Not the belle, not the pretty girl belle, or the most popular belle, but an actual bell, like a ding-a-ling bell that would go off when anyone’s exes arrived and the prom committee gave her this job because she was always blabbing everyone’s beeswax all over the lunchroom, and wasn’t it Julie who told Vanessa that Rob was texting Cheryl and how did Julie know that, but even though everyone but her closest girls, Jinny and Jenny and Joanie, hated her for all of her gossip, the committee decided that Julie’s stealthy intel could be of some use, so they put her at the doorway of the gym the night of the prom, don’t you move a muscle, Marissa warned her, and after a plastic cup of spikey punch or two, Julie settled in, and got to bing and bong all over the place because really, who doesn’t have exes, and everyone was happy and grateful and even beginning to like her a little until Ricky arrived, and wasn’t it Ricky who ditched Julie just last week and here he is with Penelope on his arm, and Penelope’s all mascara and smug, like ha! he is mine now and you can bing and bong yourself to hell for all I care and that’s when Julie’s bell-self goes thud and even if she could move, she wouldn’t make a sound, and all anyone can hear is crepe paper swish, and spikey punch fizz and that’s when Jinny, and Jenny, and Joanie, all want to know what’s going on because all of their exes have slid in to the gym, and really Julie, wasn’t that your job, and don’t look for us in the lunchroom anymore because now you are ex to us, and we will have to find someone to bing and bong for us whenever you show up anywhere, and when you come into the girls room, we will hide in the stall, or when you walk into math class and want our homework like you always do, we will laugh, and when Mr. Jones calls on you, you will have nothing and when you try to explain all you will have is your dumb tongue, clicking against the roof of your mouth like the stupid dead clapper that it is.
