Beneath Her Skin by Gregg Olsen (ebook reader for manga txt) 📗

with long, dark hair, a bad overbite and the kind of strong, lithe body that suggested her past as an Olympic gymnast hopeful. As a high school principal, Ms. Sandusky never smiled anyway, so her grim face offered no tip-off of what was to come.

“Starla, I’ve asked Ms. Muller here because a situation has arisen that calls into question your ability to stay on the cheer team.”

“What is it?” Starla said, trying to not crumble. Even being somewhat prepared was not enough to ensure that she’d be able to keep it together. She had wanted nothing more than to be the youngest Buccaneer varsity cheerleader captain in the history of the team. She’d been the only freshman to make the squad and was well on her way. The honor would surely be hers. She deserved it.

Not everyone deserves all good things, but I deserve this. This is mine!

“We have high standards here at Kingston,” began the principal, who apparently had just finished a spinach salad because her left front tooth was covered with a fragment of a mossy green leaf. “We’re proud of our students and consider them to be ambassadors of our school in the community.”

“Yes, Ms. Sandusky,” Starla said, trying not to look like she was staring at that green tooth, but she was. “I know. I get that. I am the best ambassador for this school.”

Andrea Sandusky rolled her tongue over her tooth and sucked.

Got it.

“I thought so too. But something has come to our attention that has given us great concern about you.” She stopped and picked up a manila folder. In a flourish that would have impressed most defense lawyers, she pulled out a single 8-by-10 photograph. Then, as if it were laced with poison, she set it on her scrupulously neat desk, faceup. It depicted Starla with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Starla shifted in her chair. “I can explain that.”

“I’m sure you can, but explanations don’t really count for much when there is incontrovertible proof.” The principal tapped her unmanicured fingertip on the photograph, which, on closer examination, appeared to be a laser print, not a photographic print.

Lucy Muller, who’d up to that point seemed to check out of the meeting, finally spoke, whistling through her overbite like a piccolo. She was fired up and on the defensive. Starla, as her name implied, was the cheer team’s future star.

“I want to go on record now,” she said.

“This isn’t a courtroom,” Principal Sandusky said.

“Right,” the coach said, acknowledging that she’d overreached in her language. “I want to go on record that this morals offense, while serious, does not meet the requirement to remove Starla from the squad.”

Principal Sandusky didn’t appear to be too convinced. “Oh, really. Smoking and drinking?”

Starla knew better than to say a word. It wasn’t easy for her to keep her lips shut, but this time reason won out over the need to always jump into the fray.

Lucy Muller picked up the flimsy photograph. “It is a violation, but look at the date stamp on the border. The bylaws say that an offense is only punishable if the person violated rules after she had been uniformed as a member of the Buccaneers’ cheer squad.”

Ms. Sandusky studied the date: the year before.

“You’re underage now,” she said, obviously miffed. “This kind of trailer-park behavior is unacceptable, and we have a zero-tolerance policy at Kingston High. What were you here, fourteen?”

Starla didn’t say a word. She didn’t even move her lips.

Coach Muller did, or rather, whistled. “In case you didn’t know,” she said, now lapsing into a slight Southern accent, “I was raised in Mobile Manor Estates near Louisville. I think we should consider leniency.”

The principal’s face went a shade of red. Not scarlet, but very close. The last time Starla had seen that same color was on a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. It was, she thought at that very inappropriate moment, her very favorite color in the world.

“I will take that under advisement,” Principal Sandusky said, looking first at the cheer coach and then over to Starla. “See that this doesn’t happen again.”

Starla nodded. She hated the woman, yet somehow she managed to smile just enough to signify that she understood and was still a very congenial person.

“I promise,” she said. “Thank you, Ms. Sandusky.”

* * *

Mindee finished her first glass of wine and returned to the refrigerator. By then, Teagan had come into the kitchen in search of dinner. He had enough food stains on his shirt to make the casual onlooker think he’d already eaten or was wearing a cool graphic tee.

“We’re having tuna noodles tonight. The good kind. The kind with potato chip crumbs on top,” Mindee told Teagan as she flicked him out of the room.

Starla wondered how anything with potato chip crumbs could be considered “good.” Her mom was a terrible cook. She didn’t mind enough to say anything. To keep her weight down, she’d taken to purging two nights a week. Only two, because she was sure that didn’t meet the wiki guidelines indicating a serious problem.

“First of all,” Mindee said, “you can only drink and smoke at home. If that photo was taken anywhere but here, you’re going to have your butt handed to you right here and now.”

“It was,” she said. “Promise.”

Mindee didn’t question her daughter’s veracity just then. That usually brought more drama than she could handle on a glass and a half of wine.

“Second of all,” she went on, “I am so pissed off at Katelyn. I could just kill her!”

“I know. Me too. But, Mom, really, I am kind of sad for her.”

“Sad? We can show her sad.”

“Look, she’s a nothing. She didn’t make the squad again—she didn’t even have a chance. She’s a clumsy brunette. When I think about it, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She never, ever, has.”

Mindee grabbed a kettle, a can opener and a can of mushroom soup. “She hurt you, honey. She tried to take your spot.