Chapter 3

So that’s me in a nutshell. I think. I mean, I guess I’m not really sure. I’ve never really tried to describe myself before. I suppose I am just your average, everyday, brainiac geek. I guess you could call me a loner. I do have some friends, but not very many. Mostly guys.

For some reason, I have trouble making friends with other girls. I have one best girl friend, Kendra Smith, but the other girls just don’t seem to like me very much. Sure, I talk to them sometimes at school, but we don’t go out to do things very often.

I’m almost never invited to any kind of girls’ nights out, but the guys have no trouble accepting me. So I spend most of my time as “one of the guys.” My mom is always telling me that is why the other girls don’t like me much. She says that they are threatened by a beautiful, intelligent girl who also happens to be close friends with all of their boyfriends.

Mom almost has a point. I suppose that I would probably be a little bit worried if I had a boyfriend who spent a large chunk of his free time with a beautiful girl. But that’s exactly where Mom’s theory goes down the drain. I am definitely not beautiful!

I mean, it’s not like I’m hideous or anything, but Southbrook High School is virtually filled with gorgeous girls. You would think that I went to a school for supermodels! I definitely don’t fit that mold. I am just plain me.

I would love to be cute and athletic like Rachel, the captain of the cheerleading squad. Rachel is the perfect head cheerleader. It’s like she was designed for the part. She is fun and upbeat, and she never stops smiling. I would kill to have dimples like Rachel! But I will never be a cheerleader. It’s really not for me.

I still remember how humiliating it was when I briefly entertained the dream of trying out for cheerleading. I was at lunch, sitting with Kendra at our table in the center of the cafeteria, as always. And as always, my friends George, Roger and Jim (the quarterback, wide receiver and kicker for our Varsity football team) had come over to chat with me when they had finished eating. Just before they walked over, I had told Kendra that I was thinking of trying out for the squad, and she was laughing so hard that she could hardly breathe.

“What’s so funny, Kendra? C’mon, fill us in on the joke,” Jim begged.

It took her almost 5 minutes to catch her breath, but finally Kendra asked, “Could you guys imagine Alaina as a cheerleader? She just said that she was thinking of trying out!”

Jim laughed. “Well, I don’t know. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing her in uniform.” He grinned at Roger and winked. “Even if I wasn’t on the football team, I think I might have to go to the games just to see it!”

I cringed. Jim was right. There was no way that I could ever pull off the short skirts that Rachel and the other cheerleaders wear. I hadn’t even considered how atrocious I would look in a cheerleader’s uniform!

“Okay, guys, I get it,” I announced. “I wasn’t really serious about the whole cheerleading thing anyway. It was just a joke!” I forced a smile and hoped that we could move on to the next topic.

But Kendra wasn’t finished mocking me. “Laina is so uncoordinated! She would probably knock over the pyramid and trip the quarterback on his way out to the field!”

George draped one arm across my shoulders. “She wouldn’t even have to trip me. I’ve already fallen for Alaina!” He nudged Jim and I rolled my eyes. George is such a cornball sometimes!

“And just think,” Roger quipped. “I could be there to catch her every time she fell off of the top of the pyramid! It would be a lot more fun than running all over the field, trying to catch George’s erratic passes. This boy can’t hit the broad side of a barn!” He pantomimed a clumsy pass, pretending to fumble the ball instead.

“Oh yeah?” George countered, punching Roger in the gut. “Well who threw three perfect touchdown passes in the last game, wise guy? And which one of us fumbled the ball two yards short of the end zone to cost us the game? That sure wasn’t me, bozo!”

The guys got into a heated discussion about football plays and strategies, and luckily, the whole idea of Alaina Ann Andersen, klutzy cheerleader, was abandoned. I never mentioned it again. And I definitely didn’t sign up for the tryouts. I don’t know what I was thinking in the first place! I guess we all have silly and unattainable dreams sometimes. I simply don’t belong in the spotlight. I am much more suited to sit on the sidelines, fading into the background.

I do wish that I could be more confident, though, like April Mason. She has won first place in the Future Stars competition for 4 years in a row! She always gets the lead in the school plays, and I still haven’t even worked up the courage to audition. And April gets the solos in choir every single time! I keep telling myself that I’ll get it next time, but Mrs. Harmony says that my voice is better suited to sing the descant. I never even get to sing the actual melody. Even in choir I have to be content with filling in the background!

So here I am, stuck in a school full of funny, talented, witty, coordinated and gorgeous girls, and there is nothing spectacular about me at all. I am just plain old, boring Alaina Ann Andersen. So Mom has to be wrong. It couldn’t be jealousy. There must be some other reason that I’m ostracized by most of the girls in my class. I just wish I could figure out what that reason is!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a total social leper. I have been on a couple of first dates. I just haven’t had any second dates yet. Jarod says that it’s because I haven’t met anyone worthy of me. Andi tells me that it’s just because I’m even more intimidating the more you get to know me. She says that I’m too amazing. I know she’s just trying to make me feel better, but I have to be honest. It does make me feel better.

Mom is sure that I’m going to have more boyfriends than I can keep track of, as soon as they mature a little bit so that they can “catch up to” me. I guess it could happen, but I’m not holding my breath. Actually, the fact that I have gone out with anyone at all is pretty amazing in and of itself, since the guys just never seem to really even notice that I am a girl. I am just a friend, a pal. Like I said, I’m “one of the guys.”

It’s kind of embarrassing, sometimes, to be the only girl in a group of guys. Other people always assume that it means more than it does. I know that none of my guy friends are interested in being my boyfriend, but still I have to deal with rude comments every time we hang out together.

For instance, at the Spring Fling dance sophomore year, when I walked in with Jarod, Rob and Josh (I have the biggest car, so I usually drive when I am out with my friends), I heard Stella mutter under her breath to Gwendolyn, “Here comes Alaina with her harem again!” I don’t think that any of the guys heard her, which is a good thing; because they might get the wrong idea or something. Calling them my “harem” even implies that these guys might be interested in me, but that’s really silly. I mean, really, Jarod, Rob and Josh? None of them would ever think of me in that way.

I will never be the bubbly, popular, talented or incredibly gorgeous kind of girl that guys notice. I would probably be okay if I weren’t surrounded by so many incredible girls all the time. Maybe if I went to a different high school, where I didn’t have to compete with supermodels-in-training…

But that still wouldn’t help me much, because I will always be compared to my little sister, Andrea. She is everything that I could never hope to be. Andrea is the same height as me, 5’ 8 ½”, but she is incredibly thin and gorgeous. She has beautiful raven-black hair. Andrea’s hair is not too long, like mine is, but it’s not too short, either. It comes down to the middle of her back, and she has the cutest natural ringlets. She doesn’t even have to do anything to it. She just washes her hair, runs a comb through it and lets it air dry. Voila! Instant beauty! All of the guys go absolutely gaga as soon as Andrea walks into the room. She is never, absolutely never treated like “just one of the guys!”