Jennifer was most defenately one of the "beautiful" people at her school. She was popular, flirty, pretty, she had money and she was a cheerleader. She had been going steady with the school quarterback. She was defeantely the girl that everyone wanted to be.
She was also the girl that everyone HATED. She was snooty, stuck up, insulting, demeaning and often cruel. There seemed to be a rule in Glendale High, that there had to be just ONE prank pulled that was spectacular, unforgetable and over-the-top. The first two years, Jennifer had been part of the planning, and had exicuted her Junior year prank on an unsuspecting freshman. Last year's had been pulled on her. Her cheerleading outfit had been carefuly tampered with to fall apart during a routine, in front of the whole town. It was humiliating. She had been mortified. Kyle had been among the masterminds. THe pants-ing yesterday had been part of her and her friends revenge. It was an unspoken law around the school that the artists and the popular people were sworn enemies, and last year's prank had just made it worse.
Glendale, like every other highschool on the planet, was little more than a controlled meat grinder. You graduated with an education, a diploma and enough issues to pay for a shrink's yaht. It moulded personalities with a sort of social darwinism that was fun if you were the fittist. Creative people, gentle people, intelligant people...somehow, they were on the bottom rungs of the personality food chain.
In Junior High, Jennifer had started as one of the artsy people. She had writngs and glasses, poems and braces, brown hair and longer skirts, and was shy and gentle and an easy target. Her freshman year, she was the popular, blonde, hip and a shark. She was at the top of the school and had stepped on everyone that couldn't help her get there on the way.
She met up with her fellow cheerleaders at the water fountain and giggled with them, simpering about that "geek" Kyle and his phone call. They all laughed at it, a good giggle. The Town Curse was urban legand and worse, a bit of town history. History was boring and un-hip, unless it was the history of the french manicure or the origins of Brittany Speres. Jennifer's clique was a fluxuating, undulating mass of peroxide hair, but it had a core group of Britt Austin, Pamela Jones, Alexis McArdle and Katie Wilder. Most of the other people were either cheerleaders or wanna-bees that made good gofer-girls but weren't good for much else. The core five girls were all blonde as barbie dolls, and were commonly known as the Blonde COntengent. Jennifer was undeniably the leader. They stood in the hall, insulting random students and flirting with the football team and other, officially popular guys (handsome, rich and/or foreign) until the bell rang, then made thier way to their first classes, timing it to be just a LITTLE late.
Most of the girls had classes seperately, But Jennifer and 'Lexis McArdle had Math together. On the way, they dropped loaded barbs about Kyle's silly phone call, and made as many puns based on the word "moon" as possible. It did not take long for Lexis McArdle to run out of steam, but Jennifer could keep going until they reached the doorway into class. The teacher gave them the usual admonishments, the girls ignored them as they always did, and class began.
In all honesty, Jennifer could probably have graduated right then and there. Alexis McArdle and most of the Blonde Contengent weren't very intelligant...or at least, they had little interest in intellectual things. Jennifer, on the other hand, did, and did her best to hide it. It was not popular to admit that you would rather listen to Beethovan's fifth than Brittany Spears fifth ALBUM, or that you found 18th century france more interesting than french braids. Open intelligance had died when her hair was dyed, but she couldn't shake her bordum with most things mainstream. She watched reality TV and the OC to keep up with her friends, and snuck Shakespere plays when she couldn't stand it anymore. She rarely did her homework, because that wasn't cool and she didn't have time, but she didn't NEED to do her homework. She already knew most of what they were teaching.
In most of her classes, she was as air-headed as the rest of her friends. Most of those teachers were lax enough to let her get away with giggling and simpering and playing with her makeup. Ms. Wilson, who taught math, was smarter than that. She knew damn well that Jennifer was playing games and would have none of it. Jennifer was going to do the work with the rest of the class, or Jennifer would have to do detention. And though she complained, bitched and whined to her friends about it, deep down inside, Jennifer was releaved. In Math class, she HAD to be herself. She could stop playacting for a little while and pay attention. And as long as it was just one clas, she could be forgiven her intelligance.
Her intelligance left her with one raging problem, one not brought on by her rampanging desire to be popular. She could not STAND stupidty. She put up with it from her so-called friends, but she couldn't take it in math class. Whenever someone was particularly obtuse, she HAD to get up and explain it to everyone, just to make the class move along and keep learning. She HATED being constrained by the dumbest person in the room.
And obviously, everyone else in that class knew it.
Math had not gone on for thirty minutes before a girl in the front row started asking reptative questions about an algebra procedure. It was the same questions she had asked a week ago, and the week before that, and the week before that. Jennifer could not stand the girl at all, and in that one case, most of the class agreed. Once Julia DeWinter opened her mouth, class ground to a halt. After five minutes of talk of exponents and plus signs, Jennifer's hand shot straight up.
"...I suppose Jennifer wants to demonstraite the problem to the entire class?" Ms. Wilson said, sighing.
Jennifer nodded. Ms. Wilson rolled her eyes, but jestured at the black board. "Get to it." She said.
Jennifer walked up, attempting to look cool and sexy while doing it (she had to make up for knowing how to do math, after all, as it was hardly sexy and defenately not cool) and stood in front of the blackboard, reaching for the chalk to demonstrate, once again, how one solves for X.
And then things went haywire.
She thought she was reaching for the chalk. She had every intention of reaching for the chalk, and even saw her hand halfway to the flaky white stick. Instead, she found herself leaning over, her white underpants around her thighs, a cold breeze suddenly blowing over her emphatically bare cheeks.
The class erupted into pandamonium, with hoots and cat-calls (including a loud "GO JEN!" from Kyle) and even a few screams. THe teacher shouted for everyone to calm down, while Jennifer calmly pulled her underware back on and sat down. Reality suddenly seemed to click back on, and she felt mortified, her face turning a bright, beat red. Everyone kept shouting at her, and some of the boys had dollars in thier hands, holding them out to her, shouting "Take the rest off! Take the rest off!"
She wanted to get up and run to the bathroom, but she couldn't move. All she could do was sit there. She found herself crying.
Ms. Wilson stood over her. "GO to the office NOW. I will not tolerate that behavior."
To her credit, Jennifer did try.
"Didn't you hear me?"
"Yes." Jennifer said, crying even harder now.
"Get up and go to the office! That behavior is inexcusable, especially from you!"
"I want to but...but i..." She said, sobs interupting every word now.
"But what?" Ms. Wilson said.
"I...I CAN'T move!" she said.
Kyle gave a loud whooping cheer, and Jennifer turned and stared at him with pure and utter hate in her eyes. How DARE he laugh at...
Then she remembered. He had DARED her to moon her math class. And totally against her will, she had done it. her mouth fell open and she stared at him, oblivious to the teacher. He met her gaze and nodded, grinning at her. His friends were pointing and laughing, while Lexis McArdle just looked at her, confused...and then, as she began to understand, shocked and terrified.
It was REAL.