I don’t need you anymore, Lacey. I can get my own glory now.”
Lacey saw her then. Really saw her for the first time. Saw all the pettiness and unpleasantness in her. But saw the fear at the heart of it too. The fear that people might not be watching. That they might not care. In many ways, the bathroom was the right place for Tempest. She was someone who needed mirrors.
“I’m sorry,” Lacey said.
Tempest shook her head with a wry smile. “All this, and you still don’t get it?”
“I’m sorry that I ever thought you were my friend.” Lacey didn’t stop. She knew that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to start again. “I’m sorry that you’ve turned out to be who you are. I’m sorry that you never managed to learn anything about real friendship, and that you seem to think being popular is enough. I’m sorry you’re… well, you, Tempest.”
The other girl grabbed her then, pushing Lacey back until she was pressed against one of the stall doors. For a moment, Lacey was terrified, but then she realized that she simply didn’t care what Tempest did right then. Whatever happened, it wouldn’t change anything about how sad and empty Tempest was.
Though it could hurt. Tempest grabbed Lacey’s hair painfully. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me. I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me. I have more friends than you ever will, I can have any boy in sc
hool just by snapping my fingers. What are you? Someone nobody likes. Someone nobody cares about.”
Lacey pulled free of Tempest’s grip, forcing herself not to panic. “At least one person seems to care about me more than you,” she shot back.
Lacey wouldn’t have been surprised if Tempest hit her then, but she didn’t. Maybe it was just the sense of confidence Lacey was putting out, or maybe Tempest knew that she couldn’t go that far in school. Not without getting into trouble. She had to settle for glaring at Lacey instead.
“I’ll tell you this once more,” Tempest said. “Stay away from Landers. If you don’t, then you’ll be sorry that you didn’t. Very sorry indeed.”
Chapter 7
Although she thought she had handled the situation with Tempest well, Lacey still couldn’t help shaking a little as she walked out of the girls’ bathroom. The situation had been so tense that now that it was over, now that the adrenaline was draining out of her, she felt simply drained.
Mindful that she needed to catch up to Penny, Valerie and Sandy, Lacey headed to the locker rooms, got changed, and then made her way to the gym. The others were already there, standing as part of a larger crowd of girls under the watchful eye of their new physical education teacher, Mrs. Hamm.
Mrs. Hamm was a large woman, though certainly not fat. Instead, she was built like a track athlete whose sport was the shot putt or the hammer throw. She was not very tall, but powerfully built, and broad across the shoulders. She wore a voluminous tracksuit, while a sweatband held back her severely short brown hair. She was carrying a clipboard, and hardly looked up from it as Lacey came in.
Lacey hurried over to her friends.
Penny took one look at her and whispered across. “Hey what’s going on?”
Lacey shook her head. “Nothing.”
“No, there’s something going on with you,” Valerie said, joining in. “It’s all over your face. You look shell-shocked, like someone died or something. What’s happening?”
Lacey bit her lip and glanced over to the other side of the gym. There, Tempest stood at the center of a gaggle of other girls. Mostly ones who could be relied upon for an unpleasant comment almost as readily as her.
“What did Tempest do now?” Valerie asked, obviously catching the look.
“Is she jealous over you spending some time with Landers?” Penny asked.
Lacey nodded. “Apparently, she heard us talking.” She sighed. “Though I suppose she would have heard about it eventually. Is it all around the school yet?”
Penny grinned. “Nope, just most of the girls, given that they all wanted a chance with him now that he’s single and free of Tempest.”
“They’re probably heartbroken that you’ve beaten them to him,” Valerie added. “I’m your friend, and even I’m a tiny bit envious of what happened.”
“Nothing did happen,” Lacey pointed out.
“Well, it seems Tempest seem to think it did,” Valerie said. “Or am I wrong?”
Lacey shook her head. “You’re not wrong. When you were gone, she threatened me. Told me that I should stay away from him. It was actually pretty scary, at the time.”
The others looked at her in astonishment. Lacey didn’t know why. Penny and Valerie at least should know exactly what Tempest was capable of.
“What I really don’t get is why,” Lacey said. “I mean, she said it was just because she hated me, but she can have any guy in school. Why can’t she just let Landers go?”
Sandy chose that moment to chip in, her voice low. “Maybe she really does have feelings for him,” she suggested.
“Tempest? Have real feelings for someone?” Penny sounded like she just couldn’t wrap her brain around the idea.
Sandy shrugged. “That’s what I think, anyway. She was wrong to threaten you, though. If she had a problem, she should have talked to Landers directly.”
Lacey looked over at Sandy. The new girl clearly didn’t have much experience with Tempest yet.
Valerie seemed to have the same thought. “Sandy, that’s what we hope she would have the maturity to do,” her friend said, “but that girl just likes bullying people. Especially girls like us, who used to be friends with her.”
“Why?” Sandy asked. “What happened?”
“We don’t know,” Penny said. “It just seemed that the moment she started to realize that she was pretty, the moment she started to get a lot of attention for it, she dropped us like we were yesterday’s news.”
“It meant more to her to be the Queen of Mean, than to have friends,” Valerie added. “Well, at least friends who really care for each other.”
She might have said more, but at that moment a loud cough, more like a cannon going off than anything, interrupted the four of them. They turned away from their conversation to see Mrs. Hamm staring at them with the kind of look that would probably have made a wrestler back down.
“Girls, now that you have finished your conversation, would you mind if we held a class today? You know, before the semester has finished?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Hamm,” they chorused. Lacey couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed at having been caught not participating like that. The embarrassment only got worse when she glanced over at the group Tempest was with. They were all smirking at her misfortune, of course.
Satisfied that she finally had the class’s attention, Mrs. Hamm began to speak. “We have some new exercise options for this year, apparently,” she said. “In particular, dancing is now considered to be a legitimate form of exercise in this school.”
Something about her tone of voice suggested that she was remembering the days of long cross country runs with a certain amount of regretful fondness at that point. She shook her head.
“That being the case, I’m giving you girls a new assignment. You only have two weeks to complete it,” Mrs. Hamm said, “so pay attention.” That one seemed to be directed at the group as a whole rather than Lacey and the others. It appeared that Mrs. Hamm was already over their previous indiscretion. “You are all going to plan the freshman school dance. Now, I know, that doesn’t sound like physical activity at all, but at the dance, you girls will break up into teams and perform dance routines that you have made up among yourselves. These routines should be easy and fun, because you are trying to get people to join in.”
She looked down at her clipboard, and then added, almost as an afterthought. “Oh yes, the team that produces the best routine and manages to get the most participants in this contest will win a spot in this Spring’s dance troupe.”
The whole class, including Lacey and the others, let out a collective whoop of excitement at that. The Seagull High’s dance troupe had won plenty of awards over the years and participated in competitions all over the country. They have even taken part in the New Years’ Rose Parade. Getting onto it was a big deal. Lacey had certainly never thought that they would give freshmen the chance to be part of it.
Only Sandy didn’t seem to understand. “What’s all the excitement for?” she asked.
She quickly got an answer, because at that moment, the doors to the gym opened to admit the entire current dance troupe. Twenty girls, all upper classmen, came into the gym in their bright uniforms, taking up what were obviously the starting positions for a routine. Their coach, a woman in her thirties, walked to stand beside Mrs. Hamm, who started to speak once more.
“Coach Smith and I thought that you would like to see what it means to secure a spot on the troupe. Do you want to see what it would be like to be able to get onto the dance troupe, girls?”
Of course, the resulting “Yes!” from the girls in gym class rang around the hall.
Coach Smith smiled. “Ok then, let’s put on a show!”
Right on cue, the lights in the gym dimmed, and music started to pulse out in a strong, danceable beat. Lacey and the others could only watch as the twenty girls in the troupe started to move in time to it.
They didn’t hold back. The first sections of the routine were spect
acular, and obviously designed to impress. Girls did flips and spins, high kicks and leaps that were almost more acrobatics than dance. A few of the more daring moments drew gasps from some of the watching crowd that was Mrs. Hamm’s class.
The routine continued, and to Lacey’s eyes at least it got a little simpler. The moves were still perfectly executed, but they were simpler now. More accessible. Lacey guessed that the point was to wow the watching girls first, and then to show them that not everything the dance troupe did bordered on the impossible. That they had a chance of making the required grade.
For the last ten seconds before the end, of course, they picked things up again to end on a high note as one of the girls flipped her way into the splits for a closing moment. It was perfectly coordinated with the music, and as the lights came up in the gym, Lacey couldn’t help joining in the rapturous applause that followed. Girls from her class crowded around the dancers, letting them know just how impressed they were, and how much they hoped that they would eventually be able to do the same.
Mrs. Hamm interrupted that with another of those tremendous coughs of hers. She held up her clipboard.
“Clearly, you are all interested, but I will need to know who is on what team so sign up your teams on this clipboard. Everyone must be on a team before you leave. And remember that this is an assignment as well as an opportunity. Taking part is mandatory.”
Before Mrs. Hamm finished, a scrum of eager girls formed the moment she put the clipboard down, all eager to get their names down with their friends. Lacey, Penny, Valerie and Sandy barely had to look at one another to know what their team would be, and Lacey wrote them down together, though since she couldn’t think of a team name, she left that blank for now. Tempest stood well away from the milling throng. Apparently, she had simply had one of her cronies brave it for her. When she saw Lacey there though, she moved forward quickly, snatched up the clipboard, and sneered down at it.
“Oh, is the usual little gang all working together? You might as well take your names off this list. You won’t even qualify.”
“Qualify?” Lacey repeated. “What do you mean, qualify? You heard Mrs. Hamm and Coach Smith, all the girls in this class get a chance to be part of the freshman school dance committee. There’s nothing you can do to stop that, Tempest.”