“Oh yeah,” Jughead replied, his mouth full of chocolaty goodness. “I almost forgot.”
“Come on,” Archie said, picking up one of the boxes. “I’ll help you get these delivered so we can get out of here.”
“Thanks.” Jughead’s voice was muffled as he took another giant bite of doughnut. He hoisted the other box.
“Hey, you guys. Betty and I were thinking of heading over to Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe for some sodas,” Veronica called after them. “Do you want to meet us there?”
Archie flashed the girls a big, goofy smile. “Sure! What do you think, Jughead?”
“Definitely,” his friend agreed as he polished off doughnut number one and started in on doughnut number two. “I’m starving!”
Mr. Weatherbee was starting to wonder what had happened to Jughead, so it was a relief to see him show up with the Andrews boy and the last two ballot boxes. “Here you go, Mr. Weatherbee,” Jughead said, licking chocolate glaze from his lips.
“I see you felt it was necessary to stop for a snack, Jughead Jones.” The principal was not pleased to have been kept waiting.
“I’m a growing boy.” Jughead patted his stomach. “I’ve got to keep my body fueled.”
This comment caused Archie to laugh. “The way you eat, you’ve got enough fuel for a space launch.”
The principal gave both students a flat look over the top of his glasses. Then, deciding it was a battle he couldn’t win, he simply said, “Just put those boxes with the other ones, boys.”
“Have a nice weekend, Mr. Weatherbee,” Archie said cheerfully as they headed out the door. “Oh, and when do you think you’ll post the election results?”
“Bright and early Monday morning.”
The following Monday, Betty couldn’t wait to get to school. She’d been thinking about the election all weekend and was superexcited to find out who would be the next editor in chief of The Blue and Gold. The election results were listed on two large sheets of paper, posted in the main hallway of Riverdale High. Swarms of kids crowded around the printout. Finally getting close enough to the paper to read the results, Betty squinted and wrinkled her nose. She went over the results again. Rubbing her eyes, Betty wondered if she needed glasses. She looked at the results for the third time. Nothing had changed, the results were the same. Things just plain weren’t making sense.
“Hey, Betty,” Veronica called over the crowd. “How’d we do? Did we win?”
“Um . . .” The blond teenager nudged her way back through the student body.
Veronica smiled at her friend, but Betty looked so strange it was a little worrisome. “Are you all right? What’s going on, Betty? Who’s the new editor for The Blue and Gold?”
“You are,” Betty replied.
Chapter 5
Veronica clapped her hands and jumped up and down. “You’re the new editor?! That’s fantastic!”
“No.” Betty interrupted her celebration. “You don’t understand. You’re the new editor. And I’m the new head of the fashion show.”
“I got it, too?!” Veronica’s eyes grew wide with delight. “This is so great! I can’t believe we both won!”
“No, no.” Betty reached out to try to settle her friend. “Listen to me very carefully. According to the election results, you, Veronica Lodge, are the new editor in chief of The Blue and Gold. And I . . . or me . . . or whatever, am the head of the fashion show.”
“But . . .” Veronica scrunched her forehead in consternation. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“I know,” Betty agreed. “Something must have gotten really mixed up during the elections. I hope this isn’t going to be a problem.”
“Well, it can’t be that hard to fix. I mean, no one’s going to think we did this on purpose or anything. Are they?”
Ginger Lopez narrowed her eyes and glared at the election results posted on the wall. “Oh, I see,” she growled to herself. “So Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes, Betty Cooper, is the head of the fashion show. I would definitely list that as a fashion don’t. And Ms. Charge-It-to-Daddy, Veronica Lodge, is going to be editor of the newspaper. Isn’t this all just too convenient, seeing that I saw them both standing by the unattended ballot boxes after the polls had closed. Smells to me like a couple of friends have been cheating their way into office.” She turned on her heel and stormed off down the hall toward the principal’s office. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Ms. Phlips looked somewhat perturbed when Betty and Veronica entered the office. “Good morning.” Betty smiled. “We need to speak to Principal Weatherbee, please.”
“Pertaining to?” the secretary asked.
“Huh?”
“Why do you wish to speak to him?”
“Oh.” Betty was caught a little off guard. Ms. Phlips was usually friendlier. “It’s about the outcome of the school elections.”
“Not another one,” Ms. Phlips grumbled to herself.
“Pardon?”
“I said, there’s already someone in there speaking to Principal Weatherbee about the elections,” the secretary clarified.
Betty and Veronica exchanged looks. “Maybe we’re not the only winners who got switched,” Betty whispered to her friend. Then, looking at the secretary, she said, “I think something went wrong with the election, and we’re all probably having the same problem. Do you think it would be okay if we went in?”
It was a little surprising to have students complaining about the election results, but Ms. Phlips figured the principal would probably prefer to get everything over at once. “Go on in.” She nodded toward the principal’s closed door.
Both girls paused outside the door, feeling awkward about walking in on someone. “I wonder who’s in there.” Betty reached tentatively toward the doorknob.
Veronica shrugged. “Probably someone else who won the wrong election. Now they’re captain of the football team when they wanted to chair the chess club.” She nodded toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go in.”
“But Betty and Veronica cheated!” Ginger was leaning over Mr. Weatherbee’s desk and using an overly loud voice for someone speaking to the school principal. It was an unfortunate moment to have walked into the room. Both Betty and Veronica felt their faces become hot with embarrassment.
“Uh . . . ,” Betty stammered.
“Whah . . . ?” Veronica contributed to the conversation.
Principal Weatherbee sighed. “Girls, this involves both of you, so you’d better come in.”
Veronica found her words first. “What’s going on?” she asked, stepping fully into the room.
“Well, Ms. Lopez here is a little disappointed with the election results.”
“That’s why we’re here, too,” Betty told him.
“Oh, so you’ve come to confess?” Ginger hissed at her.
Betty gave her a concerned look. “Are you okay, Ginger? What are you talking about?”
“You cheated on the election!” Ginger flat-out accused her. “You both did! That’s how you both won!”
“We didn’t cheat!” Veronica fired right back.
“Yeah, right!” Ginger swung around to face Mr. Weatherbee. “I saw them in the hallway just standing there with two of the election boxes. They could have tampered with the results at any time.”
“We were watching them for Jughead!” Betty cried with outrage.
“That’s right!” Veronica was quick to add. “Archie was there with us. He can vouch for us. We didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, right,” Ginger sneered. “Like he wouldn’t lie for you.” She shot Veronica daggers with her eyes.
“Hey! That’s uncalled for!” Betty leaped to the defense of her friend.
“Ladies! Please!” Mr. Weatherbee thumped his desk. “Be quiet!” The girls immediately fell silent, so the principal continued. “Ms. Cooper, Ms. Lodge, why are you here?”
“It’s about the election results,” Betty began. “You see, I won for heading up the fashion show—”
“Don’t you get it?!” Ginger interrupted, glaring at Mr. Weatherbee. “There’s no way that’s possible!”
“Silence,” Mr. Weatherbee said in a firm whisper. Then he turned his attention back to Betty. “Go on, Ms. Cooper.”
“Well, the confusing thing is that Veronica won for editor of The Blue and Gold, which doesn’t even make sense because she wasn’t running for that, she was running to head the fashion show.”
“See!” Ginger cried. “She admits it! She even admits it!”
“Ms. Lopez! Do you really want a week of detention that badly?” Mr. Weatherbee asked in his best no-nonsense principal voice.
“No,” she replied meekly, but her eyes were blazing.
“Anyway,” Betty went on. “We think there’s been some kind of mix-up with the ballots or something, because I was supposed to be the editor for the paper and Veronica was supposed to run the fashion show.”
“Oh, it was just a foregone conclusion, was it?” Ginger was obviously so mad she couldn’t contain herself. “You knew you were going to be the editor because you fixed the election!”
“That’s a lie!” Veronica shouted. “You take that back right now! Betty would never cheat on anything, and I wouldn’t, either! We’re just trying to explain that there’s been some kind of mistake!”
Mr. Weatherbee felt a headache taking a strong hold behind his left eyeball. The girls’ voices were so shrill and so forceful. He highly doubted anyone had cheated on anything doing with the election. Ms. Lopez was obviously just being a sore loser. A sore loser with a strong vocal capacity. And as for Betty and Veronica, students at Riverdale were always committing to something, realizing it was a lot of hard work, and then trying to squirm out of it. That was nothing new. They just weren’t usually quite this determined to squirm free.
While the principal was massaging his temples, the girls had squared off and were bickering at full volume. The principal felt his eyeball starting to twitch. He knew he couldn’t take much more. “Be quiet!” he finally thundered.
Now, Mr. Weatherbee was an excellent principal and very fair-minded. But there are some days when even a top-notch administrator just wants the overly excited teenagers in his office to pipe down and simply accept the consequences of their actions. This was one of those days. “Ms. Lopez,” he began. “You lost the election. I know you’re disappointed, but you’re a very bright young lady, and I’m sure there are numerous other areas where you can apply yourself and succeed.”
“But . . .” Ginger tried to protest, but she could see by the look in the principal’s eyes that her words would be futile.
“Ms. Cooper, Ms. Lodge, you ran for office and you won. You must accept responsibility for your actions.”
“But . . .” Veronica tried, but there was no getting a word in edgewise.
“I don’t want to hear one more word about this!” Mr. Weatherbee said in a stentorian voice. “Now go to your first classes and do what this institution is actually set up for you to do. Learn something!” He had thought he’d made himself clear, but the girls didn’t move. They all just stood there, staring at him in disbelief. “Now!” he added. The young ladies hurried toward the door. Betty and Veronica glanced at each other, but there was no time for further discussion. The tardy bell was about to ring.
“So,” Veronica said, setting her lunch down on the table next to Betty’s. “You know, I’ve never heard Mr. Weatherbee be quite that . . . um . . . forceful.”
“I know.” Betty pulled a sandwich out of a brown paper bag. “Maybe he was having a bad day or something.”
“I just wish Ginger hadn’t been there so we could explain. She kept interrupting, and I don’t think Mr. Weatherbee really understood what we were trying to tell him.”
Betty gave a small, rueful chuckle. “I know, but I sure don’t want to go back and try to clear things up.”
Veronica used her fork to spear a tomato out of her chopped salad. “What are we going to do?”
“Well . . .” Betty had been giving the problem a lot of thought. “I suppose I could show you about the paper. Walk you through it. Help you with articles, layouts, things like that. You know, just kind of coach you.”
This suggestion made Veronica brighten slightly. “And I could sooo help you with the fashion show. You know, picking a theme, coordinating with vendors, choosing models, that kind of stuff.”
“Oh, this is great.” Betty felt the first signs of relief since seeing her name listed as the head of the fashion show committee that morning. “By helping each other out, we both get to enjoy the thing we really wanted to do and get a new experience and be a good friend.”
“Well, I hope you plan on being an extra good friend because I don’t know the first thing about being the editor of a newspaper. Even a high school newspaper,” Veronica confessed.
“I could say the same to you.” Betty smiled. “Sure, I can pick shoes to match a dress, but how do you put together an entire fashion show?”
Veronica smiled back and gave her best friend a wink. “Leave it to me.”
At the table next to theirs, Ginger Lopez was listening to their entire conversation with eager ears. “So neither one of you knows what you’re doing, huh?” she whispered under her breath. “I think you two are going to learn that being an editor and running a fashion show are much more challenging than you ever imagined.” She smiled secretly to herself. “Leave it to me.”
Chapter 6
“Hey, Betty,” Kevin said, hanging back after English until she caught up with him. “What’s going on with your new passion for fashion? I thought you were running for editor in chief.”
“So did I, but something must have gone haywire with the elections because now I’m apparently in charge of the fashion show.”
Kevin frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“I know,” Betty agreed as they started walking down the hall together. “We tried talking to Mr. Weatherbee about it, but he just said we had to learn to accept responsibility for our actions.”
“Really?” Kevin was surprised. Mr. Weatherbee was usually a pretty rational man. “Maybe I should try explaining it to him. I mean, he might see that there’s a problem more clearly if it came from an outside source.”
“That would be great,” Betty said, pausing before turning to go into her math class. “I really appreciate it.”
“Hey, Ronnie,” Archie called, taking a few jogging steps to catch up with her. “Congratulations on landing editor in chief, but, uh . . . I thought you wanted to do that fashion show thingy.”
Veronica rolled her eyes. “I did want to do that fashion show thingy, but something must have gone kerflooey with that election dealio because now I’m supposed to be all news-o-rama.”
Archie laughed and nudged her shoulder. “Sorry. What I meant to say was, what happened with the election?”
Shaking her head, Veronica told him, “I have no idea. Betty and I tried to talk to Mr. Weatherbee about the mix-up, but he practically threw us out of his office.”
“Really?” Archie was surprised. “Old Weatherbottom gave you the boot?”
“He was totally unreasonable. And I was so looking forward to running the fashion show.” Veronica pouted.
“Well, why don’t you let lover boy here try talking to him?” Archie puffed up his chest. “Weatherbee and I have a special relationship.”
“Oh, Archiekins! Would you?” Veronica clapped her hands together. “That would really mean a lot to me.”
“Hey, Kevin,” Archie greeted his friend as they both headed toward the school’s office. “Have you been sent to the principal’s office?” he joked.
“No, I told Betty I’d swing by and try to work out this mix-up with the elections.”
“No kidding?” Archie said with surprise. “I told Ronnie the same thing. That’s why I’m here. I guess Mr. Weatherbee is being kind of a grouch about the whole thing.”
“Well, maybe we should talk to him together,” K
evin suggested. “I mean, if we both explain, then it might make better sense to him.”
“Good idea,” Archie replied as they approached Ms. Phlips’s desk.
“Hi, Ms. Phlips. We’re here to talk to Mr. Weatherbee,” Archie told her.
The secretary stopped typing and sighed. “Let me guess. Is this about the school elections?”
“Um . . . yeah. As a matter of fact, it is.” Archie cocked his head to one side. “How did you know?”
“Because there have been about a dozen kids in here before you,” Ms. Phlips said. “All outraged. All complaining. All annoying. Ginger Lopez alone has caused a minimum of three scenes in this office and currently has a detention. If she comes back again, it’s going to be upgraded to a Saturday detention.”
“Oh . . . ,” said Archie.
“Uh . . . ,” said Kevin.
“So.” The secretary went back to her typing. “Do you still want to see the principal about the school elections?”
“Well . . . ,” hedged Archie.
“Ummm . . . ,” mumbled Kevin.
“No, thank you,” the guys said in unison.
They turned in a synchronized motion, as if they’d been given the command for an aboutface, and hurried from the school office.
“I don’t have that much of a problem with the outcome of the school elections,” Archie said. “Do you?”
“No, not really,” Kevin replied. “I mean, I’m sure Veronica will make a terrific editor.”
When the last bell rang for the day, Betty and Veronica had already heard the bad news from Archie and Kevin. There was absolutely no way of getting out of their elected positions. So they agreed that they’d try to make the best of it.
“Let’s start with the fashion show stuff because it’ll be more fun,” Veronica suggested.
Betty’s face fell slightly. “The newspaper is fun.”
Rethinking her words, Veronica said, “You know, that sounded really snarky. I’m sorry. What I meant to say is, can we start with the fashion show stuff because I’m really excited about it and I think it’ll be fun?”
xoxo, Betty and Veronica: In Each Other's Shoes Page 3
