How to Be Popular

Who do you have to leave behind on the road to popularity?

There are those certain people in your life. You know who I'm talking about - the ones who you really do love, but they are just so uncool. No matter what they do, they just embarrass you and make you look bad. You may try to help them, but they were just born losers and they are not doing anything to change that. They don't WANT to be popular, and they are ruining your chances.

Let's face it; this is a cruel, evil world. You won't make it anywhere in life by being nice. In this world, you have to think of yourself. You're the only one who can decide what your fate is. If anyone dares to stand in the way of your popularity, then ditch them. You don't want really want them as a friend, do you? If the other popular people don't like them, then neither should you.

So get rid of them. Ignore them. Do whatever it takes.

It's as simple as that.

I woke up with a headache the day after Valentines' Day. And to make it worse, Valentines Day was on a Tuesday so we had school the next day.Tom and I decided to let everyone know about us, so we sat on the from steps of school, where everyone could see us, and made out.
Kids slowly made their way to school, and as they did a crowd slowly formed around us. I heard people whispering a lot.

"Aren't they brothers?"

"That's hot!"

"No, it's gross!"

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Who cares? It's hot!"

"I always knew that they were a bit weird..."

"Are they really kissing?"

"Maybe it was a dare or something?"

"I don't know..."

"I'm recording it on my cell phone."

"Oh! You have to send it to me!"

"OK, I'll upload it onto youtube tonight."

"OMG."

"What?"

"Tom has his hands in Bill's shirt now!"

"OH MY GOD. What if they fucked right here?"

"Should someone tell them to stop?"

"Get the principle!"

"No, stop being such a retard!"

"I'm telling the principle, this is disgusting."

"No! Don't ruin it for everyone!"

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? BILL AND TOM KAULITZ, GET INTO MY OFFICE RIGHT NOW!"

Oops.

Principle Laughenburger forced Tom and I to go to her office. We sat in there while she called our parents.

"What were you two thinking? Don't you know that that's incest?"

"We were just bored, Ms. It meant nothing," Tom lied.

"Well, it didn't look like it meant nothing! I'm sorry, but this is a very serious matter. I think that the two of you need to go to counseling. Your mother and stepfather will be here soon. I think that it's very important that they know about this."

"Fuck."

"Bill? Is there something that you would like to say?"

"No, ms."

After about 45 minutes, mom and Gordon arrived. They both looked confused.

"What's going on?" Gordon asked. "I had to leave work early!"

"Good morning, and please have a seat. We have a very serious matter to discuss."

"Yes?" Mom asked.

"This morning, I found your two sons outside the school, kissing and touching in a very inappropriate matter, especially for twins. I cannot stress enough how serious this is."

Mom and Gordon were speechless.

"Boys...is this true?" Mom asked. Her voice was shaking.

"Yes, but mom, it didn't mean anything! It was the first time we kissed, I swear!" I realized that I was getting very good at lying.

"Boys, we will discuss this at home. Principle Laughenburger, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Gordon, let's go."

They left. Principle Laughenburger seemed surprised.

"Well... I expected your parents to take this a bit more seriously then they did. If they won't then I will. Boys, you two will report to after school detention everyday for the next two months, is that clear?"

We both nodded.

"Good. But I do not want to see behavior like that from either one of you again. You are dismissed."

Tom and I left. Once we had, we both started laughing.

"So what do you think that mom and Gordon will say when we get home?" Tom asked.

I shrugged.

"I don't really know or care. They actually didn't seem very freaked out, though. I mean, Gordon seemed more concerned with how much work he was going to miss."

"Exactly! It was so weird. And here I was, afraid that they would be so mad."

"Well maybe they are mad and they just didn't want to embarrass themselves by yelling at us in public."

"Maybe."

We skipped the rest of our classes until lunch. When we entered the cafeteria, everyone was looking at us.A few people even came up to us.

"Oh my god are you two like gay for each other?" Some girl asked.

"We're not gay," Tom said.

"Then what were you two doing this morning?" Some one else asked.

"Oh, that? Haven't you heard? It's a new trend! Make out with your brothers and sisters, all of the cool kids are doing it!"

I winked at them and then me and Tom went over to our table.

"So how are kids taking the whole twincest thing?" I asked my friends.

"Well, some kids think that it's disgusting but most people think that it's hot. So I don't think that you two will have a problem," Miaka informed us.

I smiled.

"Perfect."

After school, Tom and I had to go to detention. However, since the principle is a bitch, we had to serve our detentions separately.

The room that I was in had no one cool in it. It was boring. Tom was probably having tons more fun then I was.

Wait. No. Tom couldn't be having fun without ME. I mean, it just wasn't possible, right?

After an hour they let us out. I met up with Tom on the front steps. Before I saw him, I heard him. Laughing. Who could he possibly be laughing with? Like, all of our popular clique already went home. THEY didn't get detention. So what the hell was so funny?

I saw Tom standing with a group of three gangsters, the same ones that he talked to on the first day of school, before he became popular. I haven't seem him talk to them since then, so what was he doing now?

These boys were disgusting. I mean, they were WHITE! And here they were acting like they were Snoop Dogg's "brothers from another mother." Ew.

To make things worse, these boys were unpopular. I wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with them!

I ran over to Tom put my arm around him protectively.

"Hello, Tom."

"Bill!" He kissed me. I heard some of his new friends whistle. Retards.

"Hey. Why are you hanging out with them?" I whispered in his ear.

"I met them in detention."

"Oh. Can we go home now?" I asked.

"Sure, let's go. Bye!" He waved to his new friends.

"Yo, see you later. And Tom, my G, I'll burn you that Samy Deluxe CD, I think you'll like him."

"Awesome, see you later."

We started walking home.

"What's a 'G'?" I asked him.

"What?"

"That wannabe gangster called you a 'G'. What does it mean?"

"Oh...it's short for OG."

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, right, as if I know what that means!"

"OG stands for Original Gangsta, aight?"

"What?! Since when do you say 'aight'?"

Tom smiled.

"It's some slang my new friends taught me. I think it sounds cool."

"It sounds retarded." I replied. I wasn't going to deal with him talking like that.

"Bill, you don't know anything about being a gangsta, aight?"

"Nor do I want to know. So please, spare me the details."

We got home soon after that. Mom and Gordon were waiting for us in the living room.

"Boys, we need to talk."

"Now, mom?" I asked. I was not in the mood.

"Yes, now. What were you two thinking this morning?"

"I don't know..." I replied.

"You do know that it is wrong for you two to do those sort of things, right?" Gordon asked.

Tom and I nodded.

"We're sorry! We won't do it again," Tom said.

"You had better not. We're going to let you off this time, but if we hear of you two kissing - or worse - again, then we won't be so kind." Mom said.

"OK! We get it. Are you done now?" I asked.

Mom sighed.

"I suppose."

I rolled my eyes and went to my room. After a few minutes my cell phone rang. It was Miaka.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Bill, can you help me with something?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

"Well...it just seems like Zac doesn't like me anymore. I don't know what to do! Whenever I talk to him, he doesn't seem interested in what I have to say. I'm afraid that he doesn't like me anymore."

"But didn't you say that you didn't like him anyways?"

"I don't! But, hey, he's rich and buys me nice stuff. I don't want him to break up with me."

I sighed.

"Try talking to him. Ask him if he still likes you."

"Ok, thank you!"

"Sure."

We hung up.

My god, is that girl fucking blind? I mean, anyone can tell that maybe Zac doesn't like her because he's gay!

Of course Tom and I lied when we swore to never kiss again. Instead, we decided to never kiss again when our parents or teachers were around. So, that included school.

The next day Tom and I were holding hands and walking into lunch. I started right towards the popular table. I mean, that's where we belonged! But Tom said to me, "Let's come over here first. I want to say hi to some people."

And guess who he walks over to?

"Yo, Tom, my G! Wassup?"

"I'm aight, you?"

"It's all good. I got that CD for you, you dig?"

I tried not to laugh. "You dig?" Who said that except Snoop Dogg? Poser...

"Yeah, I'll listen to it tonight. Hey, do you listen to Eminem at all?"

"No, man, he be too white."

"Dude, YOU'RE WHITE!" Tom said.

"But we all black...when the lights go out." The gangster replied.

This was getting pathetic. I sighed.

"Tom! I'm going over to OUR table!"

"OK, then. Bye."

I was shocked.

"What did you say? No, you're supposed to come with me! Because you love me, don't you?"

"Of course I do. Sorry." He turned to the gangsters. "I'll see you in detention."

"Finally!" I said.

"What? Aren't I allowed to have friends besides you?"

"Yeah - them!" I pointed to all of the other popular kids.

"But they can be so boring sometimes. I mean, none of them know what an OG is. They don't know what aight means. They don't know anything! If I asked them what krumping was, do you think that anyone would be able to answer me?"

"Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"What the hell is krumping?"

Tom sighed.

"You're too white to understand."

Are there times when you just want to kill someone you love? Because Tom is really starting to get on my nerves...

I think that Tom has to see what happens when he messes with the popular kids...

A few days later in lunch, I was sitting with Miaka, Zac, Jessi, Julia, Dylan, and Alex. Tom had decided to sit with his other friends.

"What are we going to do about him?" I asked them.

"I don't know...but he's become so uncool." Said Alex.

"Exactly. So I have an idea. How about we all ignore him? After a while he'll be begging for our forgiveness and he will realize the error of his ways."

"But how are you going to ignore him?" Miaka asked. "He's your brother!"

I shrugged.

"It'll be easy. We used to hate each other, to be honest. But it won't take long. He will miss us and come crawling back soon. Trust me, I'm never wrong."

But, of course this time I had to be.

"Bill! Hey, Bill! Do you want to walk home together? Bill! Why are you ignoring me? You don't have headphones on, do you? Bill!"

It hurt, it really did. I hated to ignore him as I walked home one day after detention. But I had no other choice.

"Bill! What's wrong? Did I do something wrong? Bill, please talk to me!"

I just walked faster. I heard him behind me, trying to walk faster to catch up with me. So I started running. When I got home I stayed in my room. Tom was knocking on my bedroom door, but I still ignored him. The next morning I left for school before he was even awake.

I was at my locker when Tom came up to me.

"Bill! Why do I have the feeling that you've been avoiding me?"

Miaka came over.

"Don't talk to Bill!"

Tom was shocked.

"What? Why, what did I do wrong?"

"Go ask your new friends," I said to him coldly.

"What does this have to do with them? Oh my god no. Are you seriously saying that you don't like me anymore because I've been hanging out with some "unpopular" kids? That's childish."

I didn't say anything. I let Miaka do all of the talking.

"You're making Bill upset, leave him alone! I thought that you were cool, but I guess I was wrong about you. You're a jerk."

Tom looked at me. He looked ready to cry. That shocked me, because he's always been the stronger one.

"Are you really going to do that, Bill? Are you really going to ignore your own brother just to become popular? You've changed so much, I hardly even recognize you anymore."

I glared at him.

"Hmm...it's funny, isn't it? How karma is? How we've seemed to have switched roles. Or did you forget already? How you used to be popular, and I was the one who was always ignored by you? How does it feel? How does it feel to know how terrible this is yet to also know that this is exactly the way that you used to treat me? It changes everything, doesn't it?"

That must've hurt. I could see it in his face when he realized that what I said was true.

"Now do you think that it's still wrong?"

"Yes, of cour-"

Without hesitation, I smacked him in the face.

"Hypocrite."

And I walked away, with Miaka following me.

"Were you really unpopular at your old school?" She asked me.

I sighed.

"Yes."

"Why?"

I didn't want to tell her too much, because it was embarrassing.

"I was shy, and I dressed a bit differently then everyone else. Also, I wasn't interested in being popular or even being friends with anyone. I waited for THEM to talk to ME, instead of trying myself."

"Oh...well I can't imagine you like that. You seem to me very confident and out going: everyone loves you."

"Everyone loves me except the people who matter most. I sometimes feel like my popularity is a lie."

"Well...popularity isn't as easy as it seems. Sometimes you have to lie."

"I know but...I'm starting to think that popularity isn't worth changing myself."

"Changing yourself? Like what? You should know that we'll all love you no matter what."

"Wait...if you'll love me no matter what, then why did all of you ditch Tom? Am I any different from him? Better?"

"No...Bill...you might not see it, but you are the most popular guy in this school. You don't realize how much people will do what you say just to impress you. To be honest, I really like Tom...he's a cool person. Everyone agrees with me. The only reason why we ditched him is because YOU told us to."

That was a surprise to me.

"What? But when I suggested ditching Tom, you all agreed with me!"

"We just said those things because we knew that that's what you wanted to hear. Bill...you need to decide what it is that you really want. Do you want to push the person you love most away just for something that you already have?"

"I-I don't know. Besides, Tom won't want me back now."

"How do you know unless you try? Talk to him."

I sighed.

"Ok...I will. I just hope that it isn't too late."