Major Crush

Chapter 1

I could keep my expressionless drum major face on while I strode under the bleachers and around the stadium to the bathroom. But then I was going to bawl.

Six thousand people, almost half the town, came to every home game of the high school football team. Tonight they crowded the stadium for the first game of the season. They had expected the band to be as good as usual. Instead, it had been the worst half-time show ever to shatter a hot September night. And I'd been in charge of it.

Me and the other drum major, Drew Morrow.

Allison knew exactly what I was doing. She handed her batons to another majorette and hurried close behind me.

The band always took third quarter off. So I had about half an hour to get myself together, with Allison's help, before I had to be back in the stands to direct the band playing the fight song during fourth quarter.

I felt Allison's hand on my back, supporting me, as I stepped through the bathroom door. My eyes watered, my nose tickled, I was ready to let loose—

Unfortunately, about twenty girls from the band were in the bathroom ahead of me. Including Drew's girlfriend of the month, the Evil Twin.

You think it hurts your feelings that girls talk about you behind your back, until they tell you to your face. And they each wanted a turn. Every time, it started with "girlfriend" and ended with "bitch."

"Girlfriend, you think you're hot stuff, doctor's daughter. I like the nail through your nose, bitch."

"Girlfriend, you need to give it up. You call yourself the leader of the band. You only led us into sounding like crap, bitch."

Allison stepped in front of me, putting herself between me and them. She seemed nine feet tall. She was a lot more threatening dressed in her majorette leotard than I was dressed like a boy. But she pulled at her earring with one hand, so I knew she was stressing out.

"You voted for Virginia," she reminded them.

"I didn't vote for her," called a clarinet.

"Well, somebody did."

"That's not what I heard," the Evil Twin said.

The Evil Twin was either Tracey or Casey Reardon—I wasn't sure which one, and no one else seemed to know either. All we knew for sure was that the twins were evil. Or, one of them was evil and the other just looked the same.

I assumed the one currently dissing me was the one dating Drew. Because she sure seemed to have it in for me.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, walking forward to face her. I didn't understand what Drew saw in her besides heavy makeup, long hair, and enormous boobs. Maybe that was enough. "What do you mean, you heard nobody voted for me?"

"I mean, Mr. O'Toole quit his job in an awful big hurry, and right at the beginning of school. Maybe he had to leave because you convinced him to count the votes in your favor, if you know what I mean."

My jaw dropped at the twin and her bad blue eyeliner. I couldn't quite get my brain around what she was saying. She wasn't really accusing me of having sex with the band director, was she? So ridiculous. I was the world's least sexy sixteen-year-old. I mean, there's a reason my parents named me Virginia.

"That's disgusting," Allison said to the twin. "Only a whore like you would think that up. Allison really was disgusted, or she wouldn't have talked that way. Usually she was above using words like "whore," calling people names, starting catfights in the bathroom—