A/N: I forgot to put a disclaimer on the first chappy. Whoops!! So here it is: DISNEY: DON'T SUE ME! Every single friggin member of the Crimson Gang belongs to them. But Swifty's Jimmy Eat World t-shirt belongs to Jimmy Eat World. Heh.
Shoutouts… Wow, you guys! Fifteen reviews! I am astounded. Yikes! I nearly did cartwheels! Gemini Kelly – Don't do anything drastic now, I'm continuing it! LOL. Thanks for the #1 review!Aki – Hey goilie, your character is coming up soon! Wahoo!
Peg – You're coming up soon too! Thanks for the review!
kimimay85 – Hey goilie, sure, that can be you. LOL I don't think that she'll have any part further in the story, but if she does, you'll be the first to know. ;D Let me know what you think of the ending of this chappy! ((Sidenote: WAHOO! Timmy died on Passions! I hated him!)) ((Sidenote after you called me after the eppy was over… I DIDN'T WANT THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED TIMMY TO DIE! JUST THE CHARACTER TIMMY! Oh no!!! That's sad…))
Gypsy – THANKS goil!! Three reviews from you alone. I love your story, and hopefully I'll read a bunch of it today. And yes, I'm glad you at least caught the name of the high school… I was wondering someone would. I was eating Salsa Verde Doritos and I couldn't think of a name for the HS and that's where I got Verde… then I just wanted something Spanish and Gato was just about the only other Spanish word I knew… LOL.
Morning Dew – Hey, t'anks! I'll come review one of your stories asap. Here's a weird bit of info: I actually HAD a character in my last story, Ocean Eyes, whose name was Morning Dew… then I logged on and found that it was YOUR name, so I changed it to Kiss. Weird, huh? I just got on ff.net and saw you on the front page for one of your stories, stared at the screen for a while in shock, then changed my story. hehe!
Moody – Hey goilie! I just emailed you back. Thanks for the review, and for putting me in your story. Work on those run-on sentences! ;D LOL. And there's LOTS more Snodds in this chappy.
Tuffy – Thanks!!! :D
Dragonfly – Your part will be coming soon, too. :D Thanks for coming to review hun!
Lucky – They ~are~ heartthrobs, aren't they?! :D Thanks for the review!
Holly Rachael Zintel – IF YOU DON'T UPLOAD YOUR HP STORIES SOON, I WILL NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN!!! That said, thank you. **Mondie smiles prettily**
Holiday – Thanks dearie! I'm posting more now! **Mush smacks Mondie as if to say DUH**
AND… Blinks-Tiger – I've missed you Tiger!!! Where ya been, kid? Thanks for coming to review!!! Erm… and sorry, but Nikki gets Blink in the story… I held a casting call on the NML, and she got Blink. But if you keep reviewing, I'll write a Blink story JUST for you! **Mondie laughs as every screams BLACKMAIL!**
All righty, so here's the story! Don't forget to leave me a review on whatcha think. :D
Untouchables
Chapter 2
Nikita and Kat headed to their lockers, grabbed out their afternoon books, and headed to French 4. There were only two girls sitting in the classroom when they arrived, and the two were chatting between themselves in disbelieving tones. Becca looked up first.
"Nikita!" she said, waving her arms around blindly and nearly hitting Gabrielle, the other girl, several times. "What the hell kinda stunt was that today at lunch? Spot Conlon could rearrange your face for doing less!" She shoved her brown hair impatiently from her face, exposing her beautiful, expression-filled brown eyes, which locked onto Nikita's exquisite violet ones.
"Jesus, Becca!" said Nikita, her face breaking into a smile. "It was just a gag."
Becca quieted down as other students began to file into the classroom. She couldn't resist adding, though, "Yeah, a gag to get you killed."
Kerrie, an outspoken girl who had just transferred that year and no one was quite sure of yet, loudly voiced, "What a great spectacle we got to witness at lunch today!"
Nikita scowled at her, but didn't say anything. Kerrie giggled to herself as she went to her desk, her shoulder-length red hair swishing as she did so. She was generally nice, but there was just something about Nikita that bothered her. And as one of the two Crimson Gang members who were in this French 4 class entered the room, she suddenly remembered what it was.
Snoddy Feeney, the most good-looking boy she'd ever laid eyes on, took the seat closest to the door and slouched down in it, his perfect pout playing on his lips. Then he casually twisted so that his view was on one girl and one girl only.
Kerrie bitterly bit on her lower lip as she watched Snoddy, watching Nikita.
She inwardly sighed as she looked around the room. No one in here invited her to parties. No one even offered her a smile as she came in. In fact, no one in this whole school did. Her heart turned achingly as she thought of her old school, where she had been one of the most popular girls. In this school, she doubted anyone knew her name.
How odd that she had taken the time and knew all of theirs…
The French 4 class was filled up with seniors, obviously, and most of them girls. Of the twenty-one students, nineteen were female. The guys' names were Snoddy and Mush. The latter had just slunk in the door and taken his seat behind Snoddy, and the two males were talking in low tones to each other. Snoddy felt Kerrie's eyes on him and looked over sharply. Embarrassed, she dropped the gaze, and instead looked over at all the female students.
Of course, there was Nikita. Famed for her violet eyes and loud demeanor, she was a legend on campus. Her best friend was Kat, who was introverted and kept to herself. Kat was extremely beautiful, and had she been more outgoing, she would've been nominated as a homecoming queen or something, Kerrie noted. She looked at Kat's long hair, trying to decide whether the color was light brown or red… she too had interesting eyes: ice-blue. If the right light hit them, they shone silver.
There was also Gabrielle, who was shy and quiet, and, though Kerrie had met her the first day she'd moved into town (they were neighbors), Kerrie still wasn't sure of her disposition yet. She had long, wavy, dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes, which were usually trained downward unless she was speaking directly to someone. Gabriel had a name almost exactly like Gabrielle's, but the two girls couldn't have been more different: Gabriel was loud, outspoken, and usually got her way. Kerrie had heard one freshman boy tell his friends that Gabriel was a "compelling, exotic beauty," and she had to agree it fit the girl completely: she had long, straight light brown hair, and her eyes were almost black, with a ring of purple around them. Just looking into those eyes could shock a daydreamer back to reality.
Nikki was a nice person, and one of the few people that Kerrie felt could be a future friend. She had brown hair, brown eyes, was medium height, and had braces. One of the distinguishing marks on her was a small scar on the top left corner of her face. It interested Kerrie, as most scars did… she wondered where Nikki had gotten it from. Becca looked much the same as Nikki, but was better friends with Nikita and Kat, and didn't mind telling them exactly what she thought of them. This was something which inwardly made Kerrie laugh much of the time. Becca definitely wasn't shy, especially around her friends, and it was a well-known fact around school that she had a crush on Racetrack, a member of the Crimson Gang, though she'd never admit it out loud. Vivien was another of the girls Kerrie felt a connection to for some undecided reason. Vivien had dark, wavy hair, and brown eyes. She was shy and was often seen hanging with many of the girls in this class, and when she was around them, she was loud and made a complete transformation. And then there was Erica, Margaret, Adrienne, Jess, Ana, Marissa, Melody, Nina, Natasha, Danielle, and Jaclyn… ((A/N: Sorry goilies, you'll each get introduced in due time! I just didn't want to bombard everyone right away.))
Kerrie's thoughts were interrupted by the ringing bell. The teacher, Mme Durouge, stepped in the door. "Bonjour, mes eleves," she said, with a tight smile. She was a severe-looking teacher, with her brassy blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun and horn-rimmed spectacles resting on the bridge of her nose.
"Bonjour, Madame," the class answered in monotone.
"Aujourd'hui, nous sommes commencer translater Les Miserables…"
Nikita squinted at the teacher as she continued to drone on, and wordlessly she dropped her head onto her arms. Every year, she asked herself why she signed up for French again. Every year, she couldn't remember what she'd been thinking on registration day except that usually she slept through that, too, and had Kat fill out her registration.
She felt a poke on her arm from a pencil eraser. Confused, she looked over. There sat that one grinning model boy from the Crimson Gang. She couldn't exactly remember his name, but she did remember that he'd been in her American Eagle catalog the week before, and suddenly the page had been ripped out of several other catalogs and placed in nearly every girl's locker in the school.
He was bent over his notebook, and she was figuring she'd just imagined it all, and was about to go back to sleep, when he turned to her with a grin. He held his notebook up at a slight angle to show her what he'd written.
She was saying that today, we're going to begin translating the book Les Miserables. I've got this friend, Davey, who's incredibly good at French … he's in a class all by himself, studying college-senior-level French earlier in the day. I'm sure he can help you if you'd like. There's no way I'd pass French without him. Maybe you can come to one of our tutoring sessions. -Snoddy
Snoddy! That was it. She raised her eyebrows at him mysteriously, then winked. She wondered what in Sam's hill he'd picked the nickname Snoddy for. It was common knowledge that all of the guys in the Crimson Gang had picked ridiculous nicknames for each other (other than Davey… he was just Davey), but what possibly could have inspired SNODDY?!
"Nikita." She turned and looked into the face of Mme Durouge, who was standing there holding several copies of a thick book. She saw that it was Les Miserables. She took the stack and left one on her desk, passing the others to Kat, who sat behind her.
She pulled from her backpack her Diet Pepsi and her French dictionary. She snuck a drink from her pop (drinks weren't allowed at GVHS) and then stuffed it back into her backpack. Then she opened her book of Les Miserables and pretended to start reading.
Mush wouldn't let himself be out-romanced by Snoddy. He tapped Nikita in the back too and passed her a note.
Je t'aime, cherie.
For a moment, Nikita stared at it, then she hurried to look up the verb "aimer". To like … to love. The note made her giggle, and she turned and blew a kiss to Mush. Two boys in one day, and both of them friends of Spot's… Okay, so one was a pretty-boy model, and one was the biggest pimp in school, but still. Two boys during the course of one class period was nothing to be scoffed at.
While turning back around in her seat, she saw that Kat was writing something. Dumbfounded that her best friend would actually be taking notes on a French book, she twisted to see what she was writing. She saw her name, and Kat's, and snatched the paper.
"Hey!" protested Kat.
Nikita glanced over the paper. It seemed to be some kind of list. Clutching her pencil, she scrawled hastily, "What the heck is this?" and passed it back.
Kat wrote something in letters across the top, and passed it back up. Now it said:
Odd Coincidence? …Girls In Our Class and What Crimson Gang Member They Like
Nikita Spot
Kat Swifty
Gabrielle Bumlets
Gabriel Mush
Nikki Kid Blink
Becca Racetrack
Vivien Skittery
Erica Davey
Margaret Cowboy
Natasha Snitch
Nina Jake
Melody Crutchy
Marissa Pie Eater
Ana Specs
Jess Itey
Adrienne Dutchy
Kerrie Snoddy
Danielle ?
Jaclyn ?
Nikita stared at the list in wonder. "How do you know all this?" she wrote under the names.
"Observance," Kat wrote back.
Nikita looked at the list again and nearly clapped her hands in excitement. "I just got the greatest idea ever… And Spot will be mine before we count to ten," she wrote.
Kat suddenly wished she hadn't written the list.
Nikita scribbled a note down on a piece of paper and wrote "Gabrielle" on the top of it. She passed it to her friend, who sat on the other side of the room. Gabrielle read it and passed it backwards, and it continued through the room. Mme Durouge was out in the hallway flirting with Herr Carter, the young German teacher (even though Mme was married), so of course she didn't notice.
The note finally made it to Danielle, who sat behind Mush. Mush waited for the note to be passed to him, but it was instead passed to Kat, who passed it back to Nikita. Nikita opened up the folded square of paper and re-read her announcement:
Girls of the class, we must have a meeting about the Crimson Gang. Kat has made a shocking discovery. Sign below if you're interested, and then tomorrow at lunch, meet behind the school at the apple tree. -Nikita
Following this, eighteen signatures had been signed: every girl in the class. Nikita smiled to herself, then felt the tap of Mush on her shoulder. She turned to see that both he and Snoddy were trying to read the note. Smiling prettily, she crumpled it up and delicately placed it in her mouth and chewed it. Mush's face fell in disappointment.
Nikita felt herself gagging on the thick wad of paper, but wouldn't let herself do something so unclassy—especially in front of these two friends of Spot's—as to spit it out, so she tried to swallow it. Instantly she began to choke. Her eyes bulged as it lodged in her throat.
Snoddy stood her up and performed the Heimlich Maneuver on her. The paper flew out after only a few times and shot across the room, landing with a loud, wet smack on the chalkboard. Nikita glared at him. "I was eating that," she said nastily, punching him in the stomach. His washboard abs hurt her hand. She tried not to show that her knuckles were now stinging as she pronounced, "Pass that punch along to your friend Spot Conlon, aka the clown that threw me on the ground today at lunch." She loftily stood as high as her 5'7" would allow, putting her nose in the air.
Snoddy stared at her. "Uh… sure." The bell rang and Nikita practically sprinted out of the room, nursing her bruised hand. Snoddy stared after her, and a smile flitted across his face.
Kerrie sighed to herself.