Cheerleading Can Be Murder (Horror High #1) Read Free

clenched teeth.
    We found an open spot at a nearby table and plopped down our trays. Sitting down, I caught a glimpse at an overhead clock. Tick tock. It was almost twelve-thirty. Only two and a half hours to go until tryouts. We’ll see who Ronnie wants to be with when I get a spot on the team and Genevieve doesn’t , I thought, prying open my milk carton angrily.
    I looked around the lunchroom at the rest of my peers, tuning Sydney out, and that was when I saw Ashleigh, the junior whose year it was to finally make the squad. She was perched at a table filled with people, but she was basically sitting alone. No one was talking or looking at her. With hair the color of dirty dishwater, gunmetal-gray eyes, and homely, holey clothing, the first word that came to mind was lonely . Under the table, the laces to her ragged running shoes were untied. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.
    In truth, Ashleigh deserved a spot on the team this year. I still had plenty of years ahead of me to make the team when the veterans were gone, but she was getting close to being out of chances. Although I wanted to make the team, I wanted her to make it too, I realized surprisingly.
    We can’t all make it though , I reminded myself, stuffing a french fry into my mouth. I chewed on it thoughtfully. Two tables up from Ashleigh was Brittani, the principal’s daughter. She’d never cheered before, but for some reason, she thought she could just walk into tryouts and claim a spot on the team, simply because her mom was Principal Barlow. That just didn’t seem fair, if you asked me.
    Brittani was surrounded by her usual entourage of friends, which was a combination of preps and nerds, chatting excitedly, talking about tryouts, no doubt. She was wearing her subtle brown hair in a tight, high ponytail, with a pair of glasses hanging on a string around her neck. Brittani did everything well. She made straight As, played tennis, and even co-coached volleyball on the weekends. How would she even have time to cheer? I wondered bitterly.
    I stuck more fries and ketchup in my mouth, glaring at Brittani. I had a feeling that, like everything else, Brittani would excel at cheerleading too.
    “You’re eating those fries like they pissed you off or something,” a voice called out from my left. Sydney was beside me, but the voice didn’t come from her. I looked over to see my new neighbor, Amanda Loxx, grinning down at me goofily. She took a seat on my right, clinking her tray against mine.
    I lived in one of those luxurious, mass-produced McMansions, in the middle of a suburbia called Harrow Hill—hence, the name of my high school. I’d lived here my entire life with my mother, father, and now new baby brother, Vincent. Despite the dozens of similar houses stacked around us, there were always few kids in my age group nearby. The kids in our neighborhood were either too old to want to play with me, or too young for me to do the same.
    That all changed when Amanda moved in next door with her grandmother, the infamous Mimi Loxx. Rumor has it, Grandma Mimi used to be a Vegas showgirl, and supposedly, a fast-paced life filled with glamour, drugs, and mini-stardom drove her a little batty. The woman was nearly ninety by now and known around town as a recluse. Local boys delivered her groceries and a professional lawn care service took care of the grounds upkeep. Never outside, the townsfolk of Harrow Hill never heard a peep out of her. That was, until her wild granddaughter Amanda showed up this summer.
    Amanda was only fifteen like me, but she didn’t look or act like anyone from around here. She had one of those short, Miley Cyrus hairdos, and a silver barbell in her left eyebrow. The first time I met her she was puffing on a Cambridge cigarette in the grassy area at the side of her Grandma Mimi’s house, squatting down low next to the air conditioning unit secretively. She had on a black, holey t-shirt with the words ‘ Kill Your TV’ scrawled