Down With The Queen

First Day

“You pushed her off your roof? Why the hell would you do something like that?” Pearl asked, horror-struck.

“What I want to know is, where did you hide the body?” asked Raven, who had recently been watching crime movies.

“Good one Rave,” Mars chimed in, crunching on some caramel popcorn she’d found in the glove compartment of Raven’s Jeep. Mars carpooled with Raven to school sometimes if Jennifer was not up to driving all the way across town to get Mars, even though town wasn’t that large.

“She’s not dead you bumbling idiots!” Jennifer screamed in frustration but realised her mistake when a lot of heads turned to look at her. They were sitting in the purple convertible Jennifer had gotten for her sixteenth birthday to have some last minute gossip before the bell rang and they had to go their separate ways to different homerooms. When Aaron had gotten his, she decided that if her parents were going to get her a car, it should be one that looked just like Aaron’s; she was hoping that she could get him to start talking with her when he saw that she had a car just like his.

It didn’t work like she wanted. Instead, Aaron avoided her more because he thought she was stalking him.

“Hey Jay, can you keep your voice down? We’re not outchea tryna make people think we killed someone,” Mars said, crunching hard on her popcorn, much to Jennifer’s annoyance.

“That’s way too much carbs for you!” Jennifer growled and smacked away the popcorn in Mars hand. Now it was bird food as some pigeons flew down to eat them.

“Hey!! I was eating that!”

“And now you’re not,” Jennifer said, getting out of the driver’s seat. “Come on guys, we have to go. The bell’s gonna ring soon.”

She was still talking when Aaron’s car came swerving into the car park. All heads turned as he came to a screeching stop in a parking space that was luckily unoccupied. And who should she see riding shotgun beside him? Vi freaking McCain!

“Whoa...isn’t that the new girl?” Raven asked.

“Thought you said she was dead,” added Pearl. She was too busy paying much attention to Vi’s outfit to see Jennifer’s expression.

“Well now I wish I actually killed her,” Jennifer said with annoyance. She had warned Vi to steer clear of Aaron, so what was she doing with him? She hated the way Vi had swooped into school with one of the cutest boys at school, and was getting even more attention for being the new girl. Some of the students were already murmuring to themselves, wondering who the new girl could be. The jocks on the other end were already hooting and punching themselves, probably placing bets to see who would score first with Vi, and Vi was drinking up the attention happily. She was smiling and talking to Aaron and some loser girl in the car; which was disappointing because she knew that if Aaron was still with her, he wouldn’t have to go so low. Too bad he had lost his rank status at the top of the food chain.

Jennifer decided to milk some of the attention for herself; after all, the queen could not be seen as rivalling the barely there pretty new girl on the day she first arrives.

“Girls, brace yourselves. We’re going in,” Jennifer said with determination as she prepped herself to go over to Aaron’s car.

“In to school?” Raven asked, and the other three groaned and rolled their eyes.

Sometimes, Jennifer wondered why she still had Raven.

---

Vi was too caught up in her discussion about what flavours of ice cream were the best with Aaron and Kaleen to notice that they had arrived at Knox High, and luckily too, because she had almost forgotten what it looked like. The trees that surrounded the school, the gravel crunch of every car that drove into the car park, the persistent smell of the messed up garbage cans that were positioned at different corners, and the tall erect main school building that was painted bright red and yellow.

She had also forgotten about Jennifer and her threat of the previous night until she saw them coming her way.

“Uh oh,” Kaleen said with an anxious face. “Here comes the red queen and her hearts.”

“Red queen?” Vi asked with confusion written all over her face until she realised that Kaleen was referring to Jennifer, but before she could ask why Jennifer was standing right in front of her.

Vi thought she must be a vampire or something to move that fast.

“Hello…Vi,” Jennifer said, emphasizing her name like it was poison to her lips.

“Jennifer,” Vi replied with a smile that did not reach her eyes. She was rather enjoying how popular Jennifer was making her because the other students had started to pay attention to them and were whispering to themselves. She may not have planned to make an entrance with Aaron, but she did plan to get all the attention that she could gather.

“How lovely to see you again. Did you sleep well?” Jennifer cooed, knowing fully well that she might have scared the life out of Vi the previous night.

“Splendidly. Like a baby,” Vi laughed with fake enthusiasm. Luckily, Aaron came over.

“Hey Jen. Vi needs to go to vice Principal Bart to get registered,” he said as he steered Vi out of Jennifer’s way. Nothing good ever came up when Jennifer was around.

“Stealing her away so soon? I was just welcoming her to Knox High and inviting her to sit with us during lunch,” Jennifer said the last part out loud with a fake smile plastered to her face so that the students listening could hear. She would win the ultimate prize if there was a fake smiling competition, Vi thought.

“We’ll see,” was the only thing Vi said as Aaron took her in the direction of the school building. Soon enough eyes followed them and the murmured whispers continued.

“You know Jennifer Simon???!!!” Kaleen squealed as she could hardly believe her eyes.

“It’s no big deal, we just met at the party on Friday and I had dinner at her house last night,” Vi shrugged.

Kaleen looked like she would keel over and die at that point.

“No big deal?? Jennifer Simon is like the queen of Knox High. She’s like a legend,” Kaleen rapped out, still in awe. Aaron rolled his eyes, wondering why people idolised Jenifer so much.

“Not for long,” Vi simply said, trying to hide her mischievous smile.

Not for long.