“Are you taking pictures of her without even asking her first?” Victoria said.
“Do you go here?” I added.
“You don’t even go to this school, do you?!” Victoria screeched.
The girls looked somewhere between dumbstruck and giddy, like their adrenaline had frozen them into place. “Um, hi!” one of them said.
“Hi. What the hell?”
“You’re Audrey, right?”
I threw my hands up in the air. “No, it’s just a crazy coincidence. Yes, I’m Audrey! Why are you taking pictures of me?”
“Oh my God, it’s really her,” another girl said, covering her mouth and squealing a little. I knew this type of girl. She was a Teenie. The Teenies are the ones that always hang out by the tour buses after shows and scream, “I want to have your babies!” to the lead singers and only know the one popular song off the CD and totally humiliate the rest of us, who just want to say how much we love the music and how much it means to us. I hate those girls like I hate poison ivy and beets.
“Why are you taking pictures of me?” I said. “What are you doing here? How did you even figure out what school I go to?”
“Evan went here, right?” The third girl was pulling on her hair nervously. “We read it online and we’re just really big fans of yours!”
“And his too! We loooovveee the Do-Gooders!” The second one was almost swallowing her own tongue in excitement.
But I was still stuck on the earlier statement. “Fans of mine?”
“Oh my God, totally!” The first girl regained her power of speech just in time. “I mean, the song is so amazingly awesome and then we saw that you’re dating Simon from the Lolitas and just … gah!” Then she looked at my arms. “Where are your arm huggies?”
“How long did it take you to grow out your hair?”
“Is Simon coming to pick you up?”
“Did you and Evan really break up? Or are you still dating?”
“Will you take a picture with us?”
“Here!” The second girl thrust her camera at Victoria. “Will you take our picture? For our website?”
Victoria and I looked at each other. “Are you being Punk’d?” she asked me.
“You’re being Punk’d?!” Now the girls were at the intersection of ecstatic and apoplectic.
“Excuse me, ladies!”
I looked over my shoulder and saw both our vice-principal and the school security guard running toward us, each of them with a walkie-talkie in his hands, Jonah not far behind. I also saw that a crowd had started gathering—but half of them were horny teenage guys hoping for a girl fight. Sharon Eggleston was standing to the side, arms crossed, looking bemused and annoyed. Not that she ever had another expression on her face.
“Okay, ladies, what’s going on here?” Our vice-principal, Mr. Nielson, arrived, looking a little out of breath. The security guard arrived a second later, ready to kick ass and take names. It was understandable, considering that there was very little to do at our school besides catch kids sneaking off at lunch and smoking in the woods. This was going to be the highlight of his year, I could tell.
But back to the question at hand. It was a good one. What was going on? I decided to put it as plainly as I could. “These girls snuck onto campus and started taking pictures of me for their website.”
“They’re big fans of hers,” I heard Sharon say behind me, and I didn’t even have to turn around to know that Victoria was giving her a Look of Death.
Mr. Nielson turned to look at the girls, who were starting to realize their mistake. “Um, we just thought—” the first one began.
“What school do you girls go to?”
They got even smaller-looking. “Um, Kennedy?” The other public high school in our city.
“What kind of moron ditches school just to go to another school?” Victoria exploded. “At least you could go buy some CDs or go shopping or something!”
“Okay, Victoria,” the security guard said. “That’s enough.” I could tell he kind of dug her, though, like he was thinking the same thing. I bet he was a total stoner in high school.
Mr. Nielson glanced at me briefly before turning to my fan club. “You three, follow me to my office. Audrey and Victoria, the bell’s ringing in”—he glanced at his wristwatch—“thirty seconds, and I assume you have a class to go to. AS DO THE REST OF YOU!” he yelled to everyone else watching our little drama. “PLEASE FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO DO BESIDES BEING CASUAL OBSERVERS!” There was a rumor that Mr. Nielson had gone to Yale Drama School, a rumor I was starting to believe.
The girls looked back at me. Two of them had tears in their eyes. “Sorry, Audrey,” the third one said. “We were just … excited.”
And then I felt really bad. I mean, I was a fan too. It had only been four days since my own personal rock star humiliation. But I had done it because I was excited too. I hadn’t thought about cameras or consequences, and now look what had happened. I couldn’t blame the Teenies, because sometimes I wasn’t much different than them.
But at least when I ditched school, I didn’t go to another one.
And to make my bad day worse, James was absent. Again. Two days in a row. Just an observation on my part. I’m a very observant person.
If you think Monday and Tuesday were exciting, though, wait until you hear about Wednesday.