They didn't have cheerleading practice after school that day, so they decided to go hang out at Lindsey's house.

It was the first time Chase had ever seen where Lindsey lived. Her house was much smaller than Alicia's, and rather than the suburbs, it was located in a place called a trailer park. She kind of liked it; it reminded her of the little log cabin she'd grown up in. She had never brought it up before, out of fear of sounding ungrateful, but Alicia's large house made her a bit nervous sometimes. A smaller hideout was more secure, easier to defend.

They'd put some music on and were just kind of hanging around chatting. School, boys, the big dance—no topic was off limits. At one point, Caitlin started texting Marcus, and somehow everyone got involved. Every time she got a message from him, they would eagerly ask what it said, and then when she read it aloud, they gave advice on what to say back, which Caitlin could use or ignore at her own discretion.

“Dude, I hate history,” Caitlin read, lying on Lindsey's bed.

“Tell him you hate it, too,” advised Alicia, sitting on the bed next to her. “That's an easy one.”

“Do you have it with him?” asked Lindsey. She was sitting in her computer chair, spinning it slowly with her feet.

“Yeah,” replied Caitlin, texting away. “We don't sit next to each other though. He's way on the other side of the room.”

She sent off her response, and then a few moments later, her phone pinged again. She read: “I know, dude. Mr. Vernon is such a Nazi.”

“Whoa. Is he really a nazi? That's a pretty big accusation,” said Alicia seriously.

“I think he means he's just a jerk.”

“Does he call you 'dude' all the time? Like, is that a regular thing?” asked Lindsey, concerned.

Alicia put a sensitive hand on her shoulder. “Would you like us to have a word with him?”

Caitlin laughed. “Come on, what should I say? What do you think, Chase?”

Chase gave it some thought from her seat on the floor, leafing through some of Lindsey's magazines. “Tell Marc that if him no like man Vern, no like learn of old times, then leave class. If man Vern not let Marc leave, end strife in duel to death.” It was very sage advice.

“Yeah, that. Send that,” agreed Alicia. So she did.

Lindsey got an idea and stood up. “Hey, you guys wanna see my dress for Harvest?”

Obviously, they did, so she went over to her closet and pulled it out. They weren't sure what to expect, but what they saw blew them away. It was a sleeveless, strapless dress, wine-colored with a mermaid shape that would definitely compliment Lindsey's hourglass figure.

“Oh my gosh,” squealed Caitlin, sitting up to get a better look at it. “Lindsey, you'll look stunning in that. You don't even have to put it on. I know you will.”

“What an amazing dress,” agreed Alicia.

Chase was floored. She owned a dress herself, which Alicia had bought her on Chase's momentous first trip to the mall, but this was completely different. It was so much more...extravagant. She now realized that there was a big difference between an everyday dress and a school dance dress.

“Thanks, you guys,” said Lindsey, pressing it against herself and giving a small twirl. “I'm super happy with it.”

“Chase glad if find one half so coot,” replied Chase.

The other three girls fell silent. They stared at her, dumbfounded, for a moment. It was as though a bomb had dropped in the middle of the room.

“What?” asked Chase uncertainly.

Caitlin was the first to regain the power of speech. “Chase doesn't have a dress yet,” she said, in numb disbelief.

“Oh, my god,” blurted Alicia. She jumped down off the bed and wrapped Chase in a hug. “Chase, I'm so sorry! We forgot! We failed you!”

Judging by her friends' reactions, there seemed to be some kind of gravity to this situation. “What big deal? We just go buy?” she suggested.

They had no clue how to break it to her. “Chase...” said Lindsey finally, “...Harvest is a week away.”

“Y-yeah...that loads time, right?” asked Chase.

Caitlin shook her head, waving her black ponytail. “I bought mine two months ago.”

Lindsey held her own dress away from her and aimed a finger at it. “I had to get this one, like, at the beginning of summer!” she confirmed. “I'm sorry, Chase...but all the hot styles are going to be sold out by now.”

The mountain girl was totally lost. She had been living in civilized society for close to a month now, but every now and then it became clear how little that really was. She had a lifetime's worth of catching up to do. It was a recurring source of insecurity for her in this twenty-first century world, being friends with these twenty-first century girls. Despite all her valiant efforts to fit in, there was just so much she didn't know or understand, and even the little things, like knowing when to pick out a dress for a school dance, could be very frustrating.

But Chase was not the sort to let small setbacks get her down. She smiled. “It fine. I find dress.”

That was all she had to say. Even though they knew it would be tough, just hearing her confident response made them believe it could be done.

“Lindsey, do you have a catalogue or something she can look at? To get ideas?” asked Alicia. Lindsey shook her head.

“I have one at my place,” volunteered Caitlin. “You can have it, Chase. I'll show you my dress, too.”

Giving Caitlin a reluctant look, Lindsey hung her dress back up. “What about your mom?”

“She works late now, remember? Chase will be gone long before she gets home; there's no way they'll run into each other,” she answered. “I hope.”

…

Alicia drove them from Lindsey's trailer park, located a little off the highway, into Sunnycrest proper. They passed the supermarket, a couple of gas stations, plenty of bars and churches, and a raft guide office (which was now closed until next tourist season) on their way downtown.

Finally, they arrived at Stonebridge Apartments, a large building with a gray, slate exterior. At four stories, it was easily Sunnycrest's highest rise.

When they parked and got out, they noticed something blocking the path from the car to the building. A pack of teenagers in dark clothing were loitering in the parking lot. Some were standing around, a couple were sitting on the trunk of a sedan, and a couple more had skateboards they were rolling around on and doing ollies with.

Alicia dropped her keys in terror as she went to put them in her purse. “Uh oh,” she worried.

Chase looked at them. “Uh oh what?”

Trembling, Alicia jumped behind her, using Chase as a shield. She dared to sneak a peek around Chase's shoulder. “Sc-sc-sc-scary kids!”

Chase looked closer. When she did, she recognized them as fellow Sunnycrest High students. She had classes with a couple of them, although she had never spoken to them.

Some had loose-fitting, potentially weapon-concealing clothing, and many of them wore an abundance of dark makeup that could be interpreted as a form of war paint, but aside from that they didn't seem particularly scary at all. She figured she was far more along the lines of what most would consider 'scary.' All the same, she bristled for battle, not wanting to take any chances.

“Aw, it's okay, Alicia,” said Caitlin in a comforting voice. “They're nothing to be afraid of.”

“Them foe?” growled Chase, tensing for battle.

“...In a way, I guess,” replied Lindsey.

This was all Chase needed to hear. “Them try kill, I kill. Or, I strike first if want,” she suggested.

“Well, I mean, I don't think they'll try to kill us,” said Caitlin. “We just don't really get along. They don't like cheerleaders.”

This was quite the revelation for Chase. She had never met someone who didn't like cheerleaders before. She didn't know it was possible.

“Why no like cheer?” she asked, grasping for understanding.

“Well, they probably think we don't like them,” answered Caitlin.

“Do we?”

“N-n-no!” squeaked Alicia, closing her eyes.

Lindsey looked at her. “I don't know what your deal is with them. They're just like any other teenager, except not cool. What are you so scared of?”

Alicia gulped and gripped Chase's upper arm for security. “I, I dunno! They just...they're so mopey! So not perky! They wear all that depressing black! They listen to such angry and hateful music! They could be hiding anything in those hoodies! ANYTHING!” She shuddered. “But the worst part is...they go to our school like anyone else, and yet you never see them at any pep rallies or other school functions! You never see them at any football games! I-I-If I didn't know better, I'd say they didn't have any school spirit at all!” Alicia feared things she didn't understand.

“Come on, Alicia. Listen to what you're saying,” soothed Caitlin, stroking her hair. “A teenager without school spirit? A teenager who doesn't love and respect the institution of learning, and who doesn't get extremely invested in how their athletes represent them at competitions? I find that very hard to believe.”

Alicia hesitated. “Well...I guess it does sound pretty far fetched...”

“I'm sure they just show their school spirit in a different way,” concluded Lindsey. “Now come on, you're perfectly safe. After all, we've got Chase.”

…

A thin, black-clad girl looked up from her seat on the trunk of sedan. Her eyelids, heavy with mascara, opened wide as she spotted something across the parking lot. “Shit.”

The boy who owned the sedan was sitting next to her. He followed her gaze from beneath his hood. Walking in their direction were four girls. “Oh,” he said, laughing at her reaction. “The cheerleaders.”

She peered at them suspiciously, between the razor sharp line of her black bangs and the glow of the cigarette she was lighting. “What do they want?”

One of the skateboarders wheeled around to them and snapped her board up to grab it. “What do you think? Th-they saw us over here and decided to come pick on us,” she worried. She was Latina, with short black hair and a pink streak through her bangs.

This was the explanation that made the most sense to the smoking girl. “Ugh, that is SO like a cheerleader,” she agreed. “How much you wanna bet they're gonna say: 'Nice costumes, freaks. But Halloween's still a month away?'”

“Am I betting that they will say that or that they won't say that?” asked the skateboarder. “Because, I mean, I know they're gonna say that. I would be carelessly throwing my money away like a fool to bet that they aren't.”

The guy in the hoodie looked up and over his shoulder, over his car, at the building they were parked next to. “Maybe they're just going inside?”

The car bobbed as the smoker pushed herself off it. Her heavy boots clunked onto the pavement. “Yeah, and maybe Seize My Sadness is going to play in Sunnycrest next summer.”

When an argument is about to erupt, the surrounding air prepares itself by thickening. It curdles and clots in an attempt to stem the flow of insults about to rip through it. This is what happened as the cheerleaders walked by the scary kids. The tension was palpable and heavy, clumping around them and making it difficult to breathe. The two groups stared at each other, everyone waiting to see who would fire the first shot.

When it began to look like no shots would be fired at all, Alicia became emboldened. She summoned her courage and brought out her diplomatic, friendly side. “H-h-hi,” she tried, giving a nervous little wave of pure feebleness. “You guys looking forward to Harvest?”

A guy with a nose ring chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah. Harvest. We're, like, super frickin' stoked.”

This sarcasm baffled the cheerleaders. “Huh?” asked Caitlin. “You don't care about Harvest?”

The cigarette girl advanced toward them, and crossed her arms. “Hell no! Why would we want to go to some boring school dance? Dancing in the gym to crappy Top Forty pop music, surrounded by jocks and preps and all the other conformist sheeples?” She lifted a hand to take her cigarette, then and blew a long plume of smoke from the 'o' of her black lips. When she was done, she punctuated her response with, what else: “So lame.”

“Haha, yeah, you'd have to be a total conformist to want to go to Harvest...” said the skateboarder, with some longing in her voice.

Alicia was getting scared again. Their lack of enthusiasm for the Harvest Dance was a level of cynicism she had not mentally prepared for. “I-I'm sorry! Please don't sacrifice me to Satan!” she whimpered, hiding behind Chase again.

They were surprised at this plea. Reasonably, but falsely, assuming there was no way she could be serious, they took it as Alicia being snide.

“J...Just because we wear black and don't shake any stupid pom poms doesn't mean we worship Satan,” said the skateboarder sensitively. “You do realize that, right?”

“Do you realize that Halloween's still two months away?” Lindsey shot back.

“It's one month away,” replied Caitlin.

“But it's still September,” said Lindsey.

“The end of September.”

“Yeah, that counts as two months.”

Unable to stay quiet after Lindsey's insult, cig girl chimed in again. She giggled and waved her arms in an exaggerated manner, mimicking some cheerleading arm motions. “Gimme an S! Gimme an L! Gimme a U! Gimme a T! What's that spell?”

“I dunno, your name?” answered Lindsey. “Nice fishnets, skank.”

Sensing things were escalating quickly, the guy with the hoodie pushed himself off his trunk and approached. “Alright, alright, let's all take it easy.”

Chase hadn't noticed him before. Not much of his face was visible beneath the shadow of his hood, aside from a strong-looking jaw with a cleft chin.

She didn't feel like taking it easy. These people were scaring her friends, and she also knew how to spell. “Who you want me kill first?” she asked Caitlin, looking from pale, painted face to pale, painted face.