OK, I notice that my updates take longer and longer ... and I'm very sorry to tell you that it's not going to change soon, since I'm off to Dublin for the weekend, and the friday after I will be traveling the East Coast of the amazing United States for three weeks, starting with a weekend in New York.

I hope you can deal with waiting, I try to write on paper during the vacation, so it doesn't take much time after I'm back ...


The girl's name was Linaya, and she had an interesting taste in clothing. It was definitely colorful. It began with her three strands of hair that were colored in green, pink and gold, continuing with a black and white striped t-shirt under a bright red cardigan. Lastly, she wore a short and puffy green skirt over dark orange tights, with sparkly chucks in gold and silver.

A total overkill for the eyes.

But she tried to talk to Beth and was actually pretty nice, so she went with it and tried not to examine her too closely, for the others only occasionally looked over to her.

She winced when Beth told her that she was from Carmel, but she caught herself rather quickly and filled the newbie up with what she had missed in the first minutes of gym class.

"I don't like gym very much. Running, swimming, all those stupid fitness tests … why don't they let us choose?" she added silently.

"I don't know" Beth replied only because she felt like she needed, "We didn't have to take gym at Carmel."

Linaya looked at her in disbelief. "Oh my gosh, I'm like soooo jealous!"

It was just then that Mr. Lathe finished up talking about what he expected from this class.

"How many of you guys did actually bring outside gym clothes?"

Only a few hands rose. Neither Linaya, nor the cheerleaders or letterman jacket guys were amongst them.

Mr. Lathe sighed. "I suspected that. But I would really appreciate if you could always have the right clothes to be both outdoor and indoor, okay? I'm going to tell you about pool dates early enough."

He clapped his hands as the students got up to retreat to their respective locker rooms for changing, searching for Beth.

"I suppose you don't have gym clothes with you today?" he asked her.

Beth shook her head.

"Well, I can borrow you some of the shirts and sweatpants of the track team for today. From tomorrow, you'll just bring you own stuff. Just follow me, please."

Linaya, who had taken her time in getting up just so she could listen to what Mr. Lathe had said to Beth, abruptly turned around heading to the locker room, while Beth followed the gym teacher in the storage room.

She went back to the locker room. In front of it, the two cheerleaders were already done, not changed out of their uniform, snickering with a tall and good-looking guy who was also changed already.

They only gave Beth one look, apparently deciding that she wasn't worth looking at longer.

There were three other girls, not very noteworthy, changing in the same corner as Linaya did.

"What are your names?" Beth tried bonding. Not that those girls were extremely interesting, they didn't speak a lot and seemed like the kind of students who just looked forward to nights in front of the TV flailing over Robert Pattinson.

"Laura."

"Breanna."

"Carlie."

They barely looked into her eyes as they mumbled their names.

Beth didn't really mind, since she'd already met Linaya who seemed like a person to be friends with, and there were four other classes left to meet other people. To say nothing of clubs or sports. Though she didn't know yet if she was going to join any of them.

Maybe she should try out for the New Directions, she thought for a short moment while getting dressed. Linaya sat on the bench, waiting for her, and told her about the horrible t-shirt she was forced to wear, since her favorite one was still drying at home.

Actually, it was a very normal t-shirt, nothing to be ashamed of.

Or perhaps she should just go for track in the spring. Her athletic condition surely was good enough.

They walked out the locker room to find a very unmotivated bunch of students, except for some skinny guys who seemed like they were passionate cross country runners.

Even the cheerleaders and the letterman jacket guys, who Beth had expected to be at least a little happy about a subject that must come so easy to them, apparently only wanted to get out.

"So kids, I know that you're not too eager to get your day started with a little workout, but there's nothing better to your brain!" Mr. Lathe tried to cheer them up with a broad smile on his face that told that he really meant it.

"But I guess, we'll take it easy for today. You run three laps in the gym – no skipping corners! – and then we get our fitness tests started, so we can see what we have to work on this semester."

So they ran.

As Beth had suspected, the skinny guys were done in what felt like only a heartbeat, while the other sport people didn't seem to try too hard. When the cheerleaders finished, they weren't even out of breath.

The other students hit different points of exhaustion, most of them including Linaya had to walk after the first lap, others didn't run very fast from the beginning.

Beth didn't have any problems with running. In fact, she was one of the first students to finish, and it wasn't even that strenuous.

Mr. Lathe nodded to her, smiling.

When you did up to six hours of dance rehearsal every day, a short run was a relief.

The gym teacher waited until everyone was done and had gotten some water, then he had them line up for the stretch test.

Everyone had to press their legs against a block of wood and lean as far forward as possible, trying to reach positive numbers on the board.

Most of the students didn't even get on the chart. When they bended, it looked like an ostrich hiding his head in the sand.

The cheerleaders were good, of course. They easily reached seven inches plus, and they didn't seem like trying again.

When it was Beth's turn, she wasn't too concerned. She'd never done something like that, but judging by what the others had done so far, she wouldn't embarrass herself at all.

So she simply sat down, watched by Mr. Lathe and some of the students but not caring about them, put her legs straight on the ground and bend her back forward, stretching her arms out.

"Jeez", someone mumbled, impressed.

She heard them whisper.

"That's a ten", Mr. Lathe finally said, and she pulled back again, feeling somehow happy that she'd gotten so far.

"Good job, Beth. You already got all the credits here."

As she stood up and brushed over the track pants, she felt the cheerleader's stares. When she looked up to them, one gave her a small nod, before Mr. Lathe made them do crunches.

After she'd gotten dressed, she walked to Mr. Lathe's office to return the gym clothes. Linaya excused herself, for she had a homework assignment to complete before the next class started.

As Beth walked out of the office, the two cheerleaders stood there, apparently waiting for her.

It was the first time she actually looked at them closer.

Both were, of course, in great bodily shape, and they also both had a head full of brown curls, but one girl was a little smaller and looked more exotic, like from the Carribean.

Also, the taller one had her nose up in the air a little higher. Their whole presence practically jumped other people with the I'm-better-than-you-attitude.

Beth tried not to judge them, as the cheerleaders actually approached her.

"Hi, I'm Melissa" the taller one said and smiled at her too brightly to be entirely true about it.

"That's Anita" she added and pointed to the other girl who just slightly nodded and grabbed her notebook more tightly.

"My name's Beth" Beth replied politely, although she was sure they'd heard her name already.

They probably hadn't bothered remembering it, though.

"So, you seemed very athletic back in there" Melissa said, turning her head back to the gym doors. "Did you do any sports at your old school?"

Beth thought about the best thing to answer.

"I'm a dancer" she settled on.

The cheerleaders nodded simultaneously, smiling.

"A good one, I assume. We were wondering if you were interested in joining the Cheerios."

"The Cheerios?" Beth asked confused.

"The cheerleading squad" Anita explained.

"We're always looking for new athletes. And we're good, you know. It would make your start at this school much easier if you chose to be with us."

So there she was, being asked to join the cheerleaders. Nothing she'd thought of before, for sure.

"Ehm, this comes a little unexpected" she helplessly replied. "I don't know …"

Melissa grinned at her again.

"You've got at least the rest of this day to figure it out. We don't have practice before tomorrow morning, at 7:15 If you're interested, you can just come in, I'm sure coach Sylvester will let you try out. You've got the right looks for a cheerleader."

"Yeah. Thanks. I'll think about it." She turned to walk away as she didn't really know how to react any other than awkward to the sudden approach and proposal of the two cheerleaders.

But they quickly came after her, one stepping to each side of her.

"What class do you have next?" Anita asked.

"Chemistry" Beth mumbled, a little shocked on how intense those girls were.

"Oh great!" Melissa exclaimed, whipping her hair, "We do, too. I'm not very excited for it, are you? I don't think there's a point to classes at all."

Intense indeed. The overconfident way they presented themselves reminded Beth a lot of Vocal Adrenaline.

So maybe it wasn't a good idea to try out after all. If it was a group of people who were better than the others, taking home all the awards and ruling the school, it was a lot like VA.02, and that was nothing she was looking for.

Come on Beth, they are offering you a chance to be a part of this school. You can try it at least. There's always the chance to quit if it's too much.

Actually, joining the cheerleading squad never had been a valid option before, even if it hadn't been for the extensive VA rehearsals. The cheerleaders at Carmel were nothing but a bunch of highly girlish girls who hopped around and recited stupid cheers with smiles of plastic.

The cheerleaders here … she had heard of them. That said a lot, considering that she didn't actively search out other school's sport teams.

Well, worth a try.

Talking to Melissa and Anita wasn't the same as talking to Linaya. The conversation didn't flow as smoothly and seemed a little artificial to Beth, avoiding any kind of deeper topics and a lot of gossiping about average students.

But since Linaya didn't show up anymore, she stuck with the cheerleaders and tried to keep up with them, reckoning that it would turn less awkward if she just got to know them better.

And this way she got introduced to other cheerleaders real quick as well, making sure that she was sitting alone neither in class nor at lunch.

They always came in swarms, but she didn't mind. She was so used to being part of a group that it was good to be caught up in one of those.

By the time her English class was done, Beth felt like a part of the Cheerios already.

They walked out of Mrs. Steve's classroom together, but since she'd theater right next to it – a class most of her new cheerleading friends had rolled their eyes on – they just exchanged cheerful `See ya´s and she watched a bunch of ponytales bouncing down the hallway.

As she was alone for the first time after Melissa and Anita had started talking to her, she felt lonely again.

Sure, it had been nice not to wander around alone. But those girls had been rather superficial; nice, but she didn't feel they were extremely sincere.

Perhaps she just needed to get used to it.

When she had joined Vocal Adrenaline it had taken it's time, too, to get adapted to the team.

But it wasn't a bad start.

Walking up to her theater classroom, she found the door closed and the lights inside switched off. She discovered a sticky note on the height of her waist.

"Sorry to let you guys down today, but I have an important appointment. See you in class tomorrow."

The signature below it was unrecognizable.

"Damn, I was going through this hell of a day just for this class!" someone behind her swore.

Beth turned around and saw a quite tall girl with pretty green eyes, an eyebrow piercing and dark dreadlocks, looking rather wild. But her voice was high and soft.

"Is it supposed to be good?" Beth asked her interested.

"Hell yeah it is!" the girl shouted, "I'm alternating it with choir since freshman year. Gotta go to tell the others, if they don't know yet. See you tomorrow then, I guess."

She nodded, before she quickly turned and walked away, a wide green scarf waving behind her.

So the school day apparently was over for today.

Beth stood and waited in the middle of the hallway just for a couple of minutes, before the bell rang and the stream of students died down.

Then she quietly walked back to her locker, not knowing if she'd figured out what to do about this school yet.