Mean Girls

Wednesdays

"Oh, my God!" AJ laughed hysterically, "OK, you have to do it, OK? And then you have to tell me all the horrible things that Charlotte says."

"Charlotte seems sweet." Bayley said.

"Charlotte Flair is not sweet. She's a scum-sucking road whore! She ruined my life!" AJ raised her voice.

"She's fabulous, but she's evil." Chad commented, coming out of the bathroom stall.

"Hey, get out of here!" A girl told him.

"Oh, my God, Danny DeVito. I love your work!" He chased her away.

"Why do you hate her?" Bayley asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Charlotte." She repeated. "You seem to really hate her."

"Yes. What's your question?"

"Well, my question is, why?"

Chade started to answer Bayley's question. "Charlotte started this rumor that AJ was..."

"Chad!" AJ cut him off. "Shall we not? Now, look. This isn't about hating her, OK? I just think that it would be, like, a fun little experiment if you were to hang out with them and then tell us everything that they say."

"What do we even talk about?"

"Hair products." AJ suggested.

"Ashton Kutcher." Chad added.

"Is that a band?"

"Would you just do it? Please?" AJ begged.

"OK, fine. Do you have anything pink?"

AJ scoffed. "No."

"Yes." Chad said.

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By eighth period, I was so happy to get to math class. I mean, I'm good at math. I understand math. Nothing in math class could mess me up.

"Hey, do you have a pencil I can borrow?" Asked a very good looking guy who turned around in his seat. Bayley handed him her pencil in a heart beat.

I've only had one other crush in my life. His name was Nfume, and we were 5. It didn't work out. But this one hit me like a big, yellow school bus.

The teacher called on her to answer the question, "Bayley, what do you say?"

- He was... "So cute." Everybody turned and stared at her. "I mean, A-sub-N equals N plus one over four.

"That's right. That's good. Very good." Ms.Del Rey began writing the answer on the board. "All right, let's talk about your homework."
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When Bayley came back home she saw her parents sitting on the front porch. "Hey. How was your second day?" Her dad asked.

"Fine."

Her mother tries keeping the conversation going. "Were people nice?"

"No."

"Did you make any friends?"

"Yeah." She smiled before heading inside.
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Having lunch with The Plastics was like leaving the actual world and entering "Girl World". And Girl World had a lot of rules.

"You can't wear a tank top two days in a row, and you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week. So I guess you picked today. Oh, and we only wear jeans or track pants on Fridays. Now, if you break any of these rules, you can't sit with us at lunch. I mean, not just you. Like, any of us. OK, like, if I was wearing jeans today, I would be sitting over there with the art freaks." Becky looked over to the table that consisted of AJ, Chad, and a few other people. "Oh, and we always vote before we ask someone to eat lunch with us because you have to be considerate of the rest of the group. Well, I mean, you wouldn't buy a skirt without asking your friends first - if it looks good on you."

"I wouldn't?" Bayley asked.

"Right."

"Oh, and it's the same with guys. Like, you may think you like someone, but you could be wrong."

"A hundred and twenty calories and 48 calories from fat." Charlotte tried doing the math in her head but it wasn't working out. "What percent is that?"

"Forty-eight into 120?" Becky guessed.

"I'm only eating foods with less than 30 percent calories from fat." Charlotte made clear.

"It's 40 percent." Bayley answered. "Well, 48 over 120 equals X over 100 and then you cross-multiply and get the value of X.

Charlotte tilted her head in confusion then rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm getting cheese fries."

Becky crossed her arms on the table top and leaned forward. "So have you seen any guys that you think are cute yet?"

"Well, there's this guy in my calculus class... " Bayley admitted shyly.

"Who is it?" Sasha asked with a growing smile.

"It's a senior?"

"His name's Finn Bálor."

"No!" Sasha and Becky nearly jumped out of their seats. "Oh, no, you can't like Finn Bálor. That's Charlotte's ex-boyfriend.

"They went out for a year." Sasha told her.

"Yeah, and then she was devastated when he broke up with her last summer."

Sasha took a second to think back, "I thought she dumped him for Roman Reigns."

"OK, irregardless. Ex-boyfriends are just off-limits to friends. I mean, that's just, like, the rules of feminism. Don't worry. I'll never tell Charlotte what you said. It'll be our little secret."