Seventeen
Trudy
The next day after school, Trudy’s Chevette had two flat tires, a front one and a rear one. She figured she’d run over something, but then Randy at Culpepper’s Tires showed her how someone had clipped the valves.
“Someone did this on purpose?” Trudy asked, incredulous.
Haskel tried reassuring her that everything was fine, that kids played pranks on new teachers all the time; it was harmless. But Trudy couldn’t get Barbara’s latest bulletin out of her mind.
Trudy got her tires repaired and pushed the paranoia aside as much as she could.
But then, on Thursday, she switched on her overhead projector and the words EAT SHIT AND DIE appeared in bright red letters on the projector screen .
Instinctively, she tried to wipe the letters off the glass, but the phrase had apparently been written with permanent marker.
The class giggled, but Trudy didn’t. This steely feeling had carved its mark on her before, when someone had written Quarterback Killer on notebook paper and stuck it in her mailbox just a few days after Jimmie died and all the rumors about her had spread like herpes.
All week, June Bug evaded her gaze, and when Trudy passed him and Dee Dee in the hall, they both darted their eyes. She took that as evidence of guilt. Vangie had similarly avoided eye contact—and was also the one who’d put gum in her hair—so she became another suspect.
Trudy spent the week making mental notes of anyone with a felonious look, and she was a bit on edge by Friday afternoon when the cheerleaders waited by the bus in the parking lot, ready to take the hour-long ride to the first away game of the year against the Wheeler High School Warriors.
Trudy’s mouth probably flew open as she stopped short of the girls. “What are these?” she asked, struck by the cheerleaders’ brand-new uniforms.
Dee Dee grinned. “Don’t you love them?”
“Miss Abernathy,” Mr. Jones, the band director, called from the driver’s seat of the bus.
“We’re gonna be late.” He doubled as the bus driver for away games; Dee Dee had required the cheerleaders to travel on the same bus as the Mighty Marching Bruins ever since some of the sophomores on the football team started a rumor that they’d fingered some cheerleaders on the way home once.
Vangie insisted, quite vehemently, it was only a rumor.
At least that’s the way Faye had explained it when Trudy asked why they weren’t riding with the football team the way they used to when Trudy was a cheerleader.
The pimply faces of the Mighty Marching Bruins glared out of the bus windows, watching.
“Just a minute, Mr. Jones.” Trudy said.
“Aren’t they great?” Vangie twirled around, letting everyone catch a glimpse of her orange bloomers, then tipped her hips from side to side.
“It’s the newest style,” Faye confirmed. “The pleats are smaller.”
“And they’re shorter,” Vangie said, flashing her leg. She pulled the cellophane off a green sucker and threw it on the grass. She wrapped her lips around the candy and smirked.
Vangie and Dee Dee glanced at one another, two smug little mobsters; it convinced Trudy they were the vandalism culprits, and now it was time for payback.
Mr. Jones honked.
“Hang on!” Trudy said. “Dee Dee, you and I agreed that Marvalee was going to hold off until she could make a uniform for Carter. And you know these things must be approved ahead of time.”
“My daddy approves,” Dee Dee said. “And he paid for them.”
Rejoice and Carter came around the corner of the school building. Rejoice wore her older uniform. Her jaw went slack. “Thought we were wearing these later,” she said. “After mine was fixed.”
Trudy looked at Dee Dee.
Dee Dee shrugged. “Hers didn’t fit. Miss Marvalee and I agreed that the measurements she gave must be wrong. She’s a lot bigger than she thinks she is.”
Dee Dee’s nastiness reminded Trudy of Barbara, perhaps because they shared a face of smug righteousness.
Trudy remembered how Barbara had been over the moon when Trudy and Jimmie had started dating, so excited that her troubled nephew had found a nice girl.
But how vicious she became after Trudy got pregnant.
Barbara had led the charge to kick the Abernathys out of Falconhead, then she’d demanded that she and Jimmie get married immediately and have their wedding at Beaumont Forks Plantation where Barbara planned everything with an iron fist. She’d forbidden even a single guest who wasn’t close family and insisted that the whole ordeal be kept under wraps, no newspaper announcement, no bridal teas, no mentions in church bulletins.
“Your decisions have already ruined Jimmie’s life, Trudy,” Barbara had said once, with the exact face Dee Dee was now making.
“So, you’ve given up your right to make any more.
” Leta Pearl and Dub had been so blindsided by the whole thing—the pregnancy, Trudy almost getting kicked out of school, the cold shoulders from former friends—perhaps it had simply been easier for them to let Barbara control everything, or maybe it all happened so quickly that by the time they thought about protesting, it was too late.
Now, Trudy tried her best to hide her seething, but she couldn’t shake the creepy feeling from seeing EAT SHIT AND DIE on the overhead.
“Dee Dee, y’all need to match, so you’ll all wear your backup uniforms tonight.
” When Trudy was a cheerleader, they all kept a backup uniform at school just in case something happened.
A spill of Hi-C, Diet Rite, or ketchup. A tear.
An unexpected early visit from Aunt Flow.
“I don’t mind not matching,” Rejoice said. “And Miss Marvalee can fix mine later.”
“I’m used to not matching,” Carter shrugged. “Let’s just go.”
“That’s very sportsmanlike, you two,” Trudy said. “But they’re called uniforms for a reason. We are a team, and it still doesn’t address the issue that I never approved them in the first place.”
“That’s rich,” Dee Dee said, sneering. “Given the way you added a cheerleader of the wrong sex without approval.”
Carter scowled and shook his head. The girls looked around at one another, seemingly surprised by Dee Dee’s boldness.
Dee Dee’s eyes narrowed.
Vangie’s eyebrows raised, clearly bidding Trudy’s response.
How Trudy handled this moment might make or break her. “Only girls with their backup uniforms will cheer tonight,” she said. “Of course, Carter, you will also cheer.” Trudy figured they’d simply go to their lockers, tails between their legs, come back with their backup uniforms.
“You can’t do that,” Dee Dee said through gritted teeth. “You can’t just—”
“Oh, you bet your sweet little cheerleader skirt I can.”
“I have mine!” Faye shouted, pulling a wadded-up skirt out of her purse like a magician’s scarves. “It’s a little wrinkled.”
“Wrinkled’s fine, Faye,” Trudy said. “You can change when we get there. Anyone else?”
They all eyed one another.
Nonnie whispered, “I told y’all this was a bad idea.”
“Shut up, Nonnie,” Dee Dee whispered back. “I’m afraid none of the rest of us have our backups. And since you were late Miss Abernathy, we don’t have time to go home and get them.”
Dee Dee had called Trudy’s bluff without knowing it.
Trudy never meant to force them to skip the game, but now she was stuck.
A tiny voice told her to back down, that she was acting out of frustration and that Barbara Beaumont would love nothing more than to print yet another transgression.
Trudy should relent or she’d pay the price with who knew what kind of vandalism tomorrow.
But.
If she backpedaled, Dee Dee would win.
No. Not this time.
She wasn’t backing down to this song-dedicating, tire-deflating monster.
“Alrighty then.” Trudy took a deep breath.
“Don’t worry, girls, as soon as I get these new uniforms approved by Mr. Hendon, and assuming he approves them, we’ll have Marvalee fix Rejoice’s and make one for Carter.
Until then, you should all enjoy your Friday night listening to the game on the radio.
We’ll gladly cheer on our Bruins, three strong. ”
Trudy hopped up the next two steps of the bus. “We’re ready, Mr. Jones.” She turned and looked back. “Rejoice?” she said. “Faye? Come on.”
They stood there, unmoving.
“Carter?” Trudy said. “Get on the bus.”
But they looked at their feet and eyed one another sideways.
“Miss Abernathy,” Mr. Jones said. “I’m already in hot water for ‘Physical.’ I really cannot be late.”
“This minute, Faye!” Trudy pointed at the ground with her finger like she meant it.
Faye looked up and swallowed. “Maybe it’s not the same unless we are all there?”
Trudy cocked her head to the side. “So, you don’t want to cheer?”
Faye looked back down. Stirred the gravel with her toe.
“Rejoice?”
Rejoice bit her lip and shrugged.
Carter kept his head down too.
“ Hmph .” Trudy stepped off the bus, slowly, each step down, a mile long. “Well. I guess you’ve all made your choice.”
Some of the girls folded their arms. Others fiddled with their ponytails or tightened their hair bows. But their collective rage radiated toward Trudy, hot and obvious. “Go on without us, Mr. Jones.”
“You sure?” he asked.
The tuba player’s face fell from disappointment.
“Yes, sir.” Trudy nodded. “It seems the Bruins Cheerleaders have decided to skip tonight.”
Mr. Jones shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He closed the door, and the bus bounced away, leaving Trudy and the cheerleaders in clouds of diesel and dust.