The Clique Sporking Chapters 7-11

[b1tchlasagna]

I’m back.

I know it feels like I dropped off the face of the planet but I’m not dead. Work was eating me alive and when you combine that with moving houses and a new pet, that left everyone with a very tired and very unmotivated Annika who didn’t want to spork anything.

But I’m here now; I've returned, and ’m more energetic and fired up than usual and it looks like it's going to stay that way, so let’s do this.

WARNING: This entry contains some of the worst chapters so far, due to its depiction of bullying and body shaming, which is played for laughs. Yeah. Tread with caution.

 

The Guesthouse: Kitchen

7:20 AM, September 2nd

By the way, I've got a drink with me, I have some pink hot chocolate. 



I'd recommend a drink of your choice, because boy oh boy, are we going to need them. If you want something with alcohol, go grab that. I'll wait.

Back? Here we are. The Lyons family are having American pancakes for breakfast and Claire is very nervous for her first day of school. If that disastrous meeting with the Massive Blockhead was a sign of what’s to come, then she’s gonna have a bad time. Oh Claire, my sweet summer child, you have no idea what’s waiting for you. Claire starts writing SOS over and over again in a puddle of maple syrup but Claire’s mother, Judi is oblivious. Like stupidly oblivious. Like Spongebob not noticing Puffy Fluffy trying to kill Gary kinds of oblivious. This is right after she asks Claire what’s wrong.


You noticed your daughter wasn’t acting like herself, yet you couldn’t see an obvious SOS. I have a question. How do you breathe?!

Claire’s brother Todd also notices something’s up, he asks her “then why did you sneak into my room in the middle of the night?” implying that Claire spent the previous night sleeping next to her brother for comfort. Claire says it’s because “there was a spider in my bed.” Todd replies with “looks like there was a crab in mine.” Was that supposed to be a joke? Because it was bad, it’s not even worthy of a cheap plastic “you tried” star. Then he throws a raisin from the cereal they have on the table, at her. He suggests she throw them at the Massive Blockhead for telling her the “Pretty Committee” has their own thing, inside jokes and all, and Claire joining them would make things awkward. Claire’s mad Todd was spying on her and that he heard the Blockhead shooting her down. Her face turned red and Judi merely says “Todd go brush your teeth.”

Hey, your daughter obviously wasn’t happy about Todd’s snooping or Massie not letting her hang out with her clique. You’re not gonna say anything? Nothing to reassure your daughter or to reprimand your son? No? Nothing?

How dense can someone be?

Todd leaves and so does Claire. She scraped her uneaten pancakes into the trash. This is a small detail but it kind of bothers me how the Lyons are okay with wasting food. I get they’re not dirt poor, but they’re not rich either, they’re middle class. Surely the concept of putting your unfinished food in the fridge for later is something they know all too well. I was raised with that mindset and like the Lyons, my family wasn't super rich or extremely broke.

Claire keeps reminiscing about what her friends in Florida would be doing on the bus. Judi tries to reassure her that everything will be fine, and she even says “Claire your outfit looks great.” Claire herself isn’t so sure, but Judi is convinced that “white Gap jeans are a classic” and her navy Keds are “just darling.” Judi then adds, “you have Massie on your side.” 



Truly, you've reached a new level of ignorance.

Claire then gets her lunch but she leaves behind her Powerpuff Girls lunch box for fear of being seen as childish. Judi finally gets it. Sort of. 

Lions are also at the top of the food chain, and you clearly aren’t. On a social level, that is. Analogy fail, I call analogy fail!

What was that even supposed to establish? Aside from being cringe.

In the driveway of the mansion, Isaac was buffing the Blocks’ silver Range Rover. They say good morning to each other, Claire enters, and her jaw drops at seeing the luxurious interior. Claire felt more like she was in a limo, not a Range Rover. First of all, there was a glass-fronted fridge stocked with diet soda, Pellegrino, Glaceau Vitamin Water, and fresh seasonal berries. Then there was a TV shaped like a cube hung from the roof like a disco ball. It had screens on each side so everyone had a view and black speakers in every corner.

Then the Blockhead shows up. Claire sees the door opening and a strappy, feminine sandal stepping in. I crossed out what should be eliminated. That’s a redundant word, because everyone reading this doesn’t need to be told these strappy sandals are girls’ shoes worn by a girl. It was followed by a thin arm that looked like it was about to snap under the weight of a cluttered charm bracelet throwing a denim blazer into the backseat. Um, Harrison, are you implying that Massie’s bracelet is so full of charms that it’s impossible to wear or that her arms are so thin she’s anorexic looking? I’d like to assume it’s the former, the latter’s too uncomfortable. But given how they treat Dylan, the token “fat girl,” it’s probably the latter. I put “fat girl” in quotes because Dylan isn’t actually fat, the universe just treats her like she’s about the size of Jabba the Hutt. It's one of those universes where you're to be mocked if you're even a pound over extra small or extra, extra small.

When Massie finally climbs in, she’s surprised to see Claire. To which Claire says, “your mom said I should ride with you to school.” Apparently Kendra didn’t tell Massive Blockhead that, judging by her reaction. She clearly told Judi, who told Claire, but her own daughter? Nah.

You know, when I called Kendra a "zombie white wine mom" in my first sporking, I was halfway kidding. I thought it'd be a one time joke and nothing more, but now it work as headcanon. Kendra's an alcoholic, which is why she's so absent in Massie's life. She can't deal with the fact she birthed such a terrible child, so she drinks.

Massive Blockhead makes Claire move back, where she can’t see the TV clearly or reach the fridge, to make room for Alicia, Dylan and Kristen. Now it’s Claire’s turn to be surprised she even says “I thought it was going to be just us” and Massie seems to be annoyed, her response is “why would you think that?” I don’t know, Massive Blockhead. It’s because no one told her! Kendra for some reason, only said her she’d be riding with Massie, not picking up her friends too. Why? I don’t know. Aside from plot convenience.

They drive to Alicia’s rich neighborhood, with its tall iron gates and overgrown bushes, and marble statues. She even snaps a picture, but Massive Blockhead gets mad. She tells Claire or “Kuh-laire,” that “this isn’t Epcot,” and there’ll be hell to pay if the security guards see that, as in they’d “take your camera and question you for a week straight.” Take a chill pill Massie, these are security guards watching over a rich household, not Secret Service agents guarding the White House. They’re not gonna go too hard on a kid.

Alicia comes out, and Claire thinks she’s unbelievably beautiful. She’s the kind of girl no one ever gets mad at because they don’t want her looking unhappy with sparkling brown eyes, a perfect tan, and full lips that are cherry red. Massive Blockhad says all of a sudden “she’s in vintage Ralph Lauren and has the new Prada messenger bag.” Claire’s confused, until she sees Massie talking into her phone. I still can’t help but chuckle when I see them telling each other as opposed to sending each other pictures. 2000s phones must’ve had the blurriest cameras compared to now, but these kids are rich, filthy rich. I’m pretty sure their phones were better than the flip phones the average Joe/Jane had. They could have sent pictures with their fancy Blackberries.  

Alicia gets in and compliments Massive Blockhead on how good she looks even though she’d been sick the day before. Massie says “just wait for tomorrow,” because she gets “better looking every day.” They start laughing and high fiving like that was the most clever response ever, only it’s not.

Claire introduces herself to Alicia, who ignores her. She then offers them some gummy worms and sour feet and the Massive Blockhead gets mad at the sight of them.

You never started eating candy or you never started breastfeeding?

They stop at Dylan’s house, which looked more like a church than someone’s home. So it looked gothic? Dylan was outside, reading Us Weekly and eating a nutrition bar, until she saw the car. Then she stuffed the magazine into her Louis Vuitton backpack and climbs aboard. Claire thinks she looks like a farm girl who’d grown up milking cows or churning butter. So she looked fit? And toned?     

Ha ha. No. That was actually shorthand for “fat.” Even though she’s actually a US size 6, which translates to a US size small. 

Dylan, Massive Blockhead and Alicia catch up on the shopping they did yesterday. Alicia makes fun of how Dylan tried to “walk in five-inch Manolos,” because “her entire body shook up like she was in a giant earthquake.”   

Reminder: these people are supposed to be her friends. We’re supposed to like them. We’re supposed to wish we could be them. By the way, Dylan’s big insecurity is her weight, so how do her so called “friends” deal with it? By reassuring her that she’s fine the way she is? By convincing her to get therapy for body dysmorphia? No. They mock her for it; basically they’re making it worse!

Ugh. I want to drink bleach.

Dylan snaps back with “at least I didn’t get felt up by the bra lady.” She asks Massive Blockhead how many gossip points that was worth. Yes, these girls earn gossip points for every time they gossip about anyone, be it another girl their school, a boy at the neighboring all boy's school, or a fellow "Pretty Committee" member. So I have a question, if I get the most gossip points do I win anything? Can I cash them in for a...toaster or something? I’ll never know. Gossip points are never explained they just…exist.

Dylan mentions “I also got a Yves. St. Laurent lip marker,” and Massive Blockhead tells her to be careful, she read in YM they cause cold sores. Dylan actually believes it and she starts checking her reflection.

They get to the luxury apartment Kristen lives in. She’s so engrossed in a crossword puzzle, Isaac had to honk twice before she jumped up. She’s wearing Orange Puma sneakers and chocolate brown velour sweats and a matching hoodie with the sleeves pushed up. Too bad the velour tracksuit look of the 2000s went out of style. It looks pretty comfy from what I’ve seen on the Internet. Once she gets into the car, Kristen changes into a jean mini and a belly shirt. Are you going to school or a nightclub? That doesn’t sound like anything that’d make it pass the dress code. I get they’re not a uniform school, but they have to have some kind of dress code on what’s appropriate! Even if it's a school where anything aside from arriving there naked goes, how are there not any complaints from concerned parents?

Kristen is the first one to notice Claire. When she asks who that is, Alicia introduces her before Claire herself can say anything. Kristen is also the first one to even try to shake Claire’s hand. I said try because Claire’s too far back for them to touch. But Kristen’s politeness ends when she texts Massive Blockhead.

Massive Blockhead makes sure Claire can see that over her shoulder, and reading the text makes Claire’s blood boil. She starts stress eating the candy, only now she’s trying to make sure Massive Blockhead doesn’t see her eating candy. The other girls give Massive Blockhead her get well soon gift, a purple tank top. But not just any purple tank top, Massie squeals in excitement that it’s the “Alberta Ferretti tank top I saw in Lucky!”

Dylan mentions the price tag was accidentally left on, so she rips it off. It lands at Claire’s feet, who’s mindblown when she sees the price of 780 USD. How can a top thinner than toilet paper be that expensive? she thought. Because brand name, Claire. She snaps a picture while Dylan turns on the TV, where her mother Merri-Lee Marvil, the host of the Daily Grind is interviewing some soap opera star who plays a character who’s in a coma. The other girls have their eyes glued to the screen.

This is where I’ll have to point out that soap operas are a dead genre. I doubt they were big in the 2000s, if they were I doubt they were big among the preteen crowd, the age group The Clique was written for. It would’ve made more sense for them to fangirl over the star of a teen drama. Teen dramas are a much bigger hit among the preteen demographic, they’re also a lot like soap operas, sometimes to the point of being cringe. Yes, Riverdale, I'm looking at you. So Harrison if you wanted a genre that looks like the soap opera genre, a genre you obviously like, only more relatable to your audience, there you go.

The actor leaves and the programme cuts to commercial. The girls are upset they didn’t catch his full name before he left. All they have is his first name, Drew.

Claire mentions “his last name is Divine.” Kristen then forgets she wasn’t supposed to like Claire because she turned around and directly thanks her. Their moment is cut short when Massive Blockhead purposely cuts in and asks Kristen if she thinks Dylan should steal Merri-Lee’s PalmPilot to get Drew’s number. Kristen had to turn away from Claire to answer. Kristen thinks she can, Dylan agrees. Claire is still perplexed they could get an actor’s phone number until Alicia spells it out. Claire’s mindblown again, upon finding out Dylan’s Merri-Lee Marvil's daughter. She starts bombarding them with questions like “do you get to meet famous people all the time?” and “does she look the same in real life as she does on TV?” and “Is she really dating Geraldo Rivera?”

It’s an understandable reaction given her fish out of water circumstances, but Massive Blockhead mockingly tells her, “that will be all for now, Barbara Walters.” Claire is hurt. She fell back into her seat as if she had just been punched in the stomach. She decided not to say anything anymore. What was the point?

Well, that’s just the beginning. You know how I said before it only goes downhill once Massie meets Claire? It’s about to get further downhill, down a very steep hill. If you were to make a chart on how bad things get, then you’d see a total nosedive.

 

The Range Rover: First Class Section

8:19 AM, September 2^nd

While the Massive Blockhead and her jerk friends are riding the car, she hears the crunching sound coming from the backseat. The faint smell of salt and greasy potatoes filled the air and Massie realized that Claire was eating chips, with no regard for the early hour or the high fat content.

Ah yes. How dare she act like a child. How dare she act her age. How dare she not act like a stereotypical weight obsessed adult on some crazy crash diet. What kind of healthy twelve year old doesn’t like crisps? I’m an adult myself, and I know plenty of people who never grew out it, people who still love snacks more than salad.

I missed this during my first reading, but Massie is also twelve, extremely young and she’s already this obsessive about what she eats. It gets worse when you take in the description of her arm. I’d hate to see what she looks like a few years later. That’s like foreshadowing for a future eating disorder. That’s horrifying!

Do not want! Do not want!

The Blockhead and her friends start group texting.

They start hating on Claire’s Keds. These are Keds by the way.

They remind me a little of ballet flats, they’re not flashy on their own, but they look like they’d go with anything, as long as you’re going for the cute, casual look. Why doesn’t the PC like them?  

It’s never explained so your guess is as good as mine.

Massive Blockhead decides that because of her Keds, Claire is “not a G.L.U.” a “Girl Like Us.” Yep, these girls just make up acronyms that mean absolutely nothing all them time, like people who go on Urban Dictionary and make up nonsensical definitions to words no one that use or words with pre-established definitions. 

And the chapter ends. It was short, though not sweet. In fact, it was the exact opposite and I'm glad to see it end so quickly. This was one of the worst Massie POV chapters.

 

The Range Rover: Octavian Country Day School

8:27 AM, September 2^nd

This chapter opens with Claire looking out the window and seeing all those luxury cars, Mercedes, Jaguars, Lexus SUVs, BMW convertibles, and even a few limos in the parking lot, as opposed to the beat up Hondas and Toyotas at her old school. Once again, she gets the feeling she doesn’t belong, and it makes her nervous enough to almost throw up. Poor Claire, I wish she was in a better fictional universe, knowing what happens later. She starts singing “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, that’s her coping mechanism.

The car stops and the other girls leave but no one lets Claire out. For some reason, Isaac, like the woman in the urban legend who didn’t notice the axe murderer in the backseat, didn’t see anything in the rearview mirror, even though it’s in broad daylight. At least that woman had an excuse it was nighttime. Isaac’s reason is nothing but poor planning on Harrison’s part. I guess Harrison was too busy flipping through magazines to decide what Massie and her awful friends would wear next to look over logistics.

Claire has to tap Isaac’s shoulder to get his attention and when he realizes Massive Blockhead didn’t let her out, he angrily walks over to her, where she’s talking to someone a year up from her, an eighth-grade girl with a scooter helmet in one hand and a yoga mat in the other.

He starts yelling her name, and he must be extremely angry because he left the Range Rover in the middle of the driveway despite the angry drivers who honked and demanded he move it. When he calls her out, the Blockhead just fakes her innocence and says “I thought you were supposed to let her out.” Her friends giggle in that nasty manner school bullies did, when you were being humiliated and picked on. But Isaac knows she’s full of crap and he’s having none of it. He looks her dead in the eyes and outright tells her “I expect you to treat Claire with kindness and respect.” I like Isaac, he’s the only adult who’s trying here and he’s been a parental substitute for the Blockhead since her parents are absent and let's be honest, he's better at parenting than her biological parents.

The girl Massive Blockhead was talking to leaves, leaving the Blockhead annoyed, since according to Massie, “she’ll probably get at least fifty gossip points for this story.”

What the hell? So everyone operates on these stupid gossip points, I thought it was just a dumb in-group joke, but nope, apparently there’s a whole system for these points, and everyone at OCD actually competes to get the most points. Like it’s a game, only with no prizes, or anything of value to motivate you. We’re never told how it works or why it’s there, it just exists.

So Massive Blockhead destroys Isaac with the most savage roast. I’m not sure how the man will ever recover. She asks him “did I ask you to take my temperature?” followed by “then why are you all up in my butt?”

Fortunately, Isaac gets her back, he just stood tall and stares down at her. Isaac doesn’t need to speak, his mere presence is enough, and it ends with the Blockhead huffing a “fine.” Score one for Isaac!

Massive Blockhead tells Claire about the school. For example instead of getting your schedule from the secretary, you get them from these kiosks that look like ATMs. You’re supposed to “put your student ID card in and your schedule will pop out. The café is to the left along with the gym, the dance studios, the pool, and the spa. On your right are the seventh-grade classrooms and the teachers’ lounge.” She even gives out instructions for when school ends, “meet us here at exactly 3:25 if you want a ride home. If you’re not here, we’ll assume you decided to walk.”

Given her bullying, I’m legitimately surprised, that she didn’t try to give Claire a fake time and then lie and tell tell Isaac she found another ride, just so Claire would have to actually walk back.

 

Octavian Country Day School: The Starbucks Kiosk

11:25 AM, September 2^nd

Yes, their school has a Starbucks. Yes, they act more like they’re in university, with enough time inbetween classes to grab a drink and hang out at the café. Yes, their school, with its own Starbucks and spa, is even fancier than a university campus. It even looks nicer than your average Starbucks with cherrywood paneling and brass accents and a wall mural of people drinking hot beverages throughout history, their hands filled with notebooks, pocketbooks, and venti-size cups. I’ve been to quite a few Starbuckses and I don’t remember any murals.

A group of girls in differently-colored Juicy sweats pass by, and for some reason, the very sight of them gets the Massive Blockhead feeling ticked off. Why? I have no idea, but given how shallow the Blockhead is, I’m assuming she didn’t like their sweats, which would be odd, because I’ve pointed out before that Juicy tracksuits were a pretty big trend in the 2000s. So she shouts “Look it’s the Mathletes!” followed by “Cheer up, girls, school has finally started again.” They knew better than to respond. Then some girl named Jena Drezner walks by and Alicia says, “I think Jena Drezner is wearing her dog’s shirt by mistake. Look.” She even points and then adds “It barely covers her ribcage.” Shaming someone for wearing a short top. How very classy. You shouldn’t be talking, ‘cause I’m sure you’ve worn one too, at some point. And I’m sure you’ve worn “worse” than a crop top, given your reputation—according to TV Tropes—for dressing far, far older than your age, you giant hypocrite.

Don’t feel too bad for Jena. She goes up to them, says hi, and then immediately starts kissing their ass. She tells them “you all look amazing, as usual.” Then she mentions the new girl, Claire whom she refers to as "Massie’s BFF". And this is what she says about Claire “It’s been a while since we’ve had a real ‘fashion don’t’ around here. I’ve almost forgotten what one looks like.” As soon as the background character leaves, Massie says “I heard she peed in her bed at sleepover camp this summer.” Now it’s Alicia’s turn to kiss the Blockhead’s ass, and she immediately says she heard the same thing, but because Massive Blockhead said it first she gets the gossip points.

The Blockhead declares her social life to be “in a state of emergency.” And all over a rumor—not even one that could really do damage—that she’s befriending an “uncool” new kid.

That’s not a first world problem, that’s beyond first world. That’s a “problem” people with first world problems wish they had. Let me list some first world problems, you’re hungry and the fridge is full but the exact food you were craving isn’t there, your phone is low on battery but the charger is in the other room and you don’t feel like getting up, you’re at work and it’s lunchtime and you haven’t brought a lunch but you’re tired of eating at all the restaurants near work. People dealing with those things would wish they had your “problem” as a spoiled, rich, pretty kid who's also the most popular girl in school, who would also never have to work a day in her life, and who never has to answer to her absentee parents.

I spent way too much on that...let’s call it a mini rant. I’m sorry, let’s get back to the story. Alicia asks “You’re not really going to be friends with Claire. Are you?” Alicia, do you suffer from short term memory or something? You all had a group texting session earlier, and the Blockhead pretty much established right then and there she doesn’t like Claire! Massie gives this sarcastic answer, “I’m dumping you and bringing her on full time.” To which Alicia is horrified. Her smile faded. A look of sheer horror took its place. “Is it because I didn’t want to cancel our shopping trip to take care of you yesterday? ’Cause I was only kidding.”   

You know, there’s being bad with social cues, and there's just plain being stupid. You don’t have the former to use as an excuse, Alicia, you’re stupid. Like Patrick Star. Not classic Patrick no. You’re the flanderized, post-movie, unlikable version.

Everything pauses when the Blockhead spots a Burberry cap, which she calls out. She pointed at a seventh grader wearing a hat made of the signature plaid. Then she says “no punch backs” and she actually hits Kristen on the arm as hard as she could. Kristen responds with an “Owwwww!” as her books fell to the floor and the scalding hot chai latte covered her chest and arm. Reminder, Massie, the one who gave her the burns, the one who got her books all wet is supposed to be her friend. Given what I’d heard of the books, if the story acted like Massive Blockhead was her bully, it’d at least be honest.

Claire rushes over and asks Kristen if she’s okay. Good on you, Claire, for being the only person with the appropriate reaction! Massive Blockhead says, “she’s fine,” because she didn’t mean anything bad it’s all a part of a stupid game they play where the first person who spots a Burberry anything gets to punch someone. Kristen however forces a smile. Massive Blockhead scalding her and getting her notes wet is even worse when you remember Kristen’s “poor” and is only there on a scholarship, so she has to study extra hard. She's gonna have a difficult time with that, since her notes are ruined. And Massie thinks it’s “absolutely hilarious” to tread on someone’s livelihood.

Right now the Blockhead’s mad at how Claire is daring to be seen with them so she fires back with another epic roast. “Claire, did I invite you to my barbeque?” Claire’s confused, so the Blockhead says “Then why are you are up in my grill?” Careful, Claire, she obliterated Isaac the last time she was this savage. The bell rings, Dylan runs off to English, Kristen wonders if she has enough time to wash the coffee stains off. Hey, Kristen you don’t need the bathroom, you need the nurse for those burns, and then you won’t have to worry about being late because the nurse will give you a note. Alicia says she’ll save her a seat. When Claire says she has the same class, art, she gets cut off by the Blockhead telling Alicia “you’d better go,” while looking right at Claire in the eyes. Claire, understandably says, “I don’t understand why you hate me so much.”

Welcome to school, Claire, where people will hate you for the most petty reasons. Massive Blockhead’s still mad. Look at her reaction. “Claire, this isn’t Clueless, okay?” Massie snapped. “Why don’t you just make your own friends and worship me from afar like everyone else?” Claire points out she (unfortunately) lives with her, “I can’t just go away.” But the Massive Blockhead doesn’t care, so Claire pushed the stack of bracelets away from her wrist back up her arm. She looked like she was rolling up her sleeves before a fistfight. I wish there was actually a fistfight. That implies the Blockhead would get some kind of comeuppance. Instead, Claire tries her hand at roasting, and she asks “Are you a female dog?” The Blockhead, despite having the same roasting style falls for it, she reacts with a "huh?". Wow, these people are all stupid. Claire tells the Blockhead “Because you’re acting like a real bitch!”

Massive Blockhead immediately texts her servants friends.

You know, I doubt Kendra would care too much. And I doubt you have a conscience, you budding sociopath.

(I crossed it out because I didn't want to diagnose a fictional character, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not qualified.)

  

Octavian Country Day School: Art Class

11:40 AM, September 2^nd

WARNING: The worst of the bullying shows up in this chapter. It goes beyond just exclusion, it’s social humiliation, it’s psychological torment. It might give you flashbacks to your old school days if you were bullied in a similar way. Keep that in mind as you read on. If at anytime it's too much for you to digest, it's okay to step away from your desk, do something that calms and relaxes you, then come back later when you're feeling better. Your mental well being comes first.

Claire arrives late, everyone was seated and calm, except her. The jerk of a teacher asks “You look confused, dear. What’s your name?” When Claire explains she’s just looking for a seat, he says this “And you arrrrrrre?”

Talking like a pirate aside, how does he not know about Claire? Aren’t teachers supposed to be notified when a new student arrives? They introduce each other. The teacher’s named Vincent. We don’t know his surname, just his first name. I guess OCD’s one of those alternative schools where it’s fine to call the teacher by his first name. Vincent yells about how he hates tardiness and asks Claire to take the empty seat next to Alicia. Neither of them want her to sit there, Alicia’s manicured index finger pointed at the empty space in front of Vincent’s desk, but it was too late. Vincent says “Claire, I’ve seen paint dry faster. Chop, chop.” Instead of rushing over to the empty seat, Claire immediately plops down, right before Kristen runs in.

Vincent gives us this line. “Another tardy, Ms. Gregory, and I will personally hack off that precious blond hair of yours and have it spun into paintbrushes.” Umm…how do you still have a job? Wouldn’t making pseudothreats like that get you into some kind of trouble? The text mentions he’s only joking, but I didn’t pick that up, if they hadn’t mentioned it was a joke, it would’ve gone right over my and everyone else’s head. I also find it hard to believe that no one repeated his “jokes” outside of class and another teacher or parent heard it and took it seriously. That sounds like it could happen, especially with that zero tolerance policy.

Vincent takes out a timer, Then he sashayed over to the podium in the middle of the room and grasped the corner of the sheet that covered it. With a quick flick of the wrist he whisked it away, revealing three bright red tomatoes in a bowl.

“You have exactly fifteen minutes to paint a still life called Ripe Vine Tomatoes, ” he explained. “Now begin.” Wait a minute, painting is hard. It takes a lot of time to sketch, correct your sketches, clean up your lines, paint and add shading. You can’t do it in 15 minutes! Unless this is a class where you’re learning to paint like Monet, that’s the only way for this to make sense.

The timer distracts Claire and she’s finding it hard to concentrate while she’s painting. Alicia asks if she could borrow some red paint, hers is “a little clumpy.” Claire says yes, Alicia dips her brush into Claire’s palette but she slips and was forced to grab on to Claire so she wouldn’t fall down. They go back to painting, but Alicia starts laughing. And that Claire, should’ve been your first red flag. Claire catches on soon enough when she hears the faint sound of clicking buttons. Wait, if she can hear them, can’t Vincent? Why isn’t he telling them to put away their phones or confiscating them or something? 

It reminds her of the horrible ride to school that morning. They were talking about her again.  

Let’s break this down bit by bit. First of all, the formatting failure. Right until now this chapter—and this book as a whole—uses a third person limited POV, meaning it’s still third person, the chapterrefers to the narrator as “Claire” not “I,” we follow her, just her, we know Claire’s thoughts, and we only know what she knows. In a third person limited, you can’t just suddenly switch from one character to another; you can’t just switch from Claire’s head and what she knows to something she’s completely not aware of! In this case dramatic irony dramatic irony would only work in third person omniscient!

Second, what the actual fuck? That made me angry enough to swear. Alicia got red paint on the back of Claire’s trousers, no doubt when she “slipped” and had to grab onto Claire, this was done solely to embarrass Claire, to ensure the other students would laugh at her. And that’s exactly what happens as Claire’s on her way to the door after class ends, each girl she passed let out a giggle. Let me say this again, Alicia humiliated Claire on her first day, all because Massive Bitch had it out against her for the stupidest reasons.

These bullying bastards don’t get any kind of comeuppance. Earlier on, I warned you that this chapter might give you flashbacks of your own experiences at school if you were bullied. It...sort of had that effect for me. I wasn't the victim. It happened with me and my friend at the time in the girl's washroom when a group of popular girls came in with a pad, one of them asked us if we had a red marker. Both of us said no, and I wondered what they'd do with a red marker and a pad, and then it hit me, they were going to draw on it and pretend someone got their period. We quickly hurried away. That's right Harrison, your characters that we're all supposed to be envious of—thanks to the copious amounts of time you spent describing their outfits and establishing they're all rich, pretty and popular—are reminding me of some bullies I knew. I can't be the only one thinking this.

But you know what? That's not the worst part, the icing of diarrhea on the shit sundae is how overall in this series, Massive Bitch and her bitch friends aren’t actively shown as assholes. They’re pretty, popular, rich, dressed in the latest styles, etc. And I don’t mean it in the sense that yes, they’re appealing on a superficial level, but they’re still bad people and you should never look up to them. No, that’s not the case. Unlike the Plastics from Mean Girls, they don’t suffer real consequences, setbacks at the worst, nothing truly bad. The end result is the unfortunate implication that you can be a bullying bitch and get away with it in the end. Sadly, that does happen in real life, but this is a book for preteens that was obviously intended to be more on the lighthearted side, it's not the place for that kind of message!   

TV Tropes says towards the end of the series, in the later books, the Alpha Bitches do get some kind of character development. That was when the later books were being published in the 2010s, the decade that was the epitome of Society Marches On, but I refuse to believe no one even in the 2000s pointed out how unacceptable this depiction was. Bullying did exist and was no doubt a big issue in the 2000s, as it was in the decades before, and it will be as long as we exist. This...pile of toilet paper got read by a agent, got okayed, it got sent to a publisher, who had to read it to accept it, editor, promoter, and none of them said "hey, bullying's a hot topic, if we're going to write about it, especially in a way that could remind other people of their bad memories, let's handle the topic in a responsible manner, let's analyze every sentence with a fine toothed comb to make sure we don't leave any unfortunate implications, and let's sure as hell not write our Alpha Bitches as characters who get too close into Karma Houdini territory." How is that possible? I...I am speechless, I don't know what to say, I...

"Please stand by screen" (Watch on YouTube)

Sorry, my brain timed out. Where were we? Oh yes.

Vincent asks “can you stay behind for a second?” Claire says yes, but why? Vincent doesn’t explain anything, he just says “I’d rather the nurse deal with it. Now go.” He thinks Claire got her period, but he doesn’t say it. I know that men of the older generation are squicked out by periods, but Vincent is a teacher. At an all girls school. Teaching girls around the preteen age, the age where many of them get their periods. You would think he’s gotten over it by now!

Claire leaves the classroom, but because it’s her first day, she has to ask someone for directions. And of all people who does she pick? Alicia and Kristen of course.

Kristen tells her to “Just go down the stairs, make a quick right, and walk all the way down the hall to the very end. The office is the last door on your left.” So Claire runs like she was Dr. Monica Quartermaine on General Hospital. I don’t get that reference and neither did anyone belonging to the target audience, who read this in the 2000s.

Harrison, if you want to reference pop culture, you have to mention something the target audience will get. Otherwise it’d fly over their heads, rendering the reference pointless. Preteens and teens reading this in the 2000s aren’t watching General Hospital, or the Young and the Restless, or One Life to Live, or All My Children. They were watching shows like One Tree Hill, The OC, Degrassi, or 7th Heaven. If you wanted a genre that was like a soap opera but resonated with the younger crowd, you should’ve referenced a teen drama!

On her way down the stairs she felt a light object hit her butt. She immediately thought of her brother and his raisins. But it’s something much worse, it’s people throwing tampons at her. I’m honestly surprised they weren’t yelling “plug it up! Plug it up!” to go with it! I’m surprised Massive Bitch didn’t text the school to throw tampons so Claire's humiliation would be worse!

Claire finally arrives at her destination, but something doesn’t feel quite right. The room was dark except for a red light that glowed in the corner. It turns out she’s in a darkroom, for developing photos. Kristen gave her fake directions. Color me surprised. “The nurse is on the main floor. Next to the art studio.” Claire has to retrace her steps, and when she finally gets to the nurse’s office, she meets Adele, the school nurse. She looked kind and comforting, the way movie moms do in fuzzy flashback scenes. She doesn’t come off that way. Harrison tried, keyword tried, to make her kind and comforting, but she didn’t think about the subtle implications. As a result, Adele comes off as more stupid, and condescending to me.

I’ll explain. Adele tells Claire the reason she’s here is because she got her first period. When Claire doesn’t believe it, she pulled out a large hand mirror, and passed it to Claire.  She leaves to get pamphlets and new trousers. Oddly enough, Adele doesn’t mention tampons or a pad. She thinks Claire’s on her period, you would think she wouldn’t forget that essential item. Claire, on the other hand, knew this was impossible. She didn’t even have boobs yet. She replays everything in her mind, and realizes it had to have been when Alicia bumped into her then held onto her. She was so embarrassed she couldn’t even think straight.

Adele comes back, pushing a wardrobe rack full of designer clothes. She says to Claire, “This is our lost and found” and she tells Claire to “go through and pick out something you like.” Because “the girls at this school hardly go looking for last year’s clothes.”

This school better have a policy of automatically putting all the lost and found stuff up for donation, if it’s not claimed by a certain time. If it did, I wouldn’t be talking about this, I wouldn’t be finding this problematic. But it did not, so it comes across as Adele letting Claire taking clothes out of the lost and found, clothes that other people might want. That is called stealing.

I’ve started reading the second book in the series, Best Friends For Never, and it’s a book that’s so bad I have to put it down every paragraph or so. I just got to the part where Claire starts treating the lost and found bin like a place where you can get free clothes as opposed to how lost and founds are supposed to work in actuality.

Adele tells Claire “getting your period is something to celebrate.” Yeah, let’s celebrate cramps, PMS, mood swings and hormonal imbalances!

After watching Claire sift through the Seven jeans, silk print blouses, rhinestone speckled T-shirts, denim skirts, satin camisoles, cashmere sweaters, suede blazers, and leather pants—wait, OCD lets you wear fetish clothes to school?— she asks if Claire’s new. Claire says is it that obvious, Adele answers yes, “but in a good way.”

Claire wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that but was grateful for the compliment. That didn’t sound like a true compliment to me. It sounds more like it’s from the list of generic responses you’re supposed to say to be polite. Reminder, Adele doesn’t know Claire, they just met. She doesn’t know Claire’s circumstances, or personality or anything about Claire’s life to give her a real compliment. It comes off more condescending, like “you must be new here, since you’re dressed like a poor person.”

Claire leaves the nurse’s office, wearing a camel-colored cashmere tank top, dark denim flare jeans, and a pair of pointy Steve Madden boots. Just in time for lunch.

This chapter’s done and so am I.

Comments

[b1tchlasagna]

Point taken