“Right. Like I said, they’re awesome.”
The dance team stands at attention, hands on hips, asses out, chests forward, all with the same dumb duck face, waiting for their music to start. Trying to make the best impression I can with Ellie, I fake noninterest. I fail. Then the music explodes from the speakers, and I hear what song they’re dancing to—The J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold.”
“Oh no,” I half whisper to Ellie.
“What?” she says.
“Listen.”
Not only is “Centerfold” the best ’80s song ever, but it also just happens to be about a guy who realizes a girl in his homeroom is naked in a dirty magazine. So yeah, the Malone picture from last year. The dance team wiggles and thrusts and basically raises the temperature in the gym by twenty degrees. Once the chorus hits, they really vamp it up, grinding their hips and tossing their heads back ecstatically when the line is sung about the girl being the centerfold.
Two seats down, Malone isn’t moving, but she’s no dummy. If there’s any doubt that the song’s been chosen for her, proof comes halfway into the performance when the girls break from the floor and head into different sections of the stands. Libby prances up the aisle toward us, stopping a few rows away. When the chorus hits again, she points with the beat at Malone.
I’ll give her credit—Malone doesn’t take her eyes off Libby. She just stares back defiantly, her breathing steady. What I want to do is jump from my seat and flip Libby off with both hands. But Malone’s made it clear she doesn’t want me to stick up for her. And, man, I get that, I really do. But it isn’t easy to just sit here. Luckily, the song is short. It just feels like forever. I can’t imagine how long it was for Malone.
“Forget her,” Ellie says to Malone once the song ends and the girls return to the floor to thunderous applause. “Libby’s a total see you next Tuesday.”
Malone doesn’t move. But it’s not like she’s stunned and embarrassed into lifelessness. From her eyes, I can tell something’s going through her head.
“Seriously, Kate. She’s trash.”
Malone gives Ellie a thin smile. “No, I’m fine. That was actually sort of clever.”
A few seconds later though, I see Malone run her forearm across her eyes.
Chloe and Benz soon return to the floor to read the accomplishments of our fall sports teams. It’s a pretty damn short list. One of the girls’ cross-country team’s runners came in eighth at the state meet, but beyond that, our fall teams have done as sucky as they usually have. It’s only our boys’ lacrosse team that ever has any success, but that’s a spring sport, leaving the first three-quarters of the year an athletic wasteland.
Next on the agenda, the cheerleaders bounce spastically to the center of the gym in their black-and-yellow outfits. Joined by Becca Yancey in her Zippy the Golden Eagle costume, the cheerleaders flip and flop around, doing a lot of “We’re number one!” to a mostly disinterested crowd. They try again to raise some reaction from us by yipping a cheer about how awesome Asheville is. All of it makes me regret not falling to my death from the water tower. But then the five cheerleaders in the front row pick up the poster boards waiting for them on the floor. The girls point the cards toward the audience so everyone sees the single word on each one.
Holy shit.
Ellie, Wheeler, Malone, and I all look at each other bug-eyed while the rest of the student section starts laughing and clapping hysterically. The cheerleaders have no idea what they’re holding. From their smiles, they clearly think they’ve finally injected a megadose of school spirit into our veins with their magical cards. But they’re wrong. The squad goes into a call and response thing, holding up a card and shouting what they think the cards say.
“Asheville!”
“High!”
“Golden!”
“Eagles!”
“Rock!”
But what the cards really say, and what the students yell back is: “The!”
“Chaos!”
“Club!”
“Is!”
“Coming!”
The entire student body leaps to its feet, actually showing some school spirit for once, even if it’s in support of what amounts to a terrorist organization.
“Is this one of you?” Malone asks.
We all shake our heads.
“Well, whoever did it, it’s impressive.”
I say, “We should watch for anyone acting weird.”
“In a crowd of two thousand going berserk?” Wheeler says.
“Do your best.”
On the floor, the cheerleaders keep shoving the cards forward at the stands. In return, the students shout back: “The!”
“Chaos!”
“Club!”
“Is!”
“Coming!”
It becomes a chant, something you’d hear rising from a crowd of overly enthusiastic political protesters. I try to watch any student behaving oddly, but I can’t take my eyes off Stranko, waiting for the moment he realizes what’s happening.