Cheerio

I fixed my ponytail in the mirror of the girls’ locker room after Cheerios practice. After giving myself a parting smile, I grabbed my bag off the bench next to me and threw it over my shoulder.

The hallways were pretty much empty by the time I finished getting my stuff together. I was notoriously slow at getting ready, but it didn’t matter. People waited for me.

Being a Cheerio, it gave me automatic standing at William McKinley school. I was that blonde girl that was the center of every teenage movie, the one that the main character hated because she had the standing, the boy, the perfect life. Everyone in this school either wanted to date me or be me.

Well, I guess that title officially belonged to fellow Cheerio Quinn Fabray, but I was a close second. I didn’t even bother to count Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce, considering no guy ever took them seriously. I guess that was what happened when girls don’t respect themselves enough to keep from sleeping around.

“Hey, Evie,” Noah Puckerman greeted with a nod. I had to admit, he did look pretty good with his black t-shirt and jeans, his dark Mohawk freshly cut and his light brown eyes shining.

Unfortunately, I knew that he was totally off limits. After all, he’d gotten Quinn pregnant and slept with every other Cheerio. To date, I was the only one he hadn’t gotten in the sack, and that drove him up a wall. “In your dreams, Puckerman,” I smiled briefly, barely looking at him.

I heard him mumble something under his breath, but I didn’t care enough to pay attention to what it was.

Outside, my brother Garrett was idling his old Mustang from the late 1950’s. He went to the local community college, being nineteen, and he was getting a degree in something or other.

“Hey, Evie,” he greeted when I opened the door. “How was practice?”

“Great. Coach Sylvester moved me to the front of the squad in the dance number.” Although I kept my tone calm and shrugged, inside, I was really happy with myself. Giving up my elective block to have extra practice time really paid off. It was almost guaranteed that I would get a scholarship now, and I could get out of this black-hole town.

“Good to hear,” he said, checking out the back windshield to make sure that no one was coming from behind him. “Does that mean that you’re finally moving ahead of…what’s her name?”

“Santana?” I laughed. “Not quite. But you really don’t remember her name? You slept with her in your senior year, when she was a freshman.”

His dark eyebrows pulled together over his light green eyes. “Hm. I don’t remember that.”

“You stud, you.” I grinned at him and turned on the radio. “Speaking of which, how’s that girl you’re dating? Gloria?”

Garrett rolled his eyes. “Don’t even talk about her. I walked in on her having sex with my best friend's roommate the other day.”

“That sucks,” I commented, clicking my tongue. “I knew she was a whore.”

He snickered, turning up Breakeven by The Script. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Anytime.”

We pulled into the long driveway that led to our huge house. Well, huge compared to the other houses of Lima. When I was a kid, I thought we had the biggest house in the United States, but then I read a magazine that outlined Britney Spears’ house and got very disappointed.

“Got any homework?” Garrett questioned, ripping me from my memory, as he climbed the steps outside. He stopped in front of the door and fished out his key from the right pocket of his leather jacket.

“Only a little,” I responded with a shrug. Not many people who weren’t a part of Cheerios knew, but Cheerios didn’t get as much homework as other kids. They also got an automatic C on any assignment, including ones that didn’t get passed in, as a way to make sure that every Cheerio is eligible for competitions.

We stepped into the giant foyer, and I immediately went to the staircase. “I’ll see you at dinner,” I called back as I hurried up the stairs, feeling my skirt flouncing around my legs.

Once I was in my room, I turned on my iPod and sat down on my couch, reading the one chapter that I had to for English. Three pages in, my phone played a snippet of 4 Minutes by Madonna (Coach Sylvester mandated).

It was Santana, reminding me about the Cheerio/football banquet that weekend.

I gnawed on my lip, trying to figure out who I was going to bring. Or, who was going to bring me. Quinn snagged Finn, since they were in the on stage of their on-again/off-again relationship. I was pretty sure that Brittany was bringing that kid Artie, and Santana was bringing some other football meathead. Five of them were in Glee (minus the nameless football guy), which made me a little disgusted. I mean, that never really became socially acceptable. Now, it was just kind of a little gathering of people from different cliques, and the teachers were all thrilled that the kids at McKinley broke through so many barriers.

I could bring Puck…but that would be dumb on a few fronts. First, he would stop pursuing me, which would make everything boring. Second, he would definitely take that as an invitation to take me back to his place so we could fool around. I so wasn’t interested in that. I actually had class. More class than any of the other girls, anyway. Last, Quinn would get angry, and Santana would probably start a girl fight with me.

Flipping my blonde hair over my shoulder, I went back to my homework. Fifteen minutes later, I was done.

Grinning, I pulled my laptop off the ground and logged onto my MySpace account that was registered under another name. Thankfully, the world’s biggest loser, Rachel Berry, had posted another one of her singing videos.

In all seriousness (and I would never admit this to anyone out loud), I thought Berry was actually kind of talented. However, it was kind of a Cheerio’s duty to leave scathing comments on them to rip down her self-esteem. It wasn’t like it had worked much so far, since she was still bouncing around school, all full of herself in those dumb little outfits that made me think of little orphan Annie. Except without the red hair.

After leaving an especially mean comment that I was actually kind of proud of, I stood up, putting my computer next to me. It was starting to get dark, and I had to pull down my shades before that creepy bird perched itself on the tree outside my window and started singing. Don’t ask me what started that. I was pretty sure it happened with Brittany brought her bird over one time, and the wild one thought it would be a good idea to see if it would ever get a peek again.

On the way by, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. When I detached myself, I could see that my light blonde hair was falling perfectly in a perky ponytail, my light blue eyes were bright, and I looked like a teenage dream in my all-American cheerleading uniform.

But I knew better than anyone that things are not what they seem and image is everything.