"I don't know why you're wasting your time rolling around in the dirt with boys," someone said, which cut through the babble of the locker room and brought Pippi to a halt.
The Pumas were the school's cheerleaders. They had the oversized lockers against the far wall in the middle of the locker room, almost like an exclusive little alcove. Pippi had seen these girls around school and had a few of them in her classes. Ditzy Jane, nerdy Rachel, etiolated Ariel... and the head cheerleader, Veronica. Weirdly charismatic, curly black hair of medium length, green eyes, freckles, and an expression as though the universe was a first-rate gag choking to death on its own punchline. Veronica was the one with the alluring voice, of course. Pippi wanted to keep walking and couldn't, just standing there in her towel. Veronica continued regarding Pippi, appraising her, leaning against the wall in her cheerleading uniform with no evident urgency to change over.
"Redhead fails saving throw versus charm," Rachel said, trying to struggle into her civilian clothes. Between her huge glasses (which diminished rather than magnified her blue eyes) and blonde 'port side' ponytail at 45°, it was a near thing for her Tri-Lamb tee.
"Imagine being smooshed out of existence under a few hundred pounds of offensive linemen," Ariel mused, touching up the dark circles under her brown eyes. She rocked a deep fringe with shoulder-length symmetrical side layers, sort of like an emo telephone operator from the 2L-4N days. Her hair managed to be blacker than Veronica's even though they both had seriously black hair. "No, hang on: imagine having to haunt a football field! I'm going to sit here imagining it even if the rest of you won't." That said, Ariel drew her socked feet up onto the bench and tuned out, chin on knees, looking like a waif atop flotsam bobbing in lava.
"'Look at myself in the window of a toy store,'" Jane sang with an impassioned whisper, apparently to the mirror in her locker. She was the tallest of the cheerleaders. Tan, leggy, lithe, her nut-brown hair scrunchied up in a topknot. She danced around, misjudged, went down on her butt over the bench and onto the floor, bounced back up with supernatural flexibility. "'Look in my eyes!'" Jane winked at her reflection - her eyes were jade green to Veronica's emerald. She wasn't at all embarrassed or self-conscious about singing, dancing and falling over; her falling over looked like part of the dance.
"It's the 'Moomsi Bop,'" Veronica said, shifting only her gaze, following Pippi's amused eyeline to Jane and deciding what to make of Pippi based on her appreciation of said 'bop.' "We're pretty ragtag, not the catty, supercilious middle school royalty people usually hope for - even if they won't admit it. And we need you, Powers. The superhuman strength and speed, the red hair, another set of awesome freckles... you were made for the Pumas. You are a natural complement to the squad, and we've been waiting for you. We need that fifth girl in the core. Grace us with those smashing pigtails of yours."
Veronica smiled fully, an honest shine after that overcast smirk of hers, and... Pippi resisted.
"Thanks a lot, but I want to keep playing football right now," Pippi said, wrapping her towel a little more tightly around herself. "I'll bet you guys can find another girl without trying too hard, since you don't seem mean or snobby."
"Charm offensive, phase one, flameout!" Rachel exclaimed, which started amazed commentary between her, Ariel and Jane. Veronica looked both surprised and pleased at this demonstration of Pippi's willpower. Pippi felt like she'd just survived a grape jam tsunami. Wearing nothing but a towel! That Veronica was a very persuasive girl. Magic or some mental power? Pippi paused for a few more seconds of agreeable bewilderment before saying goodbye and heading back to her locker.
"There isn't another girl that'll be anywhere near as good as you," Veronica said, having slid up just as Pippi got back into her school uniform and prepared to head home. "I don't want to be annoying about it, but I'm going to have to make my pitch a few more times. Think about it, won't you? You're missing your calling here, Powers, I can feel it."
Veronica gave a flicker of half-powered charm and stepped off. The locker room had mostly emptied by then, but Pippi thought this would get around in the rumor mill and ramp up to a mild irritation before too long.
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