Troy High (7 page)

TROY GOT THEIR REVENGE THREE DAYS LATER.

I didn’t see it, but I heard about it as soon as I arrived at the courtyard outside the gym Thursday morning.

“On the front of the school?” I heard Kelsey ask Mallory.

“All the way across the front,” Mallory answered, nodding.

I looked to Elena for some clue as to what they were talking about, but she and Perry were busy cuddling and exchanging saliva.

“Serves them right, for starting the war,” Kelsey said.

I raised an eyebrow at Hunter. “What did I miss?”

Perry heard me and broke away from Elena long enough to raise his fists in the air and shout, “Troy rules!”

“And Lacede drools, I know,” I finished. “You could come up with something better than elementary school chants, you know.”

“Oh, really?” Perry asked. “Hunter, show her.”

Hunter reached into his pocket and produced some photographs. I took the photos, gasping as I looked through them.

“You spray-painted Lacede?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch.

The crowd sitting around the courtyard laughed as I stared down at the pictures of Lacede High, which featured the word
LOSER
painted in giant red letters over where it used it say
LACEDE
across the front of the school.

“Now everyone will know that the Spartans are nothing but losers,” said Paul Baker, another football player.

I glared at Paul. “Lacede may have toilet-papered and egged our school, but they didn’t spray-paint it. Do you realize how much it’ll cost to clean this off?”

Paul pretended to wipe away a tear. “Oh, boo-hoo. Like I care.”

“Lacede started this, Cassie,” Hunter told me. “If your friend Lucas had been a man and left our school alone, we would never have had to deface his. If you’re looking for someone to blame, look at your Spartan friends.”

“Lucas is not my friend.” I shoved the pictures back into Hunter’s hand.

“You could have fooled us,” Mallory said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You seemed to be pretty friendly with the Spartans at the game last Saturday. And we know you were at the Lacede game the night before.”

“I’m friends with Lucas’s brother,” I said. “Is there a law against that?”

“You might want to reconsider who you’re seen with these days, Cassie,” Hunter told me. “I don’t want someone getting the wrong idea and thinking you’re a traitor to your school.”

I heaved a long sigh. “Can we please grow up and forget this rivalry?”

Hunter shook his head, his expression serious. “Sorry, but things are already in motion. We can’t back down now.”

“It’s over now,” Elena told me a week after Troy got revenge on Lacede. “Lacede attacked us, we attacked them, now we’re even.”

I hoped she was right. I hadn’t heard a word from Greg. I had started to e-mail him several times, but I always deleted my half-finished e-mails without sending them. It wasn’t that I worried about the other Trojans getting
mad at me for talking to a Spartan, it was just that things were changing between us and I didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. Kissing Greg was the biggest mistake I’d ever made. Everything started to unravel after that happened.

But then another part of me was glad I had kissed him. This same part of me wanted to run over to his house every afternoon and kiss him again and again. It was obviously the insanely masochistic side of me that hadn’t been hurt enough by Greg’s lack of enthusiasm for our first kiss.

I was tempted to beat my head against the wall just to try to get rid of the thoughts of him.

I sat down at my usual table during lunch that afternoon. Kelsey was out sick, so it was just Elena, Mallory, and me.

“This spaghetti looks disgusting,” Mallory said, picking up the rubbery noodles with her fork.

I looked down at my own spaghetti. It really didn’t look appetizing—watery sauce with a few shriveled meatballs—but I was starving. I’d slept late and hadn’t been able to eat breakfast before school.

I shoved a huge forkful of spaghetti into my mouth.

“Ugh,” Elena said as she watched me. She took dainty bites of her spaghetti.

Mallory made a face, but she cut up her noodles and ate the spaghetti also.

“Have you guys bought homecoming dresses yet?” Mallory asked. The homecoming game was still more than a month away, with the big dance in the school gym later that night.

Elena’s eyes lit up. “Not yet. I’m still trying to decide on a color.”

“I have a black dress with a jeweled neckline,” Mallory said. “It needs to be hemmed a bit though.”

“What about you?” Elena asked me.

I swallowed my mouthful of noodles. “Me? I don’t go to dances.”

The two girls stared at me as if I’d said I still believed in Santa Claus.

“This is not just a dance,” Elena told me. “This is
homecoming
. You have to go.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t dance and I don’t get dressed up.”

“You don’t have to dance,” Mallory said. “You just have to be there.
Everyone
is going.”

“
Everyone
?” I asked, twirling my spaghetti around with my fork. “I doubt that. There has to be at least one other loser around here who would rather not spend their Friday night at school.”

“It’s not
school
when you’re attending a dance,” Elena
informed me. “You’re going to homecoming. If you don’t want to buy a dress, I have one you can borrow.”

Elena had to be at least four inches taller than me. Even if by some miracle our waists were the same size, any dress of hers would make me look like a little kid dressing up in her mother’s clothes.

“Thank you, but no. I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are,” said Elena. She squeezed my arm. “It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

Half an hour later, during my history class, my stomach gave a sudden rumble. I pressed my hand to my abdomen, feeling a little queasy.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Across the room, Keenan Willoughby raised his hand and said, “Mr. Tompkins? May I be excused?”

Mr. Tompkins stopped in the middle of his lecture on the Constitutional Congress and looked at Keenan. “You’ll have to wait until the end of class.”

Keenan bounced in his seat. “I don’t think I can wait that long, sir.”

A few seats behind him, Georgette Lipinski raised her hand. “I have to go too, Mr. Tompkins. It’s an emergency.” She sat slumped forward in her seat, clutching her stomach.

A few other kids raised their hands, asking to be excused.

And then I knew why they needed to be excused so suddenly. My stomach rumbled again and I realized I needed to get to a bathroom
right away
.

I raised my hand, joining the others pleading for Mr. Tompkins to let them out of class. Mr. Tompkins stared at us, his expression going between doubt to confusion. I knew it looked strange to him, that half of his class suddenly needed to use the bathroom at the same time, but I didn’t think I could wait any longer.

Keenan definitely couldn’t. He jumped up from his seat and ran to the door, pulling it open and dashing into the hall.

“Keenan, get back in here!” Mr. Tompkins exclaimed.

Now that Keenan had acted, the rest of us didn’t waste time either. We tripped over backpacks in our haste to get out.

In the hall, other classrooms were open as well, with students running out and teachers calling after them to come back. I saw a few teachers also running with us, everyone clutching their stomachs and moving as fast as their legs would carry them, trying to get to a bathroom stall before they were all taken.

I felt better but not fully back to normal that night when Elena insisted I go out to the Ice Cream Factory with her
and a bunch of other kids from school. Of course, Perry and Hunter were going, so I rode with them, squished into the back of their car between Elena and Mallory.

The Ice Cream Factory was pretty busy. So busy that we didn’t notice the crowd in blue letterman jackets that had walked in the door until the whispers reached our table.

Several members of the Spartan football team stood just inside the restaurant, with Lucas and Ackley in the front. On the edge of the group stood Greg. His eyes met mine briefly before he looked away.

Perry was the first of our group to stand. “What have we here?” he asked, giving a sly grin. “Lost Spartans? Need a hand finding your way back home?”

Lucas stepped forward, his fists clenched. “Need a hand rearranging your face?”

Perry’s grin faltered a bit.

“Are you going to let him talk to you like that?” Hunter asked our brother, pushing him in the small of his back toward Lucas. Hunter had been even grumpier than usual all afternoon, a side effect of the stomach problems, I assumed.

Perry laughed. “I wouldn’t want to injure him right in the middle of football season,” he said. “Who else is better to lead Loser High’s team to defeat?”

Behind Lucas, Owen looked tense and ready to pounce. Greg stood silent and still, watching the scene with a scowl on his face. Ackley had his usual glare directed at Hunter, and at his side his best friend, Patrick, snickered in my brother’s direction.

“Besides,” Perry said, “this isn’t the place to fight. Let’s leave it to the field.”

“Let’s do it right now,” Patrick said, stepping toward Hunter.

Hunter stood from his seat to stare down at Patrick, but Ackley stepped forward so that he was eye to eye with Hunter. Neither of them moved, their bodies tensed.

“Let’s say that the team with the most wins at the end of the season is the most dominant team,” Lucas suggested. “We’ll settle the rivalry once and for all.”

The Trojans and Spartans murmured among themselves, most nodding in agreement.

And then a gleam came into Lucas’s eye. His next words startled all of us.

“I hear there’s a nasty stomach virus going around Troy.”

Hunter turned away from Ackley and scowled at Lucas. “What is that supposed to mean, Spartan?”

Lucas shrugged. “Nothing. Just a virus, right? I’m sure you’ll all be back to normal very soon.”

Now the other Trojans stood up as well.

“If you know something about what made half of our school sick today,” Paul Baker said, “I suggest you ’fess up and save yourself from a worse beating.”

“Relax,” Greg said, rolling his eyes. “It was just laxatives in the spaghetti sauce. It’s not like it’s going to kill you.”

I stared at him, my heart sinking to my toes. He still didn’t meet my gaze.

Every muscle in Hunter’s face twitched. “And just how did you get laxatives into the spaghetti?”

Ackley smiled. “That’s our little secret.”

I didn’t see who made the first move, but the next thing I knew, a fight had broken out between the Spartans and Trojans. Someone fell against my chair, causing me to fall forward and slam my knees into the tile floor. I heard Elena shriek near me and then saw her get swept up into Perry’s arms.

I crawled under the table for cover while the guys from both teams pushed one another around, swinging arms and legs. Ackley ran at Hunter, pushing him backward into a booth.

It wasn’t long before the employees of the Ice Cream Factory broke up the fight, but it felt like forever as I crouched under the table with Mallory and a few other girls.