So Not the Drama, page 1
Paula Chase
SO NOT THE DRAMA
A Del Rio Bay Clique Novel
DAFINA BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
63 Hours, 10 Minutes, and 40 Seconds to Go...
46 Hours, 0 Minutes
45 Hours, 40 Minutes
13 Hours, 30 Minutes
12 Hours ...
00:00
Lunch Outside of the Fishbowl
I IM U IM
If You’re Not Interested ... There’s No Shortage of Wannabes
Caught Ya’ Talking ’Bout Me
The New Cuteness
It’s Not Stalking If He Doesn’t Have a Restraining Order
It’s Like Cliques R’ US
People Might Take It Wrong
You’re in with Lila... What Difference Does It Make Why?
Popularity Ain’t Easy
I Thought He Was Going to Hit You!
So What Can We Talk About?
Sometimes, a Few Knuckleheads Ruin It for Everybody
Está Loco
Tripping!
I Bet Her House Has Roaches
Go Time!
Never Speakto My Enemies
Are You Feeling Left Out?
What, No Momma Jokes?
Replaced
Open Session
Jay, It’s Just Me and You
Forever Is a Long Time to Be aShadow
I Got My Own Beef to Squash
Making up Is Hard to Do
No One at Del Rio High Goes It Alone
Hail, Hail, the clique’s All Here
What Does It Matter What We Thought Then?
P*A*R*T*Y
Can We Get Extra Credit for the Friend Part?
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
The Frenzy
Copyright Page
For my girls,
Princess A and Princess Bea, and for Big Ed.
Acknowledgments
To: My fam, hubby Ted and the Princesses, who didn’t have me committed when I said “I want to become an author.” Going without dinner (breakfast and lunch, too) or attentio7n when I went on mad writing binges. My parents, who instilled my love of writing and to this day are the curators of the “vault,” a box in their closet of all the stories I’ve written since the age of five. I write by myself but not alone. My inspiration for the Del Rio Bay Clique (Two Plus Too, you know who you are!) ... don’t ya’ll trip trying to figure out who is who. There’s a little bit of all of you in each of the clique. The little girls I write for, rolling through the ’burbs in their multi-culti cliques, making our world color-blind one friend at a time (if I shouted you all out, there’d be drama). My Lizzie, Miss Addy-O. Forgive me if I mangled the Spanish; I’ll do better next go ’round. Nowhere near least, my agent, Jen Carlson, who saw the clique’s potential and my eddy, Stacey Barney, who knows authors are Drama incarnate but loves us anyway! And this is why you shouldn’t go all, I’d like to thank the Academy, b/c someone might be left out—so to everyone who was there while I pursued this (ad)venture. Love!
Prologue
“They wanna know. Who’s that girl?”
—Eve, “Who’s That Girl?”
Popularity is a drug. You get a taste of it and suddenly the looks you get from people, the way you get treated, the things you get away with ... you need it. You honest to God need it. People make pretend that being popular is no big deal. Either those people aren’t popular and know they’ll never have a chance at tasting its sweet addicting juices, or they’re lying.
I got my first taste of popularity when I was four. No, seriously. My boy, Michael, and I attended Sunny Faces, a day care run out of his grandmom’s house. The day care was downstairs in her basement, a kiddie wonderland of toys in every corner and hugantic paintings and colorful decals on the walls. There was also a big playground out back.
Now the basement is Michael’s, remade over into a bedroom/ gameroom/den of boyness.
But back then, when it was our playpen, even with all the dazzling odds and ends and kidgets, the one place we all wanted to go was upstairs. We never got to see the rest of the house. It was off-limits. So naturally, that’s where we wanted to go. The stairs went up forever, gobbled up in the darkness near the top, with only a sliver of light coming from beneath the door.
With me leading the pack, we’d make up adventures about conquering the fantasy land beyond that door. Like, maybe it opened up into a lake of ice cream and trees of chocolate—since that’s where Ms. Mae Bell came from with snacks. That became our favorite fantasy and eventually, the truth, as far as a bunch of four-year-olds were concerned.
If only we could get beyond the dreaded baby gate, we could take a dip in a big creamy vat of vanilla and take a bite out of one of the choco trees.
You know, to his credit, Michael never said a word to dispel any of our myths about the rest of his house being a candy land. Then again, why would he? How cool would that be to live in a land of candy?
Since his grandmother ran the joint, Michael was always allowed to go upstairs. Sometimes he’d toddle after her and she’d let him help bring down the snacks. If anyone else tried, Ms. Mae Bell would scoop them up, plop them down at the bottom of the stairs, and secure the gate with a firm, “You’re gonna break your neck on these steps. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Man, but that gate made it irresistible. Some days we’d park right next to it and play because it was as close as we could get.
So, yeah, anyway popularity and how it found me.
I became popular thanks to workaholic parents climbing the corporate ladder. Thank you, Fifty-hour work weeks! My mom had just started her own PR firm and my dad was a techie at a big company based out of Northern Virginia. They were mad busy scrambling to the top.
One day my mom called. She was running late and she couldn’t reach my dad. Could Ms. Mae Bell please keep me a little later than normal? Of course, she’d pay whatever penalty was required for having Ms. Mae Bell work beyond her usual grueling twelve-hour day of screaming toddlers and crying babies.
So as everyone else was leaving, Ms. Mae Bell announces, to no one in particular, I’m guessing—we were a bunch of four-year-olds—that I’d be having dinner with her and Michael. She lifted the latch on the baby gate and ushered us upstairs to watch television, while she waited for the parents of the three other kids still left.
My stomach sang and danced as my chubby, four-year-old legs carried me out of the dark coolness of the stairway into heaven. I was so excited walking up those stairs, so caught up in what I’d do when I got to candy land, that it took me a few seconds to realize that the plush brown carpet wasn’t, in fact, a river of chocolate.
Michael’s house was just like mine.
Where were the gummy rocks? The Reese’s cup benches? The clouds of cotton candy (don’t ask why he’d have clouds in his house)?
I’m not sure, but I think I cried. I really only remember Michael showing me his room and watching Teletubbies. I was too shocked to ask him where the candy stuff was hiding.
The next day, I was all set to report that candy land did not exist. But when everyone crowded around me, anxious to know what it was like, giving up their snack if I sat by them to share my adventures, wanting to team up with me for play circle ... well, I discovered something better than candy land.
I had something everyone wanted—a glimpse into the other side—and it made me the It girl of Sunny Faces day care. It put me on the pop side or at least as popular as you can be with a crowd with very short attention spans. I think Shelly Mason was popular two days later for bringing a puppy in for show-n-Tell.
No matter, my taste for popularity was born and my quest to remain ever the It girl sprouted roots.
I remember making up some story about not being able to talk about what was upstairs because it was top secret. Which was cool with them; they just wanted to be near someone who had crossed over.
I’ve never looked back.
Why would I? Being popular rocks!
When my rule of middle school came to a close, naturally, I had to hatch a plan to remain on top at Del Rio High School. Del Rio High is full of cliques.What high school isn’t? But it’s more full than most and the fate of your existence depends on where you get stuck, labeled, categorized, and otherwise boxed in by the governing clique—the Uppers.
So you see my dilemma?
Me and my crew have always been popular—but that transition from middle to high school is inevitable—and we’re about to go from Middle School Royalty to High School Ambiguity. So, you know, I’m thinking I’ve gotta handle that.
It’s not the same as starting over. Popularity carries over. So it’s not that I’ll be totally unknown. The Class of 2009 will know what’s up and some of the sophs knew me before they left middle school. It’s the junior class I’m worried about. I’ll have to scrabble my way to the middle of the pack—which is to be the most popular in your class and more popular than some sophs and juniors. But, of course, never more pop than the reigning senior class. Lesson #10 from Pop 101.
All of this and classes too!
I’m an old pro at the tricks of becoming and staying popular and I could pretend that there’s a true formula, or I can be real and let you know, it’s a l
63 Hours, 10 Minutes, and 40 Seconds to Go...
“The princess is here!”
—Ciara, “1,2 Step”
“There are approximately sixty-three hours, ten minutes, and forty seconds left before we are officially Del Rio Bay High Freshmen!” Mina Mooney shouted.
Mugginess saturated the air like a warm, wet, sloppy kiss gobbling up the stingy breeze floating by.
Children splashed off the shore, jet skis skimmed the water’s top, and the hazy curtain of smoke rings dancing off grills draped the beach, barely shifting in the Bay’s scant breeze.
Mina dabbed sweat off her satiny brown face. In defiance of the heat, she scrunched deeper beneath the beach ‘brella and tried the announcement on again for good measure. “Sixty-three hours, eight minutes, and three seconds!”
A few sun worshippers stirred. They glanced her way, mildly curious.
There wasn’t a naked space for miles on the hot sand. But no one was interested in joining her strange celebration.
She grabbed a drink from the cooler. The hot beige sand prickled her knees and spilled into the body divots of her beach towel, stinging her butt as she pushed back into the shady retreat of the umbrella. Swiping dramatically at the piles of sand, she swept her towel clean until it was a sandless island once again.
Mina–1, Sand–0.
The hollow victory inspired another Paul Revere whoop. “Did you hear me, Liz?!” “It’s almost time!”
Roused by the constant wake-up call, Lizzie propped herself up on her elbows.
“Mina.” She lifted her head reluctantly. “I hear you. Thanks to your declaration, every five minutes, evvveryone here has heard you! School starts in sixty-three hours, blah, blah, blah.”
She plopped down in a huff. “Now, shut up.”
Mina kicked sand at her, forgetting for a second about her battle with the pesky granules. “Look, girl, we’re about to embark on the last and final leg of our academic careers together. Celebration is in order, like it or not!”
Lizzie popped her shades. Her green eyes, droopy with sleep, flashed with mild irritation. “First of all, stop using words like ’embark’ without a teacher around.” She frowned down at the sand stuck to her arm, wiping at it absently. “Second, only you could find joy in the first day of school, Miss JV Cheer Captain and All-Around Pop Seeker.”
School was the last thing Lizzie wanted to think about. She pushed her shades down and waited for the right moment to doze off on the conversation.
“You know what?” Mina asked in one of those bright-side-grass-is-always-greener tones. “Ya’ll will be okay once it starts and we start hitting Friday night football, watching JZ get his game on and chowing down at the Ria afterward.”
Rio’s Ria was a small pizza restaurant and the place to be if you were an under eighteen DRB ’burbanite, awake and not on the beach. Not that the pizza wasn’t good, but Rio’s Ria was the spot by sheer luck. It happened to be within walking distance of Cimarra Beach, Del Rio Bay’s middle and high schools, and more than a dozen communities.
“We eat at the Ria every Thursday no matter what time of year it is,” Lizzie said. “That’s hardly a reason to get excited about going back to school. And who is ‘ya’ll’?”
“Michael. I guess both of ya’ll been drinking from the same bottle of hater-ade cause he’s all bummed out about school starting, too,” Mina said, ramping up for a full-blown conversation.
She’d spent half the afternoon daydreaming, waiting for someone to gab with. Now that Lizzie was awake, it was on. “Maybe class would be more interesting if you treated it like one of your productions.”
Lizzie grabbed a spray bottle and pelted her belly and neck with lukewarm water. It still felt good on her steamy skin.
“Just act like a student,” Mina reasoned.
“In case you can’t tell, I’m rolling my eyes,” Lizzie warned.
Mina tickled Lizzie’s side with her toe. “Come on, you’re excited about AP Lit. I know you are.”
Lizzie giggled. “Only because we have it together.”
“There ya go. I knew you could find something to get hyped about.”
Having a class with Mina was one bright spot. But Lizzie refused to give Mina the satisfaction. School was not something to celebrate.
“I hate that we have Lit last period. Who is awake enough for Austen and Faulkner during fourth period?” she grumbled.
“But I know you’re excited about being able to audition for ... dun-da-da-dahhhh, Bay Dra-da’s production.” Mina made her skeptical eyebrows, daring Lizzie to say otherwise.
Lizzie didn’t argue. The school’s Drama and Dance Troupe was the one element of school she was down for.
Blond hair spilled down her shoulders as she sat up. For the first time she looked alert. “Of course. And if I could do it without the whole class thing, all the better.”
“Yeah, well it’s a package deal. See, for me ...”
“Yeah, yeah, the Uppers, the café, yada, yada, blasé-blah,” Lizzie said, spritzing her arms.
“See, you brush it off like it’s nothing. But I’m doing this for Us,” Mina said.
Lizzie’s eyebrow shot up.
Plotting to score a spot in the coveted café, the beautiful people’s–only section of the cafeteria, had been Mina’s obsession since summer started. It was all she talked about. Sitting in the café with the Uppers, the high school’s social glitterati, was school to her. She didn’t mind attending class to improve her social status. As she always said, if not there, where?
Lizzie didn’t worry about being the It girl. Mina worried, planned, and focused on stuff like that enough for both of them. If Mina didn’t accomplish her goal—whatever the specific objective was—it would be something else she’d obsess over until she got it. So to avoid having to hear this every day until Christmas, Lizzie was rooting for her to earn whatever spot she thought she deserved among the potpourri of kids who ran the entire school from sports to debate team.
Uppers were the ruling class. They hailed from a variety of grades, backgrounds, and neighborhoods and had one thing in common: somehow they had made it to the top of their species, athlete, rich kid, smart kid. It was the mother of all cliques—the clique that decided the cliques.
JZ once said the first semester of high school was like the NFL draft, where the cliques picked you and decided where you fit. Whether you cared, bought into it or not, wasn’t the point.
Mina was caught up in her favorite conversation. “Because you know once one of us has a solid in, it’ll probably be all swazy for the rest of us.” She parted her hair, putting it into two braids as she talked. Her fingers fought through the wavy roots, forcing it to behave. “I’m figuring I have an easy in because of cheerleading. But since the last two junior varsity squads were kind of sorry, I heard the cheerleaders fell off a bit. It’s all about the Stomp Starz, now,” Mina said, referring to the high school’s hip-hop step team.
She thought it over. “Maybe I should go out for step team.”
“Ha! Yeah, right.” Snorts honked from Lizzie’s nose. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I could do step team in the winter and cheer only for football. Why are you tripping so hard?”
“Two words,” Lizzie said, thrusting two fingers skyward. “Jessica. Johnson.”
Mina groaned. She forgot all about Jessica, sophomore, newest step mistress of the Stomp Starz, and the only black female rolling with the Uppers, specifically with the glam clique—the snotty, mostly rich kids.
Mostly, because Jessica wasn’t. Mina still wondered how Jessica got in with the glams. She lived in The Great Melting Pot—or, at least, that’s what everybody called Woodberry Ridge, the neighborhood where Jessica and Sarah lived, because a lot of the residents were immigrants.
