Diva Rules (5 page)

The one thing I hate more than a cheap pair of heels or a handbag with them frayed raggedy edges is a phony
bish
! And, trust. McPherson High's halls are flooded with the likes of 'em. Fakes. A buncha wannabe Barbies. All tryna be the next Nicki Minaj. Whoop, whoop! Chile, boom! Who let the clowns out! Epic fails!

Besides me, Miesha, 'n' a few of the cheerleaders, all these other chickies clucking around here in their
thot
wear 'n' lace fronts are straight-up fraudulent. Okay, well, not all of 'em. But most of 'em definitely are. And those are the ones that make the palms of my hands itch to slap 'em up. All they do is smile up in your face 'n' talk about you behind your back. Then when you step to 'em 'n' confront 'em, they wanna start hemming 'n' hawing 'n' backpedaling. Chile, boom!

But every now 'n' then I entertain their foolery. After all, I know how to serve up a dish of messy with the best of 'em. Bottom line for me is this: A real diva is her only competition. So
no
chick can do
me
better than I can do myself. No matter how hard she tries.

Trust.

“What, you can't speak?” this chick Alicia says, walking over to my locker as I'm slamming it shut. I look her up 'n' down. She's standing here holding a half-eaten Pop-Tart, wearing a pair of nondescript jeans with a cute lil black off-the-shoulder blouse 'n' a pair of red heels. Nine West, I think. But what I care? Not my feet. Not my worry.

She tosses her hair.

Two can play that. I flick mine. “Should you be eating that mess? Didn't you just get a ton of gut fat sliced outta you last summer?”

She rolls her eyes, sucking her teeth. “Don't worry about what I eat.”

I shrug. “Your body.” I flick my hair over my shoulder. “Now. How can I help you?”

“Don't get cute,” she says, placing a hand up on her now size ten hips.
Now
being the operative word, because before her parents sent her away to some chunky girls' farm last summer, she was a thick, six-piece-'n'-a-biscuit, greasy-spoon, eat-a-whole-cake kinda chick. Size eighteen or twenty, I think. All I know is, she had like a sixty-inch waist 'n' was a real big beef patty. But now that she's serving up a few new curves 'n' a smaller waistline, she's really feelin' herself.

Now, I'm not gonna hate or even throw shade on the chick. Because that's not how I do mine. No, no. No, hun. No shade, ever. I give credit where credit's due. Alicia's real cute in the face. She has high cheekbones 'n' a kinda thin nose. She kinda looks... exotic. And her new 'n' improved body makes her fourth runner-up for the next Wish I Could Be You world pageant. Still, she ain't ready to go up against
moi
.

I blink. “Come again? Don't
get
cute? Ooh, hun, I
stay
cute. Would you like my autograph now or later, sweetie?”

She flicks a dismissive wave at me. “Girl, bye. Not.”

I shake my head 'n' walk off, heading down the hall.

She falls into step alongside me, unwelcome. “What I wanna know is why you stood me up yesterday.”

I shoot her an icy glare. “Excuse
you
? Sweetie, I know I didn't let you get the cookie last night, so why is you coming at me like you just blew my back out?”

“Tramp, bye. Miss me with that. You can't do a thing for me.”

I give her a dismissive flick of the wrist. “Girl, have several seats. What do you want?”

She rolls her eyes. Tells me I was supposed to meet her down at the library so we could work on our English Lit project together. Uh, hel-
lo
? I didn't know I needed to hold her by the hand to get it done.

“Alicia, boo. Riddle me this,
hun—
'n' I'm only gonna ask you this one time: Did I eff with you when you had that double chin 'n' were rockin' thick glasses 'n' wobblin' your way down the halls the last three years?”

She frowns.

“Exactly,” I say, not giving her a chance to respond. “I didn't do you then. So I'm not doing you
now
, sweetie, just 'cause you can finally squeeze ya'self into a pair of stretch leggings 'n' not look like a beached whale wrapped in Saran wrap. So if you think staying after school to work on some paper with you is gonna happen, you're sadly mistaken, hun. You do your portion. And . . .”

She bucks her eyes.

“Yo, what's good, Fiona?” P-Money—I mean, Pauley—says, walking by.
Hunnni
. . . listen. He's a real cutie-boo for a white boy. And he loves him some chocolate pie. Mmph. And he's hanging, too. Oh, how I know? Mmph. How you think? I sampled the vanilla stick. Let him swirl it all up in my chocolate love-cup last summer when I ran into him down on the Ave. one night. I sure did. Things got real hot 'n' heavy for like fifteen minutes, then it was over. Boy, bye. My engine was just gettin' revved up 'n' here this boy was already at the finish line. Sweating like he'd run a two-hundred-mile race. Mmph. Noooo, thank you!

“Heey, Pauley,” I coo, checking him out. He's rocking the new KDs with a pair of baggy jeans. His red polo shirt is half tucked-in. And his long hair is done up in cornrows. Two weeks ago he wore his dirty-blond hair out in a huge 'fro.

Mmph. Can you say confused?

This boy can't decide if he wants to be the next Huey P. Newton or Snoop Dogg one minute or Malcolm X the next. Chile, boom! I can't with him.

“What's good, Alicia?” he says, keeping his shimmering blue eyes on me.

“You, boo,” she says, grinning ear to ear. But she's too caught up in tryna be fabulous to see he isn't even checkin' for her like that. “You still have my number?”

He peels his gaze away from me, glancing at her. “Yeah, I got it. Why? You tryna chill?”

She smacks her lips. “Maybe.”

I laugh.

Alicia shoots me a dirty look. “I know you not even tryna hate.”

“
Hate?
No, hun. Never that.”

“Then what the hell's so funny?”

I raise a brow. “First of all, check ya tone, boo. Second of all”—I ease up on Pauley 'n' loop an arm through his—“he ain't checkin' for you. Now, good day.”

Pauley grins, then looks over at her. “Yo, me 'n' my baby out. I'll holla.”

“Not today you won't,” I say, tossing a look over at Alicia. She peers at me through narrow slits. I toss my hair. “Don't hate, boo.”

“Eff you, tramp,” she hisses, storming off in the other direction.

Pauley laughs. “Yo, why you do ole girl like that? You ice cold, babe.”

I shrug. “I don't wanna talk about her.”

He grins again, glancing at me. “Oh, word? What you wanna talk about? Me 'n' you?”

I frown. “C'mon again. Not,” I say as we turn the corner toward my geometry class. “I hear you done bagged you up some ratchet-snatch.”

He laughs. “Yo, you crazy, Fee. Word is bond. Where you hear that?”

“Don't worry, boo-boo. News travels. Besides, ya name's scribbled all over the girls' bathroom wall 'bout how you been motorboatin' Quanda's jugs.”

He cracks up. “You wildin', yo. Hahahahaha. But, nah, nah. It ain't even like that. We just chillin'.”

“Uh-huh. Code word for we sexin'.”

He keeps laughing.

“You know I'm not one to gossip. But—” I stop, eyeing Quanda as she walks in our direction. “Ooh, here come ya boo now,” I tease, leaning into him.

He laughs, shaking his head. “She ain't my
boo.
Just somethin' to do.”

“Uh-huh. Good luck with that.”

Quanda squints, her eyes darting from me to Pauley, then locking onto my arm looped through his. She stops dead-smack in front of us. Hand on hip, head cocked. “Umm, Pauley. You not even 'bout to play me, boy.” She shoots me a look. “Umm. Do you mind gettin' up off my man?”

I look up at him, easing my arm free. “Ooh-ooh, no worries, hun. He's all yours.” I start laughing. “Apparently somebody didn't get the memo. Pauley, I'll catch you later, boo.”

He gives me a nod. “No doubt. Yo, what's good, Quanda? Why you steppin' up on me like that, like you tryna check a nucca? You know what it is, yo.”

“I don't 'preciate you disrespectin' me, huggin' up on no trick.”

I blink. Stop in my tracks. Turn to look at her. “Excuse
you
?”

“You heard me,” she snaps. “Get ya own damn man 'n' stay the hell away from mine! You hoes stay tryna steal somebody else's boyfriend.”

“Yo, hol' up, hol' up,” Pauley says, putting his hands up. “Chill, Quanda. Now you doin' too much.”

“Chill, hell, boy! You not gonna be playin' me.”

I start laughing. “Ooh, sounds like somebody forgot to take her cuckoo meds this morning. Girl, bye. I'm not thinkin' about Pauley. And I'm definitely
not
thinking about
you
.”

Quanda starts gettin' loud as usual, rolling her neck 'n' talking. Always on ten, always ready to bring the rah-rah, this chick loves attention. Loves to make a scene. She makes a buncha promises to beat my face in if I ever disrespect her again. Demands I keep my hands off of Pauley.

Now her lil performance becomes amusing to me. I crack up laughing. “Girl,
boom
! You a real live circus, boo. Go have several seats at the back of the bus, sweetie, 'cause you ain't ready for the front row. Trust. If I
wanted
Pauley, I would have him. Been there, done that. All you're doing, sweetie, is chasing behind what I've already had.”

“All right, girls,” Mrs. Sheldon—one of the AP English teachers—says, coming out of her classroom. “You girls break this nonsense up 'n' get to class before both of you find yourselves in detention.”

Quanda sucks her teeth. “Oh, this ain't over.”

“Girl, bye! Kiss my phatty, silly trick.”

I step off just as the bell rings.

B
y seventh period I push into Mr. Nandi's African-American Studies class, exhausted 'n' so ready to get this class 'n' the rest of this day over with. And it doesn't help that my G-string keeps irritating the heck outta me. Oh, this is so, so not cute. I slide onto my chair in the back of the class, pulling out my notebook 'n' pen from my bag.

I glance up at the wall clock. The bell rang four minutes ago 'n' there's still no sign of Mr. Nandi. He's always late. Mostly because the old freak be all up in the staff lounge tryna sniff up in the French teacher Mrs. Duvet's drawz. She's married. He's married. And they both being messy. The whole school knows that she doesn't have a class seventh period, so he sneaks a few minutes right after his sixth period class to make goo-goo eyes at her. If you ask me—which you didn't—I think Mrs. Duvet gave his ole nasty butt some.

Ugh. How sickening.

“Yo, you ready for the test?” Travis Richardson says as he slides into the seat next to me. He's one of my ex-boos. Dark chocolate, just like I like 'em. Okay, okay. He's not dark chocolate; try blueberry black. But whatever. Miesha has him in one of her classes. Algebra, I think. Anyway, she can't stand him. She calls him Crispy Critter. Yeah, he's exceptionally ugly in the face, but his body is ridiculous. Whew! Yes, lawd gawd,
hunni
! Seeing him standing in the middle of his bedroom in his wifebeater 'n' his boxers with a pair of Timbs on used to give me life. Yes,
hunni
! Muscles everywhere. But, honey-boo, trust. The minute he stepped outta them drawz. Womp, womp, womp. Chile, boom! Ring the alarm. Who stole the beef, boo? Just sinful. But whatever. I'm not messy so I'm not gonna go in on him like that. All we ever did was kiss 'n' grind 'n' I gave him a lil hand time, if you know what I mean. But whatever. That itty-bitty situation he's got going on in his lap is not my concern. Finding out more about this test is.

I peel my gaze from his big juicy lips 'n' look him in his eyes. “What test?”

He shakes his head, gettin' up from his seat. “Damn. I was tryna cheat off you. But I see you just as effed up as me. Wit' ya ugly azz.”

I suck my teeth. “Boy, bye. Don't do me. Have you seen a mirror lately? Ugly is ya birthmark, boo. You wear it every day.”

“Yeah, a'ight. I got ya ugly, all right.”

I flick him a dismissive wave. “Yeah. You wish. It's painted on ya face.”

“I got—”

“Okay, class,” Mr. Nandi says, whisking through the door carrying a stack of papers. Silence quickly fills the air. Everyone knows Mr. Nandi can get real slick at the mouth, so no one says or does anything to get him turnt up. “My apologies for my tardiness. I was having copies made.”

I purse my lips as he makes his way up to the front of the class.
Uh-huh. Sure you were.
He sets the stack of papers on his desk, then walks over to the chalkboard and starts writing.

“I need for everyone to clear off their desks. The only thing you should have out is either a pen or pencil. Nothing else. If you do, I will fail you.” He turns to the class. “Is that understood?”

Everyone responds. Well, almost everyone. I'm still stuck on the fact that there's a test today. A test I do not recall being apprised of. Ooh, this is
so
,
so
, not good. Now I have to try to stage an escape so I don't wind up failing it. Getting an F is
not
an option. Oh no, boo. Fiona doesn't flunk, okay?

“Umm, Mister Nandi, sir?” I say all sweet 'n' whatnot, raising my hand.

He turns from the chalkboard 'n' looks at me. “Yes, Miss Madison.” He tilts his head. If I were a wacko pervert who was into stalking senior citizens, I'd probably have a slight crush on him. He's tall 'n' blueberry dark with smooth, shiny skin. Not a wrinkle in sight for an old man. I'm not even gonna lie. But, um, he probably could get it, too, if I were like in my forties.

“How can I help you?” he says, smirking. “Let me guess. You didn't know there was a test today, so you're not prepared. Is that it, Miss Madison?”

I twirl the end of a curl, then toss my hair. “No. I'm prepared . . .” Lies. “I'm not feeling good, though.” I lean forward, clutching my stomach. I grimace. “Uh. I really need a pass to the nurse's office.”

He scans the classroom. “Who else needs a pass to the nurse's office because they're ill-prepared for today's test?” Everyone turns 'n' looks over at me.

I blink.
Oooh, he's tryna do me!

“Well, I'll tell you what, Miss Madison.” He walks over to his desk, pulls out a pink-slip pad, then starts writing. “If you need to make a mad dash for the nurse's office then go right ahead. But know this. You will still get an F. There will be no makeup tests. Do you understand?”

He tears off the hall pass then lays it on the edge of his desk.

I swallow. “Umm. That's okay. I'll wait until after I'm done.”

“Smart girl. All right, class,” he says, grabbing the stack of papers from off his desk. “Once the test is in front of you, you may begin. There are a total of ten questions, each worth ten points.”

I say a silent prayer as he finally gets to my row 'n' places the test paper in front of me. The first question: How did the slave trade in Africa differ from the Atlantic slave trade?

I blink. Stare at the question for several minutes, then skip down to question number two: What was the Middle Passage?

Okay, okay. I know this one. I write in my answer, then move down to the next question: How did the American Revolution weaken slavery?

Yesss,
hunni
! I know this one as well. Now feeling more confident, I delve in, my brain clicking in overdrive to answer each question to ensure my grade is anything higher than a C.

Mmph. Old geezer tryna do me. Ha! I don't think so
.

With twenty minutes left of class, I'm finished. I skim over all my answers. Well, the eight that I knew. The other two I just put what I thought made sense. Then I look up from my test 'n' see everyone else still bent over their papers. I roll my eyes at Travis, who's tryna sneak a peek on the low over at this chick Natalie's test. I'm not gonna be messy 'cause that's not how I do mine. But she isn't the brightest lightbulb in the socket, so I'm not even sure why he's straining his eyeballs over on her desk. Desperation brings out the worst in us, I suppose.

I glance at my answers one more time, then stand up 'n' walk to the front of the room, my hips swishin' 'n' swayin' every which way like nobody's business. Truth is, I'm shakin' 'n' poppin' these hips tryna get this annoying crack-floss situated. I make a mental note to never, ever wear these things to school again.

I plop my test paper on Mr. Nandi's desk.

He looks up from his magazine. “Ah, Miss Madison. Finished already?”

“Yup.” I toss my hair.

He picks up the test 'n' glances at my answers. He eyes me, then reaches for the hall pass. “I guess you won't be needing this after all.”

I blink. “Umm. Come again. Yes, sir, I still do. Please 'n' thank you.”

He raises his brow 'n' eyes me all kinda crazy before he hands me the hall pass. I turn 'n' hurriedly head back to my desk to gather my things. Of course, Travis says something real slick under his breath as I walk by his desk. I pop him upside his pickle head.

“Ow.”

“Miss Madison!” Mr. Nandi scolds. “I will not have violence in my classroom. Do I make myself clear?”

I roll my eyes.

“Miss Madison, do you hear me speaking to you?”

“I heard you,” I snap, snatching up my handbag.

“Good. Now hear this: You'll have two days' detention starting tomorrow.”

“
Whaaat?
Are you
frickin'
kidding me, right now? He's the one who said he wanted to eat my cookie out!” I smack Travis upside his head again.

“Now let's make it three days. And if you keep it up you'll find yourself spending the rest of the week in in-school suspension.” Travis laughs. “Mister Richardson, I wouldn't be too quick to laugh if I were you because if I catch your eyes wandering over onto anyone else's test paper again, I'm going to fail you.”

I stomp off, swinging open the classroom door. I shut the door, mindful not to slam it. I'm pissed. Not stupid, okay?

“Yo, what's good, Fiona?” Benji says as he's coming out of a classroom across the hall at the same time as me. He licks his lips, then grins. “Damn, this must be my lucky moment. I was just 'bout to hit the bathroom to handle this situation in my pants, but here you are.”

I roll my eyes. “No. Your lucky moment will be when you graduate from high school.” I keep walking. “But don't let me stop you from handlin' that situation in ya drawz.”

He hurries over 'n' falls into step beside me. “Yeah, a'ight. Whatever, yo. Where you on ya way to?”

“Why?”

“Let's go sneak in the girls' bathroom.”

I shoot him a nasty look. “Boy, bye. Your ten-minute joyrides into heaven are over, boo.”

He laughs. “You know you still want this beef jerky.”

“Lies, lies, 'n' more lies. Think what you like, boo-boo.”

He moves in closer to me 'n' lightly nudges my shoulder with his as we round the corner for the stairs. As soon as we get into the stairwell, he's up on me, pulling me into him. His hand moves all over me. He covers my lips with a kiss.

“Stop!” I say, tryna push him off me. But he doesn't let go of me. He keeps pressing himself into me, tryna feel up on my boobs. So now I gotta turn it up a notch. “What the hell?! I said stop, Benji! Get off me!”

Whap!
I slap his face. Then knee him in his groin. He lunges over, grabbing his crotch.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“See, I told you to get off me.” I slap him again. “No means no. Asshole!”

I storm off down the stairs. I don't know if I'm more pissed at the fact that he really tried to do me in the stairwell, or that I almost broke a fingernail.

All I know is, I need a Pepsi 'n' a cigarette!