How To Be A Perfect Girl (25 page)

Val laughed, “Yeah, right. Like we could do
that.”

“You haven’t seen our budget yet,” Alex
pointed out, “If we spent it all on flying Bono out here and
setting him up in a great hotel, who knows, he might just do it. I
hear he’s big into charity.”

“I didn’t know we were a charity case,”
Jenny sniped.

“What harm could there be in trying though?”
Alex asked; every one of the freshmen but Jenny nodded
enthusiastically.

“But what would we do for the Homecoming
Assembly?” Ella asked; the freshmen were responsible for setting up
the assembly as well as the dance, which took the form of a
competition between the different grade levels. “Like what would
the different classes do? Last year I hear they did superheroes:
the seniors were Superman, and the juniors were Batman, and so on.
So what would we do for that if the theme was ‘Irish’?”

Val shrugged, “We could do different Celtic
deities. Like—well, I don’t know any. But you get the point.”

“That would be awesome!” Grant declared, “As
long as we don’t get saddled with a stupid one.”

“I still don’t see the connection,” Jenny
announced to no one in particular.

“Our school colors are green and gold; it
works,” Val explained.

They continued discussing
the possibilities; everyone seemed to be excited for the assembly
and dance by the time Student Gov finished, even though they were
still a month away. She was surprised that Avery didn’t come to
Student Gov; the senior didn’t seem like the type of girl who
usually missed something so important to her.
She hasn’t retaliated for the Porter rumors yet,
Val thought, worrying what Avery might be
planning.

Since the freshmen were only brainstorming
anyway, Val decided they should go home and reconvene on Wednesday
to discuss whatever new ideas they all could come up with. Val’s
hopes of arriving early to soccer practice dimmed when Colin
accosted her on her way out of the cafeteria.

“What are you planning on doing for
Homecoming?” he asked.

“We’re going with an Irish theme, cause it
fits with our school colors.”

Colin cocked his head, “But our mascot’s a
knight—“

“Yeah, but I’ve never really gotten that.
I’ve seen leprechauns with gold and green, but I’ve never seen a
knight look like that.”

“You’ve never seen a real knight,” Colin
pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s true. But I’ve seen them in
movies.”

Colin laughed, “Oh, excuse me then. If
you’ve never seen it in a movie there must never have been gold and
green knights.”

“Hold up, are you saying there were actually
gold and green knights?”

“Naw, that would be stupid,” Colin grinned,
“I mean, have you seen our mascot? He looks dumber than the Gentry
Lion.”

Val nodded, “Well there you are. That’s why
we went with Irish. We were thinking that like for the assembly
each class could be a God.”

“Do you know who the Irish gods are?”

“No,” Val admitted, “But we know they have
them. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a learning experience.”

Colin frowned, “You know, the three years
I’ve done this the class competition mascots have always been pop
culture icons. Like superheroes, or famous musicians—that one was
cool, cause the Seniors had Kiss and they all used face paint
and—anyways—I guess what I’m saying is no one really knows who the
Irish Gods are.”

“Yeah, but—I don’t know, I think it’s worth
trying. I’ll look up the Irish Gods though, and see if there are at
least four good ones.”

“Maybe—You wanna hear my suggestion?” Val
nodded, and Colin continued, “I would do famous mythical creatures
related to Ireland. Like leprechauns, and druids, and—I can’t think
of any others, but you get the point. Just about everyone knows
what leprechauns are, and druids are easy enough to
explain—honestly the seniors will probably choose to be
leprechauns.” Although the freshmen were allowed to select the
Homecoming Assembly and Dance theme, the selection of mascots
within that theme was ordered from oldest to youngest, meaning
seniors always got first pick.

“Are fairies Irish?” Val asked.

Colin shrugged, “They probably had fairies.
That’s a good idea; and you only need one more, then.” He looked at
his wrist; for the first time, Val noticed the very expensive watch
attached to it. “Whoa, you have to go to soccer practice,
right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Better go, if you don’t wanna be late.”

“Oh, alright. See you Wednesday!” Val walked
toward the locker rooms; she checked the time on her phone and
increased her pace. There were only five more minutes before the
practice was set to start.

Even though she was the
last girl out of the locker room, Val made it to the soccer field
with a few seconds left. Mr. Swinn nodded as she arrived, “Alright,
everyone’s here. I brought our new jerseys—they’re here somewhere.
Oh wait,” the coach frowned as he looked at the parking lot, “I
might have left them in my car. Hang on girls, I’ll be back in just
a minute. Run a few laps around the field while I’m gone.” He
jogged away from the gathered team; Avery took off first, bounding
towards the white line that marked the soccer field’s edge. Val was
close behind, along with the rest of the team; she caught up with
Avery halfway through their first lap. The older girl scowled and
ignored Val, who was fine with the response.
At least she didn’t try to trip me or anything.

Val fell back on the third lap, even though
she still managed to finish with the first group of girls. Val and
a couple of others panted with hands on knees while they waited for
everyone else to finish.

Avery strutted up to Val, “Awh, too much for
you?” She smirked, “Maybe you should take up a less demanding
sport. I hear the bowling team has an open spot.”

Val stood up straight then, and forced her
breathing back to normal, “This isn’t too much for me. In fact, I
was just taking a break before my second set of laps.” She glanced
at the parking lot to make sure Coach was still far enough that she
wouldn’t delay practice by running more laps, and then took
off.

It quickly became clear that running more
than she had to was a bad idea. Val developed a stitch in her side
a quarter of the way through her fourth lap, when Scarlett joined
her.

“Didn’t want you to be the only one running
a fourth lap,” Scarlett explained.

“Thanks.” Val’s normally confident stride
had fallen to a lope as they started on their fifth lap. To her
surprise, she noticed the entire team start out after her and
Scarlett.

“What are they doing?” Val asked
Scarlett.

The redhead shook her head, “I dunno.
Following our example, I guess.”

When they finished their sixth lap around
the field, Val again struggled to control her breathing. Avery
finished a half minute later; somehow she didn’t look tired at all.
“Good idea, running extra laps. Good way to sort out all the girls
who are in shape versus those who—desperately need to lay off the
twinkies,” she looked at Val’s stomach meaningfully.

“I’ve never eaten a
twinkie in my life!” Val rolled her eyes, “Besides, I
know
I weigh less than
you.”

Avery ignored the dig; she turned to the
team, the majority of whom had finished their extra laps. “Let’s
all be sure and thank Val for her wonderful suggestion! Great idea,
Val!” there was no hint of sarcasm in her voice; Val noticed
several angry looks from her teammates.

“Yes, great idea,” Mr. Swinn agreed,
“Although the purpose of a pre-practice jog is really more to wake
you girls up than to tire you out—“ he waved a hand dismissively,
“Oh well. Here, have a look at your jerseys!” he held up a green
jersey trimmed with shimmering gold; Val’s immediate impression was
that under any other circumstances she wouldn’t be caught dead
wearing such a garish ensemble, but she held her tongue.

“Wow, great jerseys, Coach!” Avery cooed,
“Is that mine?”

“Yes ma’am. Number one, like always.” He
handed the jersey to Avery, and pulled out more jerseys, calling
out names as he handed them out.

“Hunter!” Val stepped forward; “You have
your choice of a couple of numbers, since you’re one of our
Freshmen. You can be zero-zero or—“ Coach looked down at his feet,
where several jerseys lay strewn, “—or sixty-nine.”

“Oh—sixty-nine will be fine,” Val didn’t
enjoy the prospect of being zero-zero; it had always seemed like a
non-number for sports to her, since single zero was also a legal
number. She took the plastic package with her jersey in it from Mr.
Swinn, who continued handing out the rest of the packages.

Val ripped the plastic open, and was
momentarily surprised to find another jersey below the mainly green
one. This one was—if it was possible—even worse; it featured gold
as the primary color, with green trimming. Val hid a look of
disgust, and looked at Scarlett, who was unwrapping her own jerseys
a few feet away. They shared a look that revealed the other girl
felt just the same as Val about their jerseys; Scarlett shrugged
and traded her old jersey for the new one. Val slipped the green
jersey on over her other clothes.

Once everyone had put their jerseys on, Mr.
Swinn gave them some drills to work on. “Who here can juggle?”
Everyone’s hand went up. “Good, good. And how many of you can
juggle more than a hundred times?” All hands but Val’s and Avery’s
went down; Avery flushed with anger when their eyes met.

“Prove it,” Mr. Swinn tossed them each a
ball from a large sack he had brought along with the jerseys. Avery
caught hers, but Val dropped the one Coach tossed at her; Avery and
a couple of other girls laughed loudly. “And the rest of you,” Mr.
Swinn emptied the bag of balls in front of him, “Grab a ball, grab
a partner to keep count, and get juggling.”

Val stayed where she was, and so did Avery;
Mr. Swinn motioned for them to start once the rest of the team had
spread out. Val dropped the ball and kicked it up with a knee,
falling into a familiar rhythm as she kept it in the air for ten
bounces, then twenty, and thirty. Around twenty-five bounces she
slipped up and her ball fell nearly to the ground, but a well-place
kick sent it shooting back into the air. Val headed it and then
returned it to her knees. She managed to get to seventy before a
sideways knee sent her ball spiraling in the wrong direction; Val
desperately kicked to the side, and even succeeded in touching the
ball, but it fell to the ground a few feet away. Avery smiled as
Val walked over to retrieve it; her gloating was cut short when her
own ball went flying toward the far goal. “Sorry, it slipped away
from me,” she said to Mr. Swinn before moving to retrieve it.

They continued juggling for a long time; Val
managed to reach a hundred touches twice. Avery only accomplished
the feat once, although she swore that Coach had miscounted when he
told her she’d made it to ninety-eight before dropping the ball.
“Impressive,” Mr. Swinn commented. Then he blew his whistle to
signal the end of the drill and set them to a passing drill very
similar to the one from last Wednesday. After the passing drill,
practice ended with a skirmish, as Val had come to expect. She
ended up on the opposite team from Avery, and the older girl was
not gentle with her slide tackles, one of which sent Val sprawling
face-down into the grass.

“Hey!” Coach yelled, “I shouldn’t have to
give out yellow cards in practice! For God’s sake, Avery, take it
easy!” She didn’t though; Val had quite an excellent collection of
bruises when practice finished.

In the locker room, Avery used the locker
right next to Val’s; it wasn’t her usual spot, and Val found it
disconcerting to be in such a vulnerable position right next to a
girl who obviously was not fond of her.

Avery waited until Val had stripped down to
her underwear, and then said, “So you like to steal boyfriends,
huh?” her wild look dared Val to defy her.

“I didn’t take anyone’s boyfriend,” Val
gulped and resumed changing, trying to seem calm.

“That’s not what I—or any of the rest of
us—heard. Isn’t that right, Selin?”

A stocky girl with jet-black hair responded,
“It’s not what I heard. I heard you’re quite the little
jezebel.”

Val stared wide-eyed at
the girl,
what did I do to make
her
mad at me?
“Nothing happened. You can even ask Porter!” she
pleaded.

Avery laughed, “Of course you’d both deny
it. But something obviously happened; all the signs are there.” She
locked eyes with Val, “You’ll be happy to know I ditched the
cheating bastard, so he’s all yours, homewrecker.”

“Hey,” Val breathed a sigh when she noticed
it was Scarlett who had spoken, “Let’s all just calm down,
okay?”

Avery twisted her head around slowly, “Do
you believe this liar, Scarlett?”

“Yeah, I do actually,” Scarlett squared her
jaw, “What reason would she have to lie?”

“Oh, I don’t know—maybe avoiding my
wrath?”

Scarlett actually laughed—Val admired her
courage, given the situation—“Your wrath, Avery? What are you, a
sixteenth century witch?”

Scarlett’s courage made Val feel brave too,
“No, she thinks she’s queen of the school!” she joked. Several
girls within earshot laughed.

Avery closed the short distance between her
and Val; the tips of their noses touched. “I said I didn’t hate you
before—I do now. You are fucking dead. Your life is over—and if you
disagree, that’s just because you haven’t realized it yet.” With a
huff, Avery stormed off.

Chapter 17

Val was one of the first students into class
on Tuesday; she’d stayed up late the night before finishing and
double-checking her math homework. She sat in her assigned seat and
pulled the homework out, hoping to compare answers with one of her
classmates; there were at least two problems Val knew she hadn’t
gotten the answer right on, and she didn’t want to lose any
unnecessary points.