A Cliche Teenage Story

Chapter 20

       The days speed by quickly, cheer-leading and school and homework filling my days. It's already a couple weeks before Halloween, which just shows how much faster life seems as you get older. And how much more tired you get.

       My dreaded New York City trip is a month away, the Halloween dance on the day before Halloween, which is the Friday of next week, not the one I am in currently. It's Monday, and Holly and Josh have been broken up for a few weeks now. To be specific, they broke up exactly 22 days earlier. Not that I have been, you know, counting.

       Holly blames me for her unwanted break-up, continuing her insults and evilness to me. But no more (a pinch from uneatable) lunches have been dumped on me, thanks to her avoiding Josh, and my wonderful, watchful friends.

       I still don't have a date for the Halloween dance, although a couple people have asked me to go with them. I politely said no, since I didn't know 2 of them, and I knew for a fact the other one was asking every girl to see what they would say. And that's just stupid.

       What I am really hoping is that Josh will come to his senses and ask me. Or else I'll probably just go with my friends. And that would not be very fun, because Selena is obviously going with Aidan, Lisa is going with Will, and Jenny somehow got asked by Jacob, who was really amused by her endless, obvious flirting.

        I really doubt that Josh will ask me though. Were still just friends, and have not even hinted in the least that we wanted to be more then friends. Were not all thta great of friends either; but at least were still under the category of friends.

*****

        I usually absolutely love assemblies. The school or my grade would all gather up in the theatre, or if they feel mad, the gym.  Everybody sits and whispers to eachother while somebody makes some boring speech that nobody listens to. It's basicly an hour or so away from class, to whisper mand sit with your friends. Usually.

       Not this one.

       This assembly all the cheerleaders are supposed to perform for the school, and instead of screaming for the team, they're supposed to scream about buying candy grams for your friends. Yes, candy grams, the dreaded test of how popular you are. The more candy grams you get, the more popular you are considered.

       You buy one for a quarter, a ridiculously low amount of money, but considering what you are buying, it's a waste of money, what you are buying is not worth half as much. And what is it that we innocent middle schoolers are buying? Candy grams, which consist of a piece of paper and a Jolly Rancher, or one of those smarties packs.

       Either way, both candies are not worth 25 cents.

       You might wonder why the cheerleaders are advertising this, but the thing is, the cheerleaders, the role models of the schools" are supposed to sell them to their peers. The money goes towards some kind of cause the school chooses. And this year, our candy gram money is going towards cheer-leading. Yeah, that's right, people are buying these things so that the school can buy new, crisp inappropriate mini skirts.

       What they should buy us cheerleaders is something decent to wear.

       But here we are, on stage cheering for this ridiculous fundraiser that occurs in the night mares of the unpopular. Seriously, this time of year, middle schoolers probably have their worst nightmares being not receiving a single candy gram.

       And for some reason the school promotes this unusual and cruel punishment(for the unpopular, anyways), and advertises it. If you call flashing our butts to the student body in micro skirts advertising.