Jade opened the door and gasped in surprise. Standing in front of his door was a goth, but it wasn't the goth bit that surprised him. No, it was the fact that he recognized the face.
"Sarah?" he asked. The girl blinked.
"It's Sarrah, actually." The girl replied and then she paused. It had been so long since someone had called her by her proper name, not this new weird pronunciation that was common in this world. "Wait...So you know who I was? Before...Before all of this happened?" Sarrah gestured to herself for effect.
Jade nodded slowly. He couldn't quite believe what was going on. First Zacharielle, now Sarrah showed up on his doorstep. "I think that you should come inside." He stepped aside so that he could let Sarrah in.
"Um, guys!" Jade called as he and Sarrah made their way up to his bedroom. "You might want to cover up. We have company." It was a good thing that neither of his parents were at home. They wouldn't approve of him having a girl in his bedroom, let alone a goth one like Sarrah. As they got closer, Jade could hear a frantic scramble as the boys in his room rushed to make themselves decent.
Sarrah smirked a little as she could picture what the scene looked like. A group of boys in their underwear running around picking up clothes. It reminded her briefly of how the world used to be and also why she came here.
"Sorry," Jade apologised to Sarrah. "We were having a sleepover and we weren't expecting anyone."
"That's fine," Sarrah chuckled. "That's why I actually came over. I wanted to talk to Buffie."
"Oh?"
"What's she doing here?" Zacharielle cried out with a look of disgust on his face. Jonatha gave the newcomer a quizzical look before recognizing the face.
"Sarah?" Jonatha was stunned. "As in Sarah McMillan?" Again, Sarrah nodded. She looked at the three boys who were already in the room. The one sitting in the corner with a laptop sitting in his lap must be Biff, or rather, Buffie. She tried squinting at him to see if she could recognize any of his features.
Buffie started to get a bit uncomfortable with Sarrah's stares, and he fidgeted in his seat before making a slight cough to get her attention. Sarrah blinked.
"Sorry," she muttered before staring again. "Biff?" she asked, wondering if Biff was somehow still in there.
Buffie shook his head. "Nope, I'm Buffie. ...But I think I have an idea of who you're talking about." Zacharielle looked at the newcomer—and everyone else—in confusion. How does this girl explain that weird stuff? Sarrah's weird in her own right.
"Wait...you do?"
"Jonatha and Jade have told me, and I've seen with my own eyes how people have changed. How did you find me?"
"I went by your place and your dad told me you'd be here."
An idea suddenly occurred to Buffie to see if Sarrah wasn't bluffing. "You know what a beard is?"
"Yeah, so? What does that have to do with anything?" Sarrah asked, somewhat annoyed.
"What's a beard?" Rielle tilted his head.
"That's what it has to do with something," Buffie began.
"Because it's something that doesn't exist here," Jonatha replied. "We were just talking about gross facial hair." He ran his hands over his face to demonstrate what a beard looked like.
"Trust me, it isn't beautiful or good to kiss," Sarrah said with some disgust. "Even trimmed, it still wasn't nice to see, but boys loved to let it grow out. Based on the way things went, us girls are lucky not to have to deal with that."
"Speaking of your face...are you wearing makeup!?" Zacharielle noticed, still turned off by the fact he was face to face with one of them.
"Anything to find some normalcy around here. I used to be a cheerleader, you know. I know exactly how it feels to be sitting where you are."
"You were?"
"Yeah. Today I've been thinking that once upon a time I was the cheer captain who despised people like this," Sarrah explained, gesturing to her black shirt. "Karma did me justice, I suppose."
"Judging from what I've heard about me in that world... Ew."
"But don't you want to move on and not have to suffer with these memories?" Jade asked to Sarrah, already knowing the truth.
"I don't want to be a nobody. Everything I know and I feel comfortable... You're living it now." said Sarrah, her heart full of nostalgia.
"Why don't you just conform? Let go of all that baggage?" Jade suggested. "It worked for me. Well, except for tonight."
"It's easy to take it on when you're on top and you're the hottest thing at school and girls go gaga for you. Maybe I didn't have an Ash in my life, but I was in those shoes. I lived it. I loved it." Sarah sighed, disgruntled and almost bitter.
"I still don't buy it," Zacharielle rebutted. "You know how you can turn me from a skeptic into a believer? No girl would know a ton about cheerleading. So tell me everything you know about cheerleading. And I mean _everything."
"So, when I was the cheer captain, our routines revolved around good coordination and top-notch flyers..."
"She's gonna be here a while getting him on board," Jonatha whispered to Buffie as Sarrah went on and on. "Can we talk?"
"Sure. You might have to explain some things, too."
"So Sarah McMillan was the cheer captain like Jade, but she was like Zacharielle in every other way. Bitter, entitled, snobby... I think Sarah was richer than him, though."
"And this Biff Meadows was her boyfriend?"
"Yeah. I think the closest thing we have to Biff is Shan Jackson, but Biff was... I would say Biff wasn't totally a player like Shan, but he was certainly a hunk. And a bit of an airhead."
"I see... I don't think I'd handle things well if I suddenly wound up in that reality. Looking down and seeing white hands would be a shock."
"That's Sarrah's problem, except suddenly she's a goth. In the old world my little sister was one, and her friends disgusted Sarah. There's something a little karmic about how she wound up."
"Except she's having a hard time with...how to be a girl around here."
"That's a good point."
"Maybe some other time I should talk to her alone..."
"And yeah, you're doing one of the routines I had created. Maybe it's part of this whole insanity."
After quite a bit of conversation, Rielle was less skeptical about Sarrah's cheerleading credentials, but he was still stubborn as ever. "You proved to me you follow and understand the sport, and that you know it's not just a bunch of dance moves! You mentioned something that confused me a bit. Something about the need to wear a ponytail?"
"It was all about sex. When I was a cheerleader, I was dating Biff and we were a pair, but sometimes when I was hanging with the squad, these perverted guys came to us to offer us some gifts in exchange for something. Later, I went to a PTA meeting with my dad and I noticed two of those same men there on the athletic booster club. They were helping to keep the women's sports afloat!" Rielle seemed a bit disgusted. "So for us, a well-kept ponytail and knowing how to tease the old guys kept the team well-funded and meant we didn't have to do car washes or bake sales."
Rielle broke out into a loud fit of laughter in utter disbelief. "Gawwwd... I'll definitely have to share that one with the boys on the bus to regionals!" This girl thinks she's a boy? Good grief, he added to himself.
"Okay guys (and girl)," Jade announced in a loud voice, "it's getting late and tomorrow the men here need to get up early and ready for a long day. So Sarrah, I hope you'd said everything you had to say, but if not, I think me, Jonatha and Buffie would be open to talk with you, but you have to go. My family has rules. No girl can sleep here without my parents' blessing, and you came here by surprise"
"Okay, I got it." Sarrah was already headed for the door.
"Before you go, take this." Buffie ran behind Sarrah and handed her a container of eyeliner. "I think you might like it. Try it out and come to talk with me later."
"Thank you," Sarrah replied as Jade walked over to escort her out.
"I was thinking... Why don't we meet another day and you can tell us about all your routines and chants? Maybe I can keep your legacy alive here."
Sarrah was taken by surprise and almost started crying. Staving off tears, she gave a bittersweet smile. "Why not? Maybe I can make you a winner."
"It was nice meeting you, Sarrah," Zacharielle added, though his tone of voice left room to wonder if he was actually being sincere. As everyone prepared to sleep, they wondered about the mystery that was unfolding in front of them.
