3A/N: Hey, everyone. I know this is nothing like the stuff I usually write, but I just thought I'd share it with you all. It's an autobiography of sorts, something I'm actually experiencing right now. The events are true, but names have been changed to protect the innocent. Please enjoy my little departure from the norm as much as I'm currently hating it...
My day started off as any other day would. Just another late wake-up, another lukewarm breakfast of some sort of egg something my father made, another muggy Texas September morning. Nothing was unusual or out of the ordinary about my morning, my U.S. History class, or my Pre-Calculus class (except that I actually made a grade ABOVE a B on my last quiz).
My morning wasn't the highlight of my day. It was lunch that was the climax.
I strolled into the cafetorium (the bastard child of a cafeteria and an auditorium built so that two separate buildings wouldn't be necessary) with my friend Rose hoping to find a meal that wouldn't kill us by the next day. Walking to our usual seats at the back of the cafetorium that had been pre-designated for us since the first time we sat there freshman year, our eyes fell upon a banner hanging over the stage:
NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS FOR CARMEN HIGH SCHOOL HOMECOMING COURT IN THE OFFICE!
I snorted with laughter. "Geez, it's that time of year again," I groaned playfully. Hordes and hordes of avid Seventeen readers, dressed in the most expensive boho-chic layered tops and leather sandals money could buy, would soon be storming the office, all nominating themselves, praying for and/or blackmailing their friends to nominate them as well and thus put them on the ballot. Just being on the ballot was enough to satisfy their bloodlust for popularity – most of the time. The winning Homecoming Court was revered and despised; revered by those who had voted for them, despised for the losing nominees. It was a vicious competition, or from what I had seen from my place at the back of the cafetorium.
The truth of the matter was, none of those girls were me. My friends and I were on the lower range of the popularity spectrum. Most outsiders of our immediate circle of friends gave us little secret names; one of which I had heard before was "the Yakushima people", referring to the fact that most us had a rather sick obsession with Japan (yes – even me, seeing as I was the only one of us that had ever actually been). The table behind ours, seated full of avid listeners of rap music and people that looked as though they had been torn from the streets of Harlem and thrust unwillingly into our small Texas town, constantly patronized us, even going so far as to throw wads of used napkins at us during lunch periods. My point, of course, was that no one at my table was worthy of a nomination for Homecoming anything.
Or so I thought.
I sat down at my table next to my other friend, Tonia, still giggling about the pathetic souls longing for the role as Homecoming Queen. "I feel so sorry for those people," I laughed. "It's kind of all they have going for them."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Tonia replied, once Rose and I had explained what we were talking about.
"Wouldn't it be crazy if one of us was nominated for Homecoming Court?" I suggested to my friends innocently; the idea of it was ludicrous. Nobody would vote for any of us, and we all knew that. At any rate, none of us had the ambition to be Homecoming nominees. We enjoyed being on the lower rung of the popularity ladder, in our own sick little way.
I watched as Rose's eyes widened; a light bulb had gone off somewhere in her mind. Whenever that happened, it usually meant danger for someone's life.
And by the gleam in her eyes that was directed to me, I made a wild guess that this time, my own life would be in jeopardy.
"What?" I asked slowly, furrowing my brow. "I don't like that look in your eye, Rose…"
Rose grinned mischievously and leaned over the table to whisper into Tonia's ear. When Rose pulled away, I saw Tonia's eyes alight with the same gleam as the one in Rose's eyes. They both grinned at me, and I felt something like a rat trapped in a corner being eyed hungrily by two starving house cats.
"What?" I snapped, both annoyed and terrified for my own life.
Instead of lunging at me like I expected them to, they both got up from the table and walked away from me in quick strides.
"Hey… wait!" I called after them. "Where are you guys going?"
"To the bathroom," Rose returned my call sweetly, almost suspiciously sweetly. "Just for a second."
And I watched in horror as the two raced away from me, in the opposite direction of the cafetorium's restroom.
My stomach lurched. I couldn't even consider eating anymore; my mind was too wrapped up in what they could be doing that very obviously didn't involve the restroom –
I looked up in my frantic state, and my eyes immediately caught site of the banner over the stage. My stomach lurched even more, and I felt the color drain away from my face…
"What's up, Andy?" I heard someone address me calmly.
I tore my eyes away from the banner, and saw my friend Robin standing there in front of me, his cheerful and goofy grin plastered to a face tanned from Band Camps past.
"Hey, Robin," I sighed with relief, "have you seen Rose and Tonia?"
"Yeah, I just passed them on my way here," he replied, and took a seat across from me. "They were on their way to the office. Rose said something about nominating someone for Homecoming Court. I dunno…"
My stomach lurched through my body, and I could have sworn I felt it hit the floor. The gleam in their eyes as they had looked at me. Their suspicious attitudes. Their sudden departure. Robin's personal account. It could only mean…
Eventually Rose and Tonia walked back into the cafetorium, twin smirks on their beaming faces, directed at me.
I glared at them with death in my eyes. "What… the… hell… did you… guys… just… DO?"
If my assumptions were right, there would be serious Hell to pay.