“Leah!” I screamed. “Oh, my gosh! What are you doing here!”
“I followed you,” she explained. “After I opened up your lunch box this afternoon and found those disgusting dentures and that slimy toupee, I figured that something was for sure wrong.” She batted her eyelashes furiously. “Jendra, what’s going on here?”
“Gee!” I said. “You sure picked a lousy time to show up!”
“Traitor!” Jamey yelled suddenly, charging forward. “You see, Tina?” she said. “I told you she was a traitor. Your little friend Jendra led a stranger to our sacred shrine.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I argued. “She just followed me. I don’t know how it happened.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly hard,” said Leah. “You were the only person out on the street, and you looked like one of the Rockettes. Just exactly why do you keep dancing like that, anyway?”
Glaring at me viciously, Tina declared, “Because she’s so hungry!” Right away I started doing my own special version of the Mexican Hat Dance. I felt like an idiot, but I couldn’t exactly do much about it. Meanwhile, Jamey Fitzhughston grabbed Leah and tied her up in the corner.
“Why are you doing this?” I wailed, stamping my foot rhythmically. “Leah and I didn’t do anything to you!”
“You sent your friend to spy on our sacred ceremony,” said Jamey Fitzhughston ruthlessly, “and the penalty for that is death.”
“Death!” I squeaked, twirling around in a perfect pirouette. “That’s a little harsh isn’t it? Couldn’t you just send us into another dimension like everybody else?”
For her part, Leah started whining and blinking her eyes so much I’m sure she couldn’t see anything at all.
“Wait a minute!” I said in horror. “Death? Lien Hua, you said that the band director ran away to a cemetery in Wyoming last year.” I turned on all of them savagely. “But you killed him, too. Didn’t you?”
Tina looked confused.
“No,” Lien Hua said with a laugh. “He really did move to Wyoming. I just made that up to be funny.”
“Lien Hua!” I shrieked.
“Silence!” Tina commanded solemnly in a booming voice. She dropped to her knees and declared in an eerie voice, “We will ask Athena for her guidance.”
“She means the pompon,” I said, nodding toward the giant glass case. “Over there.”
Leah’s eyes just kept on widening until they were enormous. “Oh, my gosh!” she said. “Jendra, do your parents know about this?”
Meanwhile, Tina’s head was tilted back, and for some reason, she was making these weird, otherworldly gurgling noises in the back of her throat. Abruptly she sat up and announced, “The pompon has spoken.”
“Does she say to let us go?” I hoped as I bounced gracefully from one corner of the room to another.
“No!” Tina boomed. “She says that there must be a sacrifice.”
Tina paced around me cagily. Suddenly she snapped her fingers and yelled, “Turkey!” As soon as I stopped dancing, Jamey hurried over and tied my hands behind me.
“How could you do this?” I wailed. “I thought you were my friend. Besides”—I suddenly remembered—“you can’t kill me. You need a mascot for the Pompon Follies.”
“We can always find another seventh grader just as gullible as you,” Tina predicted ominously. “The Pompon Follies aren’t until next week. Don’t worry. Every girl at school is dying to be a cheerleader mascot.” She cackled wickedly. “And there’s just about to be an opening.”