By lunchtime, Jack and I were the primary topic of conversation in the cafeteria, and bits and pieces of conversations assaulted my ears as I made my way toward the central table. I was beginning to feel like I couldn’t sneeze without making front-page news: God Squad Member Toby Klein Sneezes; Allergies Are IN!

Of course, some of the whispers were less than flattering. Jack was the number-one hottie at our school, and Chloe (Jack ex number two) wasn’t the only one whose hackles were up at the thought of a Toby/Jack pairing.

“She is such a slut.”

Yup. Jack was the only guy I’d ever kissed, and we hadn’t done anything but, so clearly, I was Slut Girl. Of course, given the fact that the person who was slinging the s-word around was in fact much “friendlier” toward the opposite sex than I was, the insult didn’t carry much of a punch.

“And her technique is total crap.”

At first, I thought they were talking about my kissing technique—WHAT WAS WRONG WITH MY KISSING TECHNIQUE?—but then I realized that when junior varsity cheerleaders say “technique,” they mean one and only one thing.

“I mean, did you see that back handspring?”

Insults were one thing coming from Chloe; whether or not we were friends, we were teammates, and that meant something, but these JV girls didn’t know me, and I was getting damn tired of people picking on my handsprings.

“You know,” I said, sauntering up to their group and inserting myself into their conversation. “Maybe you’re right. The other girls on varsity think my standing back tuck is much cleaner than my back handspring, and even my back handspring back tuck has a little more oomph, so maybe I just shouldn’t bother with the easier stuff at all.” I paused and looked at each of the JV cheerleaders in turn. “This morning, Bubbles was teaching me how to do a layout. Maybe next year, we’ll start requiring more advanced tumbling skills for new recruits.”

The girls shut their mouths one by one. As jealous as they were, and as much as they hated me, I’d just reminded them that I held their futures in my hands. There were four seniors on varsity this year, which meant that we’d have four open slots on the Squad next year, and as far as these girls knew, the remaining members simply voted in new ones on whims. None of these girls had made varsity as sophomores, but they were still pretending that they stood a chance junior year, and some of them might have.

If they managed to go that long without really pissing me off.

“Go ahead and up the tumbling requirements,” Hayley Hoffman sniffed. “My back handspring back tuck is flawless.”

“But your personality,” I said, “well, let’s just say that they invented the term fatal flaw for a reason, Hayley, and as far as the varsity squad is concerned, you’re dead to us.”

Okay, so it was cheesy, but I wasn’t used to issuing popularity threats. It must have been potent enough, though, because all of the other girls gasped a little and took a step back. It was so over the top and ridiculous that I couldn’t believe it was really happening, let alone that I was an integral part of it, but these days, suspension of disbelief was my forte.

“If you’re still on the God Squad next year,” Hayley said, “I wouldn’t want to be. Being varsity used to mean something, but apparently, they’ve lowered their standards.”

She looked to the others for support, but they remained quiet.

“Kiki,” Hayley hissed, and one of the girls cleared her throat.

“Ummm…yeah,” she told me. “Unless…do you think if I could stick a back tuck that maybe…”

“Kiki!”

“Never mind,” the girl mumbled. Since April had joined the Squad, Hayley had surrounded herself with new minions, and it looked like at least one of them was taking orders, albeit clumsily.

“Well,” I said, “I should go eat lunch. With my boyfriend. And the rest of the God Squad. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves. It’s not like anyone who matters is listening.”

I turned on my heels and walked toward the central table. And that’s when it hit me…

I was turning into one of those girls.

It wasn’t pretend. It wasn’t just a cover. I’d just threatened a bunch of girls with cheerleading annihilation. I’d referred to Jack as my boyfriend and thrown it in their faces. I’d told Hayley she was “dead to us.”

What in the name of all that was good and holy was the matter with me?

This wasn’t me. I didn’t take crap, but I didn’t play games, either. I didn’t care what other people said about me, and I certainly didn’t think the fact that I was going to homecoming with Jack gave me the right to use him as a weapon against lesser females.

Oh, no.

I’d just mentally referred to someone as a lesser female.

It was too much. This wasn’t what I signed up for. I wasn’t supposed to actually change. That was never part of the deal. I’d agreed to pretend to be a cheerleader, pretend to play the popularity game, but it was just supposed to be that: pretend. Make-believe. I was still supposed to be me. I wasn’t supposed to become the kind of girl I’d always hated.

That was the thing, though. Being around the other girls had made me realize that I didn’t hate them, not even Chloe, and I’d done a complete one-eighty on my views of cheerleading in general, so maybe that was why I’d changed. I’d learned to respect them. I even liked them for the most part, and now…

Was I doomed to become another Chloe? Two years from now, would I look at some new girl on the squad and snip at her the way Gadget Girl did at me?

No, I thought. No way. The next time someone called me a slut, I was going to do one of two things. If it was a girl, I was going to ignore her—who cared what people said or thought? The old me certainly hadn’t. Gossip was nothing more than a minor annoyance, and that I could deal with, especially if it kept me from having these identity crises on a regular basis.

And if a guy called me a slut? Well, then I’d be forced to take him down. I couldn’t in good conscience beat the crap out of someone smaller than or as small as me, but football players were fair game, especially if they didn’t respect women. And, to be quite honest, I kind of missed bringing the odd football player down every once in a while. Call it a hobby.

“Hey, Toby. If you’re done with your inner rant/identity crisis, you might want to join us. Everyone’s talking about you and Jack, and I want the inside scoop.” Zee put her arm around my shoulder and guided me to our table. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that she knew exactly what was running through my mind. Same old, same old.

“There is no inside scoop,” I told Zee as we took our seats. “We’re going to homecoming together. He kissed me in the hallway. End of story.”

Luckily, before the others could pump me for more information, Jack sat down at our table, and the topic of conversation turned away from our social lives and toward our chances of beating Hillside on Friday. The amount of enmity the people at our table showed for the Hillside Bobcats made the cool, detached way we dealt with terrorist threats look like rhythmic gymnastics.

“We’re going to massacre them! Those SOBs won’t know what hit ’em.” Chip waxed poetic about Hillside’s impending doom. “We’re going to demolish them. They won’t even see it coming, those…”

“They’re totally going down,” Lucy chimed in.

“They’ll forego the rest of their season out of sheer embarrassment.” That one was from Tara.

“We’ll crush ’em.” Chip again.

“Kill them?” Bubbles asked, not quite sure if that was the appropriate response.

“Yeah,” Chip agreed. “And you girls will put their cheerleaders to shame. Next to you, they’ll look like dogs.” Chip was losing a little of his steam now that he wasn’t speaking in terms of violent metaphors.

“Really ugly dogs,” one of the Chiplings assured us.

“So their cheerleaders are ugly, their football players are wimps, and they’re our archrivals because why?” It was either ask the question, or try to join in with the rabble-rousing by making some kind of comment about crushing our enemies’ bones to powder, and I opted away from the melodrama.