Danae

"Gross, look at this lunch," I complained to my best friend, Lily Fergusen, as we seated ourselves at a lunch table in the Wakeman cafeteria and set our hot lunch trays down in front of us. "You'd think for as great as this school is supposed to be, they'd have better lunches than this!"

Lily nodded, making her shiny auburn hair bounce. "I know what you mean. I even heard that the lunches have improved some since previous years!"

I wrinkled my nose. "Seriously? Oh, brother." I poked at the unidentifiable casserole on my plate with my fork, than glanced around the noisy room, deciding to stall taking my first bite. "So, what do you think so far, Lil?" I asked.

Lily looked up from where she was digging into her delicious (big sarcastic laugh) lunch. She shrugged as she glanced around the room herself. "Well, it's not that bad, I guess. It's certainly bigger and more modern than our old school, that's for sure. And most people seem pretty nice."

I rolled my dark green eyes. "TOO nice if you ask me. It's so obvious that they're totally trying to be as nice as possible, hoping to hide their suspicions about us."

Lily didn't look up from her plate this time and continued eating. "You mean their suspicions about us all being evil 'cause we're from Grover?"

"Exactly," I said, pointing my so far unused fork at her. "They're all hoping that us Grover kids are stupid enough not to notice how much they're scared of us."

Lily laughed and took a drink from her milk carton. "I think it's funny, personally. Today when I stopped in the girls' room between classes, two other girls were in front of the mirror brushing their hair and you should have seen their faces when I reached into my purse to get my compact! OMG, Danae, it was so funny! They looked as if they thought I was about to pull a gun out! They totally froze up and everything!"

We both had a good laugh at that, although I did find it kind of insulting that they would all think we're a bunch of bad guys. I opened my own carton of milk and took a small sip.

"Well, we'll just have to prove them all wrong," I said forcefully. "What we need to do, Lil, is get into the cool crowd here. Show them that we're deserving of hanging with the populars. I mean, you and I DID pretty much make up the cool group at Grover." And that was true. Lily and I had always had an unofficial rule over the kids in our class, and especially in the younger grades. That's why it sucked so bad coming to Wacko because we were 'nothings' here, if even that high.

"Who are you thinking of getting to know?" Lily asked, pushing her empty plate aside and glancing at my lunch tray.

I shrugged and glanced around again. "I dunno yet for sure. Shawnie Pendgergast, for one. Since she's running for class president and everything. You can't get much higher than that." I looked over at Lily and groaned. "Lil, would you like my lunch? I can't even understand how you could possibly eat your OWN let alone want MORE, but I can tell you're about ready to bite into your tray." Lily has one of the biggest appetities I've ever seen. I swear, she could eat all day every day and never fill up. And what's SO unfair is that she's really skinny. Here I am counting calories practically to stay at a normal weight and she can eat two whole lunches and not gain an ounce.

"Really, Danae? Are you sure?" Lily asked, eyeing my plate.

I sighed and shoved it towards her. "Positive. I'll get a candy bar on my way out." I took another sip of milk as Lily started chowing away. "Now, where we were."

"Meeting the popular people," Lily said between mouthfuls.

I nodded. "Right. I already said Shawnie, didn't I? Now, who else can help our status around here..."

"Alexis Duvall?" Lily asked, motioning towards a full lunch table where a cute dark haired girl with an amazing sweater on was sitting with a bunch of other girls, including Shawnie Pendergast. "She's supposed to be pretty popular."

I titled my head. "I haven't heard too much on her, but she looks like she's pretty good friends with Shawnie, anyway, so it can't hurt."

"Heeyy, what about The Fantastic Foursome?" Lily remarked suddenly with a smirk. I shot her a 'drop-dead' look.

"As if! You've got to be kidding me," I snapped. "I wouldn't be caught dead with them... especially that Laura person."

One of the biggest horrors I discovered when we arrived at Wakeman (aptly nicknamed Wacko) was that Laura McCall was not only a student here, but in my grade and several classes. Besides the fact that Laura is a total snot and totally hard to like, we have a rotten history. Not going into any details, our fathers have been feuding for years. See, they both work at the same company, but about 7 or 8 years ago, they were both battling for the same promotion, and in the end, neither of them got it. Both our fathers blame each other for it and it's caused a lot of discomfort for their families, too. It's almost sorta silly, because I don't even know Laura all that well, but we've always hated each other, just from assosiation with the feud. But I didn't feel bad about it at all, because I've met Laura now and she's definitely worth disliking. It appears she feels the same about me, too, from our clash today.

"Yeah, I know," Lily replied. "I don't really want to hang out with them either. I haven't seen Laura too much, but I heard two of her friends talking *loudly* before one of the classes today about the "Grover Trash"."

I shook my head in disgust. Then I sighed and leaned back a little.

"Moving back to the previous topic, who else should we put on our list?"

Lily peered around the cafeteria. "Umm, oh hey! What about those girls," she said motioning towards a table a few away from ours. "I keep seeing them around school and they seem really popular. Everyone seems to know them."

I looked over to see who she was talking about and smiled. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten The Fabulous Five! Of course! They were all really popular, and seemed a whole lot nicer than *Laura* and her stooges.

"Great idea, Lil!" I said with a grin. "We definitely should try to make friends with The Fabulous Five."

"The whats?" Lily asked, looking puzzled.

"The Fabulous Five," I repeated. "Haven't you heard about them? They're all really well known and liked, and even better- they're supposed to be, like, rivals of Laura and her friends!"

Lily grinned. "Ooh, that does sound ideal. Let's find out all their names and then keep a lookout for them in our classes. I'm sure an opportunity to meet them will present itself."

I took another sip of milk, feeling pleased. It looked as though our prayer for popularity was almost answered.