The World According to Tom

     Tom walked through the hallway, and through the corner of his eye he saw Leslie approaching him. He noticed her bright, cheery smile and greeted her with a "Hello!" he hoped was as cheery. Leslie looked radiant, dressed very chicly and fashionably to suit her delicate charm. Tom was faintly jealous.
     He remembered when Leslie had first appeared at the school, shy and only noticeable by her extremely odd taste in clothes. It wasn't long before shallow Sarah, at least pretending to be nice, had swooped down on the poor girl and transformed her, and standing before him was the result. Tom had decided Leslie was in the distinct minority of popular girls who were actually nice, charitable human beings. She was not one of the school's most notable students, but Tom enjoyed her presence very much. Sadly, the same could not be said for Leslie's former good pal Sarah.
     Tom and Sarah had been good friends as well, but, as of that very day, she repulsed him. In his younger days, he had pretended to have a deep crush on her. It was very easy to do, for Sarah was a very lovely girl, with her tight clothes, heavily tanned skin, and suspiciously black and glossy hair. However, when Tom actually started speaking to her, he found she grew less and less beautiful with every foolish and spiteful word she spoke. Still, being of the same high school social class, they naturally grouped together. But now he was older, and he had finally realized he could stop speaking to her and start hanging out with nice girls like Leslie, and he did. Sarah, who did not see these things very well, barely seemed to notice.
     However, she did notice things like Leslie conversing with Tom, which disagreed with her very rigid view of high school social structure. As Tom began talking with Leslie, he pretended not to see Sarah's glare of uninhibited rage from down the hallway.
     "Tom!" Leslie piped delightedly. "I haven't seen you since... since last week!"
     "Yes," he replied, still smiling. "I've been sick."
     "I thought you'd miss Homecoming! And with you looking forward to it so much."
     She refered to the football game, not the dance, which Tom actually did not care for that much. But at the mention of a game, Tom grew excited once again, and uttured a loud whoop of the kind that rarely meant anything to anyone but teenage boys. Leslie laughed.
     "I meant the dance. You're going, right?"
     "Eh, I don't know..."
     "What? But you have to! According to the rules of the high school football jock archetype, you must show up at the dances with a really hot girl."
     "Oh? And do you have anyone in mind?"
     "Oh-" Shrill giggles punctuated the air. "Um, no, I don't. Have you?"
     "Yeah. Whitney Brown, over there." He indicated a girl with a rather tragically large stomach.
     There were more giggles. "Don't be mean, you jerk. I thouht you were going with Sarah."
     They both looked back to Sarah, still standing at her locker. If possible, her glare intensified. Tom looked away, embarrassed, struck by how horrible a glamorous face could become in anger.
     "I think she's mad," Leslie said, sounding not entirely concerned. "Oh well."
     After a few tactful moments, she said, "But, are you going. You should! Even if you weren't a jock."
     Tom shrugged. "Who would I go with?"
     "Whitney Brown, of course. Don't be stupid. When Homecoming comes, all the available girls line up and wait to be picked up, hopefully by guys like you. Like prostitutes," she added.
     "You do realize, after you said that, I can't possibly go to the dance with that on my mind."
     "Don't be silly. Go with me!"
     This was not the first offer. Tom himself wasn't hard on the eyes, as well as athetic, popular, and intelligent. But what really made him irresistable was that he was in the distinct minority of athletic-popular-intelligent teenage boys who wouldn't try to smoothly remove his date's clothes by the end of the evening (at least, if his date was a girl). However, this was the first offer he seriously considered.
     "Or not," she said mildly, after his hesitation.
     "Nah, I'll go."
     "Really?! Yay!"
     And that was that for the two of them. They walked away, even forgetting about Sarah's unfaltering red-hot glare.