A/N: This is Crystal's story. It takes place immediately before she becomes the host for Pet. Basically I'm using this as an explanation of Crystal's personality in later stories. (Yes, that's right there will be later stories, and Crystal will be a main character in at least one of them.) There are only going to be five chapters, so this story will move fairly quickly. Reviews are always appreciated and generally the more reviews I get, the faster I update ;) Enjoy!
Quick side note: Apparently in Portland you go to middle school after 5th grade instead of Junior High after 6th. Too bad. Crystal is finishing 6th grade and going to an imaginary Jr. High in Portland.
I was in the sixth grade when they came. I was getting ready for my Elementary Farewell Ceremony. They didn't call it graduation anymore. I never did understand why they needed a ceremony at all. We would all be going to the same junior high next year anyway. Everyday before Language Arts we went over the details of the ceremony, making invitations for our parents, picking the music we wanted to play during our slideshow (Not that we even needed to vote. It had been Good Riddance by Green Day every year for the last 10.), and practicing our procession onto the stage. It seemed like overkill but I wasn't going to complain about less time in Language Arts. That was my least favorite subject by far.
At the end of sixth grade there were always tryouts for the junior high cheerleading squad. The thought was that after tryouts they would have the whole summer to practice to be ready for the first game in September. Unfortunately that had never happened. They tried out in May and had their first practice in August. It was practically tradition.
I was beyond excited for tryouts. I loved cheerleading ever since my father signed me up to cheer for Pee-Wee Football. I had been practicing for weeks and felt pretty confident. I didn't have the loudest voice and I wasn't the best tumbler, but I was the smallest and would be the logical choice for flier when we stunted. I wasn't sure I would like being that high in the air, especially when the only thing between me and the ground were three girls who were just as new to it as I was, but I was willing to try. I just wanted to be part of the group. Everyone knew cheerleaders were the most popular girls in junior high and high school, and I had every intention of staying just as popular as I was in elementary school.
Tryouts were after school on Tuesday and on Tuesday morning I skipped down the stairs, gym bag in hand. I tossed my bag and backpack by the front door and went into the kitchen where my parents sat at the table. My dad was reading the paper and my mom was watching the news on the small TV on the counter.
"Morning sweetheart," Dad said, leaning across his paper to kiss me on the cheek as I put my pop tart into the toaster. "Did you sleep well last night?"
"Pretty good, but the Mitchell's dog was up most of the night whining. It was kind of annoying."
"That's strange. Normally that dog is so well behaved," said Mom, looking up from the television. She craned her neck, trying to see from our kitchen window into the Mitchell's yard. I wasn't sure what she hoped to accomplish from this but I didn't say anything. My mother's nosiness was nothing new.
I pulled my breakfast out of the toaster and sat at the table. My mother's gaze finally averted from the neighbors and she focused on me.
"I saw you bring your gym bag down. Tryouts are today?" she asked with fake nonchalance, her disdain still detectable. She had tried to hide it but I knew that she did not want me to try out. She had cheered as a teenager and found that it was more politics than sport. She didn't want that for her daughter but she wasn't going to tell me what I was and was not allowed to do. She decided it would be a learning experience but that was all she thought I would get out of cheerleading. She didn't think I would turn out to be the cheerleading type. She hoped I would decide to play volleyball instead, but I was adamant that cheerleading was the only sport I was capable of due to my small frame. My mother was in the process of finding a way to prove me wrong.
"Yes, Mom," I said, exasperated. "They've been scheduled for weeks." She gave me a look and I knew that my tone was close to punishable. But I was staying within limits. Barely. Lately I had been pushing the limits with my parents to see how far they would let me go. It seemed like a perfectly acceptable way to entertain myself at meal times.
"Unbelievable," my father remarked.
"What Dad?" I asked.
"The state prison just released 20 prisoners last week for good behavior. It says here they usually only release two or three all year. I don't understand what the parole board is thinking." I let him ramble on. I had been hoping he was going to read something explaining how the Trail Blazers' best player had suddenly become completely worthless on defense, not even trying to stop the other players from driving to the basket. Sometimes it looked as though he purposely moved out of the way to give them a better lane. I was extremely disappointed. This was supposed to be their championship year.
Outside I heard a low rumbling sound and knew the school bus had just turned onto the street. There were two stops before our house so I downed my milk and held out my hand while my father pulled my lunch money out of his wallet. I tapped my foot impatiently and he gave me a disapproving look. I took the money, grabbed my bags and was out the door.
The bus pulled up to the sidewalk and I hauled my bags up the steps with effort. Whoever decided that all of history needed to be in one book was not thinking about undersized preteens.
"Need some help with that, dear?" the bus driver Mrs. Blake asked me.
I stared at her critically. Mrs. Blake was the kind of woman who hoped you didn't make it up the steps so she would have one less passenger to deal with. It was completely unlike her to offer assistance in any way. I shrugged it off, deciding that maybe she was taking that new anti-depressant I had seen advertised all over.
I took my seat next to Amanda Carson, my friend who lived a couple of blocks away. We used to be best friends a few years ago but in the last year we had grown apart slightly. I had started going out with Ricky Beroni and began sitting with his group of friends at lunch everyday. Unfortunately, Amanda's boyfriend, Andrew Chiles, did not get along with Ricky. Although we were on separate sides of a very profound conflict (Ricky claimed that Andrew threw at his head in a baseball game. Andrew maintained that it was a 'lucky slip'.), we never stopped being friends, despite what our boyfriends thought.
"What's up with Mrs. Blake?" I asked. "Is it just me or is she acting totally weird?"
Amanda nodded. "She's kind of creeping me out. She offered to wait for me to go back in the house to get my homework."
"Whoa." I was taken aback. Mrs. Blake was nothing if not a slave driver when it came to being at your stop on time with everything necessary. The sooner she dropped us off at the school, the more time she had before she had to pick us up again. "That's crazy."
We chatted the rest of the way to school about our classes and the upcoming Farewell Ceremony. While I thought it was a pointless waste of time, Andrea was very excited. Although it became apparent that the reason for her excitement was the new dress she got for the occasion. I made a mental note to ask my mother about my attire for the ceremony. If I had to go I might as well get a new outfit out of the ordeal. When we pulled up to the school Andrea disembarked first, heading over to the picnic table Andrew usually claimed since his bus was always the first to arrive.
"Have a good day," Mrs. Blake said with a smile as I exited the bus. There was something odd about the way she was looking at me but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. She was just acting too strange.
The group was already discussing tryouts as I sauntered over to our usual bike rack. I gave Ricky a hug and turned to face the group. Ricky's friend Jackie was already grilling me.
"So, aren't you so excited for tryouts later?" Jackie asked excitedly. Her shoulder-length dark hair was pulled pack into French-braided pigtails, as was the style for any sixth grade special occasion, cheerleading tryouts included.
"Oh, crap," I muttered. I was suddenly aware that I hadn't brought anything to tie my hair back with. I started to panic. The first rule of cheerleading was that hair had to be pulled back from the face.
"What is it?" Jackie asked with fake concern. There was no denying Jackie was fake. She even admitted it from time to time.
"I just realized I forgot a hair tie. Can I use one of yours?" I asked with a hopeful expression.
Jackie looked shocked. "My mother spent 45 minutes on my hair this morning. It would be rude to her if I gave you one of my hair ties."
I didn't want to start a fight so she just said, "Sorry, I didn't think about that."
Ricky whispered in my ear, "Don't worry, babe. I'll steal a rubber band off of Mrs. Murray's desk." He smiled at me and I shot him a look.
"I can't put a rubber band in my hair. It will tear it all out. You don't know that?" He thought he was such a ladies man and he really didn't know that?
The bell rang and I stalked off to my locker where I deposited my bags and retrieved my math book. I started off to my classroom for morning announcements, all the while thinking of some way to tie my hair back. This was going to ruin everything!
A/N: As you can see, there's some strange happenings. Get ready for some action in the next chapter. And by action I mean a fight. The souls aren't going to be very happy but who doesn't love a good fight?