Now, to press my luck. “Virany, maybe you can go to the office to have them page Mandy here?”

When no one steps in to stop her, she shrugs and goes. Of all the cheerleaders on the squad, she’s dead last in actually giving a shit about it, and even if she’s in on the plot against Jack, I would guess her commitment level is squarely at “Sure, until something more interesting comes along.” You can always count on her being willing to do something as long as it’s not what she’s already doing.

And now it’s down to Claire, who I know full well is crackable. So here we go.

“As long as we’re doing some reworking for tonight, this morning I had a sudden realization for how to update our ‘All Our Gators’ cheer—part of why I was late was because I was writing it down and making copies for everyone.” Of course, by “sudden realization” I mean I pored over it for an hour, but they don’t need to know that. “I know we’ve had some trouble with, um, some names rotating in and out of the QB spot, but I finally figured out how to make Jack’s name fit.” I hold up the stack I spent way too much time on and start handing it out before anyone can object. “It’s really a tiny nothing change—just switching Matt and Lamar, and changing ‘Excellent’ to ‘Preeminent,’ and then it totally fits!”

The enthusiasm in my voice is matched by exactly zero expressions, but at least Crystal’s eyes are scanning it, her mouth sounding out the beats. Taking their cues from her, Nia, Diana, and Ella start doing the same. They may not have wanted to take a minute to do this themselves, but there’s no honorable justification for refusing it when someone else has done the work.

“I don’t think we should be making any changes without everyone here,” says Claire, an edge of desperation in her voice. “This is just begging for us to make a major screwup on the field tonight.”

“You really don’t think Cara, Sara, Kelsey, and Ella can handle this?” I ask, letting my voice fill with the subtext of “Wow, you must think they’re total idiots.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Claire says hotly. “God, this is why—” She cuts herself off and looks around the room, but the only person there who knows how she was going to finish her sentence is me.

This is why we left you out of our plan.

But I’m not the only one they left out, and they’re not finding anything but confusion and a hint of anger among the seniors.

“This is why what, Claire?”

Butter would not melt in my fucking mouth.