Story: Behind the Veil of Beauty

For the past four years Jessica Anderson has won homecoming queen despite the entire school population absolutely hating her. I, Natalee Germaine, head reporter of the high school newspaper had to get to the bottom of this. First things first, time to talk to the nerds. Everyone knows that Jessica loves to terrorize them every day, so why in their right mind would they vote for her.

“So tell me, what made you decide to vote for Jessica for homecoming queen this year?”

“Oh, um, well I just think that Jessica was the most qualified, you know? She is just such a great role model and a great student.” Tanner managed to stumble out.

Jessica and her King

I knew that Tanner was lying to me, I have seen the things that Jessica had done to him and his friends. I tried to push a little harder on the topic, but Tanner wasn’t budging. I didn’t want to waste my time any farther, so I headed over to my next source. I headed up a little higher on the school food chain and decided to interview Heather Wilson, the captain of the girls’ soccer team. Jessica and Heather have had a long standing feud going on ever since Jessica stole her boyfriend and convince everyone at school that she had herpes.

“So, Heather, I would love to know what made you decide to vote for Jessica for homecoming queen this year? I am sure that the history you have with her would have persuaded you to vote for someone else.”

“Are you taking about what happened between us last year? That was just a big misunderstanding! Jessica and I are on good term now!” I could see the anger in Heather’s eyes as she gave me her answer, but no matter what I asked her, her answer never changed.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I knew that something must be going on between Jessica and her so called “friends”. I couldn’t leave this story now, I still had so many questions. I went around the school and I asked a dozen more people, who I knew had bad blood with Jessica, why they voted for her, and every person said the same thing. Why are these people who I know hate this girl, saying all these sweet and nice things about her? It wasn’t until I asked Jessica’s little sister some question, that things started to unravel.

According to Lilly Anderson, Jessica’s younger sister, Jessica has a folder of black mail on at least of the students at our high school. She collects secrets and stores them away to use for her own personal gain. Lilly informed me that this has been going on since the start of middle school, and her stash of knowledge has grown quite big since then. Every year Jessica makes her rounds to all the people on her black list and reminds them of the dirt she has on them. In exchange for her silence, the person has to vote for her for homecoming queen. Lilly told me that everything Jessica said about Heather was true. Jessica found out that Heather didn’t vote for her last year and so she got her revenge.

I can’t wait to write up my article and post it in the school newspaper. When everyone finds out what Jessica has been doing, they won’t be singing her praises any longer.

“The Veneration that is paid to Great and Powerful Men, is but from the Teeth outward, not from the Heart; and more out of Fear then Love.”

Bibliography:

Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists by Roger L'Estrange (1692).

Author's Note:

I took inspiration from a fable that has to do with fake praises. It talks about this eagle who claims that she is the most beautiful bird there is, and a peacock replies and tells her that she is. However, it goes on to say that the eagle had talons and a beak that would have hurt anyone who tried to disagree. So when I read that I thought of a high school homecoming queen. Usually the most beautiful girl or the most popular girl in school wins. So I wanted her to black mail her classmates into voting for her out of fear of her telling their secrets to the whole school. I wanted to write it from the perspective of a journalist because they always get to the bottom of a juicy story.