Really, he wasn’t a bad actor when he applied himself.
Jordan and I drove over to the hospital after school. His dad let him drive the Jaguar because his Civic was in the shop for a tune-up and a starter-motor check. Which was slightly awkward because my Civic was in the same shop getting the starter motor replaced. I was afraid Jordan’s parents would see my Civic up on the racks and put two and two together, but according to Jordan, his mother had just shrugged and said, “Maybe your father’s right about Hondas. They seem to have a rash of starter motor problems.”
Jordan so lives a charmed life.
We spent a while talking with Kate, filling her in on what had happened in the performance until the nurse came in and yelled at us for making her laugh.
“Okay, no more talking about the play,” I said after the nurse left. “We don’t want Kate to rip her stitches. We’ll have plenty of time to mock it later.”
“Plus we have two more shows to put on,” Jordan said cheerfully. “Who knows what will happen tonight. We might kill off more clarinet players than gang members.”
Kate laughed again, and I swatted Jordan on the arm.
After a few more minutes of conversation, the nurse came back in and told us Kate needed to rest, so we strolled back to the parking lot and climbed into the Jaguar. I enjoyed riding in it today because I could sit back and relax as opposed to chewing all of my fingernails off.
I ran my hand over the seat with a sigh. “You’re going to be sorry when your Civic gets out of the shop and you have to go back to driving it.”
Jordan smiled. “I like my Civic. It has personality.”
“Yeah, mine also has personality. Unfortunately, it’s the personality of a psychotic prison inmate.”
“I like your Civic too,” Jordan said. “It brought us together.”
I stopped running my hand over the soft leather interior long enough to consider this. “You have a point. Maybe I shouldn’t call my car the Bratmobile anymore.”
“You just have to be gentle with it,” Jordan told me.
We drove back to the school to get ready for our next performance. Mrs. Shale had us all come in early to go over the rough spots. This involved a lot of glaring on her part and a solemn promise from the cast that we would not alter the script to the point that the play no longer resembled West Side Story. As it turned out, she didn’t need to go through all the worry. The play went perfectly for the next two nights. No one forgot their lines, messed up their dance numbers, or died in ways other than prescribed in the script. In one way, it was a shame we hadn’t been able to pull off a similar performance on the first night, when all of the cameras and the agent had come. But on the other hand, maybe Jordan and I would have never worked out things between us if the play had run smoothly that night. Or maybe Jordan’s parents wouldn’t have stopped fighting if they hadn’t been so eager to make their son feel better about his mistakes. Maybe sometimes you need things to go rotten in order for things to go well. After all, timing is everything.
A Note on the Author
Janette Rallison was in various dramatic productions in high school. She loved being in the spotlight and actually wanted to be an actress—until it occurred to her that part of that process involved moving to California and being a starving artist. Being too attached to the finer things in life (such as food and housing), she decided to settle down, raise a family, and write books instead.
Ms. Rallison is the author of several other popular books for teens. She lives and works in Chandler, Arizona, with her husband and five kids, where she continues to dream up book titles that use a whole lot of commas.
Visit her Web site at www.janetterallison.com.
Books by Janette Rallison
Playing the Field
All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School
Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws
Fame, Glory, and Other Things on My To Do List
It’s a Mall World After All
Revenge of the Cheerleaders
The characters from All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School are back, only this time it’s payback.
Chelsea has been humiliated by Rick and his anti-cheerleader rock songs once too often. Now it’s time for revenge. Two can play this game, and Chelsea plans on showing Rick what it really means to be “Dangerously Blonde.”
Read on for a sneak peek at Janette Rallison’s new romantic comedy, Revenge of the Cheerleaders.
Chapter 4
I wore my cheerleading uniform to school the next day. We wear them on game days as a reminder for the students to come see the game. I always feel on display when I wear it. Somehow it transforms me from Chelsea the normal person into someone who’s upbeat and peppy. You’re not supposed to be depressed while wearing a cheerleading uniform. You can’t have a bad hair day or skimp on your makeup. It’s like going to school as Barbie. Anyway, I didn’t really feel like smiling and being full of school spirit, because as soon as I got to school I ran into Mike and Naomi strolling down the hallway holding hands.
He never held hands with me in school. They passed by me in a wave of coolness, and I walked on, feeling alone and acutely aware that the only guy who’d spoken to me today was Samantha’s boyfriend, Logan. And all he’d said was, “Hey Chelsea, where’s Samantha?”
Logan is so smitten with her that my hair could catch on fire and he wouldn’t notice.
I could have gone and flirted with some of the football players to show Mike that I didn’t care about him anymore. That’s what any other girl would have done. But I didn’t feel like it. A lot of the guys on the team had known Mike was seeing Naomi behind my back and covered for him so I wouldn’t find out.
How could I trust any of them after that?
Lately when I cheered and yelled, “Go team!” I mentally added where I wanted them to go.
So anyway, I didn’t feel all that peppy come pep assembly time, but luckily Samantha was in charge of calling people down from the bleachers to participate in the games we’d set up. I just had to stand there, clap, and concentrate on not looking at the spot where Mike and Naomi sat. Then came our dance number to “Be True to Your School.” It was the last thing we had planned for the assembly, the thing that was supposed to infuse the crowd with school spirit.
We stood in formation out on the gym floor. I told myself not to be nervous, even though the whole school sat in front of me watching. I would not trip. I would not accidentally fling one of my pom-poms into the crowd. We’d practiced this so many times that as soon as the music started, the dance moves would come to me automatically.
One of the J.V. cheerleaders stood by my boom box, waiting for Samantha’s signal to start the music. Samantha walked to the microphone and smiled up at the audience. “This is a song that tells how we all feel about our school. If you know the words, sing along, and let’s show the team how we feel about Greyhound pride.” She walked back to our formation, then nodded to the J.V. cheerleader.
I clung to my pom-poms, already hearing the first few beats of the song in my mind. But they didn’t come. What blared into the gym wasn’t a Beach Boys tune at all. It took me a few moments to react, to understand, and by then the crowd was already hooting and clapping. Instead of my Beach Boys CD, one of Rick’s CDs was in my boom box.
In between the howling of the electric guitar, Rick’s voice sang out, “School is a waste of time! School work corrodes your mind! Who needs teachers any more? Show ’em what trash bins are for.”
All that came out before the J.V. cheerleader realized that this wasn’t the song we had meant to play, and she needed to shut off the music.
Amid the noise from the crowd, everyone in the squad turned to me. “Where did that come from?” Samantha asked.
“What happened to our CD?” Rachel said at the same time.
Aubrie ran over to the boom box, I guess to check and make sure that our Beach Boys song wasn’t somewhere hidden in it.
I felt my face flush. “
I don’t know. I never took our CD out of my boom box last night so I didn’t bother to check to see if it was still there . . . Rick must have switched them after I left.”
From the bleachers some of Rick’s friends sang out the words to his song. Several teachers hurried over to stop them but that didn’t keep the audience from joining in. After all, we had told people to sing along. Across the gym at the boom box, Aubrie held up Rick’s CD and talked with Mrs. Jones, who kept shaking her head angrily. Then she strode over to us. “Well, it looks like you’ll have to do the dance without the music.”
We all glanced at one another. None of us wanted to stand in front of the school and do a dance number without music. It would be like synchronized miming or something.
“We won’t be able to keep track of the beats without the music,” I said. “We’ll get out of synch and it will look strange. Let’s just perform the number next pep assembly.”
Mrs. Jones’s voice came out in a clipped rhythm. “Tonight at the game our team will have to improvise when things get tough. Do you want to show them and the entire school that you’re not willing to do the same?” She waved us back to our positions. “If you can’t do the number without music, I’ll go to the microphone and sing it for you.”
“But . . .” I said, then looked at Samantha for help because I was too surprised to think of anything else to say.
Samantha said, “We don’t mind waiting. It’ll be better with the real music.”
Mrs. Jones put her hands on her hips. “We are not ending this pep assembly by broadcasting a song about how school corrodes the mind.” She waved a hand as though to wipe away any more protests. “It will be fine. I know the song by heart.”
What could we say to that? We walked to our places in stunned silence—well, silence except for the crowd, who hooted and clapped when they saw us retake our positions. Crowds can sense when humiliation is about to happen.
Mrs. Jones walked to the microphone and took it in her hand. “I want you all to join me in singing, ‘Be True to Your School.’ It’s for our team.” Then she started singing.
No one joined her. I’m not sure whether it was because they didn’t know the words (probably) or whether they just had more sense (also probably).
I’d like to say that Mrs. Jones is a great singer, but that would be lying. She sang the first few lines off-key and from there plunged into what could only be described as a rendition of the Beach Boys being pummeled by waves.
The only advantage to doing a dance number while your advisor butchers a song, is that everyone is so focused on her, they don’t pay much attention to what you’re doing. Rachel kept lagging behind the rest of us, I assume because she’d gone into shock or something, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Then halfway through the first chorus Mrs. Jones stopped, then repeated the line she’d already sung—this is certain to throw off dancers, and half of us repeated the move that went with that line while the other half went on to the next move.
Which goes to show you that even when you don’t think things can get worse, they really can.
She stumbled over a few more lines, repeated another one, and then stopped. It was clear she’d forgotten the words. It wasn’t clear what we were supposed to do about it. After that “You have to improvise when things get tough” lecture I didn’t expect her to quit, but I was a little afraid she’d start on another song altogether, and then we’d have to, I don’t know, improvise Rockettes-style leg kicks in the background just for something to do while she sang.
Without thinking long enough to talk myself out of it, I jogged up to the microphone and stood by Mrs. Jones. She may have forgotten the lyrics, but I hadn’t. I sang out and my voice stayed surprisingly steady. Mrs. Jones stopped singing all together and let me do a solo. Thank goodness I’d taken choir for three years. My voice never cracked.
A verse and a chorus later it was done. Everyone clapped, although this may have been because they were glad the whole thing was over.
I walked back to the group and it hit me, really hit me, that I’d just sung an a cappella solo in front of the whole school—friends, enemies, and ex-boyfriends alike. I’d probably be called Beach Girl for the rest of my senior year.
I was so going to kill Rick and Adrian for this.
After the assembly the principal called the cheerleading squad into her office. We stood in a line—like soldiers in miniskirts—while she lectured us about playing anti-school music in a school-sponsored pep assembly. She asked us if “Show ’em what trash bins are for,” was some sort of threat against the teachers and then quoted, word for word, the nonviolence policy the school had. She kept saying that the school took threats against people very seriously. I tried to explain that it had all been a mix-up, but she listened to my explanation with her lips pressed together in an angry frown, like she didn’t believe me.
Talk about no sense of humor. The rest of the school was laughing about the incident, but no, not the principal.
Then she hauled Rick into the office to ask him about everything. Any other guy would have just fessed up that he and Adrian used my boom box to play his music, and they forgot to put my Beach Boys CD back, but not Rick. He was all, “I don’t know why Chelsea played my song at the pep assembly. I never thought she was a fan of my music, but it looks like her taste in bands is improving.” Then he gave me the thumbs-up sign. “Rock on, Chels.”
Which made me think it hadn’t been accidental at all. While the principal wrapped up her lecture with a stern warning that as cheerleaders we were ambassadors of the school and nothing like this had better happen again, I went over all the facts in my mind. We had a stereo system in the living room that had better speakers than my boom box. If the maroon-haired duo had wanted to listen to one of Rick’s CDs, why had they chosen my boom box? Also, Adrian had a boom box in her room, why not use that one? And why lie about it to the principal?
The only reason I could see was that Rick wanted to make a fool of me at the pep assembly and now he wanted to get me in trouble.
As we all left the principal’s office he turned back to me and said, “Hey, sorry this happened. I know how annoying it is when you’re in front of a crowd, trying to perform and the music just disappears. Like say, when someone unplugs your band equipment in the middle of a concert.”
“I didn’t do that,” I said. Which was technically true. I hadn’t done it; the stranger I was chasing down had.
“Right. We’re both innocent. And by the way, I’m innocent of anything else that happens too.” He walked off before I could respond. Which was probably for the best. I mean, there is a big difference between accidentally unplugging someone’s equipment as you run by, and purposely setting out to sabotage, humiliate, and then get a whole squad of cheerleaders in trouble. Rachel and Aubrie hadn’t even been at his dance. So why take revenge on them?
And what exactly did he mean that he was innocent of anything else that happened? Was that some sort of threat?
At lunch Samantha and I explained to Aubrie and Rachel what had happened at the dance. I pushed my salad around my plate without eating it. “So not only is he dating Adrian, now apparently he’s trying to ruin my life, one painful day at a time.”
Samantha pulled an apple from her lunch sack. “But you sounded really good up there singing.”
“Did I?”
Aubrie nodded. “I wish I could sing that well.”
My frustration with Rick momentarily evaporated while I considered this. I’d taken choir up until junior year, but to tell you the truth, I’d only signed up for it to get out of taking orchestra. I’d seen those flute and clarinet players wiping the spit out of their instruments and I’m sorry, but anything that involves large quantities of spit doesn’t appeal to me. Mr. Metzerol, the music teacher, had never really forgiven me for not joining the show choir, but cheerleading practice was more important.
Still, it was nice to know that I hadn’t made a total fool of myself. So there, Rick.
; Rachel took a sip of her milk, considering. “I don’t think his song had anything to do with getting back at you. I think he just wanted to advertise his party.”
“What party?” I asked.
My friends exchanged glances. Rachel leaned toward me. “You haven’t heard? Rick’s band is playing at the Hilltop Friday night. He rented out the place for his party. He’s practically invited the entire senior class.”
“His friends are passing out flyers about it,” Aubrie said. “Adrian gave me one.”
Now that she mentioned it, I had seen people carrying around pieces of blue paper, but I hadn’t asked anyone what they were, and everybody who talked to me in classes were too busy commenting on my assembly performance (Hey, when does the music video come out?) to mention anything else.
Aubrie took the flyer from her notebook and handed it to me. It showed a photocopied picture of Rick and two other guys standing with electric guitars. Blue Rick, by the way, looked about as normal as the real Rick. The flyer read, “Come dance today to tomorrow’s hottest band: Rick and the Deadbeats!”
“They’re moving out all the tables for the night and turning the restaurant into a dance floor,” Rachel said. “Everyone is talking about it.”
“Everyone is going,” Aubrie added.
I put my fork down on my lunch tray. “To Rick’s party? How did this happen? Since when did he become cool?”
Rachel stirred her spaghetti around with her fork. “Since he made you and Mrs. Jones sing a duet in front of the whole school and the rest of the cheerleading squad dance to it.” She gave a small grunt. “Like I’m not going to have recurring nightmares about this day for the rest of my life.”