[on hiatus] Metamorphosis of a Mean Girl (How To Rule Your High School Part 2)

Chapter 2: Honor Student Encounters

                 

"You did what?" Vicky demanded.

"I sauntered in with Tyler's arm around me and him kissing my head," I said, as we walked side-by-side down the hall at lunch.

"That works," she said, "But Tyler? Really?"

She made a bit of a face before pausing to glance down at her phone. I hated the way my insides twisted at her disapproval, but thoughts of Tyler's arm around me battled away the bad feelings with fuzzy ones. We kept walking, Vicky totally distracted as she scanned the lockers, until she grabbed my arm to stop me in my tracks.

"Follow my lead, okay?" she said, stowing her phone in the back pocket of her skinny jeans as she shook out her hair and sauntered up to someone I don't think I ever would have even imagined her talking to.

"You're Ernie MacKibbin right?" Vicky purred, stopping in front of the computer club president's locker. I felt a pang of pity when his face flushed almost as bright red as his hair. He pushed his glasses up along the greasy slick of his nose as he turned to Vicky. She towered a good two inches over him, her heels giving her the advantage.

"Y...yes? How do you know who I am?" he said, his eyes hopping from Vicky to me then back again. I smiled, feeling more than a little guilty for flustering him so much.

"Ohmigod you're not being serious, are you? You were like all over the Clairview Chronicle last week!" Vicky gushed, while subtly reaching into her other jean pocket. A ghost of a smile crossed Ernie's face at the mention of the Chronicle, the local town newspaper.

"I didn't know you were interested in chess championships," he said with a shy grin. Vicky offered him a simple, flirty smile and poor Ernie self-consciously pushed his glasses back up again, flushing even redder.

I felt a pang of pity that he had no idea that he was about to be Victoria-ed.

"So...is there something I can help you with?" Ernie asked finally. Vicky maintained her silence as she looked him over with more interest than any A-lister had probably ever shown him before.

"Actually yes there is," she said eventually, looking down at the memory key she'd pulled out of her pocket, "I need you to get something into the school paper for me,"

"Well I'm not really the person to go to about tha-" Ernie started.

"Not like a submission, obviously. I need you to, ah, swap an article for me," she said, offering him that flirtatious little smile of hers again.

"Oh. Okay, but I'm really not the one to go to ab-" Ernie said, moving to close his locker, but Vick caught it with her hand.

"You're the best hacker in Clairview," Vicky whispered, "Don't think I don't know that. You're the only one who can do this for me,"

Ernie's shy grin was gone as he met Vicky's coldly calculating eyes. He swallowed.

"Look, I don't have time for your petty gossip or whatever it is you want me to splice in. I have college interviews and papers to write and-" he said, trying to close his locker again. Vicky held fast, her eyes alight.

"Harvard, isn't it?" Vicky asked, cocking an eyebrow. Ernie blinked a few times, swallowing again.

"How do you know that?" he asked. She grinned, but this time there was nothing flirtatious about it.

"The same way I know that a letter from an alumnus like my father would hop you to the top of the waiting list," she purred, "Because the early acceptances have already gone out and you weren't one of them, were you?"