The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [9]
The popular guys referred to the punks as “weird” and “useless.” They called Dirk, the punks’ alpha male, a scumbag within his earshot. Whitney was as friendly with Dirk as her group allowed, which meant in hallways their communication was limited to awkward eye contact and brief exchanges. She was attracted to Dirk, a funny and talented drummer, but she didn’t tell anyone, because a popular cheerleader dating a punk would cause “crazy scandalous controversy” and further escalate the tension between the groups. She was having enough trouble with the preps as it was.
After the welcome-back hug, the preps hardly acknowledged Whitney, though she stood next to them. The group brought up inside jokes and memories from the summer that didn’t include her. Whitney recognized this weapon because she had used it before. The preps enjoyed purposely making someone feel bad for not being at an event. If you weren’t at a party one weekend, the group wouldn’t stop talking about it in front of you until the next party.
Whitney loved the power and perks of popularity. When the teachers began handing out senior schedules at the back of the gym, Whitney’s group pushed to the front of the line en masse, as students parted without protest. The teachers didn’t bat an eye at the line cut, instead complimenting the girls on their hair and their tans. We haven’t been in school for more than ten minutes and already our egos have grown, Whitney thought. Her group got away with everything. For example, students who were late to class four times automatically received detention. Not Giselle. She regularly escaped detention because of cheerleading practice, and no one dared complain.
Some teachers fawned over the popular group. Whitney’s mother was an administrator, and other preps’ parents held powerful positions in town. Once, Whitney and her friends sauntered into a school entrance prohibited to students because it opened into a class in progress. The teacher stopped them and yelled that they couldn’t go in that door. “Yeah, well, I’m going to my mom’s office,” Whitney shot back. The teacher asked who her mom was. When Whitney answered, the teacher’s expression changed immediately. Not only did she let Whitney’s group inside, but she also told Whitney to say hi to her mother. Whitney thought the staff’s sycophancy was especially amusing because her mother was sweet and unintimidating. Whitney was close with both of her parents, who occasionally tried to encourage her to be more compassionate.
Schedules in hand, the preps left the gym before they were dismissed, and strutted toward “their” hallway. Other students walked by the Prep Hall quickly, so as not to attract attention in the area where the preps heckled the “weird kids.” By the end of junior year, one such student was so fed up with the preps’ rude comments that when they made fun of him for drawing a robot, he lashed out: “You’re going to be sorry when I come to school with a gun and kill all of you.” The preps didn’t say another word to him.
“Ugh,” Bianca shouted. “I hate when stupid freshmen don’t know how to walk in the hall! You walk on the right side of the hallway! Goddamn!”
As the halls filled up, crowds parted for the preps. Some students said hello, but Whitney and her friends gave them the “what’s-up-but-I-won’t-really-acknowledge-you” head nod.
When Whitney walked into advertising class with Peyton, she spotted Dirk. “Hey, Whitney!” he yelled across the room.
“I’m not sitting with Dirk,” Peyton whispered to Whitney. “I don’t see why you like those people. They scare me.”
Whitney shrugged and grinned at Dirk as she sat next to him anyway.
At lunch, the preps cut to the front of the line, as usual, and sat at “their” lunch table in the center of the cafeteria. Whitney hadn’t waited in the lunch line since she was a freshman. In the past, when students told the preps to stop cutting, Whitney’s group either ignored them or shot nasty glares.