I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader
Read I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader Online
Authors: Kieran Scott
The first day
I took a deep breath, smoothed my hair down, and opened the door to the classroom. The second I did, the bell pealed out so loudly, it could have been inside my brain. I froze, startled, and every single person in the room turned to look at me. I instantly knew that I had made two drastic mistakes.
First, I had not conformed to local fashion codes, which apparently called for the wearing of much color and little cloth. I had never seen so many belly buttons in one place at one time in all my life. And I’d spent plenty of summer days at the Jersey Shore, thank you very much.
Second, I was not blonde. How had I not noticed it before? Every last female in the room was blonde. There were natural blondes and peroxide blondes, highlighted blondes and frosted blondes. Golden blondes, white blondes, ash blondes. Blondes with brown eyebrows and blondes with olive skin. There was even an Asian girl in the front row with her short blonde hair pulled back in two neat ponytails.
My gaze darted around the room from blonde to blonde to blonde to blonde. A Britney-clone looked at me and snickered.
“Nice clip,” she mouthed, glancing toward my forehead. Her friend laughed into her hand. Suddenly my rhinestone barrette felt hard and cold and jagged against my scalp.
It was official. I was in hell. And John Frieda was the devil.
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I Was a
Non-Blonde
Cheerleader
KIERAN SCOTT
SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005
Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006
This edition published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2007
Copyright © Kieran Scott, 2005
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS
:
Scott, Kieran, 1974–
I was a non-blonde cheerleader / Kieran Scott. p. cm.
Summary: As a brunette on the all-blonde cheerleading squad at her new Florida high school, sophomore Annisa Gobrowski tries to fit in with her popular teammates without losing the friendship of Bethany, the only other non-blonde at the school.
[1. Identity—Fiction. 2. Popularity—Fiction. 3. Cheerleading—Fiction. 4. Blondes—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Florida—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S42643Iae 2005 [Fic]—dc22 2004003788
ISBN: 978-1-101-66381-3
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
For Wendy, Shira and Ally,
and for all cheerleaders, everywhere.
Special thanks to Raina Wallens and Lisa Papademetriou for their help and faith in the early stages of this project and their unwavering support throughout.
To Cecily von Ziegesar for introducing me to Sarah Burnes and to Sarah for believing in this book and making it all happen.
Thanks most of all to Jennifer Bonnell for being there every step of the way and making the whole experience so much fun.
I would also like to thank Matt Viola, Lee Scott, Erin Scott and Ian Scott for always believing.
Special Excerpt from
Brunettes
STRIKE BACK
First day of school.
First.
Day.
Of.
School.
Hadn’t I already had one of these in September? What kind of sadistic star had I been born under that I got to have two? Two versions of the most stress-inducing day of the year?
I stood outside the back door of Sand Dune High and wondered what, exactly, I was doing here. This was Florida. I was a Jersey girl. I’d only been here five days and already the top of my nose was starting to peel, and that was
with
daily applications of SPF 15. It was so warm out at 8:00
A.M.
that I had already managed to sweat through my black T-shirt on the short walk to school. And according to the huge banner that was hung across the bleachers by the football field, the school mascot was a Mighty Fighting Crab. I mean, come on! The Crabs? I had already made up about ten STD jokes to keep on reserve for parties and lagging conversations.
Okay, be positive, Annisa. It’s not like you haven’t done this before
, I told myself.
My family had moved around the Northeast all my life as my dad, Professor Gobrowski to his colleagues, tried on
English department after English department. I had started at plenty of new schools. This was nothing new.
Okay, well, maybe it was a
little
new. After all, the last move had been almost four years ago, allowing me ample time to settle in and make friends that I now missed with an ache previously unknown to my body. And I was used to brick buildings, changing leaves, slush and rain and angry bus drivers. This school was very . . .
Florida
, with its whitewashed stucco walls, Spanish-tiled roof and palm tree-lined walks. But it was just a school, right? There were teachers and students and books in there. How different could it be?
I reached up to touch my signature fashion item—the rhinestone clip that always held back my short brown hair. It acted as a kind of pacifier in moments like these. A reminder that wherever I went, I was still me.
I took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
The noise inside hit me like a sharp wind. People darted across the hallway, a couple of guys slapped hands while a few girls bent over an open magazine. Everyone unfamiliar. Everyone nameless. How was I going to do this?
Okay, the first step is always the hardest
, I told myself. So I took it. I stepped over the threshold into my new school . . . and my toe caught the lip of the step. My heart shot into my throat. I flew forward. The floor rushed up at me. And all I could think was,
Sand Dune High, here I come!
This was going to hurt. I knew from experience.
But before I could hit the ground, a pair of strong hands grabbed my arm and I was saved from utter humiliation. A few people still snickered around me, but it was so much better than it could have been. I looked up to thank my savior and my throat totally dried up. Maybe it was just the effects of hero worship, but the phrase
humuna, humuna, humuna
comes to mind.
“Are you okay?” my knight in faded Abercrombie asked, releasing me.
I smoothed down the front of my T-shirt and tried not to look anyone directly in the eye. My face was burning red. “Bones intact, ego slightly bruised,” I said.
“I’ll have that step removed by the end of the day,” he joked.
“Thanks. You can do that?”
“I have powers beyond your understanding,” he replied, a mischievous glint in his bluer-than-blue eyes. “I’m Daniel Healy, by the way.”
Daniel Healy was yum. He was taller than me, but not too tall. Actually, the exact perfect height for slow dancing kind of tall. He had light brown hair with obviously natural blond highlights that matched the sun-bleached wisps on his tanned arms and legs. He was wearing long denim shorts, a faded, red, short-sleeved button-down with the first few buttons open, and a single shell on a black cord around his neck. And his smile? Whoa mama.
A few lines formed above Daniel Healy’s perfectly shaped nose. He looked a little bit disturbed. Unfortunately, I get that a lot. “And you are . . . ?” he asked.
Nice one, Gobrowski
, I said to myself. I gave him my best self-deprecating, doofy-me laugh. “Annisa Gobrowski,” I said. “Don’t call me Annie or I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
My stomach dropped when I saw his shocked face. Misfire. Back home that usually got a laugh. Did people in Florida have trouble catching witty sarcasm? If so, I was in big trouble.
“I’ll remember that,” he said. “You new? Come on, I’ll show you where the office is.”
Somehow I made myself move down the unfamiliar hall
with its unfamiliar smells and its unfamiliar faces. People watched me curiously, like I was some new, unclassified species. I was so nervous, I was sure my knees were going to go out any second.
All around me students lined the hallway, digging in their lockers, checking their hair in compact mirrors, passing a soccer ball back and forth across the floor. Everything seemed to blur together. Would any of these people end up being my friend? Did I have anything in common with any of them? What if this school was too cliquey and no one wanted someone new to, you know,
clique
with?