Let's move on, back to Sunday night.

Back at Veronica's house, we talked about it. "Those two bitches!" I raged. "I can see why they wanted to get away, but I don't see why they had to shove you in front of them. We could have just given them a ride home. I wouldn't have minded."

"They didn't want to make the guys mad at them," Veronica said knowingly. "You coming along was a bonus. I knew Kurt had a thing for blondes – I mean, I don't think he and Heather are official, but they do go out often. You know, the quarterback and the cheerleader. I should have known he'd go for you over me. I mean, Heather even said he'd been talking about you, so I knew the second I saw him that he'd go for you first. It must have seemed like good luck that you were with me."

"Even though you're prettier than I am?" I pointed out.

Veronica waved a hand. "Not true. The Heathers just made me over. If they made you over, you'd look like them too." She paused and smiled. "Hey, speaking of, I've got a couple of similar outfits that they made me get so I was wearing basically the same thing every day. And I had to get the stockings in bulk and I needed a week's worth anyway, so I've got like twelve pairs. Wanna try them on?"

Two minutes later, I was standing in front of the mirror, dressed like another Heather. I had on a dark blue blazer with shoulderpads, a plaid blue and black skirt and navy-blue knee socks.

"Wow!" I breathed. The colours went with my hair and brought out the blue in my eyes. The blazer made me look thinner and the skirt gave the impression my legs were longer and slimmer too. I wasn't really a girl for skirts, but I felt like a real Eighties chick in those clothes – and a particularly cool one.

"You look great, too," Veronica said, grinning. "Shame we're not looking for another Heather because I know they'd go nuts if someone outside of the clique copied us, and the colour blue is taken. It really suits you. Better than it does me."

I grinned back. "I couldn't take your place. You always look gorgeous. Don't forget, I never knew you before, so I've never seen you out of blue. I could take on red, now the position is empty." I didn't mean it seriously, but I instantly got a mental image of Heather Chandler's ghost glaring at me. Like I would actually dress like that! Red didn't even suit me.

Veronica laughed. "I looked like a total nerd back then. No idea about clothes. I still am one deep down, but I just look cool. Like I told you the other weekend, it's only my talent for forgery that got me into the Heathers' clique in the first place. I'm more smart than cool."

Just trying on Veronica's coolest clothes made me feel more confident and less haunted. We'd brought the mood up and were asleep on time, just like we promised.

It was only when we got to school that I remembered what was going to happen next. We could see some kids staring at us before we even got into the building. Half of them were whispering to each other, and some of them even pointed at us.

"Brace yourself," I murmured to Veronica. "I have a feeling the boys described in detail all the things they didn't get to do to us and claimed that they did all of them, and that we really loved it. And probably that we'd do the same with anyone else."

"As revenge for not getting to?" Veronica sighed. "I should have seen it coming. That's why the Heathers wouldn't just leave with us – they had to replace themselves, do what the guys wanted…or have the guys tell everyone that they did far more than they'd ever do."

I scowled, scanning the parking lot for JD's motorbike. He hadn't arrived yet. "I better stay here. I want to get to JD before the rumours do."

When JD finally did arrive, we were still standing on the steps. Veronica didn't want to face it on her own and I didn't want to force her to, even though she would have if I'd told her to.

JD stopped when he saw me. He read my expression immediately. "Indie? Is something wrong?"

I nodded. "Don't worry, I'll be okay, but there's some rumours going around about Veronica and me. I'll tell you all about what really happened later, but please, if you hear anything people are saying about me, none of it is true!"

JD gave a nod. Then he walked in, Veronica and I finally following on inside to face the music.

It was worse than I'd imagined. It was a tough thing in the musical, but at least there, you didn't see much, just enough to know what was going on. You didn't see how long a day it was. It wasn't just that the bulk of the school believed everything, especially since Heather Duke (now with Heather Chandler's red scrunchie in her hair) was telling everyone with extra relish, but even people who were supposed to be my friends believed it.

When Holly walked past me on my way to Geography class, she took the chance to hiss "Slut!" at me. When I saw Lisa at break, she made a point of turning around and walking away. Even Steph, who I'd been closest to, appeared while I was at my locker, whispered "Sorry," and then wrote Class Whore 89 on my locker. In Sharpie.

"I didn't do it!" I whispered furiously. "You know I'm not like that!"

Steph looked guilty, but she just ran off. No one would even sit near me in class, either, and Veronica later told me she'd had the same treatment (we didn't share any classes). I'd been with the group I thought were nice kids, but even they were treating me like I had some awful disease. Well, I did – I had asthma – but that didn't count. As if that wasn't enough, Heather Chandler was taunting me again. I couldn't actually see her among all the Westerburg students, but I could hear her laughing at me in my head.

"You see?" I could hear her say. "This would never have happened if I was still in charge. I could control the boys. You wanna know why I gave Heather a hard time? To stop her from being like this. You wanna think I was the worst, fine. But when I'm not around to be that person, I'm also not around to control the others who wanted that title."

It didn't get any better. When lunchtime finally came, it took me all the strength I had to ignore the tables populated by the football team.

"Hey honey, why don't you come sit over here?" Kurt called to me. "My lap's available if you'd like a repeat performance!" The team laughed and started calling other stuff, offering to do the same. One of the rumours floating around is that we'd taken turns with the guys doubling up on us as well as just interacting with one at a time. So apparently Ram was saying he got a chance to play with me, too. Both by himself and with Kurt. Let me tell you, I was ready to kill them myself. With my bare hands, too.

If JD wanted to kill them after today, I was totally on board.

I didn't say this to Veronica, of course. We sat together, with everyone staring at us and half the guys, including non-jocks, making remarks. The rumours had been embellished by this time. Kids had been telling each other and now half the stuff they were saying didn't even come from the boys or even Heather, who had done a fair amount of embellishing from the start. Some kids were even saying they heard I was a hermaphrodite (having both genitals – that was what they called it back then), but at least with that one, the tone I heard that in told me that even they didn't really believe that one. As for the less far-fetched rumours…no matter what they did, the only scream I'd make would be one for help. I knew by now that I was not that type. And no, I wouldn't cry either, even though people were saying we both did (I guess out of excitement, but that didn't make much sense to me). I certainly wanted to cry now, but that's because this was getting so humiliating.

"Is there anywhere in this school where no one else goes?" I whispered to Veronica. "I need space."

"Not that I know of," Veronica admitted. "It's even harder for me. At least people don't know you that well. Everyone knows who I am."

Worse, I'd been hoping I could stop Heather Duke from taking over, but she'd already done it. I'd seen her sitting with Heather McNamara as usual. While Duke was smiling, her bronze hair pulled back and her new confidence wrapped around her like a cloak, her friend looked rather nervous and unsure of herself.

"I'm done with high school politics," I said with a sigh. "If I could just do it all from home, I would." I almost said "online", but then I remembered how the internet was…well, existent, but impossibly slow right now, even for the people that could use it. I doubted anyone, even computer geeks, even had access right now.

"Me too," Veronica agreed. "Even being popular was a nightmare in its own way, just marginally easier."

At that moment, we heard a soft voice cut in. "Veronica? Ana?"

We both looked up. Martha was standing there, looking at us with a look of anxiety mixed with sympathy. "I just wanted to say that I don't believe it," she said softly. "I don't know what really happened, but I know you'd never do that." Then she turned and walked away.

"Well, that's something," I said grudgingly. "At least one person in this school believes us. She's more loyal than anyone else. And it must be so hard for her to hear it, considering how interested she is in Ram. I hope she sees his true colours now."

Veronica shook her head sadly. "I know her. She's probably thinking he's been pressured by Kurt to join in with the rumours. She still thinks of him as the boy from kindergarten."

I sighed. "I wish she'd just move on and realize what he's really like. I mean, he's not as mean to her as the rest of the team is, but he's honestly not worth it."

Veronica nodded at me. "Did you hear what he said last night? He said something like how I wanted to be popular so I should have expected it. He even said it was all my fault he wanted me. Exact words."

At least we had one loyal friend. We both knew that Martha still wasn't ready to be friends with Veronica again, but at least she knew that we weren't sluts and was brave enough to say so to us.

It was the worst day of my school life since I was in third grade and had a failed math test and an asthma attack in the same day. We'd had a sub who wouldn't listen to me in Gym when I tried to explain I wasn't allowed to overexert myself in cold weather (my teacher must have forgotten to note it down because she'd been out due to illness). But a trip to the hospital and failing math was the only thing worse than having the whole school whispering about you and your friends turning on you.

At least, when JD came over that afternoon, he listened to me.

Okay, you know where this is going. And if you're wondering where that rumour that Ana had an anatomy of both sexes came from…don't ask, Westerburg High's teens will believe anything.