Over an hour went by, the Papadakis household spending it in various different ways. Andy was reading up on films everyone should see in their lifetime, Carol was on the Internet, researching as many lawyers as she could for her lawsuit and fearing that she'd be left with Christopher Olson; Jen and Lisa were busy examining each other's eyebrows, of all things. Eventually, the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Carol?" the soft voice of Sophie Weinburg asked.
"Hello! I wanted to bring up the subject of your daughters."
"I'm well aware of the hormone problem and have scheduled an appointment for Kelly," Sophie said, her voice now a little perturbed.
"It's just that, well, you need to ensure that your daughter is taking proper precautions," Carol said, trying her very best to word things the right way. "What I mean is, the cheerleading squad is particularly close, and Kelly told them that she's producing milk." She paused, waitinig for a reaction, but it would seem as though Sophie was already well aware of this fact and thought little of it, oddly enough. "Anyway," Carol continued, "this milk is allegedly filled to the brim his the hormone, and you should strongly urge you to get rid of it instead of keeping it. It's not healthy."
Sophie was gradually getting more upset that this woman, whom she had never met, just called her up to tell her how to take care of her kid. "We have the situation under control," she assured her, trying not to yell. "I'll talk to her, but it's really not your business to tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing."
There was a loud click, and Carol's face looked ashen. "I don't think that went well," she said at last.
"What did she say?" Andy asked, looking up from her book.
"She basically told me that it's not my business."
"What do we do now?" Jen asked. She and Lisa had come to the painful - literally - realization that the hair could also not be plucked off, at least as far as their developing unibrow was concerned.
Carol thought for a moment before answering, "We should definitely keep an eye out. Go check on Kelly for a while and if she won't listen to reason, let me know so I can call for help. I don't want to, but I also don't want harm to come to that poor little kid."
She joined the girls on the sofa and turned on the news. A young, blonde woman in a red dress appeared on the TV. She was Sharon Hardwood, the anchor for the 5:00 news.
"In other news, the cheerleading coach from East Hampton, who was reportedly spiking the teams' meals laced with bovine hormones, has posted bail."
The entire room stared at the televesion with shocked faces.
"We at the media have been following this case since it first emerged. Allegedly, the junior and varsity cheerleading teams had been given a hormone called BHGHC-12 that would radically alter their bodies. A trial date for the offender had been set tentatively for December 14th, but the defendant was bailed out. We only hope the best for the girls who now suffer from this coach's negligence. In other news-"
The television shut off, Carol's eyes furious. Andy threw her book down and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off when Jennifer beat her to it.
"How could she have done that?!" she shouted.
"Calm down!" Lisa scolded.
Jennifer turned to Lisa, who, despite her words, was anything but calmed down. It was very clear that Lisa's jaws her clenched, and her fuzzy little fingers gripped her knees so tightly, the knuckes were turning white.
Carol and Andy immediately saw what was going on and latched onto the girl closest to them, their own voices unable to mask the fury that they held onto.
"It's going to be fine," Carol attempted to reassure Jen, her own voice wavering. "There's still the lawsuit, and she can't bail herself out of that."
Lisa was pretty much blocking out Andy's words, trying in her own way to calm herself down. She tried to mentally envision a picture of the team from her junior yearbook. All of them were gathered around Coach Cromarte, who had the biggest grin on her face. She had always been such a great coach, encouraging the girls in all their endeavors. Even Lisa, whom she knew wasn't cut out for cheerleading to begin with, found strong support from the coach. How could she have been hiding such a horrible secret the whole time? And how could she have just walked away without any remorse?
"She'll get justice," Andy reassured her.
"That's not the point," Lisa replied. "It's the principle of the thing. How could she just walk away like that? Doesn't she care at all?"
Andy continued to pat her sister in a valiant effort to calm her down. Carol was just about as successful when it came to comforting Jennifer. "This isn't the end of the world," she explained. "This is a case of losing the battle, but still winning the war. Besides, Cromarte's conscious is her own affair. Just calm down..."
It was almost half an hour before the girls were able to calm themselves back down. The entire household cried, ranted, shouted, but then let it go, at least as much as they could. Carol got up to call the parents again, her own positive attitude telling her that this setback merely meant that they could get the lawsuit going faster, even if the only available lawyer was Christopher Olson. Christine, who had managed to get a few days off from work to catch up with her daughter, Beth, promised to look into it when she got back to work. Apparently, she had just caught the news as well and was by Beth's side.
Both Jen and Lisa decided to turn their attention to school, in an effort to avert their thoughts from the thing that made them so infuriated. Tomorrow was that horrible test the nurse's conducted where they check the students' spines for scoliosis. They'd have to display their backs for their classmates...again. It was painful the first time, and they wondered if the nurse's would even be able to see their spines clear enough to begin with. Lisa had also decided to photograph herself again, and Jen as well, so she could see exactly which patches of skin were disappearing, since she was losing 6% of visibility a day.
Andy took each girl's hairy hand in hers and looked them in the eye. "We'll get her yet."