cheerleading classes, but to no avail.
I went to the girl's locker room to change. It reeked of raspberry body spray. A few girls were primping in front of the full length wall mirror on one side, one of them using a flat iron on her hair. The practicality of styling hair before we all got sweaty made no sense to me. I often wondered if I had been born too much of a tomboy, even though I thought I had the basics of primping down.
I found the locker with my name taped on it, misspelled as usual. I was not a font. As I changed, I overheard two girls gossiping on the bench by me. Great, and in the worst possible class they could be in.
Lainey Ford and Madison Taylor — the exact two people I didn't want to see ever again in my lifetime. The most popular girls in school. Actually, Lainey was the most popular, and Madison orbited her like a loyal planet around a sun, fully aware that anyone could replace her.
Between them, they had enough fake blonde hair to make a wig store. Lainey's family was obscenely rich, and could probably buy out every business in town. Her father already owned several of them, including the tanning salon, which was why Lainey's skin glowed like an orange creamsicle. I knew both of their parents were card-carrying members of Thornhill.
"I know Henry likes me already," Lainey bragged, fixing the concealer underneath her eyes as Madison held up a compact mirror. Gossiping about some boy, as usual.
"How do you know that?" Madison asked. The silence that followed indicated Madison's ignorance. Lainey apparently wanted her to stew in it.
"Because we're perfect for each other," Lainey said simply.
I looked over at her as she sat up a little straighter and tilted up the chin of her heart-shaped face.
"Have you ever seen such a hot guy?" she asked rhetorically. "There's no way I'm letting anyone else in this school touch him. The first girl that gets near him, I'll go ballistic."
He must be something, I thought, throwing my street clothes in the locker and spinning the combination lock. Lainey had been in love with Ambrose Slaughter, the aptly named school bully, for years. I figured I'd hate this Henry, if she was so keen on him. Another idiot more concerned with the label on his jeans than the brain in his head. Another addition the school didn't need.
I walked out of the locker room and into the brightly lit gym. The only changes I noticed were new basketball hoops, but I'm sure our wealthy benefactors had dumped a bunch of money into something. Oh well, it was theirs to spend. It didn't help me to keep internally complaining about it, no matter how unfair it seemed to me.
Coach Fletcher had also been my gym teacher last year. A more utterly humorless woman did not exist. Gym class was a battlefield, and we were the soldiers in training.
"Sit down below the bleachers," she instructed us. We complied, sitting cross-legged and waiting for instruction. When everyone was seated, she regaled us with the essentialness of gym to a well-rounded academic career.
"This isn't a goof off class," she barked. "I know some of you may think, "Ha ha, it's phys ed, we can play around." Well, cut that idea right out. Physical education is incredibly important to your well being. It's essential you learn how to be part of a team, not to mention gain coordination and stamina."
I squinted up at the round fluorescent lights. They seemed to be a million miles away, and I felt microscopic. I was still half-asleep, and I rubbed my tired eyes.
"First up today is the fitness test," Coach said. "For any of you who weren't here last year, at the start of every year, each one of you performs a series of physical tests so I can determine what skill level you fall into."
The results of the test didn't seem to make much of a difference in the activities we ended up doing, but it was a Hawthorne formality. Just a check mark on a form.
Situps were first. I could make it up to thirty before I had any issue. My neck started to burn and I dropped back down. Lainey and Madison were blowing through what seemed like hundreds of them. When the time came for pushups, most of the girls opted to do them against the wall, giggling about their boobs.
Then we lined up and had