I'm sorry. This chapter is actually really short, but I thought I should at least update it while I beta someone else's story.


Farah Lockheed was pouting all day, even during lunchtime. She missed Nicole. The bell rang for school to be over, so she walked with Eda to the bus in the back of the school's yard. Here, they used to practice routines or dance just to be crazy and have fun. Sometimes, Nicki would randomly come up with cheers or walk over to freshmen or people who were by themselves and have them join in on the fun. She was just an all-around happy soul who could make people smile. She missed being able to see Nicki's face when she and Eda would eat Twinkies and marshmallow-peanut butter sandwiches. She would start praying for them not to get diabetes or junk food comas. Once, she even offered them her lunch and would starve herself before she dared touch their lunch. As she boarded the bus with Eda, she sat by the window and turned on her iPOD to listen to different songs while they waited to be dropped off home. They were always the last ones to leave.

Eda missed Nicki just as much as Farah did, but they both had hope in meeting her again if they passed regionals this year. Tonight would be their first webcam conversation since Nicki left. They wrote notes to each other in class, wondering about what to say to Nicki since she left. Eda had just finished writing all of Nicki's ideas for fundraising and the game schedule for this year was being written up in the meantime. She was full of hope, but in the end she missed her friend. Eda wasn't pouting but she was watching out for Unique. She's been following Daryl all day and she already knew why. Daryl was a funny dude anyway, though. He mostly dated Nicki to prove he could get her virginity before anyone else. Ha! Devil is a lie! If Unique wanted to be stupid and date Daryl, she could have all the fun she wanted. Nicki probably found herself a better man on the plane ride to Los Angeles. There were fine men all over the place in that city. She would be just fine without Daryl. Plus, a lot of talent was lurking around in LA. Nicki was always a pretty girl, so she might find a musician or actor who was good-looking, too.

"Farah, you think we should tell Nicki about Daryl and Unique?" Eda asked, trying to spark up a little conversation. Just because Nicki was gone doesn't mean they weren't still friends. They could talk to each other.

"No, Nicki not gon care 'bout dem," Farah answered, waving her hand at the notion. "We just gon tell her about Unique bein' captain and what she said 'bout fundraisin'. I wonder what school she went to. She could probably be a cheerleader in her new school."

"Unless she comin' to nationals, she would want to be a cheerleader. How else we gon be able to see her?"

"We could stay over by her house for a little while."

"Oh..." Eda droned, thinking of an idea. You know, to say Farah was a bit of ditz, she could be a genius sometimes. "Girl, if we go to nationals we won't have to stay at no hotel! Nicki live in LA. We can just stay with her for nationals!"

"Girl, you the truth!" Farah remarked, stomping her feet with Eda as they wrote down a couple of things to say and do about nationals.

Things were definitely starting to look up. Farah then turned the page for ideas and noticed Eda wrote uniforms at the top. Below the title, Nicki drew a quick sketch of the Suns new uniform. Their old uniforms had a long red skirt that covered half the knees, black stockings, orange tennis shoes, and a yellow long-sleeved shirt under a red, orange, and black top. Nicki's sketch completely changed the look of the squad. The skirt was black and reached as low as mid-thigh and the shoes were also black. The undershirt was instead red and the top was red, orange, yellow, and black. The Suns' logo was yellow and had orange outlines, but the top itself was red and black. She forgot that they had to figure out what to do about the other two sketches for uniforms.

"We gotta talk about the uniforms, too," Farah said, taking out a magazine with different uniform colors and styles. "The principal said we can't have high skirts or stomach-showing tops."

"That's cuz she scared o' thugs," Eda said, getting Farah to laugh.


Nicki was ready to leave Nivaldo Gillian High School forever. She didn't want to see another trash can, cheerleader, goth, or jock until tomorrow. She was just done with school. Ever since lunchtime, she had been angered to the point of wanting to punch someone. She did, however, notice that she had two classes with Lara and managed to speak to her after class before she was almost knocked down by one of the football players. After that, the black-wearing guy who had been mean to her since early this morning in Physics I with Pentone was persistently picking on her about being bitchy or slutty or a mixture of both. She still didn't even know his name. Lara never actually heard what he said, but Nicki thought it might have been a good thing because she was close to punching him in the balls. Since then, she has just been ready to go home.

As she walked down the hall away from seventh period, Nicki noticed the school's mascot walking towards her. Nivaldo Gill's mascot was a medieval knight named Henry the Awesome, Duke of Cheer. His plastic and fiber armor was silver, and he wore a white and purple jersey with a cape that had the coat of arms of the school on it. His shoes clanked on the floor since that was made out of some kind of hardened plastic painted metallic silver. The face of the knight had him sneering with a competitive growl. Of course, he was cheering other people up and making them laugh. Some of the girls asked if the mascot had a girlfriend to which the mascot mimed "Sort of." Nicki knew that gesture. It meant he had his sights on someone, but she wasn't really responding to him much. To everyone else, it was read as a 'maybe.' One of the boys that was next to the mascot had a radio on his shoulders and was playing a couple of rap songs that the mascot willingly danced to. It was actually kind of cute when the mascot tried to pop. He did do the stanky leg really well, but the popping thing was an absolute no.

Nicki was about to pass up her locker as she watched the mascot. She quickly remembered she had to retrieve a couple of books to read over the chapter for tomorrow. While she was getting her books, her favorite black-wearing friend came by to pay her a visit. Vacious smacked the back of her head, making her snap her head around, and then hopped as he walked and put up one of those gangster hand signs. His friend, Allen, was next to him, laughing a little at the gesture. Allen didn't realize the two were enemies. In fact, he thought Nicki and Vacious were flirting with each other.

"Later, cheer-pimp," Vacious called out, grabbing his crotch and sticking his tongue out like the rock star he aspired to be. Then again, it could have been a secret 'Suck this dick' gesture.

Nicki took a deep breath before going back to getting the books out of her new locker. She had a lot of decorating to do to it. She said to herself, "Positive thoughts, positive thoughts, positive thoughts."

As she packed her book bag, Nicki noticed a tap on her shoulder. She turned around then saw the mascot getting down on one knee. Thinking it was proposing to her, she started hyperventilating. The mascot looked down at his position then realized this was the common proposal stance made by society. He shot up quickly then instead faked like he was kissing Nicki's hand, causing her to calm down and smile at him.

"Thank you, Henry," Nicki said, chuckling a bit.

"Ahem, the Awesome," the radio teen corrected.

"Be awesome if you could smack a few people in the face with that radio for me," Nicki scoffed, packing the rest of her books in her bag

She bent over for a second to look for her schedule and daily planner, not realizing she was probably mooning a couple of people behind her. No one was behind her, though. Henry and the radio teen, however, sneakily went behind her to see the full roundness of her ass. The radio teen was the first to comment as he leaned his head over along with Henry.

"Oh, that's nice," he complimented, seeing Henry forming arcs with his hand gestures, implying a perfected roundness to the shape of Nicki's ass.

"Careful, man, you don't want that. It's diseased with the bitch syndrome," Vacious warned, making Nicki stand up and turn around.

"Vacious, let's go! Allen's gonna leave soon!" Lara called.

Vacious winked at Nicki, putting on his best 'I'm your worst nightmare' face, and then said, "See ya tomorrow, cheer pimp. Rep it up."

Nicki rolled her eyes then picked up her bag, slammed her locker shut, and then walked in the opposite direction of the middle stairway in the hall. She instead stomped off to the back stairway and went down the stairs. Henry took off his mask after everyone was gone and revealed a shy, charming teenage boy. He had stringy, brown hair after sweating in the suit for an hour, chocolate brown eyes, and fair skin covered in a few freckles and a little acne give or take. He also had braces that did little to hide his handsome, high cheekbone features. He looked in Nicki's direction and started wondering about her and Vacious' relationship for a minute.

"Wonder what she did to get Vacious to be a dick," the teen said.

"I dunno. But she sure was cute," the radio teen replied.

"So true. I mean her butt was a perfect sphere. How are you born with a symmetric ass?" the mascot questioned, walking off to the restroom.


"Alright and 5, 6,..., 5, 6, 7, 8!"

Teresa Puccini was busy perfecting the squad's routines. Of course, Clover, one of the sloppiest cheerleaders in history, couldn't get the damn routine crammed in her ass far enough for her to know it like the lines on her hands. She was beginning to feel frustrated with her. It was a shame for the academic coach to determine who deserves to be on the cheerleading squad or not because Clover would be gone by now. The first pep rally for the year was in a couple of weeks; in fact, it was this Friday, which was in two days! Oh, but little miss floppy feet over here, couldn't get that through her thick skull! God, she couldn't wait to start legally drinking!

"Stop!" Teresa demanded, turning off the music. "Clover, get over here."

Clover was a bright, charming girl with a glowing face and button nose. She had blonde hair that covered her neck and shoulder blades, nice slim figure, and was particularly flexible. She could do the stunts spot on, but the routines themselves were her weakest points and that isn't good for the squad or her. Teresa yanked Clover off to the side then showed her the routine step by step. They did it together about three times, and then Teresa watched her do it on her own.

"You're doing it again," Teresa spat out, earning a confused look from Clover. "You keep tripping yourself when you pivot and then you try to cover it up with an extra step. Give yourself some space to turn. You've got enough elbow room to decorate a five-star kitchen. What is wrong with you?"

"Well, sorry, geez," Clover responded, looking to the side.

She noticed Nicki walking down the sidewalk while talking on her cellphone at the same time. She looked like she was in a hurry. Teresa looked in the direction Clover was looking in then saw her enemy. She scoffed then folded her arms as the new girl walked passed them, not even paying attention to the cheerleaders practice. She looked toward the jocks, pointing at her and making weird faces at her to try to gain her attention, and called out to her boyfriend.

"Alex! Shake her up a little. I wanna lay down some laws with her."

Her boyfriend took one of his teammates footballs then got in position to throw it. A segment of the fencing was sectioned off to make an entrance/exit to the bleachers, so Alex decided to throw the football through there in hopes of hitting the new girl in the head or something. It would be too awesome if he did it. He threw the ball at a perfect angle, and it landed a hit on her hip. She snapped her head around, looking down at the ball spinning in front of her, and then reached for it. Alex was running towards her with a goofy grin on his face, waving a hand to say that the ball was his. He only slowed down when he got close enough to Nicki to see her face turn into a seductive grin. Feeling flirty, Alex swaggered toward Nicki instead and produced a seductive grin of his own but it hardly exuded the amount of sex appeal Nicki emanated. She put on an exotic sexiness to her smile. Teresa watched as Nicki walked up to Alex, gaining his full attention with her flirty walk as she twirled her hair in fingers, and started to grow angry as Clover giggled at her face. Within seconds, Nicki dropped the flirt act and shoved the ball in Alex's face hard enough to nearly break his nose then slapped him across the cheek. She stomped off then went back to talking to her dad on the phone.

"Hello? Hey, daddy, whatchu wanted? Oh, no, just some white boy thinkin' he was gettin' my number," she explained, hearing her father fuss on the phone. "Before or after I shoved a football up his nose? Tch! I ain't playin' wit' dese people."