Ingrid and Casey #1

Chapter 1:

Ingrid burst into giggles and quickly muffled them with her hand. He shoulders rocked with laughter as she bent over in her flamboyant show of ‘what-you-said-was-so-funny-that-i-just-have-to-make-a-big-deal-out-of-it’ she was performing in the middle of the hallway with two of her followers, Samantha to her left and Stephanie to her right. Their straightened hair and sparkly eyeshadow added to the “hot and dangerous” effect as Ingrid liked to call it. It usually caught everyone’s eye. Samantha snatched the phone away from Ingrid flipped her hair behind her shoulder, and began thumbing the keys at record speed. Ingrid and Stephanie scrambled up to either side of her leaning over her shoulder and peering at the screen of the phone.

“No WAY!” Ingrid gasped, cracking up again and pushing Samantha playfully. She ran into Stephanie on the other side, stumbling from her laughter, and Stephanie ran into a short, greasy haired girl trying in vain to walk as far around the populars as possible and get to her next class. Her books spilled out of her hands and papers fluttered around her as she looked around awkwardly. She stared at Stephanie, bit her lip and then dropped on her knees, quickly organizing her books and binders, trying to get as far away from Stephanie as possible.

“OMG! SO SORRY!” Stephanie shrieked, and Ingrid giggled behind her hand. Stephanie shot her a sly look and dropped to her knees as well, slowly gathering up the rest of the fallen  things. “So.” she said, her voice sounding saccharine and sweet. “Where did you get those shoes? They are SO stylish. I want them so bad.” She fluttered her eyes. The girl looked at Stephanie, wide-eyed, before shaking her head and snatching the papers out of her hand.

“No, really. I SOOOO want to know where you got them.” The girl looked at her suspiciously, and Stephanie shot her an innocent look. “Just asking!” The girl leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

“WALMART!!!” Stephanie shrieked, doubling over with another bout of giggles. Ingrid thought she would burst with laughter. She shrieked, “I LOVE that store! We’ve got to go there some time don’t we, girls!” Samantha howled with laughter as the girl, with a red face and an awkward gait, stumbled away, nearly dropping the papers all over again as she hurried to her next class.

“Loser!”, Stephanie called, who had given up on acting sweet, then she sank to the floor at the foot of the lockers, laughing hard. Samantha grabbed the phone from Ingrid and immediately flipped her hair and took a picture. It displayed the girl, stumbling away, tripping over someone’s foot, and sprawling on the floor, books flying everywhere. In the picture, she was frozen with a horrified expression graced across her face, hands outstretched and one leg up in the air. Samantha, with an evil grin, sent the image to 15 other people.  Who sent it to their friends. Who sent it to their friends. Etc.

“Walmart? Who does she think she’s kidding? I can’t believe that she bought those things. I mean come on - PINK?”

“She’s such a-”

“Dork? Geek?”, Ingrid contributed.

“All of the above, and a few other things...”, Samantha said, a nasty edge creeping into her voice. She smiled, flipped her hair AGAIN and whispered into Ingrid’s ear, her eyes flickering to Stephanie for a moment. Stephanie looked a bit awkward, she shifted weight from one foot to the other. She then smiled and said, “Soooo...” Samantha ignored her, giggled with her hand over her mouth, and then whipped out her makeup from her book bag and undid the zipper from the sky blue material. After combing her hair up into an immaculate French-braid,she sighed. Then she pulled a hand mirror out and two tubes of lip-gloss.

“Ingrid, which one. Really Red or Carnation Pink?”

“Red, it looks smoking hot on you.”, Stephanie replied,“Ooooh!” She squealed, “Can I borrow that?!” She didn’t wait for a reply and snatched the pink out of Samantha’s hand. Samantha rolled her eyes and looked knowingly at Ingrid, who giggled, bit her lip, and pulled out her phone.

As the two populars applied makeup for the tenth time that day, Ingrid was lost in her own thoughts. About the Walmart girl, about the end of the world, about her own selfishness.

Of course, Ingrid did feel bad about it, often times she wondered if she could be like Casey, sensible and smart. Even though she had the popular life that many girls only dreamed of, she was virtually crushed under the pressure of  popularity. She felt like she was responsible for looking her best every day, maintaining her social status and still finding time for school. And the portal. And Casey.

“Inny, check out the cute new guy. It’s too bad you're dating Jackson, you could knock him off his feet.” Samantha smacked her lips, giggled, and pointed at the blonde guy looking slightly lost.

         “Whatevs. You know I’m always so into trying new things. Like Sushi.”

         They burst into raucous giggles once more. The idea that she would ever abandon Jackson was so absurd. He was sooo cute and dreamy, and into her. Besides, her arch-enemy Florida had her eyes on Jackson and her having her way would be devastating to Ingrid’s reputation.

“Ohhhh!” She finally sighed, calming and biting her lip, trying to suppress a grin before bursting out laughing again. These girls always knew how to make her laugh. Samantha took a much needed breath, flipped her hair, opened up her phone and began thumbing the keys, two other girls leaning over her shoulder, scrambling to either side of her, eager to see what her next move would be.

Samantha snickered, holding a hooked finger over her mouth while the other thumb hit the send key with a flourish. Ingrid burst into howls of laughter, clutching samantha’s shoulder and bending over, shaking her head and sending her auburn mane whipping back and forth.

“OMG!!!” She squealed, snatching the phone and texting

         Hey Jackson. meet me 4 lunch on fri. Olive Garden sound decent?  miss u- Inny.

         “Did you just text THAT to Randall?”

         “Yeah, he will be soooooo confused. Not really happening.” Ingrid’s plastic smile lit up the hallway

         “Better not. Randall’s G-R-O-S.”

         “Don’t you mean G-R-O-S-S?”, Ingrid blurted, not thinking.

         “DUH! That’s what I said, get a hearing aid.”

         Randall wasn’t really all bad. He was nice, smart, real. Ingrid always felt like she was hiding behind a mask when she was with Jackson and these...people. Like she had to be someone else. She even hid her smarts, taking measures to walk to the average classrooms, then sneaking to GT when the halls cleared. Randall’s girl Amy was lucky, she could trust him and even though she wasn’t popular, she seemed happy.

         “ Lucky her.”, she muttered out loud.

         “What?” Stephanie asked, raising a perfect eyebrow.

“NOTHING!” Ingrid said, loudly, trying to cover up for her slip.

         “I gotta go. See ya.” Samantha said, waving to the other girls, pointing at Brian and winking.

         “TTYL Samantha.”

         Samantha ran off to meet up with Brian, her new date. He just asked her out last week. Stephanie snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Ingrid.

“That phone is amazing, girl. I have to get one! Where did it come from?” Ingrid bit her lip, then reminded herself that it was a bad habit. She had actually created  the phone with Casey, but she didn’t want anyone to know her knack for technology and science.

“Oh, its like, specially made for me. You know, like when you ask those programming geniuses to make your phone a certain way and they do it? Yeah.” Stephanie screwed her lips to the side and looked Ingrid up and down, eyeing her dazzling green tank top with the low neckline and her sparkly, designer sweater and super tight skinny-jeans.

Then she smiled, shrugged, and took her by the arm. She leaned over and whispered into her ear, breath tickling a stray piece of hair, “Me and Jordan are ditching class. We’re gonna go to Jamba Juice and meet up with this hot senior. He just asked her out even though he’s like, 3 years older than her or something. Do you want to come? It would TOTALLY impress Jackson!”

Ingrid looked at Stephanie in alarm. “You’re DITCHING?” She asked, incredulously.

“SHHHHH!” Stephanie said, and turned to see if anyone heard. “Yeah. It’s not like I’ve never done it before!” She said, leading Ingrid down the hallway towards the parking lot. “He’s gonna pick us up in 10 minutes. We could give you a ride!” Stephanie said. “After he sees you, he will totally lose interest in Jordan and fall head over heels over you. I’m not kidding! And seriously, he’s like, HOT!” Ingrid giggled, though her mind was aflame with guilt, doubt, and terror. What would her parents think if she ditched? He teacher? CASEY!? She couldn’t ditch. And yet, how could she say no?

Suddenly, Florida stalked past, followed by Brandon, who was grabbing onto her elbow in a desperate attempt to turn her around to look at him.

“I told you hon, it wasn’t what it looked like! She was the one who did it! I was just there! I cross my heart and hope to die that I love YOU! I would never...” Brandon said, desperately. Florida whizzed around and shot him a poisonous look.

“That’s what they ALL say!” Florida hissed.

“I didn’t...” Brandon sputtered. Florida, with utterly fast reflexes, slapped him across the cheek. Already, a large crowd of people were gathering, the girls standing behind Florida to back her up. A gasp followed the slap, followed with cheers of agreement. Brandon let out a pathetic ”But I... She... You...”

Florida crossed her arms and scowled. “It’s OVER, honey. We are FINISHED!” Stephanie shot Ingrid an excited look and shouted, “Yeah, you tell him, Florida babe!” She rushed over to the large circle to join in the drama. Ingrid stifled a grin. Her archenemy finally got a taste of her own medicine, as short lived as it would be. Florida and Brandon always got back together, eventually. Incidents like this happened every other day for her. Ingrid took that opportunity to make her leave.

         Ingrid turned the corner, going to the escalator nearest the Language Arts class she pretended to have. Ducking into the bathroom she leaned against the wall. The bathroom was large, pink tiled walls reflected in the huge mirrors that lined the outsides of the stall doors. In each stall, a toilet entirely covered in buttons and gadgets stood sentinel. She stepped into a stall, stood on the toilet and pressed herself against the wall as the minutes ticked by before the bell rang for her next class. No one, not ONE person, could see her go into the GT classroom she had with Casey.

         The hallway stampede  echoed through the stalls as Ingrid fussed with her hair. She sighed, fogging up her hand-held mirror. A group of band geeks stumbled into the bathroom, smuggling illegal alcohol under their jackets. Ingrid locked herself into the far stall, making a mental reminder to notify a teacher later of the disturbance. She hung her usual out of order sign on the door. absentem laedit cum ebrio qui litigat.  Ingrid thought, pleased with her use of several Latin verbs.

“Isthatstallztillowtuvorder?” One of the girls slurred.

Ingrid sniggered under her breath. She knew what happened when people got drunk. She’d been at enough parties to know, yet always managed to avoid actually being the one drinking. She was quite sure that she had managed to see all of her friends drunk (Except Casey, of course), and she always found herself greatly enjoying watching their ignorant and slowed bliss. But she scorned the thought of ever drinking one sip of alcohol, as much as Stacy pushed her.

The girls, a little slow in the head and giddy with the decrease of inhibitions, remained in the bathroom long after the deluge of people subsided. Ingrid knew that she couldn’t stay in there forever, just waiting for the girls to leave. Likely, they would remain there all day, until a teacher caught them or they passed out. Ingrid began to panic as more and more time passed. According to her watch, class had started 15 minutes ago and she wasn’t there yet. Her teacher tended to be soft on people in her class, and didn’t punish them for their lateness, yet even Ingrid was pushing her luck.

She slithered under the door of the out of order stall into the stall next to it, hoping with all her heart that the janitor decided to mop it last night. She stood up and examined her designer outfit and brushed the dirt and dust off vigorously. She would have never touched the bathroom floor under normal circumstances... yuck... But these were in no way normal circumstances. She walked out of the stall, beamed at the girls, and fluttered her eyelashes.

“Hello, girls!” She said, and they all turned to look at her. “I’m afraid you’re late to class. No doubt you didn’t realize. Your brains must be well-past their limit of intoxication, so I’m here to remind you that the punishment is strict for tardiness.” One of the girls got a goofy look on her face. “Youzwonttellanyonez, willyouingrid? wezknowyouvgotendrunkbefore.” Ingrid looked down in contempt at the girl, all smile gone from her eyes.

“You may get lucky, if you get out of here now, honey. I’m not a forgiving person...”

The girl held out a 20 dollar bill hopefully.

“And I DON’T take well to bribes.” She spat, batting the bill to the floor. “Now SCAT. Before I decide that I’ve reached my limit and call the principal... personally. She is number 2 on my caller list.”

The girl stumbled out of the bathroom, followed by her 4 friends, who glanced back in alarm and fear. Ingrid smirked dryly. She then slipped back into the stall and searched along the back wall for the hidden notch. Once her hand found it, she grabbed ahold of it and tugged hard, revealing a cabinet with her language arts books. She grinned, snatched her level 9 SAT prep book removed “out of order” sign, and retrieved  The Phenomenology of the Spirit. Then, she headed to class.

She was just about to open the door and walk into the classroom when she noticed Stephanie and Jordan walking arm in arm, giggling, straight towards her. They hadn’t noticed her, so she quickly turned the corner and pressed herself against the locker. Unfortunately, someone else had seen her.

“Ingrid.” Said the unmistakable voice of her language arts teacher, Mrs. Dixon. “Ingrid? What are you doing hiding, missy? You’re 20 minutes late to class. That’s your new record, and I hope its not broken again. You missed the read through of Chapter 3 and finalization of The Phenomenology of the Spirit and you’re going to have to make that up tonight.”

Stephanie and Jordan had stopped laughing and were staring in awe and anger. Ingrid’s heart dropped to her feet. Obviously, they now knew her secret. They weren’t that stupid. Close, but not quite.

“So, INGRID,” Stephanie smirked, trying to seem superior although there was hurt and disbelief in her gaze.

Jordan looked more confident. Ingrid braced herself for a ruthless comeback from the girls. “We’ll see you after class Ingrid. We’re so looking forward for the little chat we’re going to have... just us three. Isn’t that right Jordan.” she dropped her pretty little smile and whispered, barely audible, “And you’ll be lucky if I don’t broadcast the whole thing to the whole internet.”

         “Shouldn’t you girls be in class?” Mrs. Dixon scolded. Ingrid breathed an inward sigh of relief. Jordan smirked.”TTYL, Honey.”

         They flipped their hair in unison, seeming conspiratorial behind their fake smiles.

Ingrid shot a look of venom at their retreating backs, “TTYL, Honey.” Ingrid mimicked. “B****!”

“Language missy!” Mrs. Dixon chided, scowling. “Really Ingrid. I would have expected so much more from such a talented lady as yourself.”

Ingrid was pulled back into the classroom. She had never hated verbs quite so much as during that lesson.

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