“It was retarded,” said Erica with her characteristic bitchiness.
Terry sat with the gang at a table indoors for lunch. Cerise are her nerd friends were all the way at the other end of the caf but Terry still had a decent view of her blonde head as she talked to those losers. She seemed to be in a pretty good mood.
“You carayzay, beyotch!” laughed Andrew. “It was cool. Like a gym class mutiny!”
“God, whatever,” Erica rolled her ugly eyes.
“You’re just pissed ‘cause you didn’t think of it,” said Terry.
“Seriously,” agreed Karine. “I mean it’s what you wanted, Erica. You were trying to get out of the whole square dancing thing.”
“You wish you could’ve been the one to walk out first!” smirked Terry.
“Yeah seriously, it was pretty cool,” nodded Steven.
“We got out of gym anyway,” agreed Christina.
“Yeah wow, we got out of one class. Like this stupid petition is gonna do anything,” Erica snarked.
“It might. Sarah Wong wrote it,” said Karine.
“Oh, so the Asian Sensation wrote a little petition, did she? God, whatever, like that matters.”
Terry would never hit a girl but every once in a while his hatred for Erica made him wish she was a guy so he could kick her in the nuts.
“Actually, it does matter,” Karine persisted. “She like runs student council and like, Principle Lewis totally loves her. Everyone loves her, Erica. All the teachers, all the administration, everyone.”
“So she’s a fucking loser, what’s your point?” asked Erica.
“She’s not a loser! You don’t even know her. She’s actually really cool. I hang out with her in Drama all the time. We both do,” Karine gestured towards Andrew. “She’s totally fun.”
“Oh, of course, your little drama society. Fun times reading Shakespeare and doing improv. God, whatever, Karine.”
“My point is that this stupid petition might work and we might get out of square dancing and that’s like…”
“Good!” Terry enthused.
“Exactly,” Karine smirked.
Chrissy and Steven nodded their agreement.
“Yeah man, it was classic. I mean, Cherry bomb telling off Rosenbaum? Dude, that rhymes…” Andrew smiled. “I’m totally becoming a rapper.”
“Oh yeah, it was so cool,” Erica snarked. “I have a 90% average, look at me.”
“93,” corrected Chrissy.
“Fucking loser,” said Erica, making it completely obvious that she was a jealous harpy bitch.
“She’s a good talker. Cherry I mean,” said Chrissy.
“Yeah,” Karine agreed. “You gotta give her that. Maybe she’s not a complete loser after all.”
Terry cocked an eyebrow at Karine and she smiled at him sheepishly. Could she actually be coming around on Cerise? He sure hoped so.
When Cerise and Karl and them got to their wall after their little lunch time ritual of running around the school, Sarah was waiting with a clipboard. She showed it to them and they all signed the petition, making lame jokes about signing in blood and whatnot. Karl actually read the petition before signing it, which either meant he didn’t trust what it was about, or he was genuinely curious to see what she’d written.
“It’s well written,” he remarked after handing it back to Sarah.
She thanked him neutrally, making sure not to let on that she actually valued his opinion.
“So you think this’ll actually work?” he asked.
“I guess we’ll see.”
“I would’a thought you wanted to square dance.”
“Gimme a break, Karl. I’m not delayed, I’m just a joiner,” she smirked and then walked off with her clipboard and pens.
Mel and Steph each had a copy of the petition and they were charged with circulating it throughout the cafeteria. Sarah walked throughout the rest of the school, finding stragglers. She’d just finished in the fishbowl and walked up to the second floor, where she saw Porta-potty chick sitting in front of a locker, staring off into space. Sarah considered ignoring her since one less signature wouldn’t really matter but Porta-potty was a grad, and it would be cool to have each and every Sec 5 signature on the list.
Sarah tried to be nice to everybody and she felt an appropriate degree of sympathy for the girl who got stuck in a portable toilet but she couldn’t help approaching her tentatively. This girl was just so gross. You’d think that with a nickname like Porta-potty chick she’d make an effort to wash her hair once in a while. She seriously had b.o. and her clothes were like a living example of fuggery.
“Sign the petition to ban the grad square dance?” she crouched down in front of Porta-potty and shoved the clipboard under her nose.
The girl looked at the list for so long that Sarah started to wonder if she was deaf. But finally she spoke without looking up.
“This is the thing Cerise Laframboise started, right?”
“Yeah.”
“She was like… talking and stuff.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“She didn’t use to be like that.”
“Like what?” Sarah was genuinely curious now.
“Like all talking and stuff.”
“What?”
“She gets mad a lot now.”
“Ok,” sighed Sarah, shifting her weight onto her heels.
“It’s kinda weird.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Sarah humoured her. “So you gonna sign?”
“I guess,” she said, not reaching for one of the pens that Sarah held out to her.
Sarah regarded her and wondered what to do. “Did you walk out with us? I mean in gym?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
“Uh, I dunno. I sorta promised I wouldn’t.”
“Promised who? Rosenbaum?”
“No, like, I dunno. God I guess. I sorta promised I wouldn’t do stuff… that like, involved her. Or, I mean, anyone.”
All Sarah could do was stare at her. “Ok well… you gonna sign?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Well do you wanna square dance?”
“No.”
“Then sign.”
The girl sighed and took one of the pens, scribbling her name on the sheet. Sarah gingerly took back the pen and petition and stood up, looking down at the poor girl. She was seriously the most messed up freak ever. Sarah felt sorry for her but also knew she would never, ever talk to her again.
Cerise joined Sarah in the auditorium for Drama class and found her bristling with excitement.
“Cerise! Everyone in Sec 5 has signed! Well, everyone who’s here today. Even that porta-potty chick who used to stalk you.”
“Shauna?”
“Yeah. Is she still stalking you?”
Cerise sighed and wished this topic had never come up. “No. And she never did really.”
“God she’s so weird.”
“I know. Did you like, talk to her?”
“Like it would even be possible to have a conversation with her. I mean no offence but she is seriously messed up.”
Cerise nodded in agreement as Karine joined them and asked if a lot of people were signing.
“Totally!” Sarah beamed.
“That’s so cool!”
“I know!” squealed Sarah. “It’ll be so awesome if it works!”
Karine looked at Cerise and smiled slightly. “Yeah, it’ll be pretty cool.”
When Mr. Weir came in he asked about the petition, which just proved how much ground it was building if even the teachers knew about it. At first he joked that they could all benefit from some square dancing but Karine forced him to admit that it was an outdated tradition.
He went on to announce that the auditions would be taking place this Friday after school. They all had to have monologues prepared. Karine and Andrew whispered about renting the movie version and picking out the best monologues and Sarah and Marla had the same idea. Cerise wondered if she could invite herself to join them. Then she wondered if the boys would watch the movie with her. Then she figured she’d just rent it alone. Finally she decided to simply read the script.
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