Jennifer couldn't move until the bell signaled that class was over. Then she was marched to the office by Ms. Wilson, who gave a full accounting to the principal. After a few minutes of asking her questions, the principal finally confinced her she couldn't lie to him. She went for broke and told the truth. Ms. Wilson scoffed but Mr. Bridges simply requested that "This be the end of that silly game." Jennifer nodded and got up to leave for her next class--history. She would be terribly, horribly late for it, but at least she would get there.
As she was leaving, the principal stopped her. "By the way, who gave you the dare?"
Eager to get the little snot in trouble, she said "Kyle from Math class."
"Very well, Ms. Wilson. Bring Klye from Math Class to my office so we can have a little talk."
"you're just going to let her go?" Ms. Winters said.
"I don't think Jennifer will be doing any more mooning for a while, won't you, dear?" He said.
Jennifer shook her head, and, once released from the uncomfortable silence in the room, raced to her locker. She had to pick up her history book. She took it without thinking, and then ran to class. It was already in mid-session. She opened the door and barely withstood the teacher's wrath. Not that it mattered much. Mr. Rudolph was very leniant when it came to his students. As long as it didn't involve physical violence, Jennifer could do whatever the hell she wanted.
...within the confinds of her clique, of course. She wanted to run away and hide after that horrible incident that morning, but now she had something far more than studying or self-pity to do. She had to run spin control. The moon left her open to ridicule and derision, rude jokes and cruel jests. She hated that. She had sacrificed her entire high school career to be popular, and didn't want to lose it because of stupid, idiot Kyle. The walls were damaged and the facade harmed. She had to shore up the walls and effect repairs immediately. Three of her Core girls were here: Patty Jones, Kate Wilder and Lexis McArdle. She sat down beside them and casually laid her book out, removing her make up case to fix the tear smears around her eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Lexis leaned over and hissed in Jennifer's ear.
Attempting to manufacture the proper victem/myrter expression (not that hard to do, under the circumstances) she looked at her friends with tears in her eyes.
"I don't know. As soon as I stood up it was like I was, like, posessed or something." She said.
"The curse?" Lexis McArdle said.
"Don't be an idiot, Lexie." Kate Wilder said. "There's no such thing as the town curse. I mean, if someone were going around giving dares and turning people into animals and shit, don't you think we'd kn--"
"You girls pay attention. This will be on the test." THe history teacher said.
"Yes Mr. Rudolph!" The girls chorused, then went back to thier small huddle without dropping their voices at all.
"Don't you think we'd know?" Kate said.
"Yeah." Patty Jones said. "It'd be, like, on the news or something." She fluffed her curls. Personally, Jennifer thought the girls were the Brainless WonderTwins.
"All I know is that I did not WANT to do that. It just...happened. I had no control whatsoever." She said.
"...then does that mean the transformation's there too?" Lexis said.
"How? That's even more complecated then the Dare! There's...uh...science...uh...science shit that says stuff like that can't happen." Katie Wilder said. "No, I think poor Jennifer here was a victem of suggestion."
"Still...you probably should have other people check your books for you, just to make sure." Lexis said.
"What?" Jennifer said.
"Duh! The transformation can't happen until you find the dweeb's picture, and he's like, supposed to put it in your books or something? Have someone else check your books and when they find it, throw it away without looking at it. Then you're safe." Lexis said, then grabbed the history book off of Jennifer's desk without asking.
"Hey!" Jennifer said.
Kate took the book away from Lexis and opened it. "Don't worry, Jennifer. We're your friends. We'll protect you from the big, bad, scary...oh, ew!" Kate removed a few pages of printer paper from between the pages of Jennifer's history book. SHe held them by one corner, as if they were soiled toilet paper.
Lexis tilted in. "THAT'S what he made up for her?"
Pammy leaned over and put a hand to her mouth. "It's, like...female. ANd...naked."
Kate held the paper, the drawing on it just visible from the back. "God, that geek is SUCH a loser." She said.
Jennifer leaned in without even thinking. She wanted to see what new weirdness Kyle's bizzare artist's brain had come up with, so that she could tease him about it.
The tiny remnant of the artist in Jennifer, the bit she hadn't strangled to become the popular girl, whispered that it was a VERY good drawing. It was nearly anatomically perfect. It was...