Chapter One
Some people say that high school contains the best years of your life. My mother is one of them. My older sister happens to be one as well. They can't fathom why I would be reluctant to enter this new stage of my life, filled with clubs, pep rallies, football games, and parties galore.
My mother doesn't understand me at all. She was popular in high school. Walking around, surrounded by a crowd of friends, she owned the school. Without her, the top of the pyramid would have been vacant. The quarterback of the football team would have been lost without her by his side.
I mean, come on. How stereotypical is that? The quarterback and the head cheerleader hooking up? Now that must have turned heads. What makes me even more embarrassed than a cheerleader mother is a quarterback father. Yup, I said it.
Now, I'm sure when my parents got married, they thought that their progeny would turn out to be just like them. For the most part, they were right…well 2 out of 3 isn't bad.
Anna came first, in all her shining glory. As the first born, it is easy to see why everyone adores her. Even I can tell that she was a cute kid. With little blonde pigtails and big blue eyes, she was the party favorite, the crowd pleaser. And she grew up exactly as my mother wanted her to. Every report card day she came home with straight A's. Every fall she arrived home to tell us that she had made the cheerleading squad, and every spring she would announce her starting position on the softball team.
To make matters worse, she's an amazing sister as well. It would be so much easier to say that despite her perfect demeanor she was an awful sibling. No matter how much I would like to say that, it just isn't true. Always in the front row of my dance recitals, she claps the loudest during the curtain call. She calls on the phone to see how my day was, and she always jumps to my defense when I'm having a tough time with mom and dad. Yea, she's a great sister, but that doesn't make it any easier to live in her shadow.
My younger brother was also blessed with those wonderful genes. He's only 10, but I can already see what's ahead of him. Just like my sister is a clone of my mother, my brother is a clone of my father. Brian has always been the baby of the family. Everyone loves them. At family gatherings, grandparents go up to them, pinch their cheeks and give them a cookie. It's no different with us. It doesn't help when he's the most adorable thing you've ever seen. With sandy brown hair and hazel eyes, he looks like one of those kids on the Juicy Juice commercials. Every time they air, someone in the room always exclaims how cute they are. We're expecting Juicy Juice to call back any day now.
He wants to play football too. I swear, when I heard him say that I wanted to ring his neck. My dad immediately began strategizing his entire career, complete with college scholarships. Now after all this, you can see why I might feel a little inferior.
It all started with my name. You see, my parents have perfectly normal names: David and Laura. Good, simple American names. They passed that on to my sister as well. But it seems that around the end of the pregnancy, my mother and father had a burst of insanity. They wanted to be original with my name, so that I could grow up and stand out. That's probably why they named me Ezmerelda. Come on, who names their kid that? How many times was I teased in school, where kids compared me to that girl in the Hunchback of Notre Dam? That's the only Ezerelda i'm aware of. Only after they named me did my parents emerge their heads from the clouds. That's why my brother got a good name, a normal name.
Not only did my parents get their wish with my name standing out, but they also got that in the looks department. No one would guess that I belong in this family. My sister is a carbon copy of my mother, as is my brother to my father. I look like the kid that got dropped on the front doorstep. With my mane of curly brown hair and eyes to match, I feel like the outsider, the Jan Brady of the family. I understand how Jan felt, with Marcia this and Marcia that. I know exactly how she felt when everyone exclaimed how cute little Cindy was.
Mom swears that I get it from dad's side of the family, but he swears the opposite. I had to get my brown eyes from somewhere, I always tell them. Once, I jokingly asked mom if she had had a little too much fun with the mailman. Needless to say, I didn't get desert that night.
But now, back to the present day. It's a week before my first day of high school. Richardson High is a massive campus, and my palms start to sweat just thinking about the first day.
It is Saturday, and my mother and I are shopping for school clothes. Unfortunately for her, I didn't get the shopping genes. It's practically a given for a cheerleader to love to shop, so mom and Anna naturally are pro's in the art of cruising the mall. Every time I get dragged on one of their outings, I just stand there. In fact, I could pass for one of the pillars next to the display racks. I have absolutely no interest in trying things on…my only goal is to get out of there as fast as possible. And when that doesn't happen, I get cranky, very cranky.
On this particular occasion, getting out early is not an option. I can hardly see my mom under the pile of clothes that she dumped in my arms. I see something low cut, and…oh god….is that sparkly?
I make a face, despite the fact that she can't see me. "Mom is this really necessary? I have tons of clothes already."
I can faintly hear her reply over by the jeans. "Oh but honey, don't you want to look good when you start school? I know that when I was your age I obsessed over what I was going to wear on the first day. I would call all my friends and debate on what outfits to put together. Of course, we would have to say our plans because we wouldn't want to wear the same thing. What a nightmare that would have been."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh yes, now that would have been a nightmare," I muttered.
From behind my mound of clothing, I heard my mother exclaim excitedly.
"Ezzie! You won't believe what I just found! This skirt is just to die for, and with this top you will be an absolute knockout!" She walked around me until she could see my face and held up the outfit for me to observe.
It looked like something I would never wear in a million years. The cream colored blouse was low-cut, and the black skirt was short, definitely short enough to show off some thigh.
Mom took in my bland expression and her excitement lowered a bit. "Well I know it's a bit risky but I can see you wearing this, hon. Just don't show your father. He may like it on me but you're his little girl." She turned on her heel and went in the direction of the dressing rooms, beckoning me to follow her.
I hid my exclamation of revulsion at my mother's comment. That was way too much information for my fourteen years of age. Why couldn't she be a normal mother? You know, the kind that buy big lumpy sweaters and encourage you to stay home and read Harry Potter? I don't think my mom would ever encourage me to read in my spare time. Every time she sees me reading at home on a Friday night she says, "Ezmerelda, you just wait until you get into high school. You won't want to be sitting at home reading that book."
Sorry to disappoint you mother, but that's exactly what I will be doing. At least, that's the plan.
"Ezmerelda, are you coming?" Hearing my name being called snapped me out of my reverie, and I slowly ambled in the direction of the dressing rooms. This was going to be a long afternoon.
