Victoria walked into the diner and looked around. It didn't look like much. Cheap chairs and seats, aging clientele, tacky décor. Her high heels were probably worth more than the linoleum they were clicking on. Ordinarily, she wouldn't eat in a place like this, but she wasn't likely to find anything better here in Sunnycrest. One of many reasons why she didn't come home very often. She had simply outgrown this town. How many years had it been?
Well, she supposed this place would have to do. She took off her three hundred dollar sunglasses and slipped them into her purse.
It was a seat-yourself kind of joint, so she did. A familiar redhead walked over with a menu and a pitcher of water.
“Hello, welcome to Charlie's! I'm Alicia, and I'll be your waitress today!” said Alicia.
Victoria looked up at her, surprised. “Alicia? No way.”
Alicia gasped. “Victoria? Wow, I didn't recognize you!” She looked her up and down. “You grew a ton!”
“Yeah, I suppose I had a bit of a growth spurt after college,” said Victoria humbly. Alicia looked bigger too, but in a different, more horizontal-ish sort of way. “You still live here, huh?”
“Yep! Never left, never went to college...just stayed right here in little old Sunnycrest!” Alicia cheerfully replied.
“How's the family?”
“Oh, we're great!” she said, “Four kids and a fifth on the way! Lotta little mouths to feed...thank goodness for Kirk's unemployment check! How about you, have you found Mr. Right yet?”
Victoria sighed. “Well, I'm trying to focus on my career...Although the guys at the firm sure make that difficult sometimes.” She laughed self-effacingly. “I'm just hustling and getting a little action on the side here and there...I suppose it's okay for now, but eventually I guess I will have to settle down.”
“Gee, sounds like you're having fun,” said Alicia. “Hey, when I'm off work, want to get together? Catch up, or just reminisce? We sure had some good times on the cheerleading squad.”
“Sure, Alicia,” said Victoria. “You'll have to refresh my memory on some parts. I guess I don't really think about high school that much anymore now that I'm on to bigger and better things.”
Alicia laughed. “Haha, I guess that makes sense. I peaked in high school so I wouldn't know what that's like!” She looked around, then leaned in close to Victoria and lowered her voice. “Hey, er, Victoria? Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead, Alicia. Anything.”
“Well, if I'm being honest, me and Kirk have been looking, to, uh, spice things up. We're looking to bring in another girl for a threeway, somebody who's hot and elegant, since I'm neither of those things anymore. What do you think?”
Victoria sighed. “I don't know, Alicia. I'm flattered, really, but...I don't think so.”
“Oh. W-well, uh, no problem!” said Alicia. Embarrassed, she handed her her menu. “Anyways, what can I get you to drink?”
Before Victoria could order, she was jerked awake by someone roughly shaking her.
“C'mon, Victoria, up and at 'em!” said Victoria's mom.
Victoria frowned, rubbed her eyes, and rolled over with a moan. “Aw, mommm...”
Her mom pulled her blanket off her. “Come on now, darling! School starts in an hour and you haven't even done your morning practice!” she said sweetly.
“Just five more minutes...” said Victoria, hiding her face in her pillow. “I was having the most wonderful dream...”
Her mom smiled. “Well, when I was your age, the only dream I had was to be cheer captain. And, well, I accomplished it.” She patted Victoria on the head. “Not that I'm saying YOU'D have been cheer captain if you worked harder at it...but, well, let's face it, you certainly can't blame your genes!”
Once Victoria got dressed, her mom gave her the usual morning cheer coaching. Her mom praised her for how tidy her stunts were, which made Victoria happy. While they were doing cooldowns, Victoria updated her on how school was going.
“So there we are in chemistry class, and we hear some guy scream at the back of the classroom, right?” regaled Victoria, touching her toes. “Everybody turns around, and it turns out Chase is gnawing on her lab partner's shoulder.”
“What a dork,” said Victoria's mom.
“She's a massive dork,” agreed Victoria. She frowned as she did a hamstring stretch. “I don't know why Alicia likes her so much...”
“I know Alicia's type. She's a big hearted girl. Takes pity on the dorks and freaks. We had them when I was in high school too,” said her mom, turning to head inside. “What do you want for breakfast?”
Victoria was shocked. “Really? We're going to have breakfast?!”
Victoria's mom laughed. “Oh, honey. No. That was a test. Pretty girls don't eat breakfast.” She sighed and lovingly ruffled Victoria's hair. “What ever am I going to do with you? Now come on, time for your morning run.”
…........
The Sunnycrest High cafeteria was noisy and alive. It was packed with laughing, chatting students enriching themselves not only with a nutritious lunch, but also with one another's company.
All except for one person. A meek-looking girl stood off to the side of the room, holding her lunch tray, looking around shyly for somewhere to sit.
Alicia spotted her immediately, and her heart went out to her. “Hey, Ramona!” she called.
The girl looked over in surprise. She cautiously approached the cheerleader table. Chase was sitting next to Alicia, and Caitlin and Lindsey were sitting across from them. All were looking at Ramona, making her feel very self-conscious. “Er, hello, Alicia,” she said nervously. “How do you know my name?”
Alicia looked confused. “What do you mean, how? Of course I know your name!” said Alicia brightly. “You were in my poetry class last year. You had that really funny poem about the goldfish...”
“Wait, you remember that?” asked Ramona, flattered.
“Well, duh!” Alicia gestured to the open seat next her and began cutting her mystery meat with the side of her fork. “Pull up some bench!”
The girl found herself smiling ear to ear. “Really? Are you sure it's okay? Can I really sit with you guys?”
“Um, no?” laughed a smug voice. The mood instantly turned sour. Victoria was standing right next to her, holding her own lunch tray. “This table is for cheerleaders ONLY, sweetie. If you look around, I'm sure you'll find numerous LOSER tables which would be more than happy to take you in.”
Ramona turned red and felt herself start to cry. She turned and ran away. “I-I'm sorry!”
Victoria laughed and sat down in the spot Alicia was still gesturing to. Alicia retracted her hand, horrified. “Haha. Wow, what a dork.”
“Victoria, that was so rude!” accused Alicia.
“That poor girl!” agreed Caitlin.
Victoria looked surprised. “What? You guys WANTED that loser here?” She shook her head and opened her chocolate milk. “I just can't figure you guys out. You did it. You're cheerleaders. You made it to the top of the social ladder. And what do you want to do next? You want to slum it with the riff raff!”
“Riff raff?” repeated Chase.
“You know, the regular people. The less cool,” explained Victoria, taking a gulp of her chocolate milk. “Hanging out with uncool people, being nice and sweet to them...the only reason anybody does that is when they don't have any other choice! But when we became cheerleaders, we earned the right to choose a better life for ourselves!”
She set her milk carton down and rubbed the fabric of her uniform between thumb and forefinger. “This doesn't just happen, you know! You simply don't make the squad unless you're a cut above the rest! We're prettier, we're more popular, and we're wearing the proof! But by working to bridge that gap, you not only bring yourselves down to their level, you drag the rest of us down with you! If you won't think of yourselves...at least think of me!”
Lindsey looked exhausted after listening to this. She ate a spoonful of Jell-O and said wearily, “Chase, please hit her.”
“Hey!” protested Victoria.
Chase looked uncertain. “Hit Vic? But Vic is cheer. Vic is dear friend.”
“You don't have to hit her hard. You'd probably do her some good,” said Lindsey.
Caitlin gave Lindsey a stern look. “Lindsey, don't tell Chase stuff like-”
“Do good for Vic!” shouted Chase. She reached around behind Alicia and smacked Victoria on the back of the head, making her cough up some milk.
“Ow!” said Victoria. “Y-you brute!”
…........
About ten minutes after the bell rang, Victoria walked into her world history class.
“Ah, Victoria,” said Miss Robin sternly. “How nice of you to join us.”
Victoria took this surprise compliment very well. “I suppose I am rather thoughtful like that, aren't I? Thank you for noticing!”
Miss Robin sighed. How long had it been since her last aspirin? Could she take another one yet? “Victoria, that was sarc...never mind. Just take your seat, please. I was about to hand back last week's tests.”
Victoria sat down at her desk and immediately took her phone out. “Cool. Let me know if you need anything.” She blew a pink gum bubble and rested her cheek on one hand while thumbing her way through her instagram feed with the other.
Miss Robin twitched, took a deep breath to calm herself, then began to pass back the tests. “Overall, you did very well,” she told the class as she walked up and down the rows of desks. As she set Victoria's test face down in front of her, she added, “Most of you clearly studied and took the exam seriously.”
“Wow, really?” smirked Victoria, looking away from her phone long enough to flip over her test. “What a bunch of nerds-Hey! What the hell is this?”
Miss Robin looked back at her. “What the hell is what?”
“There's an F on this test! This isn't mine!” protested Victoria.
Sighing again, Miss Robin walked back over to her. “I can assure you, Victoria, that's your test.”
“No it isn't! I know what that F means! It means failure!” said Victoria. “Victoria C.H. Bassett is no failure! How dare you insult me in such a way?”
“It's not meant as an insult, Victoria. It's an honest appraisal of your performance on the test,” said Miss Robin, exasperated. “If you don't like it, maybe you should have studied. And if you wish to talk to me about your grades, you're welcome to do so after class, on YOUR time, not that of your classmates.” Some of said classmates were annoyed by Victoria, others just felt embarrassed for her.
Victoria narrowed her eyes at the woman. “You know what? I don't think I like your tone!” she said. “I am a cheerleader, in case you forgot!”
Miss Robin looked her over. Victoria was wearing her uniform. “How could I?”
“True, maybe I didn't study, and maybe I didn't do SO good on the test, but it's...a complicated situation,” Victoria appealed. “Cheerleaders have to maintain a D average if we want to stay on the squad. So F's aren't really possible for me.”
“They aren't, huh?” asked the teacher.
“Completely off the table,” Victoria nodded.
“That isn't how it works.”
Victoria looked surprised. “It isn't?!”
“No.”
“Oh,” said Victoria. She looked around, then lowered her voice and said, “Well, even so, I'm still...you know.”
“I'm afraid I do not.”
Victoria looked embarrassed. Keeping quiet, she said, “Well, I really don't want to say it, because I'd hate for people to think I'm bragging or showing off...”
“Who could ever think that of you, Victoria?”
“...but you see, I'm, well, I'm prettier than most people,” Victoria explained. “Much prettier. I'm sure you've noticed.” The teacher took a couple of aspirin, no longer worried about the risks.
“School is supposed to prepare us for the real world, right?” Victoria continued. “Well, once I graduate, I expect to do a lot of skating by on my looks. A lot.”
There was a lot Miss Robin wanted to say, but in the end she just shook her head. “Victoria, please see me after class,” she wearily requested, before moving on.
…..........
After school that day, the football team had an away game. so the cheerleaders loaded up on the bus to follow them out of town. It was extremely rainy in Sunnycrest, a cold winter rain with raindrops like fat bullets of ice water. The cheerleaders had to run to the bus holding their bags above their heads. They hoped the weather where they were going would be more pleasant. If that evening's game was a home game it would surely have been cancelled due to weather.
Once they were rolling and not getting any wetter, it was back to business as usual for the squad, chatting enthusiastically and hyping themselves up for the game as rain shelled the windows. One of the windows on the bus was stuck open, leaving the seat beside it vacant, the brown faux leather slick and wet.
Seated right behind the open seat were Danielle and Heather. Victoria wanted to talk to them, but there weren't any other places around to sit, so she simply stood in the aisle. The duffel bag containing her cheer uniform was slung over her shoulder.
“I couldn't believe it,” Victoria complained them. “All I did was say her boyfriend was too hot for her. How does that make me a bitch?”
“Er, yeah. That's really messed up,” said Heather uncertainly.
“Hey!” the bus driver shouted over his shoulder. “You sit down back there! No standing in the aisle while the bus is in motion!”
Victoria looked insulted. “Um, who do you think you're talking to, sweetie? I'm the assistant captain of the cheerleading squad. I'm accustomed to being treated with a little more respect than tha-” As the driver went around a corner, Victoria lost her balance and toppled across Danielle and Heather's laps. “Oof! Sorry.”
As they helped her up, Danielle worriedly suggested, “Maybe you should listen to him, Victoria.”
“Psh, naaah, I'll be fine,” said Victoria, giving her hair some quick preening. “I meant to do that. So where was I?”
The storm was getting worse outside. The bus driver had his windshield wipers on their fastest setting, but he was still having a hard time seeing. The instant the water was slashed away, his windshield was covered again. His headlights didn't do much to help, their light trapped and deflected by the moving, living forest of water droplets.
Suddenly, a deer appeared out of the rain, directly in the glow of the headlights. Too close for the bus driver to stop. His only option was to swerve out of the way.
The cheerleaders screamed as the bus banked hard to the right. Victoria was thrown off her feet. She braced herself to hit the wall of the bus...but she did not. She flew out the open window.
Slap! She hit the wet pavement, bounced once, then slid across its rain-slickened surface. “Eeeeaaah!” she screamed. She was heading right for a storm drain!
There was no time to stop herself. Victoria skated into the drain like an air hockey puck making a goal. She fell through the darkness, hit water, and went unconscious.
…........
When Victoria awoke it was to absolute darkness, and the sound of female voices from somewhere inside it.
“What is it? What is it?” asked an eager voice. Wherever Victoria was, there was quite an echo. It made it difficult to tell from which direction the voice came. She was lying in water, which rushed past her a couple inches deep.
“Is girl!” said another voice. “Nice girl! Clean girl! Upworlder!”
Victoria sat up, and her head throbbed painfully. She felt as if she must have hit it on her way here. Wherever here was. “Who...who are you people?” she demanded. “Where am I?”
A sound of scuffling in the dark. “Oh! Girl live! Girl live!” She heard sniffing. “Can smell from here! Girl clean! Clean!”
“We have to show the others! Oh yes we do!” said the first voice. “Won't they be surprised? Hee hee! Yes they will!”
Suddenly, Victoria felt hands wrap around her arms. “Ack!” she shouted. “Let me go! Hey!”
The two mysterious people started pulling her along through the darkness. Victoria felt water flowing around her ankles and smelled dampness. “Stop it! Hey!” she struggled, stumbling as they forced her forward. She dug in her heels, resisting. “Let go and leave me alone! I'm not going one step further with you losers, whoever you are!”
This didn't affect her abductors' plans the way she expected. One of them tripped her, causing her to splash into the manmade stream. They each took one of her legs, and they began to drag her that way.
“Aaah! Blblbl!” gurgled Victoria, as cold rainwater surged into her mouth. “I'll walk! Blblbl! I'll walk!”
They led her through the darkness to an open circular chamber, about the size of Victoria's bedroom back home. Oil lanterns were hanging from spikes set into featureless concrete walls. Water entered this room from the same tunnel Victoria did, as well as three other darkened tunnels evenly spaced around the circle's circumference. The water fed into this room created a moat which drained through grates in the floor, but in the center of the room was a raised, dry platform. It was on this platform that Victoria's handlers dumped her.
A voice echoed from one of the tunnels, female with a British accent. “What's that you've brought me?”
“Girl, captain!” one of Victoria's abductors replied from behind her. “CLEAN girl!”
“She washed down the drain in the storm! Oh yes, she did!”
Victoria stood up and looked down at herself. She didn't think she was very clean at all. Her clothes were soaked with dirty, freezing rainwater, and there was at least one black leaf in her hair that she could see. She shuddered and pulled it out. “I don't know who you are, but I demand you release me! I am Victoria C.H. Bassett, assistant captain of the cheerleading squad at Sunnycrest High, and I shall be treated with the respect my lofty position affords me!”
The tunnels suddenly erupted in echoing whispers. Victoria realized that there were many more than three of these strangers. There had to be at least ten of them. There was one word Victoria picked out of the confused din more frequently than any other.
“Cheerleader?” whispered one voice.
“The girl says...she's a cheerleader?” whispered another.
“She must be kiddin'...Pullin' our leggies...nyeh heh heh.”
Victoria put her hands confidently on her hips. “That's right, I'm a cheerleader. Impressed? You should be. This isn’t an ordinary girl you’re dealing with. If you don't let me go, you'll be in big trouble.”
She heard a zipper behind her. “It's true! It's true! Oh yes indeed it's true!” said one of her initial abductors.
“Cheer clothes in girl's bag!” shouted the other. Victoria heard her sniffing. “CLEAN clothes! CLEAN!”
“Hey!” shouted Victoria, turning around. “Get away from my stuff, weirdo-”
She stopped. In turning around, she saw that her two abductors had joined her in the circular chamber. They were in the light for the first time since Victoria met them. And what that light revealed to her was quite a shock.
The one who was sniffing Victoria's cheer top had a face like melting wax. Her right eye looked like it had pooled where her cheek should have been. Her mouth was lopsided and her nose drooped. The other was an unfortunate looking hunchback with unusually long arms, leaning forward on her knuckles like an ape.
“Aaaah!” shouted Victoria, staggering backwards. “What the heck are you?!”
“Don't be frightened,” said the British voice from one of the other tunnels. Victoria spun back around, and screamed again.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
More monstrously misshapen girls were emerging from the tunnels. A tall, rail-thin girl with skinny limbs and a beaklike nose. A legless girl walking on her hands, which she had three of. A blonde with a foot-long tongue dangling out the side of her mouth, unable to fit inside it. A redhead with a large underbite and prominent incisors.
“Keep away! Keep away!” Victoria cried.
The last one to emerge was a relatively normal looking girl except she wore an eyepatch over one eye, and instead of a right hand, she had a foot. “We won't hurt you, love,” she said, and it was that British voice Victoria heard earlier. “We're all cheerleaders here, after all.”
It was then that Victoria moved past their disfigurements to see their clothing. All of them wore black and neon green cheerleading uniforms.
“We are the cheerlocks,” said the Brit. “The cheerleaders rejected by society. All of us were shunned as monsters, driven into hiding by the upworlders. Those wretched people who fear what they don't understand.”
“Upworlders think cheerleaders all gotta look a certain way. Gotta be pretties in skirties, nyeh heh heh,” said a pale, dark-haired girl with fangs and elflike ears. “They got no room on the squad for a cheerlock, ya see. Get outta my squaddy, they says. Must be this hot to enter. Nyeh heh heh.”
“Thwow wockth an thathe with fiuh,” garbled the girl with the tongue. Throw rocks and chase with fire? Victoria could sort of understand her.
“One by one, we all found our way here,” said the rail thin girl solemnly, sitting down. Her stringy mop of black hair hung over one of her eyes. “We found each other.”
The Brit spoke again. “And now, you've found us too,” she said. “Welcome to the squad, sister. You don't have to be persecuted anymore.”
“Whoa, wait,” said Victoria. “I just ended up here by accid-”
“What did they run you off for?” asked the underbite girl. “Too short?”
“No booboo?” suggested a limbless torso girl, lying on her back in a puddle.
“B...boo...” stammered Victoria. She stamped her foot. “For your information, I'm GOING to have a late growth spurt! I'm going to be tall and I'm going to fill out perfectly! You can't rush a masterpiece, you know!”
“We were all in denial too,” said the hunchback, “Oh yes we were.”
“I'm not in denial!” shouted Victoria. “And they didn't chase me away! I'm not some kind of storm drain mutant! I'm beautiful!”
The tongue girl nodded and clapped her hands. “Dath wight! Yuh vewy pwetty tuh uth!”
“I'm pretty to everyone!” Victoria replied. “They didn't chase me away! I BOUNCED away! I BOUNCED!”
“That's what we all said...at first,” said the Brit.
Victoria spun around. “I don't have to take this!” she shouted. “I'm going home! Home to where I belong!”
She stomped off into the tunnel from whence she came, soaked shoes splashing in the shallow water. She shoved past the Quasimodo girl and the melty face, and found herself in darkness.
Putting a hand on the wall to the left, she cautiously navigated the black tunnel, trying to remember which way she came.
“It's no good, my dear, oh no it isn't...” said Quasimetta, hobbling along behind her, sounding a bit scared to be the bearer of bad news. “The place we found you, it's hundreds of miles from any drain to the surface, oh yes it is...”
“Girl washed FAR when sleeping...” said Melty Face. “Washed FAR, but stayed CLEAN...” She sniffed the air again for Victoria's scent.
Victoria stopped in her tracks. She turned around. “You...you mean...”
“The tunnels are a maze, love,” said the Brit gently. “I'm afraid it would be impossible for you to ever find your way home. It might not've been the life you chose, but you're a cheerlock now...whether you like it or not.”
…........
For the first couple days, Victoria was inconsolable. The cheerlocks did their best to cheer her up, but Victoria couldn't just forget everything she left behind.
“Back home, I had respect,” she moaned to Thunderbite, Tara Twigs and Melty Face one day. “I was assistant captain on the squad. No one could match me in popularity or looks. Nobody.”
“Gosh. That sounds nice,” said Tara Twigs, scratching the side of her beaky nose. They were sitting in the lamp chamber, at the mouth of the side tunnel which had become Victoria's sulking space.
On the other side of the chamber, Quasimetta told the Brit, “I'm worried about Victoria, oh yes I am.”
“Why's that?”
“She just keeps making up stories about how popular and cool she was, oh yes she does.”
“It's normal for her to be in denial,” said the Brit. “She'll come around.”
“Buck up, Victoria,” said Thunderbite. “You should really eat something. I know you're worried, but it's been two days since you got here. I'm sure you could use a good hot meal.”
Victoria looked at her. She hesitated a second, then caved in. “Well...maybe you're right.”
Thunderbite passed her a box of damp powdered donuts. Moisture had turned the powder to an unappetizing sludge. “What the heck?!” demanded Victoria. “This isn't a hot meal!”
“It's hot by found-in-a-storm-drain standards,” replied Tara Twigs.
“If yuh want thumthing fwethuh, yuh kin come with uth,” said Susan cheerfully. “Weuh going scaventhing tuhday.”
“Scavenging?” Victoria echoed. She turned up her nose. “Hmph! Victoria C.H. Bassett does not scavenge!”
“Suit yourself, love,” said Brit. She jerked her head toward the left tunnel. “C'mon girls, let's search the Mossy Mire today. Been a while since we checked there.”
The cheerlocks went off on their expedition, leaving Victoria alone behind. Victoria sat in her dark brooding pipe, listening to drips of water echoing down tunnels from who knows where. It was really quite spooky to be alone there. She nearly went off after them, but she wasn't sure about it, and by the time she decided she wanted to she had waited too long, and was scared the cheerlocks had gotten too far ahead of her and she'd get lost. So she stayed where she was and unsuccessfully attempted to nap.
When they returned, it was with a bounty of discarded food the storm drain had claimed for them. None of it looked very appetizing to Victoria...but she had to admit she was getting hungry. Was what they had better than starving? It was starting to look that way.
“Wow, I can't believe we found a WHOLE HALF A PIZZA!” shouted Thunderbite exuberantly, carrying a pizza box.
“That's an oxymoron,” Victoria replied.
“No it isn't,” said Thunderbite.
“It's either a whole pizza or half a pizza.”
“No, this is an entire half a pizza,” said Thunderbite. She opened the box to show Victoria. “If this was only a quarter of a pizza, it wouldn't be a whole half a pizza. It would only be a partial half a pizza. As it is, however, it's a whole half a pizza.”
“And we got us half a thingy of veggie fried rice!” said Fanglet, holding up a chinese takeout box. “Can you believe the stuff some people throws away? I can't wait to nibble them little beanies and corncobbies! Nyeh heh heh!”
The cheerlocks sorted out what they were having for dinner and what they were storing for later. In about half an hour, they had built a fire in the small room and were heating up the whole half a pizza over it.
Victoria emerged from her tunnel. “I prefer my crust to be a bit on the crispy side,” she informed them.
The Brit looked at her, then said gruffly, “Pizza’s for working cheerlocks.”
Victoria blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. The high calorie, high nutrient foods are reserved for the cheerlocks what really need ‘em.”
“We did bring Vicky this, though...” said Melty Face, handing her a quarter-full can of baked beans. “Eat careful, please. Baked beans stain if you drop them...make clothes dirty, too dirty for Vicky...Please stay clean, Vicky. I like Vicky to be clean.”
Outraged, Victoria stood up. “Um, excuse me? No. That simply won't work. I'm Victoria C.H. Bassett. I'm pretty! I'm popular! For someone like me to be content with your scraps, while YOU eat pizza...it's absolutely preposterous!”
A look of anger flared across the Brit's face. She scoffed and walked over to her. “Someone like you, eh? A pretty, popular girl, is that right? As opposed to what, then?”
Victoria looked up at the girl and shrank away with her. “As...as...”
The Brit shoved her with her foot hand. “Well? Go on.”
“Cap'n, don't,” requested Tara Twigs sensitively.
“No. I wanna 'ear it,” said the Brit. “Go on then, Victoria. It's on the tip o' your pretty, popular tongue, ain't it?”
Victoria pursed her lips. She wouldn't be intimidated. “As opposed to some gross storm drain freak!”
The Brit was silent for a moment. The whole room was silent. She nodded. Victoria saw the muscles in her normal arm tense, and for a second she thought the girl was going to hit her. Instead, The Brit just snatched the can out of Victoria's hand.
“Maybe up above you was accustomed to bein' handed everything, but down here, it's cheerlock rules,” said the Brit calmly. “You say you're too good for us, fine. You don't want your dinner, fine. More for us.”
Victoria was shocked. “But...But...”
The Brit crouched down next to Torso Girl and emptied the beans into her bowl. Torso Girl beamed with delight and began lapping them up without a second thought. “Enough,” the Brit told Victoria, silencing her protest. “Back to bed with you, you useless lump.”
It was like she really was struck. Victoria went slackjawed, then huffed and turned back. “Fine then! I will!” With that, she crawled back into her pipe and threw herself down, her back turned to the group. Then, she started to cry.
Thunderbite looked up at the Brit, a slice of pizza in her hand. “Don't you think you were a bit harsh, Cap'n?”
The Brit glanced at her, then sat down and grabbed a slice. “Stow it,” she said toughly. “It's like I said, food's for us workin' cheerlocks. That stuck-up muppet's just another mouth to feed.” She took a bite. “'Sides, she just called you a gross storm drain freak, if I heard her right.”
“I guess so, technically,” said Thunderbite. “But all I heard was a fresh castoff, a fresh cheerlock, struggling to accept her new reality. The way we all were, once.”
“Just think of all she must have gone through before she came here, captain,” added Quasimetta. “With her shortness, and her flatness, why, she probably had it harder than any of us, oh yes she did.”
“The poor thing,” said Tara Twigs sympathetically, shaking her head. “I can't imagine. Even I'm a b-cup.”
“I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW!” Victoria bawled.
Despite her grumbling stomach, Victoria eventually managed to fall asleep, and after a couple hours, she was shaken awake. The lanterns had been extinguished for bedtime, so she couldn't see who was responsible. For a second, she thought maybe she had just dreamed it.
“Hey. Thictoya,” whispered Susan, from the darkness above Victoria's head.
“What?” she whispered back.
“I bwought you thumthing.”
Victoria sat up. As quietly as she could, she pulled her duffel bag over and took her phone out of it. She shone it at Susan.
In the cheerlock's hands was the lid of a chocolate Snack Pack. Some of the brown chocolate-like product was still smeared on the dully reflective foil surface. “I found thith today. I wuth gonna lick it mythelth, but I thought you might need it moh.”
Back home, Victoria would no doubt have had an incredibly venomous response to this. The very idea that Victoria would want to lick the lid of somebody else’s Snack Pack would have been preposterous. But that already felt like long ago and far away. All she felt at that moment was a sense of embarrassment and shame. She'd just insulted this girl, and yet Susan was still thinking of her, still looking out for her.
It was the same sort of feeling she got when she tried getting into an argument with Alicia, only for Alicia to kindly, gently refuse to take the bait. It just left Victoria feeling foolish and immature. This was just how she felt as she took the lid. “Thanks. I mean it.” She gave it a lick.
…....
Both Victoria's back and stomach were sore when she woke up the next morning. She crawled out of her pipe hungrier than she'd ever been in her life.
“Oh! Victoria!” said Quasimetta, sitting in the common area and licking grease off the bottom of the empty pizza box. “Good morning! Oh yes it is!”
“What's so good about it?” Victoria replied.
Quasimetta paused. This question had never been posed to her before. “Oh yes it is!” she repeated.
Victoria sighed. “If you say so.” As Quasimetta turned her attention back to the pizza box, Victoria looked around, and noticed that camp looked very empty. “Is the Brit around?”
“Oh no she isn't! She and the others are heading out scavenging! But if you hurry you might be able to catch them, oh yes you can!”
She told Victoria which tunnel the group went down, and Victoria did hurry. She found them around the first bend, walking in a group.
“W-wait!” called Victoria. “Hold up!”
The cheerlocks stopped and looked back at her. The Brit scoffed. “Looks like we forgot to take the princess' order. What are you in the mood for today, young lady? Steak or escargot?”
Victoria turned red. “That's...not what I'm here for. I was, I...” She looked down at her feet. “I wanna come with you.”
“Too boring at camp, so you want to watch us, hmm?” asked the Brit. “Well, I guess there's no harm in it.”
“Come on, Cap'n. You don't have to tease her,” said Thunderbite quietly.
But teasing Victoria was not the Brit's intention. She wanted Victoria to say it, and Victoria could understand that. “I...don't want to just watch,” she said. “I w-wanna help.”
The Brit stared at her a moment, then nodded. “Well, come along then.”
…...........
From that point on, Victoria underwent a change. Days turned to weeks, and Victoria grew closer to her new squad. A place in their group was made for her, and she settled into it. She went scavenging with them, she hung out with them (the group had a few cherished time wasters to share, such as an old yo-yo, some scuffed tennis balls and two tattered-but-complete decks of playing cards), and she shared a sleeping space with them. Both her nights and her days were a little warmer once she began to make the best of her situation.
One day, while she was out scavenging with Quasimetta, she found a beer bottle, half full.
“Whoa! That's a good find, oh yes it is!” said Quasimetta.
Victoria sniffed the opening, scrunched her pretty face, then held it out to the hunchback. “You want it? I hate beer.”
Quasimetta took it, beaming. “We'll use it tonight! This is great, oh yes it is! We finally have enough drinks! Oh yes we do!”
“Enough drinks for what?” asked Victoria.
But Quasimetta wouldn't tell her. Victoria probed her about it as they walked back to rejoin with the others, but Quasimetta kept her mouth shut, except for the occasional “I can't say, oh no I can't,” or “You'll see, oh yes you will,” or something along those lines.
Since it was apparently some kind of surprise, and this surprise was something Victoria wasn't supposed to know about, she deduced she was the one who was meant to be surprised. And since a large amount of alcohol usually meant a party, there were really only so many things the surprise could be.
Still, though, she let them make their preparations, and acted suitably shocked when they busted out their stash of booze.
“Oh, wow! What's all this?” she asked them and the sloshing bottles and cans they were carrying.
The Brit told her, “It's a bit overdue, love, but it's time we gave you your official welcoming party. It's not often we have a new cheerlock on the squad.”
The cheerlocks drank together and celebrated Victoria's presence among them. For as popular and loved as she no doubt was back home, she had never quite felt as welcomed and appreciated as she did right then. The more drunk she got, the more she realized this. She began to bitterly and vocally reflect on the life she left behind, making serious admissions that she had never made before, even to herself.
“I worked harder than anybody on the squad. Forget how pretty I was, forget how cool I was, forget the strong breeding stock I came from (my mom was cheer captain when she was my age, in case I didn't mention that) my work ethic ALONE should have made me captain!” she complained drunkenly, lying on her back with her head in Tara Twigs' twiggy lap. “But noooo, it was all about Alicia! Always allll about Alicia! Miss perfect captain Alicia!”
“Thath' awfuh,” said Susan.
“I don't even know her, but I HATE her,” growled Thunderbite.
“And she's a junior, too. A junior, and I'm a SENIOR,” said Victoria. “I asked the other seniors about it. 'What the hell, why did you vote for Alicia instead of me?!' And they'd say, 'Well, I really like Alicia. She has a great attitude.' What's wrong with MY attitude, huh?! 'She's always so bright and positive!' What about me? I'm not bright and positive?! I'm a cute little ray of sunshine!” She burped.
Fanglet reclined in the curve of a large corrugated pipe. “I know her type. Always bein' a bully and a sour, bitter little meanie but pretendin' she's a sugary little sweetie.” She bit her lip, as if she wanted to take a drink from Alicia and find out which was the truth. “Nyeh heh heh.”
Victoria took a drink to give herself time to think about this. “Well, Alicia wasn't really like that so much...” she conceded. Then, she piped up with a flash of anger, fresh from sudden recall, “But Lindsey was the WORST! Always being so tall and...and...and get this, whenever I would jibe her with a harmless joke about what a huge slut she is, harmless, just girls being girls, she would come back at me with a joke about my height! In what world is that okay?!”
After a pause, Quasimetta said, “Er, well, it kind of sounds like you started it...oh yes it does...”
Victoria looked at her. “Well, sure, but that goes beyond self defense! She CHOOSES to be a slut! My height is beyond my control, I didn't decide to be this way! That's just going too far!”
The Brit smiled. “Well, you know, love, you don't have to worry about those mean girls back home anymore. You're a cheerlock now, and to us, you're great just the way you are.”
“Yeah! Yuh gweat, Thictoya!” agreed Susan.
“Great! Great Vicky!” nodded Melty-Face.
“Booboo or no booboo,” mumbled Torso Girl, face down in the saucer they'd filled with beer and put out for her to lap at.
Victoria felt close to tears of joy. “I, I mean, I know I am, I really do, but...but thanks, you guys. It means so much to hear it from someone.”
“I know it does,” said Tara Twigs, patting her on the head. “The upworlders might not understand us, but we know there's nothing wrong with us.”
The Brit looked away, frowning thoughtfully. “Nothing wrong with us, eh? So why are we hiding down here, then? Why do we let them, the upworlders, tell us there's something wrong with us, that we should be ashamed to show our faces in the daylight? We don't deserve this. We're fine just the way we are!”
The cheerlocks looked at each other. “You know why, captain,” said Thunderbite fearfully. “They don't see it the same way.”
“They chase us, cap'n. With rockies and torchies. Nyeh heh heh,” said Fanglet.
“Well, I say we bring some rockies and torchies of our own!” roused the Brit, curling her foot-hand into some kind of fist and pumping it in the air. “It's high time we fought back! It's high time we showed them that us cheerlocks won't be oppressed! Victoria's right!”
“Me?” asked Victoria, shocked.
“Victoria's right, oh yes she is!” agreed Quasimetta. “If it's war those upworld cheerleaders want, then war they shall have! No matter how many of them we have to kill, the cheerlocks shall rise! Oh yes we will!”
“K-kill?!” stammered Victoria.
“Thank you, Thictoya,” said Susan, putting a hand on her shoulder. “It'th becauth ov you we have the thrength to thtand up fuh ourthelveth.”
…......
They spent the rest of that night getting really drunk and getting their plan of attack laid out. Then, the next morning, the entire group marched off through the storm sewer. They chanted and sang as they went, pumping themselves up to unimaginable levels. It would be a hell of a battle.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, they came to a stop beneath a narrow horizontal strip of sky. A storm drain.
“Well, here we are,” said The Brit.
“What the hell is that?! Is that a drain?!” demanded Victoria.
“Yeah. Sorry for the long hike, but it's the closest one to us that comes out near a high school,” said Tara Twigs.
Victoria whirled on Quasimetta. “I thought you said we were hundreds of miles from any storm drain!”
Quasimetta looked confused. “Oh, I undershot it, didn't I? Oh yes I did. I'm sorry, Victoria, oh yes I am. How far do you think we walked?”
“We didn't even walk a mile! We probably didn't even walk a quarter of a mile!” Victoria replied. She jumped up, grabbed onto the ledge of the storm drain, and pulled herself up so she could look out. She saw a very familiar red brick high school. “This is Sunnycrest!” she exclaimed, furious.
“Oh dear,” said Quasimetta. “I suppose that's the fault of one of my less visible disfigurements...my impaired sense of scale. Oh yes it is.”
Fanglet jumped up next to her and looked out. She hissed, recoiling from the light. “Ow...too bright...Forgot how annoying that sunny sunshine was, nyeh heh heh...” When her eyes adjusted, she gasped and pointed. “Oh! Look! There they are!”
The Brit jumped up and looked with them. “Where?! Where?!”
Victoria and The Brit followed Fanglet's point. She saw the Sunnycrest High cheerleaders practicing on the school's front lawn, Alicia leading the group in a chant.
“Pretties! Pretty upworld cheeries!” shouted Fanglet eagerly. She licked at her fangs. “Nyeh heh heh! Nyeh heh heh!”
“Oh, thank God,” said Victoria, crawling out of the drain. “Well guys, it's been fun, but I'm back where I belong. Don't forget to write-”
The Brit turned and shouted down into the storm drain, “The time has come, cheerlocks! Victoria's leading the charge! Let's take back what's rightfully ours!”
“YEAH!” they shouted, barreling over Victoria as they swarmed out of the storm drain.
“Ow! Hey!”
Meanwhile, the squad finished their run-through of their latest routine. Alicia smiled and cheered, “Alright! Great job!” A faint look of loss crossed her face, and she said, “Victoria...would be so proud of you...”
Chase nodded brightly. “When Vic come back, will be much glad! Shocked and glad Vic at what we do!”
The cheerleaders looked at each other uncomfortably. Lindsey put a tender hand on Chase's shoulder. “Chase, it's been...over a month.”
“Wow, that long time!”
Alicia bit her lip. “Yeah, I, I guess it is...” She fidgeted with her skirt. They'd been trying for weeks to get Chase to understand. “And, you know, don't you think that Victoria should have come back by now?”
“No,” said Chase. “Vic can do what Vic want.”
“Well, yes, but...”
Then, they all heard a strange hollering and war whooping. They looked, and saw a bunch of dirty looking girls in ragged cheerleading uniforms running (some crawling) towards them from a couple blocks away.
“Huh, look at that,” said Lindsey.
“Wonder what that's all about?” asked Melissa C. “Well, back to practi-”
“Wait a second,” said Caitlin. “Aren't they coming this way?” The war whooping was getting louder, and the cheerleaders were getting bigger.
“Hmm. Yeah, I guess they are. Wonder what they want?” asked Alicia. As the cheerlocks reached their street and ran across it, Alicia waved to them. “Hi! What's going on-aaaaagh!”
Fanglet jumped on her, tackling her to the ground and biting her on the neck. “Die, upworlder! Die, pretty! Your pretty blood...is mine! Nyeh heh heh!”
“Aaaaieee!”
“Alicia!” gasped the others. But Alicia was only the first casualty of the Battle of Sunnycrest. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a massacre. Tara Twigs tackled Heather to the ground and started rubbing her face in the dirt. Thunderbite pulled Brittany's hair. Quasimetta hit Samantha multiple times with a stick.
“Oh my god!” shouted Lindsey, amid the screams of her comrades. “What the- what the fuck?!”
Melty-Face tackled her to the ground. “Clean...such a clean upworlder!” said Melty-Face, sniffing her hair.
“Ew! Get off me, freak!” Lindsey protested.
“I could take a month-long bath...and never be so clean!” Melty-Face shouted, enraged. “Time for upworlder to feel my pain! Time for upworlder to die!” She slapped Lindsey across the face, then grabbed her by the hair and started trying to slam Lindsey's head on the ground.
“Owww! Hey! Knock it off!” complained Lindsey.
Even Chase was stunned by the suddenness and viciousness of this attack. She looked around at the chaos, dumbfounded, then kicked Tara Twigs in the face to get her to unhand Heather. “Who you? Why you hit friends?!” She looked at Tara Twigs' attire, and remarked, astonished, “You cheer!”
Suddenly, a flying knife, aimed between the two girls. Chase was forced to let Tara Twigs go and leapt backwards. The knife embedded itself in the grass. Chase looked in the direction from whence it came, and saw The Brit.
“That's right! We're cheerleaders!” said the Brit. She was holding another knife between the toes of her foot hand, raised to throw. “You seem surprised.”
Chase looked around at them. “Yes. Am. Not cute. Thought all cheer was cute.”
The Brit frowned. “Well, now you know different,” she said. She lunged at Chase, knife in hand. “But when we're done with your squad, they won't be cute either! They'll be dead!”
Chase dodged the Brit's knife thrusts, still confused. “But why cheer fight cheer? Cheer should like cheer!”
“Tell that, hmf,” The Brit spun a roundhouse kick at Chase, “to the upworld cheerleaders who shunned us! Who threw us away! No...your kind closed the door on peace long, long ago!”
“Whoa! Whoa! Hey!” shouted Victoria, running over and waving her arms. “Cut it out!”
“Victoria!” gasped Caitlin, lifting her face up from the grass.
“Thictoya!” said Susan cheerfully, digging a knee into Caitlin's back.
“Oh, hi Vic! You back!” said Chase, as if Victoria had merely gone on a walk to the grocery store.
The Brit looked from Victoria to Chase curiously, blade still readied. “Victoria? You know these upworlders?”
“Yeah!” said Victoria. “This is my old squad! These are my friends!” She grabbed Fanglet, who still had her fangs buried in Alicia's neck, and pulled her off. “Stop hurting them, you guys-” As soon as Fanglet's teeth were removed from Alicia a fountain of blood started spraying out, so Victoria put her back.
Confused, the cheerlocks began to let the Sunnycrest cheerleaders go. Those who were tussling on the ground got up and dusted themselves off, looking at each other, and especially The Brit, for explanation. “Wot d'you mean, they're your friends?” The Brit asked, approaching Victoria. “Don't you mean these're the bitches who mocked you, who drove you away?”
“Especially Lindsey,” said Torso Girl, rolling off an unconscious Samantha.
Lindsey pushed Melty-Face off and stood up. “We didn't drive her away! She bounced out the window!”
“Yeah! We've been worried sick about Victoria!” said Melissa C.
Victoria was shocked. “You have?!”
“Of course!” said Nicole. “You're the best flier on the whole squad!”
“It's just so boring without you around!” agreed Rebecca. “You always create so much drama!”
Victoria was moved nearly to tears. “I...I didn't think anyone noticed.”
“Oh, we notice,” said Lindsey.
“Then...then I can come back?” asked Victoria.
“No one ever said you couldn't...” said Caitlin.
“Woohoo!” Victoria cheered. “Anyway, now that we're all friends, allow me to introd-”
Danielle threw a pine cone at Thunderbite. “G-get outta here! I dunno what all this is about, but we're not scared of you!”
“Yeah, get out of here, y-you freaks!” said Nicole fearfully.
“H-hey! C'mon, you guys, don't be so mean!” said Victoria. But coming from Victoria, they assumed she was being insincere, snarky, condescending, take your pick.
Chase worriedly pulled Fanglet off Alicia and put a towel on the wound. “Yes! You hear! Go!” she insisted, applying pressure. “Not want hurt cheer but will do!”
The Brit scoffed and turned away. “C'mon. Let's get outta here. It's clear we ain't wanted.”
Slowly and sadly, the cheerlocks walked away. “We shouldn't have ever come up here, oh no we shouldn't've,” said Quasimetta. “A cheerlock just doesn't belong on the surface, oh no she doesn't.”
Victoria took a couple steps to follow them. “W-wait, you guys! You don't have to go!”
As she walked past Victoria, Susan smiled. “G...good fuh you, Thictoya. I'm happy fuh you. Yuh back wheh you beyong.” She broke into a jog to catch up with the others.
“But...” Victoria called after her, only to find she'd been left speechless. And by the time she figured out what she wanted to say, they were gone.
….........
In the coming weeks, Victoria returned to her life, and the cheerlocks returned to theirs, such as it was. They haunted the sewers, scavenging for food and trying to forget their one-time comrade.
“Quit mopin' over that silly bitch,” the Brit would tell them. “She was never really one o' us.”
“You know that's not true,” one of them would challenge her. And the Brit would be hard pressed to argue. Perhaps Victoria had started out that way, but it was hard to see her as anything but a true cheerlock now. This might have made the fact that she went back so readily to her old squad all the more painful.
“Any o' us would do the same,” Thunderbite tried to rationalize one day, while they sat around their base. “If your squad showed up at our door and said they wanted you back...wouldn't you go?”
“I'd like to think I wouldn't, oh yes I would...” said Quasimetta, but she couldn't be sure.
“Psst,” hissed a voice, from somewhere outside the base.
“Did you hear that?” asked the Brit.
“Yes! Hear psst!” said Melty-Face.
“Psst!” came the voice again, louder this time. The cheerlocks dropped what they were doing and ventured outside to see what was going on.
A few feet down the tunnel outside their hideout was a storm drain. To their astonishment, a familiar face was looking in, blocking out the sunlight.
“There you guys are! About time,” said Victoria.
“Vicky!” said Melty-Face happily.
The cheerlocks ran over, unable to believe their eyes. “Whuh you doing heah, Thictoya?” asked Susan with a grin.
“We thought you were with your new friends now,” said the Brit.
“I am!” said Victoria. She looked around to see if anyone was in earshot. “But...you guys are still my f-friends too!”
“Really?!” they asked.
“Bunch of ugly cheerlocks...friend of Vicky?!” shouted Torso Girl, rolling in merry circles.
“N-not so loud!” said Victoria, turning red. “Just a second.”
She disappeared for a couple seconds, and they heard a rustling that sounded like cardboard. When she returned, she said, “I brought you something.”
Through the storm drain, she handed down a clean white pizza box. The Brit took it, shocked. “Pizza!” the cheerlocks shouted in unison.
“An' it's warm!” said the Brit. “Feel! Feel!” All the cheerlocks reached in to touch the box, and gasped at its radiating heat.
“Yeah, it's fresh,” said Victoria. “Thought you might like something different.” Of course, one pizza was not enough to feed the whole squad of cheerlocks, so she handed down a couple more boxes.
“Victoria! Wh...I can't believe it! You didn't have to do this!” said Tara Twigs.
“I know, but I wanted to. I...owe you all a lot,” said Victoria. “So are you gonna invite me in, or what?”