C

aty Heron, a 16 year old girl who has been homeschooled while living in Africa

with her zoologist parents for 12 years. Now she is entering public high school

for the first time. On her first day, she meets her fellow students, Janis and

Damian, they introduced her on the school’s group, pointing out the students sitting at each of

the different cafeteria tables at lunch. After a fellow student named Jason tries to flirt with

Cady, Regina (the most popular girl in school) embarrasses him of going out. Regina and her

side-kicks, Karen and Gretchen, known as the Plastics, admire Cady for her innocence and good

looks. They invite her to have lunch with them under a list of conditions: only wearing pink on

Wednesdays, and etc. Janis, who considers Regina her worst mortal enemy, created a plan for

Cady to destroy the Plastics.

Cady develops a crush on her fellow math student, Aaron Samuels, but Gretchen

explains to her that he is Regina's ex and says it’s completely off-limits. Cady's interest in him

makes Regina to rebuild their relationship directly in front of Cady, causing her to run off to

Janis and Damian and make their plan. Although the math teacher Ms. Reyes encourages her to

join the Mathletes, Cady pretends not to understand math so that she can ask Aaron to tutor her,

and he agrees.
 When Cady tells Aaron that Regina was unfaithful to him, he and Regina broke

up again. Continuing her sabotage, Cady tricks Regina into eating weight-gain bars, in disguise

of weight loss bars. She also created a fight between Gretchen and Regina by making Gretchen

feel insecure about not receiving a gift from Regina. Despite claiming only to be destroying the

Plastics for Janis and Damian, Cady begins to be with them more and more, eventually replacing

not only Gretchen but Regina, becoming the leader of the group.

After Regina learns about the weight gain bars, she retrieves a Burn Book in her

bedroom, full of harmful issues and insults about the various students and faculty members at the

school, including a couple written by Cady herself. After writing bad comments about herself,

Regina turns the book into the principal, claiming it to be the work of Cady, Gretchen, and

Karen, and then distributing the school with photocopies of its pages. The pages cause a riot that

makes the principal call an assembly outside the school, where Ms. Reyes lectures the girls and

makes them write apologies and perform trust falls. After Janis's apology revealing their plan to

sabotage the Plastics, Regina storms out and is struck by an oncoming school bus.

Rumors fly that Cady pushed Regina in front of the bus, and everyone including

Janis and Damian accused her but then her parents grounded her. One day in math class, Cady

confesses to having written in the Burn Book, and accepts the blame for it.
 As a punishment, Ms. Reyes has Cady join the Mathletes so that she can

participate in the championship tournament. While facing off against her opponent in a "sudden

death" round, Cady realizes that only genuine hard work will solve her problem and lead will

lead her to success, rather than insulting. She is able to provide the right answer, and to leave

behind the toxic behaviors that got in her by the Plastics.

Encouraged by her Mathletes team and Ms. Reyes to attend the Prom dance even

though she is grounded, Cady goes and finds that she has been voted Prom Queen. In her

acceptance speech, Cady broke the crown into pieces, distributing it to her classmates as a

symbol of their equality. By the beginning of the new school year, a lot of things have changed:

the Plastics have disbanded; Regina has joined the volleyball team; Gretchen has somehow

joined the "cool Asians" group; and Karen is now the school's weather-girl. Cady returns to

being friends with Janis and Damian, who have forgiven her, and the three of them remain on the

lookout for upcoming "Junior Plastics”, The End.

 SHORT STORY

in

st
21 Century Literature

“Homeschooled”

Submitted by:

Paul Francis M. Oquendo

Grade XI – Artichoke

Submitted to:

Mr. Reneboy C. Plaga, LPT