Selina was extremely nervous when she walked to school at Monday. She had promised to meet Hebe and Show at Show’s house an hour before school started, so that she could get make-up on.
She softly knocked the door, which was immediately opened up.
“Selina! We’ve been waiting for you!” Hebe happily said. She pulled Selina inside.
Show’s house was big and bright, and the furniture was elegantly chosen. Selina admired Show’s parents for being so good at decorating. The house was welcoming and comfortable, and it seemed that everything in it had a purpose – even the red flowers in the windowsill, which matched the curtains perfectly. The furniture wasn’t bragging or over-dramatized, but still tasteful. Selina suddenly knew where Show had his good sense of style from.
“Show is in his room…” Hebe said, and dragged Selina along. They stopped in front of a door with a sign with the text:
“Show Luo
Fashion expert, stylist and cake-eater
Knock before you walk in”
“Cake-eater?” Selina asked wondering, but Hebe just laughed and knocked on the door.
“Come in!” a voice yelled. Hebe opened the door and walked in, with Selina after.
“Alright, we have to do this quick, as we can’t be late for school…” Show said while arranging make-up elements on a little table next to a chair. He had a purple shirt on, and some blue jeans, which all fitted perfectly.
Selina looked at the make-up, and rubbed her nose nervously.
“No no, you can’t do that!” Hebe nearly yelled, and pulled Selina’s hand away with force.
“Why not?” Selina asked.
“You still have a lot to learn,” Hebe said, and sighed.
“Sit down, sit down!” Show said, obviously not listening to their conversation.
“Okay,” Selina said, and sat down in the chair.
Show immediately started putting make-up on her.
“The hairdresser did a good job with the eyebrows… we have to fix the hair too… bearable clothe-matching, we can go with that today…” he mumbled, deeply concentrated.
“Hebe! Can you give me the eyeliner?” he said, without looking up. It was like a doctor making a surgery, with Hebe as the nurse.
“Of course,” Hebe answered, gave it to him, and hummed absent-minded while staring out in the air.
“I won’t do too much, we just have to point out some of her good features… it should be as natural as possible, her face is actually very well-shaped,” he continued mumbling. Could he not talk about her like she wasn’t there?
A few minutes later, where Selina sat as a stone-statue – afraid to do anything wrong – and only blinked when Show told her to, he gave her a mirror to look in.
Selina looked at her reflection. She nearly couldn’t recognize herself from a few days ago.
Show had already moved on to her hair with a spray full of hair spray as weapon. He hadn’t done much to her face, but it was very effective. And why the hell hadn’t she considered contact lenses before?
“Alright, there’s a short time until school begins, we have to hurry!” Show suddenly said, dragged Selina up from the chair and pulled Hebe with him.
“Wait, we have to get our bags!” Hebe said, and grabbed the bags in the hall right before they ran out of the door.
“Take it easy!” Hebe yelled, when Show had forced them to run a few meters away from his house.
“Sorry, I just can’t wait to see the school’s reaction,” he said, and looked very proud in a half-childish way. They slowed down, and Show and Hebe walked like they were on a catwalk.
“Selina, straighten your back! You have to look like you own the world before you can make others believe it,” Hebe said, and gave Selina her bag.
Selina tried to walk like Hebe and Show, but she thought it was hard.
“Don’t try too hard, just look up instead of down at the ground,” Show said kindly.
“Sorry, I’m just used to that…” Selina started, but Show cut her off.
“Don’t say sorry,” he said. This made Selina quiet. But she now had to ask a question that had been bothering her for a long time.
“But… What-if-I-don’t-want-to-change-the-way-I-am-inside?” she asked very quickly, and immediately looked down at the ground again.
“What?” Hebe asked.
“Just that… What if I don’t want to change the way I am inside? Like, I don’t want to be snobby or y or something like that,” she repeated shyly.
“Do you think we are snobby and y?” Hebe asked, a bit offended.
“No, not in that way, it’s just…”
“Selina, take it easy. You can say stop at any time. You need self-confidence, but you have too much self-worth to be in danger of that kind of heart-change,” Show said calmly. Selina didn’t know why, but she also relaxed when he said it.
“Being gay you have to deal with people commenting all the time in the start, but when you show that you rest good in yourself and are nice to even those who bother you, you’ll get respect. I think you can handle it,” he continued, and smiled.
“Even though she’s not gay…” Hebe said with a smile.
“That wasn’t what I meant!” Show complained, but right at this moment, they arrived at the school gate.
“Hurry, we only have five minutes! See you later,” Hebe said, and walked fast to her classroom. Show made a so-long gesture with his hand, smiled wryly, and then walked after Hebe. Selina was now on her own, and carefully walked towards her classroom. This was the time where most students arrived – just before the bell rang – and many was pointing at her and whispering.
“Who’s that new student?”
“I think I’ve seen her before…”
“Wow, she’s so pretty!”
Positive attention wasn’t something she was used to, so she hurried to her classroom.
The teacher came in right after Selina had sat down, with her classmates glancing at her.
“Are you a new student?” the teacher asked, and Selina looked up.
“Oh! Selina, what… Oh well, let’s get started…” the teacher said confused. Selina could hear her name repeated behind her.
“Selina?”
“Is that really Selina?!”
“Wow, she’s so changed!”
“I never knew she was so pretty!”
She shyly looked down at the table, and started opening her books.

When it was about lunch time, Ella waited in front of her classroom. The other students greeted her when they walked by, and she waved at Selina when she came out. This made the others even more stunned.
“Hey Sel! Jolin, Hebe and Show are waiting in the cafeteria… Wow, Show did a good job with the make-up, huh?” she chatted happily, when they started to walk.
“Yeah, he is pretty good…” Selina mumbled.
“But you should be careful, there’s a lot of girls who must be jealous of you – you should especially try not to offend Show’s fan club,” Ella said so only Selina could hear it.
“His what?” Selina asked scared. “But… doesn’t everyone know that he is gay…?”
“Of course, but that doesn’t matter,” Ella sighed. “The fact that he gave you make-up on this morning is alone enough for them to either hate you or make you their idol.”
“How does that match together?” Selina wondered.
“You forget that he is the ‘Fashion God’… Hey Victor, new haircut?” she shouted, and a guy waved happily back.
“Do you know him?” Selina asked.
“Only his name. Anyway, do you feel any different today?” Ella asked kindly.
“People don’t recognize me.”
“Yeah, we thought something like that would happen… But the next step is to convince them that you have more than a good look.” Ella winked.
“Do I really?”
“Do what?”
“Have a good look?”
Ella stopped walking, and stared at Selina.
“Sel, maybe you haven’t noticed, but I heard people the whole day talk about that ‘the new girl is even prettier than Jolin’… I don’t know which planet you have lived on before Saturday, but it surely didn’t have any social life,” she said. And then suddenly smiled, and dragged her inside the cafeteria.
It was like a collective gasp rose in the room. People started whispering and pointing.
“Is that the new girl everyone is talking about?” Selina could hear a voice say, while they walked through the cafeteria to the table where Jolin, Hebe and Show sat.
“Some people say that it is Selina!”
“Impossible!”
“Now you say it, she actually could look like Selina… But what happened to her?! I never knew she was this pretty…”
“Why is she with Ella?”
Some people of course waved at Ella, but they walked determined towards Show, Hebe and Jolin’s table. When they sat down, it caused even more reckless talking.
“Well-well, here comes Jolin’s new competitor in looks,” Hebe said, and laughed. Selina blushed.
“Aiya, don’t be shy… Where is Joe, I would like to see his reaction…?”
She looked around like she expected that Joe would jump up and shout ‘here I am’.
But he already stood with his group of body-builder friends behind Selina.
“Hey Uglina, how much did you pay for being allowed to sit here?” he mocked.
“I didn’t pay, I…”
“Selina doesn’t pay for her friends like SOMEONE else does. And I didn’t know that your brain was so defected that you can’t even remember a name,” Jolin said. Some from the crowd laughed nervously, others just held their breath. Every single eye was turned against them.
“Oh, you even made them your lawyers?” Joe continued, now red in his face from anger and embarrassment.
“Because I can’t imagine why they would take in dirt like you… Maybe because of pity…”
“Or maybe you just proved that she is way cooler than you. She doesn’t have to make others feel small to make her feel big.” Show said it smoothly, thought-through and relaxed.
“Oh, now I see – you helped her correcting her unlucky face to get some profit, huh? What is it they call you? The King?”
The guys behind Joe laughed with the sound of tractors, but no one else laughed with them. Show immediately got on his feet with his jaw taut in anger. The same did a group of girls and one boy, who sat a little away; they had all copied Show’s style.
“Show is ten times the man you will ever be!” Jolin shouted, while Ella prepared to hold Show back if he should start to hit.
The crowd looked frightened. They had never seen Show like this before.
“Stop it!” Selina suddenly shouted, and also stood up. Everyone became silent by this, and held back their breath.
She looked at Joe.
“Have you never learned to be nice to people? Do you have problems at home? Or do you just want to wipe the floor with other people to get the feeling of control?!” she said.
“H…huh?” Joe said.
“Are you that desperate for attention? Maybe you can’t see it yourself, but each time you bully others, you just prove how big a jerk you are.” Still a thick silence.
“And that should come from you, Uglina? When did you become a part of the popular group?” Joe half-hearted talked back, but he could feel the mood turning against him.
“I don’t mind if you bother me, but you could at least stay away from my friends,” she said with a shattering voice. She had never talked in front of so many people before. Show, Jolin, Ella and Hebe all looked stunned at her, and dropped down in their seats.
“I… Fine, but this isn’t over yet!” Joe said, and angrily walked away with his bunch of gorilla friends.
There was a bit more silence, but then someone whistled and a few others clapped.
Selina looked confused around, and quickly sat down again.
“Wow Selina, that was way too cool!” Ella exclaimed.
“You finally gave him what he deserved after all the time he has been bullying you!” Hebe said.
“It was nothing, it was just… You guys helped me so much, I couldn’t let him taunt Show,” Selina said shyly.
“It was a lot! You stood up for something you were willing to fight for, and that’s the way forward!” Jolin said. Show leaned over the table and looked at Selina.
“Thank you,” he said.
Selina nodded.
“You’ve sure got a lot of attention today,” Hebe smiled, and looked around. Some people looked skeptical, some impressed and some just indifferent.
“But I don’t think people really have accepted you yet,” Jolin said thoughtfully.
“No, that will take longer… In some eyes, you are still ‘Uglina’,” Ella added.
A few tables away, some had sure noticed Selina. A tall, handsome guy looked thoughtfully at her.

***
I am SO sorry for the long wait!
Now I give you a long chap :)
I’ve been so busy with schoolwork, horseback riding and other events that I had to attend…
But I would like to know what you like best; faster updates with shorter chapters or not-so-fast updates with longer chapters?
And if you have any ideas, you can write them ^^, it would be so great to know your meaning, and what you expect and so on…
And omg!! 7 comments since last chapter! I love you guys, you are soo great <3 please keep on commenting!
- Blitz