After school on Monday, Sarah McMillan and the cheerleading squad were practicing in the gym under the watchful eye of Coach Barry. That wasn't always the case. On some days, they were on their own to practice. The Coach had multiple female teams she worked with, after all.
Coach Barry was a serious and dedicated sort, and completely oblivious to various things about her cheerleaders, because when she worked with them, they were on their best behavior. Even Sarah, regardless of what she might have said about the coach at other times.
There was Sarah, her closest friend and #2, Melissa Smith. Melissa was a red haired girl whose passion was fashion. Tiffany Sanders, who was known as the school slut. It wasn't necessarily the fairest thing to say about her, but it also had a grain of truth to it. She had just come off a vicious rumor that she was pregnant, and was out for blood about who had started it. Amber Levine, who kept her mouth shut a lot with the group...she was always agreeing with the others, or being generally shushed by them. That wasn't the whole squad...there were others, but for Sarah it was her social circle. Occasionally the other cheerleaders joined in, but when she was socializing, it was usually Melissa, sometimes Tiffany, and Amber rounded out the group because she went along with whatever everyone else said.
As they finished up, and the girls broke up, with the four lingering as the others heading toward the locker room, Sarah suddenly felt...something strange. As if the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up...Then, all sound in the room suddenly stopped...and so did all the people. Except her. She moved, noticing how everything else had slowed to a crawl...even the clock on the wall which had a second hand...was halfway between one second and the next. She was momentarily shocked. "Melissa? Tiffany? Amber?"
And then the changes started...she could see her friends morphing...Melissa's hair turned from red to blond, restyling itself into a simple ponytail. The makeup began to vanish from her face, and a pair of glasses appeared on the bridge of her noise. Sarah's head turned over to Tiffany, only to see her figure vanishing. She was starting to look a bit pudgy. It wasn't obese, but for people like Sarah, it might as well have been.
She didn't even bother to catch a glimpse of Amber before noticing a dark hair in her eyes. She abandoned her friends and tried to run to find help.
