Beneath the raindrops (unfinished)

Chapter 6

The next day at school, Jake brought me a diamond necklace. He bought one for me and his best friend, Nicole.

I didn't mind that all his friends were girls, he was very loyal and I knew he'd never cheat on me.

Speaking of loyal, I really needed to tell Caitlyn about me and Jake. I knew she absolutely hated his guts, but I really hoped she'd understand that we really loved each other.

Caitlyn wanted to be TikTok famous. That's her number one dream. So far, she has 34 followers and her most liked video has 12 likes.

As for me and Jake, I figured I'd keep my mouth shut about our relationship. I didn't know if he wanted me to tell anyone, so I didn't. I figured nobody would find out, either.

Besides, my friends were kind of stupid.

At lunch, I looked in my lunchbox, only to find my grandmothers leftover tuna casserole.

"Hey Roxy, do you have any snacks?"

"Mhm!"

She tossed me a bag of expired Cheetos, a sticky leaking juice box, and a ziploc bag full of these weird fuzzy things, that I just realized were moldy strawberries. I took the Cheetos and prayed to Michael Jackson I wouldn't get food poisoning.

After school, I checked my group chat with Roxy and Callie.

"Auditions are being held tomorrow. Are you guys ready?" Callie said.

"Duh! I'm so ready!!" Roxy cheered.

I couldn't wait, either. I could finally spend some time with Jake outside of school!

The next day at auditions, me, Callie, and Roxy sat by the potted plant by the door.

Ms. Brumback stood on the stage, holding a sparkly foam microphone. "Ok, the first person up is McKenna Lambert!"

Typical. McKenna was first for everything.

"Hello, wonderful people! Hello Ms. B! I'm going to be auditioning for Cindy Lou!" McKenna scrunched her nose and smiled, doing a little twirl.

"But you're black," said the smelly kid, Lori Steinway.

"Lori, that's racist!" Another unpopular kid, Bruce Noggins gasped.

"I'm pretty sure Cindy Lou is white," said the class idiot, David Harvey.

"No, I don't think so, she's Americanish or something." Said another kid that I don't know.

"Students! It doesn't matter what race Cindy Lou is, all that matters is that the person who plays Cindy gives it their all and works really hard to put on a spectacular performance for everyone who comes to watch our show."

Once everyone auditioned, we all went back to our classrooms.

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On Monday, everyone was crowding around the bulletin board in the hallway. Ms. Brumback had posted the cast list for the play.

Callie, Roxy and I pushed through the crowd to see who we were cast as. Oh. My. Gosh!! I got Cindy Lou! Callie and Roxy got to be street lights, and they were actually really excited.

McKenna was crying because she got cast as the grinch. Her two sidekicks, Riley and Miley looked at me with this haunting mad face, like they wanted to eat me like a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie.

I wasn't worried about them, though. Riley and Miley weren't the smartest kids in the school. They were kind of stupid, but they were rich. Their mom owned two teslas, and their dad wrote songs for famous people, including Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. They also bragged about being on America's Funniest Home Videos when they were toddlers. Apparently, they went viral for falling off a rocking horse. They were identical twins, however you could easily tell them apart. Riley had her strawberry blonde hair cut to her shoulders and dyed half black half natural, and Miley had hers long with purple highlights. They both were 17 but in 10th grade, because they had to repeat kindergarten twice. Kindergarten! Yeah, I did NOT have to worry about them at all.

They both came up to me.

"Look, Harmonica."

"It's Harmony."

"Whatever. You are going to apologize to our bestie. Right now."

"Why? I didn't do anything."

"You got cast as Cindy Lou and she has to be the ugly old grinch! You should be ashamed!"

"It's not my fault. I didn't make the cast list."

"Listen, Hargrove. If you don't apologize to McKenna, we're going to have our dad come in here and yell at you."

"Oooh I'm soooo scared." I said sarcastically.

"You should be! Our dad is the meanest dad around. You tell her, Miley. Didn't we used to have an older sister?"

"No, Riley, that was the movie we watched last night."

"Oh."

Miley grabbed my iconic sparkly sweater. "Go apologize to our bestie, NOW!"

"NO THANK YOU!" I yelled as I tied her hair to Riley's hair with my pink hair tie.

They kept screaming and screaming until our principal, Mrs. Buggs separated us.