Chapter 7

Nothing surprising. There are normal girls on the Red Foxes, and unfortunately there are also girls with delusions of grandeur. We’ve run into exactly those, and Amber doesn’t stay silent, turning on the recorder and getting ready to record.

“No, apparently he couldn’t. The interview time was arranged in advance, and Miss Reese agreed to it. I don’t see a problem, Harding. We’re not planning to hang around here until midnight waiting for your fangs to grow in and your pom-poms to turn into brooms just because someone woke up her inner bitch. I, for one, am starving and want to go home to my chocolate cheesecake. So let’s get started already.”

But getting started proves impossible. Kate deliberately drags it out, making us stand and wait under the Foxes’ targeted stares until she deigns to come over. Of course, everyone on the cheer squad already knows my ex-boyfriend is now her current one, and once again I hear hurtful whispers and snickers aimed at me.

Amber hears them too, because she suddenly leans toward me and whispers, annoyed:

“Listen, Ashley, if I ask her right now why she’s such an idiot, do you think she’ll answer?”

I sigh with a heavy heart, but answer completely sincerely:

“If only. I don’t think she knows herself.”

“Then maybe I should tell her, since she isn’t aware? What’s she going to do to me? I have pepper spray in my purse. Also, I can ‘accidentally’ fall on her. I have terrible coordination, and I get dizzy in large spaces. Just imagine her fragile little bones cracking.”

“Don’t, Ambi. She’s perfectly capable of ruining your last year at school. Why do you need that? Trust me, I know Kate well. She’s spoiled and vindictive. You really don’t need this.”

I hate being here, Phoebe has completely hunched over behind my back, and I honestly warn the whole Red Foxes team, camera in hand:

“Girls, we’re not going to wait. You have two minutes to take the group photo and give us the interview, as agreed. After that, Couch and I are leaving. Right?” I ask my friend, and she confirms:

“Exactly!”

Nobody wants to deal with Secretary Moran, a woman of about sixty with a nasty temper and old-fashioned ideas about how upperclassmen should behave in an educational institution, so Kate calls over the whole cheer squad. Clapping her hands loudly, she asks them to stand for the group photo, and she and her friends take their places in the center.

She smiles dazzlingly and nastily, saying impatiently:

“Fine, Wilson, hurry up and take your picture, then get out of our practice with Couch. I intend to finish it as soon as possible. Unlike certain losers, I have big plans for tonight.”

“Who are you making plans with, Harding? Tell us, we’re interested too,” Tamara asks like a sly cat, and all three of them laugh brightly when Kate answers:

“Renton, of course, girls. Sean intends to confess something to me today. Silly boy. He thinks his confession is a secret to me.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s head over heels in love with you!”

“And I can already see you together at the Winter Ball. Sean is such a sweetheart, Kate. He can’t take his eyes off you. They say his ex-girlfriend is desperate to get him back, dreaming about it day and night. But that’s impossible. He could barely stand her and only dated her out of pity until he dumped her.”

My face goes white, and I freeze in place, feeling the blood drain from my muscles and take away my ability to move. Forget the picture. It looks like I overestimated myself, and now I’m barely holding back from cowardly running out of the gym. Disappearing from school and seeing no one.

In that second, I don’t want anything.

God, please don’t let me burst into tears in front of them from the hurt. The lump in my throat makes it hard to breathe, and I can’t say anything. Kate and Sean’s betrayal still echoes too painfully in my soul.

Out of pity? Could barely stand me?

I still can’t get used to the thought: How could he? Renton!

“Calm down, Ashley, okay?” Amber’s fingers find my hand and squeeze tight. “What a vicious little doll. She’s provoking you on purpose. No, wait. Don’t you dare take their picture. There is something in this shot I really, really don’t like.”

Couch takes a step forward and pretends to study the bright group of Red Foxes gathered in front of us with great importance.

“One second, girls! We’ll do everything now!” she promises, raising a friendly thumbs-up. “We just need to fix a few things. Not everyone in this shot is working for me.”

“What do you mean, Couch?” Tamara asks, arching a haughty brow. She’s a tall brunette with two ponytails and one of Kate’s longtime friends.

“It’s all about your facial expressions,” Amber explains calmly. “You all look kind of mean, and your eyes are miserable. It’s obvious you’re dieting. Let me guess…” She pretends to think. “Bingo!” She lifts a finger out of habit, as if struck by an idea. “Did Kate call you fat cows again? Little piggies crying out for liposuction? Poor things,” she gasps, “she would. Cynthia, you really do look terrible. Better stand farther away from Harding and stop hugging her, because next to you she looks so skinny it’s like you drank all the fat out of her and don’t plan to stop. Kate, the carrot diet is bad for your face. You’re so yellow. Even your teeth are getting spots. Ashley’s camera will definitely show that. Wilson doesn’t know how to hide the obvious. Diaz,” she says to Tamara, “could you stand in the second row? We need someone with boobs. We just photographed the boys.”

Amber asks them to wait another minute, slips her backpack off her shoulder, and takes out a chocolate bar. She unwraps it, bites into it in front of everyone, and rolls her eyes in bliss.

“Oh my God, girls, this is pure bliss. Sorry, I can’t live without them. Almond-flavored milk chocolate is my personal fetish and absolute heaven. I’m so sorry you can’t have it. Nothing is worse than fat cheerleaders.”

Amber steps aside, turns to me, and graciously allows, smiling from ear to ear:

“Now take the picture, Ashley. Done. Our little Foxes are such sweethearts. All that’s left is to ask them to say cheeese.”

“Girls, you are something else!” Phoebe marvels when all of us leave the gym and head back to the newsroom. “They hate you! What’s going to happen now? They were standing there so sour, like they’d choked on a piece of lime. And Kate…” the intern bursts out laughing, “she turned green! Ha!”

“What’s going to happen?” I shrug. “Well, Moran will try to behead us, but Zachary will put the picture somewhere on the back page of the paper and save everyone,” I answer.

Remembering the faces in my camera lens, I can’t hold back a laugh or stop myself from saying to Amber:

“Ambi, you looked like a real magician. You worked that chocolate bar so well they swallowed their tongues. Kate definitely didn’t expect that kind of nerve. Especially about her dentist.”

Amazingly, the day doesn’t end that badly. Much better than it started, and Amber proudly lifts her nose: