(I own only plot. I do not own MIKA and Ariana Grande's song or the lyrics and I do not claim to own House Of Anubis. Everything but the plot belongs to rightful owners. The plot is mine.)
You were the popular one, the popular chick. It is what it is, now I'm popular-ish.
Fourteen years old, Trudy Rehman watched the popular crowd in school. A tall blonde boy threw his football at her head. Silently and sweetly, she carried the football back to the boy. "Here you go, Dean." She whispered reverently.
"Who are you to talk to anyone?! You're just one of the useless amoebas." Dean's girlfriend Katy snapped. "Get on with next week's homework, loser!"
Trudy nodded respectfully, scurrying back to her bag. Dean and Katy's wannabes shot over and played catch with her lunch and shredded her homework. "Hey, look! The loser's diary! `Ooh, how I love the history pop quiz team captain! He's so lovely to everyone, but he hardly knows I exist!` She has no chance! He would never like her!"
"Because she's ugly, pathetic and she's so small, she fits in a locker with room to spare!" Another wannabe laughed at her.
"That's cos she starves herself, innit! She was fat at the start of this term." A third wannabe laughed.
Trudy sighed. He'd been right about her, but she had her reasons behind never eating. She'd only got her friends from her math, art, drama and English clubs. She only had a few friends, people who weren't brave enough to defend her. A fourth said "Wait, she's in the drama club, they're all desperate. Maybe she's pregnant!" Everyone laughed at her.
Standing on the field with your pretty pompoms. Now you're working at the movies, selling popular com.
She sat in the stands, writing notes on the cheerleading tryouts. Softly she sang "They call me the amoeba, they say I'm dull. One day I'll show them that the one thing I have is love. Love and more love, it's made me full."
She felt a foot in her spine and fell, spilling all her things. "Haha, look at the stupid kid! She's such a tramp. Whose baby is it, then, loser?" Dean taunted her, yanking her up by her hair. He pressed a hand against her stomach.
She wriggled free. "I'm not going to have any children! I won't accept this!"
"Aw, she's ashamed! That's a good sign! You should be ashamed! That's disgusting, you know!" The boy laughed at her, then Katy crept up behind her. She pushed Trudy forward and she fell off the stands, into the teacher.
"Trudy Rehman! What do you think you're doing?!" The teacher yelled.
"I'm sorry! I was..." She glanced back at the jeering popular crowd and knew she'd get revenge. "I tripped up."
"Detention for you!" The teacher snapped.
Trudy felt terrible. That evening, after detention, she went to the cinema. She saw Katy, working. She laughed quietly.
I could have been a mess but I never went wrong. Cos I'm putting down my story in a popular song. Said I'm putting down my story in a popular song.
She sighed as she longingly stared at the talent show audition sign up sheet. She plucked up all her courage and wrote her name in her curling and swirling handwriting. It looked so fancy, making Katy's look like a child's scrawl. Katy crept up behind her and noticed her curling writing. "Aww, cute! You think you can be in a talent show." Katy hissed, then faced the hall of people. "Hey, everyone! The pregnant loser reckons she has a shot in the talent show!"
Everyone laughed, excluding Trudy's few friends, who were in their extra credit classes, the classes she hadn't been allowed to take because she was already in too many clubs. She ran off, getting caught by Dean. "Aw, look, guys! This little freak thinks she can play footie! And in her condition! Let's show this skinny kid what football's really about!" They pelted her with footballs. She tried to get up and they threw her into pool of wet mud. Laughing, they left her sobbing in the field.
My problem, I never was a model, I never was a scholar. You were always popular.
She walked into the school for the second half of school, her face red and sore, her eyes stinging with tears. It hurt her when her teacher asked her where she'd been and why she was covered in mud. She lied to protect the popular crowd. "I was walking in the fields during break and I slipped." She lied through her sobs.
"Well, be careful." The teacher told her and told them to pay attention. Trudy got out a box of tissues and wiped her face over. She wiped her hands and started trying to take notes. Her teacher asked her what the capital of Italy was and she hadn't caught the question. She answered with Kentucky, causing the class to laugh and her teacher to smother a smile. "Wrong. You knew there was a quiz today, why didn't you study?"
"I tried, sir, I really did. I just have a lot to do now and I couldn't find the time. I'm sorry." She whispered.
"Detention for you. Maybe you can find the time to write an essay on skiving off your homework." Her teacher snapped and left her to it.
She managed a whole essay and notes before the end of the class. In detention, she cried silently, knowing her life would be difficult forever.
You were singing all the songs I don't know, now you're in the front row, cos my song is popular.
For the talent show auditions, Trudy was listening to Katy singing some pop song. Everyone in the crowd was singing along, all except Trudy. Dean said "What, you don't know it? You're an uncool, freakish tramp and you're gonna have the kid of one of your pathetic loser friends. You're such a loser."
Trudy sighed. "You know, I don't have to put up with this."
"What you gonna do about it? You gonna solve a math equation and humiliate me?" Dean teased, grabbing at her.
She muttered "No."
"No. Tell your teacher buddies?" Dean teased, having gripped her by the sleeve of her shirt.
"No." She whispered.
"No. Because you're happy to be our little friend, aren't you?" Dean hissed.
"Yes." She whispered.
Popular? I know about popular. It's not about who you are or your fancy car. You're only ever who you were.
Trudy got into her father's sturdy and respectable and dirty car just as Katy's older brother sped up in his new blue sports car. Katy's voice was just audible. "Ugh, trust that pregnant lump to get driven around in a mucky old bug-crawler like that."
"You're pregnant?!" Her father snapped. The windows were much too dirty for anyone to see in. He punched his daughter hard in the stomach. "Just you wait till we get home, you disgusting child!"
Katy had really given Trudy a hard day. She'd also given her parents an excuse to hurt her. At her home, her father told her mother of the phantom pregnancy. Her mother grabbed her rolling pin and hit her young daughter around the head with it. "You're a waste of space, you useless child!"
The abuse continued, then they sent the battered child to bed, not feeding her. She knew she was innocent enough.
Popular? I know about popular. All that you have to do is be true to you. that's all you ever need to know. So catch up. Cause you've got a long way to go. So catch up. Cause you got an awful long way to go.
Trudy was sat in the girls' bathroom the next day, early in the morning. She was examining the damage done to her. She felt weak, but knew that her parents wouldn't approve of her eating. Gretchen, one of her friends, walked in, her long blonde hair swishing in its plaits. "Trudy?! Gosh, what happened?" Gretchen asked, staring in shock at her friend's bruises. Trudy quickly hid her injuries.
"Oh, I fell down the stairs at home, Gretchen. Nothing serious." Trudy lied, protecting her parents.
Always on the lookout for someone to hate. Picking on me like a dinner plate. You'd hit during classes and in between them, you'd dunk me in the toilets now it's you that cleans them.
Katy caught Trudy with tears staining her cheeks. "You need to wash your face, Ratty. Here, let me help." Katy offered, then seized Trudy's hair and pushed her, face first into the toilet.
They were caught by the headmaster. "Katy Fletcher! What are you doing to that poor child?!"
"Oh, I caught her drinking out of the toilet. I was just telling her to stop it." Katy lied, missing a beat.
"A likely story, Miss Fletcher. Miss Rehman, come with me." The headmaster told her. "Miss Fletcher, you'll be cleaning every toilet in this school for the rest of the term." In the headmaster's office, the secretary helped Trudy clean up. Her parents had been called in to take their daughter home. She was scared of her parents and wished she had enough strength to tell someone.
You tried to make me feel bad with the things you do. It ain't so funny when the joke's on you. Ooh, the joke's on you. Got everyone laughing, clapping, asking "How come you look so cool?" Cos that's the only thing that I learned at school. So that's the only thing that I learned at school.
Trudy cried in the locker after she'd been pushed in by Selena Holliday. She knew how terrible she was for keeping it all quiet, but she wanted to be sweet to them. She couldn't get out until Selena let her go. "Gotcha good. Old Michaels is looking for you, wondering why you didn't show up to class!"
She shot off, leaving Trudy bewildered and upset. Mr Michaels was the strictest teacher in the whole school. He stomped toward her. "Trudy Rehman!"
"Yes, sir?" She asked, her voice mild.
"Why didn't you show up?" He demanded.
"I'm very sorry, sir, but I was reading that book you told us to read and I lost track of time and I was too absorbed to notice the bell." She answered meekly, not wanting to upset her teacher further. She spotted the popular crowd further down the hall and saw them slapping high fives and cheering Selena.
"Hey, what's with the tears?" He softened toward her as her tear-stained cheeks caught the light.
"Oh, I was just crying at something in the book." She smiled, falsely.
"Come on, if there's anything wrong, you know you can tell me. I promise you, I'll keep it secret." Mr Michaels told her.
"It's just Katy, Dean and their friends. They just keep teasing me, that's all. It's nothing really, I'm just being dramatic." Trudy giggled, hiding her true pain from him.
"Oh. Do you want me to say something?" He offered.
"That's OK, sir. I can handle them. Be the bigger person and turn the other cheek." She smiled. "Thank you."
"Remember, Trudy, you can talk to me about anything. Have you told your parents?"
"No, they have so many issues at work, I couldn't burden them with my problems, too." She smiled.
"They'll want to know what their little girl's going through, surely." He told her.
"No, sir. They think it's all fine, which it is. And I hope I don't cause trouble to you, but I'd quite like to keep it that way for them. Please?"
"If you're sure. Anyway, you run along to your next class. If there's anything you need, you know where I am."
Feeling lighter, she skipped along to her next lesson.
My problem, I never was a model, I never was a scholar. You were always popular. You were singing all the songs I don't know, now you're in the front row, cos my song is popular. Popular? I know about popular. It's not about who you are or your fancy car. You're only ever who you were. Popular? I know about popular. All that you have to do is be true to you. That's all you ever need to know. So catch up. Cause you've got an awful long way to go.
While Trudy was in her audition, she noticed her crush watching. She sighed, ready to begin. She sang a beautiful opera about someone who was in love, but he had no idea she existed and her family hated her. After her audition, her headmaster said "Miss Rehman, you're going to be our star act!"
Outside, the whole popular crowd congratulated her and was trying to apologise. She simply smiled. "Apologies accepted. But I don't want to give up my life to be popular. So I'm dropping out." She told them and turned to the head. "Sir, I want to drop out of the talent show. And I'd like to give my spot to Katy and Dean. I thought their act was stunning."
Walking off, she left everyone in shock. Everyone stared at the small teenager as she walked through the halls. Her school life hit a high, everyone respecting her as a person. Now all she had to fix was her home life. But that would be a whole different task.
So catch up. Cause you got an awful long way to go. All you ever need to know. You're only ever who you were. All you ever need to know. You're only ever who you were. Popular, I know about popular. It's not about who you are or your fancy car, you're only ever who you were. Popular, I know about popular. It's not about who you are or your fancy car, you're only ever who you were. Popular, I know about popular. And all that you have to do, is be true to you. That's all you ever need to know. It's all you ever need to know.
A/N: I don't know if I'll continue this. I really loved the song and it just seemed to fit this storyline. I hope it was alright. :D Until next time, REVIEW! BlackCat46 out! ;D