Underated flick Can't Hardly Wait, and bit of an in-joke if you have seen it and Not Another Teen Movie. Anyway I think Gretchen would like it a lot. Karen I see as a fan of the Josie and the Pussycats movie.

Chapter 8

'Karen… we have to talk,' said Gretchen on the Wednesday before Halloween. The two girls had been getting ready for volleyball practice, an event that figured pretty high on Gretchen's weekly list of mental horrors.

Gretchen hated volleyball practice. She had never been tall or athletic and she suspected (rightly) that several of the other girls kept trying to hit her between the eyes with the ball. She could feel every eye looking at her, always mentally picking her last in every sports team. Without her lip-gloss, jewellery and designer clothes she felt… short, and scrawny. And unfashionably brunette.

In truth Karen was not actually all that much better at the volleyball itself, but she loved being out in the open, the feel of the cool air on her legs and the sun on her face, her hair flying when she ran. It was fun, simple as that.

'Do you ever feel you might be, well…wrong?' Asked Gretchen as they emerged into what even she had to admit was great weather for October.

'Oh always,' said the blonde cheerfully. 'Wrong about what?'

Gretchen looked at her shoes. 'Well,' she continued guiltily, 'about guys' maybe. Like how you think like one and he turns out to be totally not what you are looking for…you know?'

Karen gave her a confused look. Then her eyes widened in shock.

'Oh…,' she said. 'Oh my god Gretchen I should have known. And I was trying to set you up with Carter! I'm so sorry!'

'You're taking it well,' said Gretchen in surprise.

'Well you are my BFF Gretch,' said Karen, as she teared up a little. She wrapped the confused brunette in a huge hug. 'I just want you know that even if you don't like guys anymore I still love you as a friend.'

'Karen, I-' began Gretchen.

'That's right Taylor,' Karen was saying to the girl next to them who had been staring at the two. 'My best friend is gay and I don't care.'

'Karen I'm not gay!' shrieked Gretchen, in a rather louder voice that she intended. The brunette flushed scarlet. Every girl in the group was looking at her now.

'Oh,' said a confused looking Karen. 'Well what did you mean about guys not being what you are looking for?'

Gretchen looked at her friend's face, her bright sea coloured eyes shimmering with concern and bit her lip so hard she nearly tasted blood. Her mind flipped through the various stories she and Regina had prepared to drive off Karen.

Could she do this to her best friend?

At that point volleyball hit her in the small of the back.

Have I mentioned how much Gretchen hated volleyball practice?

'So… I thought you should know,' she finished.

They were sitting on Gretchen's bed watching Can't Hardly Wait and eating pizza from Alonzo's, a sleepover tradition that stretched back further than either of them could remember. They were waiting for their toenails to finish drying (at Karen's suggestion it they had tried a daring new shade of blue).

And now Gretchen Wieners had just smashed her best friend's heart into a zillion pieces. All the Jennifer Love Hewitt films in the universe wouldn't repair the hole in that heart.

It would have been nice to think at this point that Regina had been the one to come up with the lies about Mike to repel Karen. That she had been the source of the worst lines.

It would have been nice but it wasn't true. Gretchen had known which buttons she had to press.

'So,' said Karen, her voice trembling, 'he thinks I'm too stupid.'

'Yes,' said Gretchen. And then, much to her own horror, she heard herself add 'but I'm sure he wasn't making fun of you behind your back or anything.'

Karen sobbed on Gretchen's shoulder. The brunette was terribly glad that at least she didn't have to look her friend in the eye anymore. That was something that she couldn't quite bring herself to do just now.

'Oh honey, he wasn't good enough for you anyway,' said Gretchen. 'There are plenty more fish in the sea and I'm sure you'll meet Mr Right. Tomorrow maybe.'

Well, at least if Regina George had being doing her job. There were any number of guys in school who would have jumped at the chance to go out with the beautiful Karen.

'But he was Mr Right,' said a heartbroken Karen. Then, to the bafflement of Gretchen she added: 'I was going to go brunette for him!'

Ten minutes later Gretchen finally managed to get away to ring Regina. Karen had disappeared into a tub of chocolate ice-cream and Gretchen could hear her sobbing through the bathroom doors.

'I do have another fish,' Regina assured her, 'Rick Cooper. He thinks Karen is pretty cute.'

Gretchen relaxed a little. Richard Cooper was on the swim team, was cute and was even (to general astonishment) supposedly a pretty nice guy. Karen would fall for him in no time, Gretchen could get Mike and everything would be fine.

In which case why did she feel like she was about three seconds away from bursting into tears?

'I'll be out in a moment honey,' she shouted through the door as she began dialing Mike.