I glanced back at the guy and saw him watching me. I'd never lied about my age before, but looking at his eyes made me seriously consider doing it.

" I 'm sorry I keep staring at you," he said. "It's just that you remind me of someone." He looked down at the floor and shook his head. "You probably think that's a pickup line, don't you? You're going to put that into your supply along with the 'Is it hot or is it just you' line."

"No," I said. "Well—just as long as I remind you of someone who's pretty."

"Gorgeous," he said. "Stunning."

"See, that's much better than the 'Are you hot' line. Who do you think I look like?"

He shook his head. "I can't put my finger on it. That's what bothers me."

I took a step closer to him. "At this point most guys would just throw out the name of an impressive celebrity."

He laughed and leaned toward me. "I'm not making it up. You really do remind me of someone. Do you believe that?"

I nodded. "Actually when I first saw you I thought you looked familiar too."

His gaze grew more intense. "Maybe we've met before. Do you work on campus?"

"No." I doubted we'd ever met because I would have remembered him. I've got a good memory where good-looking guys are concerned.

The second song ended. It had been a short one. Probably because it's hard to find words that rhyme with curses. The music started up for the next one and Rick walked to the mike. "This is the song I'm going to sing for the auditions of High School Idol. I hope you'll all come out to support me as I rock to Dangerously Blonde."

"We must have met somewhere," the guy said. "What's your name?"

I hardly heard him because Rick sang the first verse of his song.

Chelsea is so pretty—

Every hair is in its place.

Lipstick adds a perfect smile

To her perfect face.

Yes, she's dangerously blonde.

The breath went out of my lungs. My heart slammed into my ribs. This song was about me. And although he'd called me pretty, he'd said the word like it was an insult. Time froze as I waited for the chorus of his song.

The guy stepped closer to me. "You do have a name, don't you?"

But I couldn't answer. I couldn't even talk. My gaze was stuck on the stage.

She'll wink at you, but

Only if you're cool.

Yeah, she knows what she needs to be.

It's all about pop-u-lar-ity,

When you're dangerously blonde.

"Are you okay?" the guy asked.

I had never been a violent person, but I wanted to wrestle the mike out of Rick's hands and club him with it. How could he do this to me in front of the entire senior class? Why did I deserve this?

The worst part of the whole thing was that—whereas most of Rick's songs sounded like they were wandering around in search of a melody—this song was catchy. It sounded like something you'd hear on the radio. People, people who went to my high school, clapped along. My sister was one of them.

It hurt to swallow. In another moment I would break into a thousand pieces. I turned to the guy, but only for a second. "I've got to go."

"Right now?" he asked.

"Sorry." I walked past him, making my way around the refreshment table.

"What's your name, at least," he asked, but I was not about to tell him my name was Chelsea when Rick was up in front of the room slandering it.

"Sorry," was all I could get out and I hurried away from him.

I took a deep breath. I had to make it to the door without bursting into tears or finding something to hurl at Rick. I could do this.

I would have to leave Adrian here. I wasn't about to walk up to the stage in front of everyone and cause a scene by trying to haul my sister away. It was bad enough that Rick had set his disdain for me to music. I wouldn't make it worse by showing everyone how it affected me.

I had just gone out the door when my friends caught up to me. Even Rachel came, which meant she had left the blond guy to talk to me.

Aubrie hurried to my side. "Chelsea, are you all right?"

"No," I said, and then the tears I'd held back spilled over anyway. I couldn't see but kept walking toward the parking lot.

"He's such a jerk," Aubrie said, and then Rachel added several more adjectives, most of which Rick had already set to music in songs about us.

Samantha glanced over her shoulder at the restaurant to make sure we were alone. "We need to go somewhere and talk. We can't let him do this to Chelsea. What if Rick actually makes it through the High School Idol auditions? We can't let him sing that song on national TV."

"How are we going to stop him?" I asked.

She looked around the group and then gazed at me. "I think you already know the answer to that question."

I held up my hands, using them to ask the question. "We cough on him and give him laryngitis?"

"No, Chels, you've got to sing. You've got to beat him at the auditions."

Chapter 7

We drove to Samantha's house, then sat cross-legged in her bedroom discussing the details.

"You still have two weeks to memorize a song. It will be easy," Samantha said. "You memorized 'Be True to Your School' without even trying."

"But Rick wrote his own song. How can I top that?"

Rachel waved off my question, like it was silly. "You're better looking and have nice legs. You don't think Britney Spears got where she is because she wrote her songs, do you?"

Aubrie considered me with her head tilted. "You'll need something sparkly to wear. Something that looks rock star. We'll look on the Internet."

"What if the High School Idol judges are mean?" I asked. "They chew people up and spit them out on those reality shows. I don't want the whole nation making fun of me because I forget a word, or drop a note, or pass out during the audition. I don't know if I can do this."

"Sure you can," Aubrie said. "We'll be your backup singers."

Samantha and Rachel shot her angry looks. Clearly, they were less than thrilled with the idea of being my backup singers.

"Oh come on," Aubrie said. "We do dances all the time. It will be just like one of our pep assembly routines."

"Except for potentially performing in front of millions of viewers," Rachel said.

Samantha let out a sigh. "Aubrie is right. We're in this together. Rick didn't just attack Chelsea. He wrote at least two songs about cheerleaders and who knows how many more that we didn't hear. Maybe he'll sing about all of us tonight. He wants to take us on, I say we make sure his stupid songs never see the light of day. It will be our revenge."

"Revenge of the cheerleaders," Rachel said, and we nodded in agreement.

After that we spent the next hour on the Internet. We looked at dozens of songs, trying to find something that was in my vocal range, with a good dance beat, and recognizable but not played out. I wanted to find a song about evil band members entitled "Dangerously Stupid," but apparently nobody has written that song yet.

Finally, and after much discussion, we chose Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)." It was fun, bouncy, and had a strong backup part. And besides, the words seemed easy to memorize.