5 Why Is The New Girl So Cool? (02)

Beth and Julianna turned around and saw a freshman walk past them with her friend on her side.

"Have you heard about that? There's this new student at Laurel called Simone. She's so fashionable and cool!"

"Wait, THAT Simone? I heard that she also starred in a popular sitcom when she was young. Besides, is she also an online singer?"

"Oh, yea! She sings a lot of songs and has her own channel. She also does fashion hauls. Look here." The freshman opened up a picture of Simone on her phone and passed it to her friend, "The hoodie and skirt she wore look so cute!"

Interestingly, Simone appeared just after these two people walked away. Next to her were two girls with elaborate makeup and dressed smartly. On the left side, she had this taller blondie with a high ponytail. The blondie clearly loved the emerald color--she wore an emerald coat, an emerald leather skirt, and a round-shaped emerald brooch on her sweater. On the left side, she had a shorter brunette in a pastel-colored shirt and long skirt, with a wicked smile. Simone herself was all dolled up with pink. Just look at her pink hair, dark pink hoodie with a cartoon cactus, and rose plaid dress.

The blondie turned to Simone. "Simone, are you going to do the runway show for this year?"

"Yee! I plan on doing the runway so that I may have a new outfit for a music video that I wanna shoot. I will start working on my clothing today after school in the art studio."

"I'm sure it will be great! Simone, I guarantee that you are the one going to the runway show and no one's going to challenge you. You are talented and amazing, and we want to make sure you know that." the brunette laughed.

"Absolutely! People who challenge you will be too stupid to actually do so!"

Beth felt a little bit jealous inside. She stared at Simone's pink hair and frowned. Simone and her group's presence was a walking mockery to her, and she couldn't help but blush and bite her lips. Simone Chandler? The flashy girl who performed on stage today? That "yee" sounds cheesy. Also, how can her friends just presume other people won't win? She tried to brush her jealousy off her sleaves. It's not helping. Look at how she rocks that pink color! Her inner self immediately sneered at her thought.

Just look! Those outfits look way too amazing on her!

Simply said, Beth felt like an ugly duckling in front of those three elegant swans.

"Beth?" Julianna pulled Beth out of her thoughts.

"Ah, nothing, Jules! Anyways, we must be productive and do our best for the competition!"

A silent war against Simone and her crew had started for Beth and Julianna. To win the war, Beth decided to take an advanced move. As soon as the afternoon classes had ended, Beth and Julianna run to the art studio at once. The art studio was now a battlefield, with Beth and Julianna early warriors, and pencil and drawing papers swords. Beth imagined a long dress decorated with lace and flowers and wanted to put what she imagined into reality.

After a while, things didn't turn out to be what she expected. She tried making a model of her imagined dress, but it ended up looking messy and scruffy.

'A romantic night out?' I thought I wanted my clothing to be richly ornamented with decorations. Shall I opt to change a design? It doesn't look like what I imagined at all.

Just then, a pink figure walked into the art room, followed by an emerald figure, and a pastel figure--

The opponents are here.

Simone Chandler.

Simone took a seat at one of the tables at the art studio and opens up her laptop. Blondie and brunette sat beside her at the table, busy texting on their phones. She noticed Julianna and tried to say hello to her.

"Hi...Are you guys also here to prepare for the runway competition?"

"Yes." Julianna answered her, "Also, are you Simone?"

"Yee, and you?"

"I'm Jules and this is Beth. We are working together on this project..." Jules tried to finish her speech but Beth leaned towards her and cut her speech in.

"Yes, we are a team! Simone, are you working on your own or with your friends as well? Actually, we have just been working on some designs and I thought a dress with a lot of flower decorations could work well. I have seen many magazines where they had those dresses for weddings, so it would be cool if we tried something like that..."

"Ah, okay. That sounds nice." Both the blondie and brunette looked at Beth and Julianna with boredom and dismay and continued texting. Simone tilted her head and gave Beth and Julianna a curious gaze, but she said nothing.

Oh gosh, I probably overshared.

Oh, no.

"Beth, I don't think they are necessarily listening." Julianna interrupted Beth's speech and pushed her to the side corner. "I think we should get back to work."

"Oh," Beth still looked somehow embarrassed, "we should..."

Unfortunately, it was still not the best time for Beth to calm down and concentrate.

"Oh my goodness, this is so pretty! But can we make something that's like that?" Simone suddenly gasped as the blondie showed her a picture on her phone.

"Why should we have a problem here? Look, Simone, my dad knows someone who sells jewelry, so I can ask them about that." the brunette said.

"I can show them our design and ask tailors to help us re-design it or even make it." the blondie added.

"But is that a little dishonest?" On hearing the blondie and brunette, Simone hesitated and asked in caution.

"It's fine, Simone! We would like to see you being dazzling and beautiful on stage!"

Wow. Beth was shocked. That's some tea to spill.

Before the school day ended, Beth and Julianna worked together on the dress design more. They made some improvements, but the design was still not good enough. As they packed their stuff and headed out of the campus, they saw the three girls walking together and talking about them.

"Gosh, that dress design looks stupid!"

"Oh yea, did you see Beth's face? She was oversharing and no one was gonna hear what she said. She clearly didn't know what to say to us!"

You guys are attempting cheating! Why are you even talking about us? A sense of anger triggered Beth as she heard what those girls talked about her behind her back.

"It's no use to confront them with words. We need to devise a plan and prove that we are stronger than them." Julianna said.

"But did you see that? They are clearly cheating!"

"Let me see what their next step is and make a decision. Meanwhile, we just need to make sure that we have a concrete design to continue working on the project tomorrow."

"Sure! Simone's and her crew are just stuck-ups! Those people will not prevent us from doing my best job!"

Walking out of the campus, they noticed the beautiful sunset reflected on the large glass panels of tall Laurel buildings. The pink clouds were like light feathers, drifting across the mixed shades of purple and blue. Beth looked up at the clouds and breathed deeply.

I wish I could be a giant bird. Then, when I look at the clouds, I could imagine myself flying through them, and sliding over the tip of them to reach the stars!

"Wait, Jules! Look at that!" running towards the setting sun, Beth pointed to a piece of cloud that looked a little distorted. "That's the mad face when Simone and her little group see our work a couple of days later! They can't defeat us!"

"Beth, you are so funny." Julianna can't help but laughing and chasing Beth. For these two young girls, the air was filled with laughter again.

✨

Having said that, Beth's laughter didn't last long.

Just as Beth came home and started thinking about the project, she checked over her classes planner and found out that she had a lot of homework. Yep, that's right, Laurel Preparatory academics stress again--30 pages of reading per day, a math exercise sheet due the next day, and a physics investigation project due a couple of days later...only at the start of the semester. Every day she would fall asleep with her head buried in her homework pile, leaving her looking exhausted for the next day. Fast forward to several days later, she and Julianna made very slow progress on their project, just starting on the actual dressmaking.

Julianna looked a little bit fed up.

She had been already thinking about giving up on the project because it didn't seem to be working out.