Anti-Cheer Squad (Ch. 2 posted)

Chapter 3: Conspiracy Theory

“By the way,” Jesse started, looking up at the slowly passing New York skyscrapers as they walked down the crowded sidewalks, “why do you keep calling that blonde kid Ghetto?”

Catherine smirked, skipping down the sidewalk with her arm linked with Zach’s. “I snuck a peek at his school record and found out where he lives,” she said, linking her arm with Jesse’s. “I could try kidnapping him while he’s sleeping, but I’m freakin’ scared of the ghetto. Fo’ shizzle.” Keeping her arms linked with Zach’s and Jesse’s, she flashed non-existent gang signs, getting odd looks from people on the streets.

“We could take Gary along,” Zach said, smiling at the tall boy beside him. “No one would bother jumping us with him around.” Gary laughed mockingly and ruffled Zach’s hair before smacking him playfully on the ear.

“Yeah right. I’m scared of the ghetto, too, Zachariah,” Gary laughed, seeing Zach’s face go red at the sound of his full name. He’d always wished his mom had been normal and named him Zachary. Gary turned to Catherine and smacked her on the back of the head. “Do you need any-thing before coming over? We could stop at your house on the way.”

Catherine wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather not stop at home. Echibu found out I was the one who broke the coffee table, and she has not been a happy black woman,” Catherine shivered at the idea. Echibu was the nickname they’d given their Jamaican nanny, but why they ever started calling her “Echibu”, neither of them could remember.

She was a fairly large woman, and always kept her hair wrapped up and tied back and usually wore a long wrap-around dress. Even in that dress, to Catherine’s horror, she had learned long ago that Echibu could easily keep up with, and beat, her when it was necessary.

Zach rolled his eyes and grinned. He never got into any trouble with Echibu.

The five of them turned another corner lined with Catherine’s favorite clothing stores, and a good friend’s tattoo shop. Dragging her forcibly away from every window that had a plaid skirt, Gary finally picked her up and slung her over his shoulder the rest of the way to his house. Still, though Catherine wasn’t ever completely still, she calmed in the chill of the New York air.

New York had a way all its own, thankfully for those five. It was obvious that if they’d been anywhere else, they’d all be the odd man out. It wasn’t uncommon to see a woman walk out of a tattoo shop with her arms and legs covered with the ink.

Gary turned on to a set of stairs and walked up to his black and yellow house. Like most of the homes, because New York wasn’t famous for housing space, his was in a line with others all squashed together with only a little bit of a backyard. “Gary,” Catherine started, punching him in the back, “I hate your house, but I love your basement.”

Gary rolled his eyes. “Only because you left your microphone here.”

“Yeah, that too…”

“René, Jasper, I’m home!” Gary yelled, still carrying Catherine on his back.

“Mummy, Father, I’m home!” Catherine yelled back, slipping out of Gary’s grip as he let her down on the floor.

René Wexler, a tall blonde woman with lightly tanned skin and dark brown eyes, cocked her hip out to the side and whapped her son on the head with a dish rag. “You don’t call me René,” she said, kissing him on the cheek before hitting Catherine with the rag as well. “And I’m not your mom.” Looking around, she smiled at the full house. “Band practice, honey?”

Gary nodded, pulling Jesse inside the door before he slid down the railing again. “Where’s Dad?” René rolled her eyes and walked past the group into the open kitchen.

“Well, to put it in his words he’s ‘going off to listen to some crap-ass band’,” she laughed and turned back to Gary. Jasper Wexler, who was just as blonde and tan as René and Gary, was a manager for a music label, but no matter how much begging, pleading, bribing, and threatening, he always refused to sign their band.

“He should be back in a while, depending on if he can sneak out or not,” René laughed, winking at Gary. Catherine jumped on his back, making him catch her at the last second. She reached over, patting René on the head.

“Not that I don’t love family moments,” she said, biting Gary on the ear, “but can we get on with practice?” Shrugging her off, Gary ushered them all down into the basement. It was normal, as basements go, with hard cement walls and the occasional small window and light bulb. But it was also filled with a black and red drum set pushed off at the back, two guitars in the middle of the floor, and a microphone at the front.

Pushed off to the far left corner, both covered in a sheet, were the old bassist’s bass and an extra microphone.

Skipping over to her microphone, Catherine then turned and stared at the rest of the band as they either checked their top hat or the tuning on a guitar. “Ready?” She said, smiling. Eddie and Jesse gave her a perfectly tuned chord, and Gary slammed his cymbals. “Perfect.”

___________________________
Jasper Wexler came home to the sound of loud guitars, drums, and a singer who had just about forgotten her cues without her backup. “René!” He yelled over the racket, turning a corner into the kitchen. “Please tell me I’m just reliving that audition I just left…”

Turning and looking at her husband solemnly, she shook her head and put her hand on her hip, staring at the door to the basement. “Afraid not,” she said, her smiling mouth sinking down to a frown. “They just…need practice. They did just lose their bassist…”

Jasper sighed, taking a long drag on a cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table. The five of them had piled their bags at one corner of the room. “Sometimes I think we had five kids instead of one,” he said, rubbing his head. “Who all’s here?”

René shrugged. “The usual, but they dragged Zach here for once,” she said, smiling wide. He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. It had never completely settled with him that Gary was totally and irrevocably gay, and with a boyfriend. René laughed and dumped a batch of steaming spaghetti into the strainer. “Ah, I love cooking for these big groups.”

From down below in the basement, there came a sudden sound of cymbals crashing and loud microphone backfiring. “That is it! I give up!” Catherine screamed and ran up the stairs about to tear her hair out. René looked up, still smiling.

“Hello, dear. Staying for dinner?” She asked brightly, gesturing towards the full strainer.

Catherine turned to her, smiling from ear to ear. “Of course!”
Gary, Zach, Eddie, and Jesse stood on the basement steps and watched in amazement as her rage had cooled from the brainlessness of René Wexler. For her, screaming was just another form of communication. The five, now including Catherine again, sat at the table with Jasper.

“So…uh, Dad…” Gary said, looking at his father nervously. “H-how was the band you went to check out?” He soon realized it wasn’t the best question to ask when Jasper exhaled a large puff of smoke. He usually never smoked in the house.

“Terrible,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Nothing was in tune, the drum set got pulled off the riser. Twice. The lead singer just stood there sweating the whole time. No motivation, no stage presence… No deal.” Gary laughed, looking at Eddie and Jesse. It didn’t sound too far off from their own rehearsal, but Catherine didn’t look like laughing any time soon.

Leaning across the table to Jasper, she puckered her lips and put her hands together. “You know a perfectly good band right in front of you, father dear, and you won’t even listen to us. Now why is that?” Jasper rolled his eyes and flicked her on the forehead, leaning forward.

“Catherine, I’ve heard you,” he said sternly, his eyes darting between her and the eyes of the rest of the band. “But I will tell you what will happen if I become your manager. As much as I will try to cover up being Gary’s dad, it will get out. The second they find out that little piece of gossip, you’re the most hated band of the genre. Besides, I know you’re good enough to climb the ladder to fame.”
Gary smiled, taking a fork-full of spaghetti. “Though you do need some way to find a new bassist and backup singer,” Jasper said, grinning.

Catherine clicked her tongue. “We found a back-up singer.”

“Good. Who?”

She wrinkled her nose and crossed her arms. “Leon Forrester. Scrawny kid, but a voice as good as Gerard Way’s…” Jasper snickered, knowing Catherine’s obsession with the cult icon.

“Then why didn’t you bring him here today? I could teach him bass, you know.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Eddie broke in, resting his head in the palm of his hand. “Cat kind of decided this on her own, so he has no clue he’s our new back-up singer.”

“We were planning on kidnapping him,” Zach laughed, eyeing Catherine with a smirk.

She looked back at him, her brow arched and the edges of her mouth dropped. “You think you’re kidding, don’t you?” she said, smacking him in the back of the head. “That is the plan, smart-ass.”

He laughed, leaning on Gary before Catherine smacked him again.
Jasper, from across the table, rubbed his temple and looked up at her. “So let me get this straight… You probably barely this kid, right?” He said, gesturing towards her, and she, with a large smile, nodded rapidly. “Right… But you’re going to kidnap him and make him be part of Anti-Cheer Squad? Catherine, you can’t always have everything your way.”

Clicking her tongue again, she leaned back with her arms crossed. “Name one time, not involving Echibu,” she said, cutting
Zach off with the last part, “that I didn’t get my way.”

Zach rolled his eyes. “What about the time Matt Campbell got a better grade on his trebuchet for Physics?”

“Perhaps, but for that offense he was duly punished.”

Gary raised an eyebrow, but held up his hands and said, “I don’t want to know. It probably had something to do with those creepy porcelain dolls of yours.”

“And you would be correct,” Catherine said, grinning.

Catherine and Zach stayed there for a few hours before walking out the door, soon followed by Eddie and Jesse. It was never dark on that side of New York with bright signs and street lights always guiding a way and lighting a dark alley, and they arrived home safely, greeted by their mother Isabelle, and their father Jonas.

On the other side of town, where streetlights seemed to stray and fade, Leon walked carefully though the terrain was familiar. Nothing was safe, and no one was waiting, on this side of town.[/size]

Chapter 2: Backup

“Listen guys,” Catherine said, standing straight legged on top of the cement bench with her arms crossed over her chest, “we have a crisis. Thank you, Jesse, by the way…” She, Gary, and Eddie all turned to look at the younger one. Catherine herself was imagining daggers, while the other two were content in staring guilt into him.

Pressing his lips together tightly, he leaned back on the hard yellowed grass of late fall. “Oh, come on, what did I do? That guy quit on his own!” He said rapidly, flipping his too long hair out of the way. Gary snorted and smacked Jesse on the back of the neck.
“He quit after you pushed him into the mosh pit, dude.”

“Yeah, and he broke his leg, too,” Eddie added, smiling slightly. “Good job, little bro.”

Jesse blew his hair away again and pulled his knees up under his chin. “He wasn’t that good of a singer anyway.” Catherine groaned, but she agreed. Their voices didn’t match well together, but what she also had to admit was that he was a good bassist. But instead of agreeing with the boy, Catherine waved her hands out in front of her face.

“Whether it was his random bass solos or Jesse’s inability to sit still, we still don’t have a back-up singer, or a bassist.” She felt like screaming, having to repeat it every two minutes and out on the cold school ground. Though going back inside would be easier, she knew the second the set foot inside the building, one of them would have an urge to run around like a maniac and they’d all be scrutinized for it. It went with the saying, Hang with a group, hang with their trouble, that her own mom would say every time Catherine or Zach came in with an “undeserved” detention.

Gary blew a piece of dark blonde hair out of his face and leaned over on Zach, hugging him tight until the much smaller boy groaned. Catherine whipped her head around to see the not-so-obvious distress of her twin, though she narrowed her eyes and bopped Gary on the head with her folder.

“I demand an explanation for this faggotry!” She smacked her brother on the head too and then Gary a second time.

He narrowed his eyes, now, and pulled his scarf up over his nose. “I’m cold, Zach’s warm, I’m his boyfriend, end of story,” he said it quickly and put his head on Zach’s shoulder, who received it warmly and smiled. Anything to make Catherine uncomfortable was well worth getting in trouble over PDA for.

“Gary Elijah Wexler and Zachariah Jonas Klein!” Catherine squealed, grabbing her head with her long nailed fingers, all painted in black and red respectively. “I am having a crisis, and all you two can think about is your own little butt buddies, you sicken me…” Catherine threw her arms over her head saying, “I give up!”

Jumping down from the bench, she quickly realized her reason for being up there in the first place; she was shorter than every guy around her, though Jesse barely beat her by half an inch. The four other boys followed behind her at the heel and hip across the school yard where most people were still eating. Between the five of them, including Zach, food never lasted long. Their band director had warned them when they started marching; “This is not the time to go on a diet. You will eat like a fat kid, and you will lose weight.”

Catherine looked around while she walked, as if she could spot her new singer and bassist by looking at them long enough. Gary strode up beside her, falling into step with her. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Listen, Cat, there are a bunch of really good girl singers--”

“No!” She said quickly and without hesitation. “I am the only girl singer in this band. I need a boy backup singer for contrast and duets, we’ve talked about this!” Gary rolled his eyes again and slowed his pace to where he was behind Catherine and beside Zach.

Laughing, he turned to Zach and put his arm around his shoulders. “Who she wants is Gerard Way,” he said, where he thought Jesse, Zach, and Eddie could only hear. But Catherine, not skipping a beat, flipped him off with both hands.

“Fuck you,” she said in a sing-song voice, “I’d be happy with Gerard Way or Bill Kaulitz, bitch.” Gary threw his head back laughing as hard as he could. Catherine smirked, swinging her hips, and singing as many profanities as she knew.

“Looks like she’s back to normal,” Eddie laughed, putting his arm around Jesse. “Don’t worry, she won’t stay mad for long, Jess.” Jesse smiled his wide smile, showing every last tooth he had.. Eddie messed up his hair and sprinted ahead to catch up with Gary’s long strides.

Eddie fell in to step with Catherine, Zach, and Gary as always, and looked up at the sparsely placed trees in the school yard. “So what do we do now?” He asked, turning slightly towards Catherine. She groaned, rubbing the back of her neck.
“Find another singer and bassist,” she mumbled, sticking her tongue out. “If we could find one in the same I’d be happier than Pete Wentz with a lifetime supply of eyeliner...”
Gary snickered, arching an eyebrow. “Why would anyone give Pete Wentz a lifetime supply of eyeliner?”

“Because he’s Pete Wentz. A-duh,” she said, curving her right hand into an rainbow over her heart and twitching it. Gary did the same to her before smacking her on the back of her head and making her squeal.

The five of them settled under an autumn colored tree, though Gary and Zach stood, hands entwined. “Coke, listen,” Gary started, using Catherine’s favorite nickname to coax her, “we don’t’ particularly...need a bassist or backup singer.”

Catherine slowly turned her head around and stood from where she sat in a pile of brown and golden leaves. Standing on her toes and grabbing Gary by the hood of his shirt, “Listen you...” She held her forefinger up under his nose, but then clapped her hand over his mouth. “Hush...”
Letting go of Gary’s hood, she ran around the tree as if looking for something.

“Umm... Coke?” Jesse said, catching her by the ankle, only to have her kick him in the face.
“I hear a boy singing...” she said quietly, smiling suddenly, getting low to the ground where her butt almost touched.

Zach sighed. “Cat, someone probably just has their boom box turned up too loud.”

Again, turning slowly until she was staring straight at Zach, she said, “Zach, if you don’t stop being a pessimist this instant, I will personally castrate Gary right here, right now.”

Startled, Gary slapped his hand over Zach’s mouth. “No need!” He said tightly. Catherine stared at him for another second before smiling again and running off to one corner of the school yard.

“Catherine?” Eddie tried grabbing for her as she passed him, but barely skimmed the heel of her boot. “Cat, wait!” He turned to Gary, who was running after Catherine, but didn’t try to get any sort of answer out of him.

That corner of the yard was almost completely deserted, and though Gary couldn’t tell who the poor person that Catherine was running towards, his stomach dropped into his shoe when he saw the very familiar light blonde hair. Catching up to her and trying to grab for her hood a second too late, he saw Catherine go off into a full sprint and Spiderman leap on top of Leon.

He’d been slumped over some overdue school work that Miss Coogan was letting him make up during their lunch hour, only to be jumped halfway through his work and an Everclear CD.

“Hey, buddy,” Catherine squealed, a Cheshire cat smile spread over her face. He looked back, surprised and shocked, his eyes darting between Catherine’s crazy smile and Gary’s embarrassment.

Grabbing his head and stroking his oily hair, Catherine laughed. “You know, you didn’t tell me you can sing,” she giggled, taking his headphones off his ears. “Can you play bass, too?”

Pushing her off, Leon grabbed up his CD player, headphones, and any pens Catherine had made him lose. “No, I don’t play bass,” he said, walking away, leaping out of Catherine’s way when she made another attempt to grab him. “And like I said, I don’t plan on being in any sort of band with you or anyone else. So leave me alone.”

Catherine watched him walk away while Gary picked her back up and brushed the brown grass off her jacket. “Don’t worry about it, Cat,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. “He’s a prick, butt munch, and whatever else it is you call people. We’ll find somebody else.”With that, he finished the usual ritual of insulting anyone who turned her down.

But Catherine shrugged Gary’s arm off her shoulders and turned to face him. “No, I want him,” she said, smiling. Skipping back to the three they’d left behind, Catherine crossed her arms. “Okay guys, search is over. We have our new backup, now we just have to force him to take the job...”

I really like this story, and I think it has real potential. The only thing I have to complain about is the fact that you don't have anything to separate the story from Leon's thought. Please italicize it:

No, she could take me.

Chapter 1: Leon


No one looked around when the sound of hurried, nervous running filled the hallways. A teacher barely looked up from their computer before seeing the light blonde flash of hair by the door before sighing loudly and looking away. Not one student turned their head. They only rolled their eyes and laughed. They all knew who was late.

Leon Forrester.

“Well, well,” Miss Coogan said, looking up from her novel and scanning the young boy up and down, who now stood in her doorway, looking quite guilty, “look who decided to join us. No excuse again, Leon?” A few students turned, taking enjoyment from the defeated look when he shook his head and took a seat hurriedly near the front, hoping that this attempt at participation would keep him out of the line of fire.

After a minute, Miss Coogan went on reading and walking around the room. Stopping only when she reached Leon, and only for a moment, she slipped him a copy of Deathwatch, patted him on the back, and went on around the room until she again stopped at the front of the room where she stayed.

The class went on normally, questions being asked and answered about the psychology of the characters and meaning of predator and prey. In all, Leon raised his hand once, only to be overlooked for the girl who sat beside him. Catherine Klein, of course, would always get the answer right on key.

The school genius--and nutcase--who all teachers hated to love, and hated to hate. Loved by all, until she did something so far-fetched it became something no one would believe unless they had seen. Such as, just a month before in an attempt to copy Real Genius, she tried freezing the school hallway, only coming up with ice everywhere, crying and wondering why it didn’t work.

After her question and answer session, Miss Coogan excused herself, tapping her two sons on the head on her way out. Once her youngest son, Jesse Coogan, signaled that she was out of sight, the class roared to life in conversation. The two who stayed somewhat composed were Leon and Catherine, though she was reading, and he just didn’t have any reason or anything to start a conversation with.

“You know,” Catherine said suddenly, snapping Leon out of dazed daydreams. He snapped his head around to look at her, and she was grinning widely, her eyes narrowed sinisterly. “No wonder none of the teachers like you. You’re always late with no excuse. This isn’t going to be good for your grades, mister.”

He rolled his eyes. She spoke like a child, making her voice go up higher than it was, and her friends and brother, scattered around the room, laughed when they heard her. “You’ll never get a well-paying job that way,” she went on, rocking back and forth in her chair. “You could be like me and come in at seven every morning, waiting forty-five minutes in the sweet, sweet cold before they open the doors!”

He rolled his eyes again, sticking his fingers in his ears and flipped their novel open to the chapter they’d left off at. He needed to catch up anyway, and thought it would be a good idea to go on and get ahead. He thought it was a good idea, until Catherine sat up on the table, right in front of him, and stole his book.

“You could also be like me, and start a band,” she said, smiling. “Ever heard us? We’re going to be at one of the clubs just a couple blocks down the street on Saturday, you should come on by.”

He narrowed his eyes and, standing up, snatched his book away and had to restrain himself from smacking her in the head with it. But, he was sure there were about ten other guys in that room who would beat him up later if he did. No, he thought, looking at his own scrawny arm. No, she could take me herself.

Leon shook his head and set his book down slowly, swallowing hard and waiting until he could see straight again. “Listen, I didn’t sit here for the privilege of sitting beside you and hearing about how great you are. I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to listen to you, so leave me alone.” The more he spoke, the tighter his voice became until his teeth were grinding on top of each other.

Catherine looked taken aback, but regained herself quickly and flipped him on the forehead. “Still, you won’t get a well-paying job,” she said again, smiling widely.

“And a high school crap band pays well?” He smirked, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll bet you sound like every other Hawthorne Heights wannabe.” To this, Catherine and her three other band-mates stood up quickly, defensively and stared straight at him. He looked around, uncaring, seeing all who had stood up to defend themselves.

Eddie and Jesse Coogan, both fairly short, though Jesse as the youngest was shorter just at five and a half feet. The two had the same heart shaped face and deep blue eyes as their mother, though Jesse had his dad’s dark black hair. Eddie had his mother’s red hair. They stood side by side, as brothers do, and stared back menacingly.

At the table beside them, Catherine’s drummer Gary and her twin brother Zach had stood up. He had to keep himself from laughing at the height difference in the two boys. Zach, barely taller than Jesse, only reached Gary’s shoulder, who stood at six and a half feet.

“Want to say that again, punk?” Catherine said, lifting her arms above her head, flashing nonexistent gang signs. “I will challenge you to a dance off, right now!”

“A dance off?” Leon stared at her, unconvinced. He raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down. She was in no means dressed for dancing, wearing platform boots, jeans, a plaid half skirt and tight black hoodie.

She flipped the collar on her shirt and puckered her lips, putting her hip out to one side. “Nah,” she said, looking around the room and then at him. “Honestly, I don’t dance, unless you want to see the definition of white girl. You got off easy, Ghetto boy.” His eye twitched at the word. “Go on, guys, sit down.”

Waving her hand, the four boys who’d stood up rolled their eyes and sat back down. “You know, you’re really annoying,” Leon grumbled, sitting back down and slipping the book into his bag. Turning back to Catherine, he noticed she looked deep in thought before smiling again and forming her thumb and forefinger into an L and placing it on her forehead, sticking her tongue out.

“Yeah? Well you’re a loser,” and she laughed, knocking him in the shoulder. He laughed slightly, hitting her back, making her squeal like a child. Until the bell rang only five minutes later, Catherine and Leon went on insulting each other, and went in laughing, and students just watched the two in astonishment.