Airhead

I felt myself turning red…

‘I don’t know about this, Free,’ I said as Frida herded me towards the hot-food line and thrust a tray into my hands.

‘Trust me,’ Frida said. ‘Even supermodels have to eat, don’t they?’

Maybe so. But it might have been easier simply to get something out of the vending machines down the hall, acid reflux or not. I was excruciatingly aware of being the centre of everyone’s attention as I made my way down the food line. My selections were buzzed about as if I’d been Tiger Woods, lining up a game-wi

‘She’s going for the tofu patty,’ I heard them whispering. Then, seconds later, ‘An apple! She took an apple!’

I wanted to throw down my tray and run from the room — run out of the school and all the way back to the hospital and up to the fourth floor into Dr Holcombe’s office. ‘I need a new body! I can’t be in this one a second longer! I can’t be Nikki Howard! I just want to be someone normal!’

Instead, I stepped up to the cashier to pay for my food. Then I followed Frida to her table…

Where the entire junior-varsity cheerleading team was sitting. They all stopped talking as Frida and I approached. I fully expected them to say, ‘What are you doing, trying to sit at our table, loser? The geek table is over THERE.’

But I’d forgotten. I’m not Em Watts, geek, any more. I’m Nikki Howard.

And Nikki Howard is apparently welcome everywhere (except the computer lab).

‘Oooh!’ a dark-haired girl cried, scooting her tray over. ‘I’m so glad you came over here. Sit by me! Sit by me, I’m your hugest fan!’

Frida took the place the girl was offering though, after giving her a severe look. ‘Now, Mackenzie,’ she said sternly. ‘Remember what I said.’

‘Sorry!’ Mackenzie turned beet red. ‘Right, no gushing. Sorry. Sorry.’

The other girls, all smiling up at me, scooted over to make room. I felt a little uneasy. I couldn’t quite believe I was being WELCOMED at a table belonging to the Walking Dead.

But it soon became apparent our table was THE table to be at. Especially when, no sooner had Frida made introductions (none of which I retained, since all her friends appeared to be called either Taylor, Tyler or Tory), a familiar voice cried, ‘There you are!’

And I turned my head to see Whitney Robertson standing there with a tray of salad and diet soda, Lindsey and several other key Walking Dead members from the junior class — including one from the senior class, Jason Klein — right behind her.

‘Oh my God,’ Whitney said. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’

And the next thing I knew, she was shoving red and gold uniforms aside to make way for herself, her boyfriend and her best friend.

‘Thanks muchly,’ she said to Frida’s friends, who hadn’t so much as moved as been pushed out of the way. ‘So, Nikki, how are you enjoying your first day here at TAHS?’

‘She’s liking it a lot, Whitney’ Frida, who’d apparently appointed herself my spokesperson, looked enormously pleased. I guess it’s not every day a freshman gets graced with the presence of the most popular girl in school at her lunch table. ‘Aren’t you, Nikki?’

I took a swig of my milk (yeah. Nikki likes milk. Two per cent. She’s got acid reflux, not lactose intolerance).

‘Yeah,’ I said after I’d swallowed.

‘I was telling Nikki today in Public Speaking,’ Whitney said — then added, as an aside to everyone else at the table, ‘Nikki and I have Public Speaking together—’

‘Me too!’ Lindsey cried. ‘I’m in Nikki’s Public Speaking class too! Also her Spanish class. And I’m on the waiting list for that Marc Jacobs tote… ’

‘— how we feel so fortunate that she decided to attend our school, out of all the schools in the city’ Whitney went on, as if Lindsey hadn’t interrupted. ‘Wasn’t I, Nikki?’

‘Yeah,’ I said after swallowing a bite of the salad I’d gotten to accompany my tofu patty… which tasted fantastic, and not at all like the cardboard box I’d been expecting it to taste like.

‘I just wish we’d had more advance notice of her enrolment,’ Whitney went on, to everyone at the table. ‘Because then we could have organized a proper welcome for her.’

All the girls nodded in agreement. Jason, I noticed, was staring at my boobs. I’m not even kidding.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Thanks. That’s really great. But I feel plenty welcome enough.’

‘Well,’ Whitney said ‘I’m going to be sure to get you a list of extracurriculars, in case you decide you might want to join in on some of the fantastic clubs and organizations our school has to offer. I, for instance, am president of the junior class, as well as captain of the Spirit Club.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘The Spirit Club. What’s that?’

Not that I didn’t know. I just wanted to see if she’d describe it the way Christopher and I used to: as the Society for the Lame.

‘Oh, well, the Spirit Club makes an effort to foster school spirit amongst the student population by promoting events in and around Tribeca Alternative such as pep rallies, health fairs, aluminium can drives, casino nights, weekend carnivals—’

‘Casino nights,’ Lindsey chimed in.

‘I said that already,’ Whitney said, giving Lindsey a dirty look. ‘Really what it’s all about is —’ Whitney lowered her voice as if she was afraid of being overheard — ‘some people who go to this school don’t appreciate all the fantastic programmes and opportunities it has to offer. So the Spirit Club does its best to get students excited about these events, such as games, community-service programmes… things that will look great on their college applications.’

I blinked at her. ‘Why are you whispering?’

She glanced around, then seemed to realize that the school’s two worst malcontents — Em Watts and Christopher Maloney — weren’t within hearing distance. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that some people think having school spirit is silly. But I don’t think there’s anything silly about wanting to take as much advantage as possible of what, for me at least, have truly been some of the best years of my life!’

Whoa. If high school was supposed to be the best years of my life — at least so far — I was truly destined to have a sucky adulthood.

‘Wow,’ I said again. ‘That sounds… great.’

‘Enough about this school crap,’ Jason Klein said, leaning forward so that his massive — and, to me, revolting — biceps swelled beneath the sleeves of his pink polo. ‘What clubs can you get us into?’

‘Jason!’ Whitney lady-slapped him on the shoulder while she giggled. ‘Stop! Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s so bad.’

Jason ignored her. ‘I saw you got into Cave last night,’ Jason said. ‘Can you get us into Cave?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe what?’ Jason demanded. ‘Can you get us in or not?’

‘If it’s Jerks Who Interrupt Their Girlfriends Night,’ I said. ‘Then I can probably get you in.’

Whitney gasped. Lindsey let out a giant horse laugh.

But what impressed me most was that quite a few of the JV cheerleaders turned around and high-fived one another, impressed by the fact that I’d dissed Jason Klein. If this, I realized, was the kind of company Frida was keeping, then I had been quite badly underestimating the TAHS JV cheerleading squad — and possibly cheerleaders everywhere. They were a fun bunch.

Frida, however, just glared at me. I mouthed What? and shrugged. I really don’t see what else she’d expected me to say.

But Jason took it good-naturedly.

‘OK, OK,’ he said, smiling sheepishly. ‘You got me. I’ll shut up.’

Which was just another sign of how different life is when you’ve got a supermodel’s face as opposed to just a normal one. If I had said something like that to Jason back when I’d been in my Em Watts body, I’d never have heard the end of it… especially from Whitney.

But since I was Nikki, and not Em, all was forgiven. In fact, as we were putting our trays away, just before the bell rang, Whitney sidled up to me and, to show there were no hard feelings, said in a low voice, I guess so the others wouldn’t overhear, ‘Listen, Nikki, if you’re not doing anything after school, maybe you could come up to my place and I could help you out with some of your homework. I know it must seem like you’re never going to catch up at this rate — plus I know it’s been a while since you were last in school. So I just thought—’