“What are we going to do?” Wendy asked, a storm cloud over her head, scowling as she watched her friends ogle over the latest popstar of the hour. She had bigger problems but they seemed to sit in Camilla’s room-more like a shrine dedicated to every K-pop man in the business-  ogling them than help her.

 Each of the girls were spread out over Camilla’s eighteen foot long bed. Bedsheets, blankets and pillowcases were adorned with Korean men Wendy could not recognise, every season seemed to bring with it a new group and Wendy didn’t bother to keep up with it.

Right now, Camilla was sitting against the headboard with Serena while Britney and Wendy faced them, a smorgasbord of dog eared magazines being poured over by Wendy’s friends.

 Serena turned her head , looking over her shoulder at the sourpussed Amazon and sighed, her friend had been this way for the last few days.

 “ Is it about Cassie?”

“Of course it is!” She snapped at her, nearly biting Serena’s head off.

 “That titanic Barbie wannabe has been ruining my life!” She  crossed her arms , the group taking it as their cue to address the angry Amazon.

 Both girls had been exchanging fire lately, Wendy doing her best to make Alvin’s life hell but almost like clockwork, Cassie would be on her ass the next day doling out some creative punishment. Her last one involved Cassie placing Wendy over her knee and spanking her like some errant child, something about being treated like one if she was going to behave one.

Her bottom was still sore from that but it was nothing compared to the bruise her pride was nursing.

“ Come on Wend , can’t we enjoy this quiet moment alone?” Serena asked while tying her long golden hair into a ponytail. She only did that when things got tense.

 “ Can’t,” Wendy’s voice dropped to a less aggravating tone, after she noticed Serena tying her hair.

 “ As your friends we’ll stand by you but lets come up with something, something to get back at Cassie,” Camilla edged closer to Wendy, anticipating the ideas that would come from her.

Wendy smiled at the three despite Britney’s silence on the matter so far. It warmed her heart to see them sticking by her in the face of overwhelming odds.

 “ I love you girls, we’ve been through hell and worse together. Now, lets come up with a plan and we can go back to drooling over your Korean hunks.”

   They would, not Wendy. She wasn’t affected by the K-wave so  She’d probably get a kick of annoying them by getting all the names wrong and asking which was the gay one.

“ Okay, who wants to go first?” Wendy rubbed her hands with glee, their brainstorming sessions always led to great solutions.

 “I should point out we’re going up against the most popular Titan in school,” Camilla raised her hand as if she were in class.

 “Good point Camilla. However, we’re also the most popular girls in our level so the gap is smaller than you think.”

 Wendy acted like a teacher praising her student while an idea walked itself right in. She’d bounce it off the girls and smoothen out the edges.

“ Since we know Cassie is popular, we shall take that from her.” She smiled slyly , a cunning plan on the tip of her tongue.

 “ We shall spread vicious lies about her, make the crowd turn on her.”

“ What would we spread?” Serena chimed in, hoping Wendy would have something.

She was a little disappointed when Wendy shrugged her shoulders, “ I don’t really have an idea now, was hoping you guys would. All I got was to tell everyone Cassie has a dick. Not a very big one but a tiny  little one, maybe the size of her thumb.”

She held out her thumb, trying to visualise it on the Titan.

 “ Cassie would make it work for her,” Britney answered from the back of the group.

 “How?” Wendy snorted, very miffed about  Britney finding flaws in her plan. It was common for Britney to play the critic in the group, what made it even more frustrating was that most of it was correct.

“ She just does, don’t ask me how. I’m not Cassie Gissel and I never will be. If you want proof, remember the time it got really windy at a game and the cheerleaders were out to rally the football team.”

 Everyone  else shook their head at her vague and unspecific descriptions.

“Nevermind, I’ll carry on. It was a year ago and there was this huge gust that came in and lifted the skirts the Titans out there. Now, most of them covered in time but Cassie was a little slow and it revealed her knickers of the day.”

 She stopped, they had to remember now, everyone was talking about it for a month after that.

“ I...remember a little,” Camilla said while she held her thumb and forefinger slightly apart.

“ Oh damn it you couldn’t forget it because almost every girl  was wearing pink frilly panties for months after! Every guy had that image burned into his memory and she had tons of boys of commenting on how great she looked,” Serena exclaimed.

 “ Okay but those were panties and Cassie made it work because she’s hot and sexy. But…” She grinned maniacally.

 “ No girl can recover from a dick rumour. What’s the point of being so pretty when you got a dong where your cooch should be? Just ask Michelle Porter after I told her crush Aaron she took a week off to remove her 2 inch pecker,” Wendy rebutted proudly while Serena and Camilla guffawed by the side.

 Britney shook her head, “ This is different. Michelle was always a weirdo, Cassie isn’t. You got to give it a shred of truth before it will stick.

    “What do you suggest? Beat her up? Her finger could beat me,” Wendy said.

  Britney rejected it with a slow shake of her head.

“ I suggest you either come up with a good story to destroy her with or…” She stopped, her other idea would not be as well received.

 “ Call a truce. That’s it.”

The resounding groans and angered shouts that followed were exactly what followed.

She held her hands just below her chin in mock surrender, “ Hey its the only thing left to do when you’re fighting an opponent who has you outgunned and outsmarted. Anyone else got a better plan? Please, say your piece.”

 With that, Britney went back to flipping through a magazine, irked by their failure to see her point.

 Camilla and Serena looked at her if she had betrayed them, the two girls knew they could come up with something better.

 “ How’s this for better? We fight! We’re fighters, we can push her into a corner. Take everything she has worked for. We’ll do it by digging up all the dirt we can get on her and release it all over the Internet. Then she won’t even dare to show her face in school which leaves Alvin all on his own. Then you can go back to making his life hell!”

Camilla laughed, almost cackled at her own brilliance.

“ Great idea,” Britney sarcastically clapped.

“If you want to get yourself killed. You never take everything away from someone, people can do crazy things if they think they’ve got nothing left to lose,” She put the magazine in one corner, she’d need to them convince the three why this was stupid.

 “ Cassie could easily do to us what did to Wendy. Or worse, humiliate us like she does to each of her dates,” Britney cautioned the group with this plan.

  That fact completely flew over Camilla who still had her own plan in mind.

 “ She won’t, we’ll break her,” She said; overly confident in her own plan.

 “And if you don’t?” Britney asked.

 “ We won’t, we will succeed,” Camilla flatly reiterated her point.

 “Cam, you may be one of the biggest Amazons but not even you can look big next to a Titan. Lets face it Wendy, you got to make peace with Cassie. Better yet, make up with Alvin.”

Wendy’s mouth opened , gasping at her gall, didn’t she know who her mortal enemy was? And here she was, suggesting she just extend the olive branch to him and get all chummy with him.

“ Don’t look so surprised, if you thought it through you would realise...you lose every time you fight her,” Britney’s voice sounding particularly ominous.

 Wendy blocked out the squabbling between Britney and the other girls, Britney’s chilling revelation replaying itself over and over in her head.

 Was it true? She tried to find a loophole, something she could use to counter Britney’s damning statement.

  No matter how much she strained her brain, it would break her out of the corner she had been trapped in. All of it resulted in Cassie hauling her up by her feet and dishing out pain.

“Y-you’re right,” Wendy muttered but it was drowned out by the wails and bellows from her friends.

 “Quit your yapping! I know what to do!” She hollered at them. All froze, Wendy yelling was never good but this one lacked the raged filled volume they had come to expect. For one, she didn’t have a wild crazy look in her eyes and she had not balled up her fists.

 “I’ll make peace with Cassie.”

Saying those words made her feel like she was passing out a kidney stone but she felt better just doing it.

“ Good,” Britney congratulated , a relieved smile on her face.

 “ Okay, if that’s is what you want to do,” Serena said. Camilla just nodded and grunted in approval.

 “If I make peace with Cassie, she’ll lay off me but…” She saw a better option but to do it would be selling her soul, to go against everything she had done in the last decade.

 “ Britney, that won’t last forever will it? I have to-I have to-I have,” She smacked Camilla’s bedside stand, the wooden creaking from the force of her palm. Why was it so damn difficult to say it?

 A hard immovable lump seemed to be in her throat , forming a plug over which her thoughts could not be made into words.

 “ Get Alvin to forgive you?” Britney finished for her.

 Damn she knows, Wendy thought. Those were the exact words.

“Yeah, get him to call off his bitch.”

“Why do you hate Alvin?” Serena inquired, green eyes trained on Wendy.

Wendy laughed, why did she hate Alvin? Admittedly,she’d never stopped to consider she just did that.

 “ It’s complicated,” She lied. It was simpler than she thought.

 “Better figure it out because you got to win him over,” Serena replied frankly, not quite believing her but knowing better than to probe too deep into Wendy’s life.

 “ I know what to say.First I got to get a ceasefire from Cassie,” Wendy said. She would ad-lib it if need be, if it worked for late homework she could use it on  the blonde bimbo.

“ Don’t you find it strange that she’s so devoted to him? It’s like she owes him for something,” Camilla rubbed her chin in a bid to understand Cassie’s obsession with Alvin.

“ Even stranger that Alvin himself hasn’t exploited that,” Britney said ,adding more food for thought .

“What do you mean? He uses it to make poor little Wendy’s life hell,” Serena pointed at Wendy.

“ Not that hellish,” She said, it could be a lot worse. She had experienced far worse things, long before she even knew Alvin existed.

 “ No, that’s Alvin defending himself. What I mean is that he has the most popular girl in school addicted to him and he hasn’t used for personal gains. She could be his sex buddy, his attack and his chaffeur all rolled into. Yet, she’s just a friend with all that untapped potential?”

“ Maybe he’s a nice guy who doesn’t take advantage of girls like that?” Camilla suggested.

“Which kind of means we all owe him an apology if Wendy is going to do that,” She added, guilt seeping into her conscience.

Wendy could see them, feeling guilty, Camilla had brought it out. Long faces full of remorse , they wanted to queue to him. As the instigator of it all, she’d have to set an example. The question was, would it be enough.

“ Look, don’t feel so bad. If we got the wrong guy then its all on me. You girls won’t need to feel bad at all,” She tried her best to ease their minds about it.

“ I’ll go meet Cassie, she’s not that hard to find. We’ll talk and then I’ll settle things with Alvin, shouldn’t be too hard. Then we’ll get our old lives back,” She did her utmost to sound like it was a well thought plan but she had too many ifs in the plan.

Still, it was the best she had.

“ Good luck Wend,” was the answer from each of them.

“ Thanks girls,” She accepted each, feeling like a soldier about to sacrifice herself.

“Now,” She said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Which is the gay guy in 4PM again?”

The exasperated groan from Serena ,Britney’s insistence all of them were heterosexual guys and Camilla’s dainty chuckles broke the solemn atmosphere Wendy created. She loved her friends, they were the closest thing she had to a family in many years. She would never let them worry about her , she’d fix her own problems. Although there were many painful memories for Alvin to get over, one of them coming to mind…..

******

“Come on Wendy, this is not funny!” Alvin tried his best to chase his fifteen year old step sister but her height advantage made it impossible to reach his phone. He happened to be talking to a very pretty and interesting girl from his home room class before Wendy snatched it out of his phone.

 “ Take it from me you little squirt!” Wendy squealed in delight, bringing him closer to where she wanted him.

 Try as he might, Alvin couldn’t reach her outstretched arm on his toes. Jumping didn’t make it better, his legs were built for lateral movement , not vertical movement.

 “ Please Wendy, I need to call her back! It’s important, I’ll do anything!”

Wendy grinned, he had said the magic words.

“Anything?” She asked in a sinister tone, extending the words. It was getting easier too, this one took only ten minutes of him jumping and begging like a dog before he finally caved.

“Yes!” He cried out, his eyes watering from the futility of it all.

“Okay,” Wendy said as she set his phone on top of the kitchen cabinets.

She spread her arms out, almost daring him to come at her.

“Pin me you little worm and the phone is yours,” She giggled at his wide eyed look, at least he was smart enough to know what a sisyphean task that would be.

“L-look I can’t do that-”

“But you said anything Al, this is what you got! Now do it or I delete all the contacts from your phone!”

 Alvin hung his head as he wondered why he allowed her to dictate terms like this.She was his little sister, she was supposed to respect him!

His nostrils flared as he decided he’d show her , show her not to mess with him.

He leaned forward, resting on the balls of feet , positioned like a lion about to strike.

“Take this!” He leapt forward and caught Wendy on the chest, wiping the smile off her face as she fell to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. He was stronger than he looked.

 “ A little fight in you; I like that!”

 Wendy relished any opportunity to wrestle, Alvin was her favourite warm up routine. Initially it was a walkover but the boy had began to channel his rage into these ‘sessions’ which only made it more fun for her, she got to humiliate him longer.

Her arms easily pushed him off her while he struggled like a fish flailing on dry land. Plenty of fight but no end result, she’d have to move fast before he tired out, the fun was in feeling his resistance.

Quickly, she turned him on his back while he tried to crawl away. She pulled him back, Alvin’s nails counting for nothing as he tried to hold on to something.

“Let me go!” He kicked out at her but Wendy had it all under control. She was getting a good rush of adrenaline from this but she’d have to end it soon, Alvin never had the stamina to last the full fifteen rounds with her.

 “Finish him!” Wendy called out as she locked his arms using her elbows, his legs following suit as her knees wrapped around them.

 After a while, she let him go, slightly winded but enjoying the whole thing.

“Ok you got your fun! Now give me my phone!” Alvin had a few bruises from where she had held him back but none more than his pride.

  “A deal’s a deal and for being such a good sport…” She unlocked his phone and scrolled through his contacts, highlighting a list of names.

 “I’ll only delete your contact list from A to J,” She pressed a button and poof! All of it was wiped from the phone.

“ Here you go!”

She giggled to herself as she tossed the phone, their kitchen wrestling certainly the highlight of her day.

*****

Wendy swallowed, this was not a good memory. She hoped Alvin had forgotten or even forgiven her for that, regardless of her transgressions in the kitchen and outside of it.