The Not So Pageant Girl (On Hold)

Chapter Eighteen

This isn't a new chapter, but it's the edited version of the last one, and is slightly longer. Enjoy, anyway.

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Chapter Eighteen

“I learned that skip roping loses weight real quick,” Jean said, flipping pages through a dieting magazine. I tried not to take this offensively, because first of all, he was pretty much calling me fat, and second of all, I just had a near panic attack and here he was, telling me to skip rope.

“I learned that bald people aren’t very nice, too,” I said, scowling. This caused Jean to push back at his bald head, and smirk. “Jealous?”

I choked, but managed a, “Very.”

“So, I’ll leave you here with this,” Jean wiggled the rope in the air. “And I’ll be off picking your outfit for tomorrow.”

“What? What outfit?”

Jean laughed. “You’re getting an interview tomorrow, Vick.”

“I’m what?” I asked, shocked. Oh my gosh. What. No one told me there was an interview! What the heck was going on? “No, I’m not!”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Vick, if you want to win this Pageant-”

“I don’t want to. I have to.” I interrupted quickly, hoping nobody misunderstood that.

“If you have to win this Pageant, then you better skip. I’ll be back in an hour.”

My jaw dropped. “An hour? I’m not skipping for an hour!”

“After that, I’ll give you example questions for what they’ll ask you. I don’t want you stuttering and everything.”

“Wait, what?”

“See you.”

Jean tossed the rope towards me, it landing on the floor with a soft thud. I bent down and picked it up, the tears about to crawl down. I had to supposedly lose weight, I had an interview tomorrow with who knows who, the papers were full of my name, my parents were kidnapped, what else did they want from me?

No, you can’t give up, a voice said in my head. It’s for your parents.

I quickly got up, pulled at my shoe laces, and started jumping. I hope Jean wasn’t lying. I wouldn’t want to be skipping for absolutely nothing. If this didn’t work, I’d probably be out in the first round. Sheesh. This wasn’t going to be good.

As I skipped, the thoughts from yesterday ran through my head. What did Jacob do, exactly? He actually helped me, by fricken singing? Why did he even help me? All I was was rude to him for these past few weeks, and he helps me.

Oh my. What if he did like me?

Okay, Victoria, calm down. You can’t start thinking every guy who’s nice to you has a secret crush on you. Especially Jacob. Remember those times he was rude to you, too? He. Doesn’t. Like. You.

Yeah, that was right. He didn’t. But why did he help me like that?

Probably cause you were freaking out.

I mentally whacked myself a few times, and continued skipping. And skipping. And skipping. Sweat started to crawl down my forehead, and I knew that my dieting plan started working. Maybe I could lose a few pounds.