Dark Hope: Book One of the Archangel Prophecies

Dark Hope: Chapter 3

I soon settled into the comforting anonymity of the large suburban high school. Even after the "new girl" smell had worn off me, Michael stayed close. I guess that since our lockers were right next to each other and since we had almost every class together and were both new, it was only natural that we should become friends. But the delight and surprise I felt every morning when the bus disgorged me and I found him standing on the sidewalk waiting for me remained strong.

I knew he didn't like me romantically. Why would he? I was plain at best, skinny and not even remotely stylish. So when I started noticing the popular girls circling him, I figured my days were numbered. The worst were the cheerleaders. They were hardly subtle, but I was impressed by their ingenuity. It had all started with Jessica Smythe, the varsity basketball cheer captain.

"Whoopsie!" she'd giggled when she "fell" off the stepladder as she was hanging banners cheering on the basketball team, ingeniously landing right in Michael's arms.

"Oh, Michael," she drawled, fanning herself dramatically, then throwing her arms around his shoulders, "you make me feel so tiny when you've got me in your arms like this."

"Maybe you should eat more," Michael said.

He peeled her arms off of his neck and unceremoniously dumped her back on the floor. She stumbled backwards, taken off guard. "Take a tip from Hope here-she can really pack it in," Michael said, tilting his head toward me.

A titter ran through the crowd that had quickly assembled to watch the scene. I blushed, horrified that he'd commented on my eating habits. Jessica's mouth hung open in astonishment as Michael resumed walking.

"C'mon, Hope," he called behind him.

I ran to catch up, looking over my shoulder at Jessica whom he'd left alone on the floor in the middle of the crowd. She screwed up her face like a spoiled child and stuck her tongue out at me.

Her failure was like a gauntlet thrown to the entire cheerleading squad. Our universe of classes didn't overlap much, so they had to squeeze their efforts into the periods between classes and before and after school, as well as lunch. But that didn't stop them from making the most of their meager opportunities. Sometimes I was witness to their efforts; sometimes I just heard about them secondhand. It started with the predictable "meet cute" bumps in the hallway, but rapidly escalated when their efforts proved to no avail. One time, they bullied the Dunwoody Wildcat mascot into giving up his post.

"Miii-chael," one overly made-up blonde wheedled over our lunch table, holding the oversized, tiger-like head of the mascot's costume on one jutted hip and pouting while the entire squad backed her up, bouncing bowed and beribboned ponytails up and down in unison. "We need your help! We can't play this Friday without our mascot-it's a tradition!"

Michael took the costume from the cheerleader, who looked down at me with a derisive look of triumph. Michael tossed the head in the air as if it were no heavier than a softball and looked down the table.

"Hey, you," he called to one spectacularly unathletic freshman. The geeky boy looked up from his lunch tray, surprised. "Do you want to be the Wildcat this Friday?"

The geeky boy nodded excitedly, pushing up his glasses.

"Great! Here you go," Michael said. He tossed the head to the boy, who promptly fell off of his seat with the effort of catching it.

"Problem solved," Michael said, taking his chair. "Ladies." They shrieked with horror and swarmed around the boy, trying to reclaim the costume. I stole a glance at Michael. He seemed oblivious to the commotion he'd just caused.

On Valentine's Day, the entire squad decorated his locker with pink, red, and lacy white hearts, spraying the entire thing with so much perfume that we had to wheeze our way through the locker bay. But it didn't stop there. The cheerleading squad had sold singing "Cupid-Grams" for charity: a few dollars got you candy, a valentine, and a singing telegram, all delivered to your true love in class. So every hour, a scantily clad cheerleader dressed as Cupid or Venus serenaded an amused Michael, delivering professions of love from one of her teammates. By the end of the day, the Cupids had gotten increasingly hostile as Michael refused to let them sit in his lap or give him a kiss. In our last class, after finding Michael unresponsive, the frustrated messenger had simply dug around in her fake bag of arrows and slapped the other valentines down on everyone's desk, forgoing any singing. As she pulled the last letter out, her eyes narrowed.