The next day Honey, Lexi, and Layla were standing in the doorway to the cafeteria handing out lollipops with tags on them that said “Don’t be a sucker, vote Honey Bell for homecoming queen!”
When DaeRi passed through, carrying her tray of cookies, they looked at her curiously and offered her a lollipop.
“What’s the tray?” Honey asked after DaeRi refused the lollipop.
“It’s a secret,” DaeRi said.
Honey gave her a look, but shrugged and said, “have a good day.”
DaeRi went to her table and set down her tray, placed her purse and lunch on the table then headed over to Harriette’s table, stopping by the other tables on the way handing them each a cookie and saying, “Vote Tamarai for homecoming queen, please!” It was all so cheerful.
But when she reached the popular table she found that it was covered with cookies, cupcakes, and chocolate bars that said “Vote for Tamarai, the best in A.L. High!” It was ridiculously cute.
“Uhm.” Tamarai said when she noticed DaeRi approaching.
DaeRi said nothing at first, she didn’t know why she was so shocked. Duh Tamarai was gonna campaign for herself, and duh it was gonna be better than DaeRi’s lame attempt.
But Daeri reminded herself that it was the thought that count and said “hi!”
“Want a cookie, cupcake or chocolate bar?” Harriette asked.
“I’m good,” DaeRi said, smiling sweetly, “I’m actually handing out cookies myself.”
“For what?” Harriette asked.
“For Tamarai,” DaeRi said.
“You’re campaigning for Tamarai?” Harriette asked incredulously.
“Yep,” DaeRi said.
“Why?” Tamarai asked, looking confused.
“To show that I care about you,” DaeRi said, “And since I‘m not nominated, you should win.”
Now Harriette rolled her eyes and looked at DaeRi, “so it’s only because you’re not nominated? Don’t tell me you think that something as small as campaigning for Tamarai, just because you weren’t nominated, is going to get me to forgive you. Now, if you were nominated and campaigned for Tamarai than maybe I would forgive you.”
DaeRi said nothing, she was shocked to say the least. Here she was campaigning for her ex best friend to win something she had always wanted to win, instead of sitting around and being bitter, and Harriette was finding way to call her out on it.
“Thank you,” Tamarai said, breaking the silence. Then someone tapped DaeRi on the shoulder.
“These cookies are terrible,” the girl said as soon as DaeRi turned around.
“They taste like play dough,” another guy said.
DaeRi frowned, “huh? What does play dough taste like?”
“Like this,” another girl said holding out the half eaten cookie in her hand. DaeRi took the cookie and took a bite and spit it right out, and kind of on the first girl. It tasted like salt!
“Ew, what the-” DaeRi said. She tried to think back to making the cookies the other night and remembered taking out the sugar. At least she had thought it was the sugar.
Oh.
She remembered, all of the stuff in her house was labeled in Korean, she didn't know what half the stuff in her house was. When she got the sugar she just took the first thing she saw that resembled sugar.
“Oh, sorry,” DaeRi shrugged. “It was an accident.”
“Didn’t you try them before you brought them in?” The guy said. The first girl had stomped away in disgust after DaeRi accidentally spit the cookie on her, but there was a crowd forming now. All of them wanting to know why she handed out salty cookies. And Harriette, being the strategic girl she is, offered them the goodies she had on display. Reminding each of them to vote for Tamarai.
Which thankfully distracted them long enough for DaeRi to make an escape. She couldn’t believe just how bad that had went. Why couldn’t anything go right for her?
At her table she gathered her stuff up and was prepared to go when the guy from earlier suddenly appeared next to her.
She jumped back and glared at him, “you scared me.”
“Did you make the play dough cookies on purpose?” he asked.
DaeRi stared at him, shocked that he would make an assumption like that. She vaguely recognised him, but wasn’t sure how. He had soft brown curls that hung around his face, a bit too long for DaeRi’s taste, and exotic looking green eyes.
“No,” she finally said, “Why would I do that?”
“To make people not vote for Tamarai,” he said, “Hand out disgusting cookies that say Tamarai on them, make it look like you’re campaigning for her, and then people eat the cookies think that Tamarai had something to do with the cookies and vote for Honey instead. Simple.”
“Wow,” DaeRi said, “I hadn't’ even thought of doing something that evil. Tamarai’s my friend, why would I do that?”
“She’s not your friend anymore,” He pointed out, “The last time I checked you were kicked out of the ‘popular’ circle.”
He said “popular” with just a hint of sarcasm.
“Whatever,” DaeRi said, “I didn’t make the cookies bad on purpose, you can blame my mom for labeling everything in a language no one but her understands.”
“Hm,” He said looking at her thoughtfully, “Okay, I believe you.”
DaeRi glared at him, again, and finished gathering her stuff. “Not that it mattered to me. I don’t even know who you are.”
“Thomas, or Thom for short,” He said holding out his hand.
DaeRi looked at his hand and laughed cynically, “nice to meet you but I gotta go.”
Her voice was laced with sarcasm.
He shrugged and dropped his hand, “talk to you later.”
“Hopefully not,” DaeRi said, shooting him one last glare and walking away.
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