Author's Note: This is the unedited version of my SOL Showdown entry versus Rache which took place in Feburary, 2009. I had exactly three hours to write it, given the contest rules, and only received the title for the story when the contest began (as did Rache!). This is what I came up with. In the future I will provide an edited, "Author's Preferred Edition" of the story, because yes, there are errors here. A lot of them. Please keep in mind I only had three hours and that I never had a chance to proofread it before I had to hit the "send" button. I think a solid rewrite will make the story better, but I want this unadulterated "original" version of the story to be chronicled. I'm a masochist like that! :P

Bush Fires

Jillian leaned forward on the divider between the bathroom stall, carefully adjusting her feet on the toilet to make sure she didn't slip. Rose, in the next stall over, was doing the same thing. Finding a safe balance was always a little trickier for Jillian's friend than it was for her because the poor girl was incredibly short and couldn't use the divider for balance as well as Jillian could. Finally, after both of the teenagers were in position, they lit up their cigarettes and started to gossip.

"Derrick's definitely the one who pulled the alarm the other day," Rose said in her cat-like voice. "I heard him bragging about it to his friends."

"No, it wasn't him. I asked Karen and she said he was in the pool when it went off," Jillian sighed. She exhaled a plume of smoke and added, "He was probably bragging about egging Deter's car. I know for a fact he did that."

"Oh," Rose said, disappointed. She hadn't confirmed it but Jillian was pretty sure the squirly brunette had a thing for Derek. Brightening up she continued, "Still, egging the Principal's car is pretty cool, I guess."

The door to the bathroom started to open and both girls, without a word, ducked down behind the divider. Mrs. Lampsteel, an overweight woman the school paid to monitor the halls, often peeked inside the bathrooms during classes to make sure no one was skipping. Jillian held her breath and waited. After a good ten count or so the door closed again and no other sounds followed. It'd been the hall monitor, all right.

"That was close," Rose said.

"Dumb bitch is checking almost every hour now," Jillian fumed. "You think she'd have something better to do."

"What would they even do if they did catch us?" Rose asked rhetorically. "Can't give us ten days when there's only three left."

"I dunno," Jillian yawned. She'd been up late the night before studying for finals. "Maybe they'd make us serve them at Armstrong."

"No way," Rose argued. "High schools don't make you server middle school suspensions. I hear practically everyone smokes over there anyway."

They debated the issue for another ten minutes and then the conversation naturally shifted back to boys and the mystery over who pulled the fire alarm the previous week. The two 14-year-olds were skipping their last regular day of Gym class. The Gym final was the next day and then, thank God, no more awkward Middle School gym classes ever. Of course, they had four years of awkward High School gym classes to look forward to, but that was a whole summer away and neither teenager cared to think about it.

Three cigarettes and forty minutes of gossip later the bell finally rang. Lillian jumped off the toilet, flushed down the cigarette butts floating in it, and walked out of the stall. After washing up she joined Rose in the hallway and two girls headed toward the cafeteria. Rose got in line when they got there but Lillian, as always, had packed her own lunch so she made her way to the table her friends had been sitting at all semester.

Two of them were already there: Francis and Kate. The two were dating and rumor had it they'd gone all the way. Jillian wasn't sure what to make of that. From the look of Francis she couldn't imagine him being able to do something as complicated as sex. The science nerd was hopelessly clumsy, and he had no hand-eye coordination to speak of. Kate was like a female version of him and not for the first time Lillian imagined a comical, British-humor scene of the two of them trying to make love. She grinned.

"Hey, Jill," Francis greeted her.

Jillian cringed. He knew better than to call her Jill and she almost corrected him when she saw him grin. "Sorry, sorry, I meant hey Jillian."

She sat down and asked the two what was going on. Both immediately launched into a story about a fight that had broken out in third hour Biology class but that didn't interest Jillian much. For some reason fights had gotten common as the school year ran down. Rose had speculated that old grudges were being settled before the opportunity was lost. Not all the kids at Collins Middle School would be going to the same high school, after all.

"What's with Amanda?" Rose said after she returned from the lunch line.

"What do you mean?" Jillian asked.

"She's acting like her trust fund just matured," Kate said in a voice that was squeakier than even Francis'. "Giggling and smiling and acting all ... uhm..."

"Yeah, she has like half the prep-girls in the school surrounding her like she just won American Idol or something," Rose interrupted. "I couldn't hear what they were talking about but every few seconds they started cheering or something. It was annoying."

The prep-girls, otherwise known as the popular girls, hung out about as far away from Jillian's table as possible. Still the teenager strained her neck, trying to get a look. Giving up she said, "Probably just something bitchy."

Everyone agreed with that. No one in Jillian's group liked the preps, and especially not Francis and Kate. On the social ladder they were considered the bottom wrung, the awkward geeks who rarely had friends. Jillian liked to think of herself as being a couple steps higher than them but it didn't matter to her. Popularity wasn't important, she told herself.

"Who's bitchy?" Darren, the final member of the group, asked. He took a seat next to Rose, an intentional act if Jillian was any judge, and stuffed some fries in his overweight mouth. Bits of food flew out from it as he continued to speak, "You guys talking about Amanda and the bush?"

Jillian grinned. "That sounds like a band name. 'Amanda and the Bush'."

There were snickers but Darren shook his head. "I'm serious. You did hear she got invited to the bush fires, right?"

That shut everyone up.

At Armstrong High School, it was said that when the weather was right the most popular kids in the school hung out at an infamous place in the woods behind the school known only as "The Bush". Jillian had been there once, just to see if the place really existed, and it did. Off a main trail deep in those woods a less well-traveled path led to a series of large bushes. Between two of them you could just barely squeeze inside to a large, canopied area where sunlight only barely leaked. Part of it was natural, just the growth of a few large bushes in a circle whose branches just so happened to come together to form an improvised roof. It was also obvious, though, that someone had taken the time to carefully cut away any branch that obstructed movement within the circle. The result was pretty neat, Jillian had thought, but the idea of hanging out there to party seemed lame.

"I guess that makes sense," Kate said, breaking the silence. She shrugged her mousy shoulders and said, "She's their type."

"Yeah, and Holly and Christine were also invited," Darren added, basking in the knowledge that for once he was the source of interesting gossip. "Jim told me about it in second hour, he's my lab partner, and he said they're going to have to do things like see how long they can hold their hands in the flames and..."

"Bullshit," Jillian spat. "That's all just a stupid urban legend. Assholes like Jim just like to think crap like that is true but if it sounds too much like a stupid teenage movie, trust me, it's not real."

"I think someone's jealous," Francis joked. She narrowed her eyes at him and he quickly looked to Darren and changed the subject. "So who's the fourth?"

"I don't know," Darren shrugged. "Maybe there's only three, not four."

"I always heard it was three," Rose said.

Jillian rolled her eyes and tried to ignore her friends. For some reason the idea of there being a "rite of passage" 8th grade girls went through in order to join the popular clique in high school annoyed her. But it wasn't jealousy, she told herself. No, it was probably the thought of anyone debasing themselves for popularity that irked her. Some of the rumors about what went on at the bush fires were downright disgusting.

When the school day finally ended Jillian waited near the long line of buses for Rose. The two lived within walking distance to their homes but the smaller girl's final hour was on the opposite side of the building and Jillian always had to wait. She paced while she waited, wishing she could smoke. For some reason she was on edge. All the talk about the bush fires, about Amanda being invited, about the initiation that supposedly went on there, well, it got to her.

Reluctantly she had to admit to herself that her obsession was partly jealousy. Not that she wanted to be popular and hang out with those snobs. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true, either. The boy she'd had a crush on since the sixth grade was one of those snobs. George Urban, the absolute most gorgeous boy she'd ever laid eyes on. Tall and well built, the self confident boy could have anyone he wanted. So he had Amanda. Cookie-cutter, stereotypical teen-queen Amanda. Fucking bitch. Still, he'd always been nice to Jillian. Once he'd been her lab partner and she'd dreaded and yearned for that hour every day. She'd dreaded it because of the way she always acted around him: clumsy, giggly, stupid. She'd yearned for it because of his smile, his sparkling blue eyes, that fair head of golden hair.

"Excuse me, what's your name?"

Jillian snapped out of her reverie. "Huh?"

The girl speaking to her was not a student at Collins Middle School. She was way too old for that but way too young to be a teacher. She was pretty with straight brown hair and a well developed, curving body. She smiled and said, "I'm sorry, my name is Mandy. I asked what your name was?"

"Uhm, Jillian," she said feeling confused. "Why?"

"Because I wanted to invite you to the bush fires, that's why," she said, all teeth. "You heard of them?"

Jillian's jaw dropped. Her skin started to blush red when she realized she was being set up for some kind of cruel prank. Anger in her voice she snapped, "Leave me alone, bitch!"

"Whoa, calm down!" Mandy said, sounding genuinely surprised. Walking quickly to keep pace with Jillian she continued, "What's the problem? This is a serious invitation!"

"Bullshit!" Jillian hissed, stopping to face the tall brunette. "Who put you up to this, Amanda? Well tell her I told her she can go fuck herself!"

"No, no, I don't even know who Amanda is," Mandy pleaded. "Look, see that Explorer? The red one?"

Jillian followed her pointing finger. She saw the truck and the tall boy leaning against it. He gave her a little wave. Jillian asked, "Who's he?"

"That's Cal," Mandy replied. "He's one of the four seniors who earned the right to choose pledges. He took one look at you just now and made his choice."

Jillian was stunned. "I ... me?" she asked. Looking down at herself she couldn't believe it. She didn't wear expensive, preppy outfits like the prep-girls did. She had a decent body, she thought, but she didn't have enormous c-cups like Amanda, either. She found herself touching her long brown hair and the lines of bleached-white streaks in it and felt even more confused. She said, "But I'm not ... I don't fit in with you people."

Mandy laughed. "You make it sound like we're diseased! Seriously, though, we have a lot of fun. If you show up and make it through the initiation you'll enter Armstrong High as one of the most popular freshman girls at school. What do you say?"

Just then Rose appeared. She looked as confused by Mandy's presence as Jillian felt. Shaking her head Jillian said, "I don't know..."

"Well, please think about it. You're Cal's choice and he doesn't get a second one," Mandy smiled. "Ten o' clock, Friday. You know where it is?"

Jillian nodded.

"Good," Mandy beamed. "Trust me, it's a lot of fun. Being in our group, I mean." With that the attractive girl bounced away.

"Who was that?" Rose asked.

Jillian couldn't reply. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"What kind of fucking group makes you do an initiation to get in!?" Jillian yelled. "I'm not doing it! I won't!"

They were smoking at the corner where their paths home separated. Rose, an urgent tone in her voice, said, "Oh, come on! Lots of groups. Like, sororities and stuff!"

"I don't want to join a sorority, either," Jillian fumed. "Besides, since when did you think popularity mattered? It's all bullshit!"

"No, what's bullshit is having to hang out with geeks like Francis and Kate all the time," she shot back. "I mean, okay, they're nice and all. But do their conversations about Chemistry and Math really interest you? Or what about Darren and his video games and comic books and stuff? You and I do not belong with people like them!"

Jillian was shocked. Rose had never spoken about their friends this way. She was at a loss of words so she took a long drag on her smoke instead.

"Listen, okay," Rose said, calming down. "Just think about it. We got branded as outcasts our first day at Collins. But it's not our looks or social skills that keep us like that the way it does for the rest of our friends. Just imagine, hanging out with girls like Holly and Christine..."

" ... and Amanda," Jillian spat.

" ... who you only hate, why?" Rose said. "Because she's dating George. Well, if we were in that group maybe he'd date you. Either way, you know the best looking guys run with that crowd."

"Who, guys like Derrick?" Jillian snapped, embarrassed that Rose would mention her crush.

Now Rose blushed. With a sigh she flipped her cigarette butt away and said, "Fine, do whatever you want. I still say you're being an idiot, blowing an opportunity like that."

Jillian sighed. "I'm sorry, I just ... I didn't know you wanted to be like them. With them. Whatever. You make fun of them as much as I do."

"We make fun of rich people, too," Rose pointed out. "Still, if you had the opportunity to be rich, would you turn it down?"

It was a fair point. Her anger replaced by nervousness, Jillian said, "Okay, but what if ... I mean, I've heard tons of rumors about what goes on there..."

Rose gave her a wicked grin. "I know, and I'd do any of them if they'd chosen me."

Jillian laughed along with her friend. It was true that Rose's interest in sex was deep and rather perverted. "Okay, but I mean, I don't want to be some kind of whore!" Jillian said. "They'd never respect me!"

Turning serious, Rose said, "They don't respect you now. Besides, if that's how that group works then it means they all go through something similar, right? So who cares."

Realizing they'd been talking forever, Jillian checked the time on her cell phone. "Shit," she said. "I gotta get home."

"Okay, okay, but promise me you'll think about it, okay?" Rose said. "If I was friends with one of the popular girls ... I mean, I'd at least have an 'in', you know?"

"So you want me to whore myself out so you can start dating guys like Derrick?" Jillian teased.

She shrugged. "What are friends for?" Sticking out her tongue she laughed and started to walk away.

It's all Jillian could think about the next three days. Rose wouldn't stop bugging her about it, either, but at least she kept her promise not to tell anyone about the invitation. The last thing Jillian needed was for Amanda to find out and start giving her shit about it.