The Sister Of Popular

Chapter Six

On a normal Monday morning, before I started public school, I would have ignored my alarm, got out of bed half an hour later, dragged myself into any old clothes I could find and walked downstairs without even bothering with hair. I usually ended up eating cornflakes whilst working on algebra, since Mum insisted that 'if you want to watch TV while you're having breakfast, then you've got to get up before we start our lessons'. I never got up early enough to watch TV in the end.

On a Monday morning once I started Dowerling, I would have still disregarded my alarm clock for half an hour, put my uniform on lazily, and after realising how late the time was, walked downstairs without my jumper on and shoes untied. I had to run for the bus with next to no breakfast pretty much all the time.

But today?

Today was different.

Instead of sleeping in while my mum constantly yelled my name from downstairs, I got up when the first beep sounded. I didn't even lie back down again - I stood up and walked towards my wardrobe, where I had hung up an outfit that I had prepared. I quickly took off my Hello Kitty pyjamas (at least nobody needed to see my pyjamas!) and smiled to myself as I stroked the material of the clothing.

Designer clothes.

Okay, admittedly it hardly felt different to Primark and Asda brand clothing, but it had a logo on it.

Was this all it would take?

This material was the key to popularity. It was what I wanted, what I had never had before, and all I needed.

I put on my usual school blouse. There was nothing I could do to improve that. But I could improve my navy-blue skirt. The evening before, I had cut at least five centimetres off the fabric, and now it was nowhere near the compulsory length the school told us to have our skirts (two-thirds of the way down your thigh). But it wasn't like I cared. All the popular people at school had their skirts even shorter (was that even possible?!), so it wouldn't do any harm for me to copy them. They couldn't exactly punish me for a skirt that at least covered up my butt when there were girls who barely looked like they were wearing a skirt. While I was at town, I got those tights that went practically transparent when you put them on. There weren't any school rules against those, and they were a drastic improvement to cotton tights that had random thread-balls all over them. The last original school item I put on was the jumper, but instead of tucking my blouse in like the perfect school-child, I pulled it back out again.

This was perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

***

"What the hell do you think you're wearing?" As soon as the door slammed behind us, Levi was already holding me by the collar.

This wasn't the awestricken reaction I was expecting, but it was better than nothing.

"Oh, just my school uniform and my new clothes and stuff. You know. Are you blind or something?"

In addition to the school clothes, I was wearing a Hollister coat and ballet pumps. I had curled my hair and put it into a half-bun, half-ponytail thing. I'd found that hair-style on the internet last night. I was wearing full-on make-up - with all the curled and mascara-covered eyelashes, eyeliner, foundation, blusher, lipstick and everything. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I couldn't help but gasp at how different I looked.

The few hours I had spent practising makeup last night had paid off. Okay, so I wasn't fainting at the sight of myself or anything, but in my opinion, I definitely looked a lot older and a lot cooler, instead of like that ten-year-old child messing around with their mum's make-up that I used to look like.

I wasn't sure if I was overdoing it. The old Lexi would have called it too much and too slutty.

But this is what everybody wore, wasn't it? It looked stylish and pretty.