Yada, yada, yada, I do not own the Clique, nor am I Lisi Harrison.

So, this is the first edited chapter of my rewrite. My original intention was to just edit, but I exported all the documents, deleted the chapters, then ignored the documents long enough to that they timed out. Anyway, not much change here in the first chapter. Really, just a small change as to where Kali was over summer as Katrina is a bit outdated now. Hope you enjoy.


The Clique: Beauty Brigade

VAN ALLEN ESTATE
MICHELLE'S BEDROOM
Monday, September 7
4:34 p.m.

After a long summer awaiting the first day of school, Michelle Van Allen only had one more evening to wait. For the first summer ever, Michelle had been separated from her best friends Kali Baker and Keelin O'Neil, and even her newest BFF, Madge Hotchkiss. More importantly, she hadn't seen Madge's fine twin brother Bentley since the Hotchkiss family jumped in their private jet and flew down to Texas, where they came from, just two days after school let out to spend time on the family ranch. Kali had spent the summer in Oklahoma helping to build homes for the still deprived tornado victims, and Keelin had spent the summer with her step-mother touring a new line of designer clothes that most Americans could barely comprehend.

And, as she did every year before the first day of school, she was having a family dinner with her visiting cousins, the LBRs she enjoyed referring to as the Van Nullins. She couldn't believe she was related to such a boring, unfashionable, and poor group of people. But finally, they had packed, meaning that Pamela Van Nullin, her styleless, frizzy-haired, pasty-faced cousin was out of her room, and Michelle could take the locks off her vanity and walk-in closet, and remove all her possessions that had any appeal from hiding. Pam was not to be trusted around nice things, not since she broke the Lladro of a wild horse when she was eight.

So, sitting on her mahogany chair with the red velvet seat, which Michelle was surprised Pam hadn't tried to stuff into her old duffle, Michelle worked on rearranging all her make-up as she decided what to wear down to dinner, as well as the next day.

She wasn't excited to hear the 'great news' that her parents had promised. It was around this time the year before that Massie Block's 'great news' was that former LBR Claire Lyons was moving into the Block's guesthouse. Nothing had been the same for the PC since, and Michelle, alpha of the Beauty Brigade (that she knew a lot of people called the Brat Brigade, but respected all the same) was not allowing the Van Nullins, especially Pam, ruin her year as the seventh-grade Alpha. She had to prove to Massie Block that she was just as Alpha-worthy as the brunette leader of the PC. The difference between Pam and Claire was that Claire had some redeemable features (blond hair, a nice body, a pretty face) while Non-Glam Pam had nothing that could help her. And Michelle knew, she had tried the year before.

Michelle ran a brush through her short red hair as her fully ceramic flat iron warmed up, which only took thirty seconds. What used to be long hair down most of her back had been cut into a bob, as she donated most of it to Wigs for Kids. Now, just below her chin and layered, she had to straighten her hair every day, even when she felt lazy. She could no longer throw it up into a bun and call it purposefully messy. She had thought about going Emma Watson short, but that was too much of a change for even Michelle Van Allen.

Wearing a slightly cropped red baby-tee and a jean skirt from Express (her go-to store while the Van Nullins were in town), Michelle threw on some blush, dusted her eyes lightly with shimmer shadow, slathered a good amount of lip gloss on her lips, then straightened her hair, before cleaning up her vanity and slipping into Jimmy Choo ballet flats and heading down the stairs to the screened in gazebo in her backyard that was used as a home for her two bunnies as their more permanent home was being built. There was Alice who was pure white, and Dorothy who was a soft brown.

Non-Glam Pam and her little sister, Mini-Mel were in the pen, holding the struggling bunnies.

"Ex-scuse me," Michelle snapped stepping in and closing the door, which the Van Nullin girls had neglected to close. "Did I give you permission to put your grimy hands all over my girls?"

"We need permission now?" Mel asked.

"Now that you no longer are invading my house, yes, you do," Michelle said as she lifted Dorothy from Mel's hands. Dorothy stopped struggling for freedom. Alice slipped from Pam's grip and hopped to Michelle's feet. "Ob-viously, they don't like you, so you two LBRs should probably leave, not to mention, get dressed for dinner."

"What's wrong with what we're wearing?" Pam asked, standing up.

"First off, you two are matching," Michelle said. "That alone should be sending off buzzers in your heads."

The girls both wore Old Navy ribbed tanks (one blue, one lavender) tucked into Bermuda jean shorts with pink Crocs on their feet. If Michelle wasn't making sure her bunnies weren't damaged or dirty, she'd be spewing more insults than the two girls could combat together.

"Let's go," Mel finally said to Pam. "We're obviously not wanted here."

"Ob," Michelle said to move them along a little faster.

"You know, you're a brat," Mel said.

"Oh, I'm hurt by your words," Michelle feigned. "Now, get a move on."

The two girls walked off and Michelle smiled, scratching each bunny in its pleasure point. "Tomorrow, after school, assuming I'm not with Bentley," she paused and winked as if the bunnies understood her, "I'm going to get each of you a specially made bed and collar. Alice, your collar will be black with red rhinestone hearts, and Dorothy, yours will be light blue and white plaid, just like Judy Garland's dress from the movie with red rhinestones in the middle, seeing as you aren't going to be tromping around in heels. You'll both be so beautiful. And, before it gets cold, we're getting you guys a special enclosure with insulation and heating and air-conditioning. Oh, just wait until you meet the Beauty Brigade. They will ah-dore you. And rightfully so. Madge adores animals; she has a horse and two cats, at least, that's what she has here. I think she has like twelve animals in Texas. And Kali volunteers at an animal rescue one Sunday a month just to spend time with animals. And Keelin, just because she'll be allergic to you doesn't mean she won't fully lurve you. Oh, and of course Bentley loves animals almost as much as his sister, Madge, but he's not insane like she is, so you'll lurve him."

"Michelle, Darling, it's time that you come in for dinner," Ceri Van Allen called to her daughter from the back door. "You don't want to sit out there too long or you'll miss the surprise announcement."

"I'll be there in a minute, Mother," Michelle called. She then turned back to Alice and Dorothy. "Well, at least I know they're not moving in, or it would have been pointless for them to pack all their things, am I right? Of course I am, aren't I always? I can't wait for them to go. No more suggestions from the Van Nullins for mani-pedis on one another, or Non-Glam Pam and her stupid pocket dictionary, and definitely no more Nancy Drew books lying around my bedroom from Mel. I won't have to hide all my stuff so they don't ruin or break or steal, and you two won't have to worry about their sticky hands messing up your coats. I'll have Katarzyna groom you both tomorrow morning while I'm at school so you'll both be Beauty Brigade material when the girls come and meet you."

With that, Michelle pecked a kiss on the top of each bunny's head and began the seemingly longer walk to her house, careful to not wander off the winding red brick path and possibly make her journey a single step shorter.


So, is Michelle Alpha enough for you?