Elementary School Scheming

All names are pseudonyms.

When I was in elementary school, I had three best friends; Char, Tati, and Blaire. If they ever read this they definitely know who they are. In elementary school, after school, I would take the bus with Char and Tati to our after-school program at the local recreation center.

We would meet Blaire there since she didn’t go to our school. We were unbelievably obsessed with The Cheetah Girls. Throughout all the elementary school we ate, breathed and slept Cheetah Girls. We would pretend to be the characters and put on “concerts” for our peers. We even tried to write our own songs and make our own costumes.

Now, if you’re not familiar with The Cheetah Girls, here’s a quick overview. There are three Cheetah Girls movies. In the first two movies, there are four main girls; Chanel, Galleria, Aqua, and Dorinda. For a reason I don’t know, in the last movie, there was only Chanel, Aqua, and Dorinda.

In our elementary school minds, that meant Galleria got kicked out of the group even though in the first two movies we considered her “the lead”. We would often pretend to be The Cheetah Girls characters. Blaire would be Dorinda, Tati would be Chanel, Char would be Galleria and I would be Aqua. Occasionally we would switch characters but usually, that’s how the roles were disbursed.

In this memory, our after-school program was putting on a talent show where all of the kids could participate. My little group of friends decided we were gonna make a dance and lip-sync to one of The Cheetah Girls's songs. We had about a week to prepare and we decided to choose a song from the third Cheetah Girls movie. This meant Galleria was not in the group.

At first, things were working out. We decided to let two people be Aqua. Easy peasy. The next day I was sitting in my group line at the after-school program. I saw Tati, Blaire, and Char talking and I called them over. Only Tati and Blaire came up to me. The conversation we had played out something like this:

Me: “Hi what’s up?”

Them: “So we had a little idea for our group.”

Me: “Okay?”

Them: “We wanted to make you the leader of the group.”

Me: “You want to make me the leader?”

Them: “Yeah so you could just switch with Char and be Galleria and she could be Aqua.”

Me: “Well yeah, if it’s okay with her, I would love to be the leader.”

Them: “Great! Congrats new leader.”

Then they walked back to Char. I was so excited to be the leader of the group (the leader being Galleria in our eyes). Being very shy, I was thrilled my friends trusted me that much to make me in charge of the group. Later, we were allowed to practice our acts for the talent show so I walk over to my friends to get started.

They looked at me confused. I looked at them confused. They then told me that since we were doing a song from the third Cheetah Girls movie Galleria was not in it and therefore I couldn’t be in it. I had mixed feelings of betrayal and heartbrokenness. As a child who fed off of the acceptance of others, I had been crushed that my three only friends wanted no part of me in their act.

Over the next couple of days before the talent show, I tried to convince my friends to let me participate with them. I tried to explain that we weren’t really The Cheetah Girls so we didn’t need to be exactly like them. They begged to differ. Curse me for wanting to be included, geez. On the night of the talent show, I sat in the back of the auditorium with my mom and watched them perform without me.

I just think it’s funny how even at seven-years-old girls are scheming against each other and doing at least a little damage. I mean I’m 21 and I’m still pretty bitter.

Like man, oh man, were those girls sneaky. They had a plan and they carried through with it with no problem. Now I did end up doing a last minute comedy act with one of my classmates. I don’t remember any of the jokes but I do remember no one being able to hear us, which was awkward, but at least I was included.