Hannah Parker would rather have been a thousand miles away from where she was.
Starting high school was difficult enough, but to have to do it just after your dad took a job far from home, ripping you from all your friends and the only state you'd ever really known?
At the very least Lake Point High School had a decent spiritline program. If she'd stayed in Houston and gone to high school there, she wondered if she'd have been good enough. Football was like a second religion there, and the spirit squads were its choirs: not directly related to the act at hand but part and parcel of its culture.
But here, she thought, she had a chance. Or she did before her first day.
The spiritline coaches initially liked what they saw at tryouts, and she was the only freshman who made varsity. But the upperclassmen didn't see it the same way. Especially the captain of the team, who seemed to take an instant dislike to her, but judging by the way they moved, she looked down on everyone.
Worse, the whole place seemed like some sort of teen drama. The coach seemed to be easily swayed by the captain, who acted like a 'Queen Bee' to the cheer squad. She'd never thought those movies were real. There was no respite: the only other Black cheerleader at Lake Point didn't join in, but she remained quiet, even as it felt like there was a campaign trying to push her out of their ranks. Within a few weeks, even the coaches had gone from seeing talent to falling in line with the queen of the hive, one Sarah McMillan.
One afternoon, in just the second week of practice and after days of teasing that seemed to go beyond just being a freshman, it finally exploded. At the end of a routine, Hannah made a minor misstep. It was no worse than other cheerleaders—even some of the more experienced, like Amber Levine or Melissa Smith—but it was enough for Miss McMillan.
"Hmmph. You think you're such a hotshot," she sneered. "Look at you... You're nowhere near good enough. They put you on 'cuz they wanted to look good."
"Well, I know having me increases the sexiness level around here..."
"You're gonna stick out like a sore thumb at every game."
Hannah looked nervously around, especially at Allison Wright. She would hope the only other person in this situation would back her up, but she didn't even seem to care. In fact, she had barely talked to her because Sarah seemed to not want anyone on speaking terms with the new girl.
"You mean...someone who isn't a clone of you?" Hannah asked, gesturing to the others.
"Well, a clone of me would be an improvement. She wouldn't be a loser, that's for sure. And the other girls aren't clones. They just recognize good taste."
"More like taste-less," the freshman rebutted.
Sarah began to walk around Hannah. "And you know something about taste? That hair, those clothes..." She began to pick apart everything about Hannah—not just her clothes, but suggestions about where plastic surgery might help.
"You know what? Maybe not every girl in this town is born with a silver spoon like you. That doesn't make us losers. That makes us normal."
"If you keep talking back to me, I'll get you tossed off this team. I'm not gonna have girls on this team that I can't lead. You know, cheer...LEAD...er."
"You sure don't sound like a good leader to me. You sound more like a petty shallow princess who isn't used to everyone not bowing down to her."
"Then I have a suggestion for you: lead yourself outta here!" Sarah said shrilly, her voice filling the empty gym and echoing off the basketball court.
"Fuck you!" Hannah hurried out of the gym, looping around the back, wanting to be alone. The back of the gym was against a small grove of trees and several fences. She hurried along, and found herself suddenly surrounded by other teens... Goths. She heard a loud cracking noise, looking down, she'd stepped on some object on the ground. It was an antique hand mirror that was on the ground inside some sort of circle drawn in the dirt, with some weird runes on it.
"What the fuck?" one of the girls said.
Another looked at her. "That was my grandma's mirror...." she insisted.
"Sorry..." she mumbled. She turned in another direction, the glass from the mirror still in the treads of her sneakers. It wasn't until she got home that she noticed it. She turned them over to clean them. "Ow..." she said as she cut her finger. It wasn't a deep cut, but it stung.
It had been a sucky afternoon. First Sarah berates her for no reason, then she steps on some old mirror, probably getting seven years of bad luck in the process, then cut herself on the shards. And those Goths were probably going to want revenge at some point. They looked pretty steamed.
After rushing back to her apartment, Hannah was too tired—and too busy—to process what had happened, though she certainly felt the cut on her finger as she buried herself in her algebra homework.
It wasn't until she began to get ready for bed that the stress and frustration finally hit her. She had stormed out of cheer practice because the squad was controlled by a petty tyrant and her sycophants and, while storming out, managed to ruin another group's afternoon. Have I blown my shot at making any friends in this town? she worried as she turned off the bedroom light. She had this feeling that things weren't going to get any better.
After she calmed herself, Sarah scarcely thought about what happened for the rest of the day. She'd go to the coach, whom she could easily manipulate, and ensure that Hannah—that bitch—didn't have much of a future on the team. She couldn't have anyone who challenged her leadership; the squad would still be filled with the right kind of girls.
As she drifted off to sleep, Sarah thought about Hannah briefly one more time and how the underclassman would crawl back into whatever anonymous hole she'd crawled out of and learn not to mess with Sarah McMillan. Good riddance.
