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Pigtails	By : CeeCee Category: Comics > Archie & Co. Views: 11153 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own the Archies fandom. This is a work of fanfiction for entertainment only, and I'm not making money from it.

Chapter List
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Summary: The kids are settled into school. If memory serves, junior high sucks.

Author’s Note: Seriously. I don’t miss being a teenager, with the mere exception of having a faster metabolism and more hair. And truthfully, I was more of an Ethel. I’m just sayin’…

One year later:

Betty checked her day planner while she rummaged through her locker.

Yahoo. Home ec. Life was good.

Every day of the week, the schedule rotated so that she had a different fine art elective during third period. Cooking and sewing were definitely her niche. To her credit, Betty was well-rounded and also enjoyed wood and metal shop, too, but she really felt she could show off in the kitchen.

It felt good to be in eighth grade and to be in the top class on campus instead of a newbie like she had last year. The first two weeks of school, she laughed to herself as she watched the seventh graders walking around looking confused and like deer caught in the headlights as they tried to find their classes. She didn’t miss that.

Reggie, true to form, had been a jerk, giving them all wrong directions so they ended up in the gym when they were supposed to be in Flutesnoot’s science class. Sometimes he’d follow them just to see the looks on their faces when they got there. Betty accused him of having too much time on his hands. Reggie retaliated by dropping a frog’s eyeball down the back of her shirt in biology lab. He laughed as she practically did a little, frantic dance trying to shake the tiny, clammy thing loose.

Betty’s cheeks burned at the memory. She wanted so much to smack him.

The bell rang, and Betty zipped her English text into her backpack. She no sooner turned around then Veronica suddenly appeared, snatching her by the arm and dragging her backward.

“Ron, what-“

“Bathroom. Now.” Betty recognized her urgent tone and mentally sighed.

“What’s up? What do you need?”

“Reach into your magic bag and get me some feminine protection. Stat.”

“Ah.” Betty nodded and suppressed a smile. Ronnie looked around furtively once they stood in front of the sinks while Betty dug in her purse. She produced a pink, plastic wrapped item and tucked it into Ronnie’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you!” Ronnie gave her a brief, hard hug and then dashed into the stall, slamming it shut. She continued the conversation with the door between them. “What do you have next?”

“Home ec.”

“Sweet. The sewing part or cooking?”

“Cooking. I’m stoked. That’s the easy part.”

“Not for me. I suck at it.” Ronnie had gotten a D on the biscuit assignment when they came out hard as rocks. “I don’t mind sewing, but cutting out the patterns is so boring. I doubt I’ll ever do anything with it, anyway.”

“It’s good if you ever want to do some repairs or make something special.” Betty heard Ronnie snort with disdain through the cubicle door.

“As if. My mom’s seamstress can make me whatever I want.”

“So what if you break a zipper or tear out a hem by accident?”

“So? I get a new pair of pants or a new skirt. What’s the big deal?”

They cost money. Betty left that thought unspoken. “It’s just good to know,” she emphasized, mentally cursing herself for sounding like her mother. “I just enjoy it, that’s all.”

“Lucky you,” Ronnie remarked while she made faces at herself in the mirror. She tugged her lower eyelid down and applied black eyeliner she didn’t need, since her eyes were already large and her lashes already dark and long. Veronica was a makeup fanatic. “What’re you doing after school?”

“Drama club.”

“Lame,” Ronnie muttered.

“No it’s not,” Betty protested. Even though she hadn’t been given a lead, Betty still enjoyed working on the set construction and costumes. It was also a welcome distraction from her telephone, which seemed like it had cobwebs growing on it. No boys ever called her, least of all Archie. So Betty immersed herself in her school work and extracurriculars, needing something to fill the gap. “You still have to come see the play, anyway, when we do it.”

“Pfft,” Ronnie hissed, but she smiled when Betty playfully bumped her shoulder with hers.

“Because you love me,” she cajoled.

“Yes I do, you big crybaby,” Ronnie conceded. “I’ll go!”

“You could sell refreshments with me on opening night.”

“As if!”

Of course she wouldn’t, but Betty had to throw it out there.

The bell rang again, and Veronica crammed her makeup back into her purse. “Shit! Late!”

“I’m just across the hall. Why did you use the bathroom all the way at this end?”

“I was talking to Archiekins.” Veronica grinned smugly as she walked Betty out the door. “He would have gotten lost. Or lonely.”

“Sure he would’ve,” Betty grumbled. “Hmmph…”

“Hey, call me after school,” Ronnie added suddenly.

“Why?”

“Why? What do you mean, why???? So you can bask in my greatness,” Ronnie insisted, giving her a haughty look. Betty brandished her one-subject home ec notebook, pretending to smack Veronica in the butt. She wiggled free from her shallow threat. “Call me!”

“Okay!” The assistant principal caught their eye and pointed to his watch, shooing them away.

Betty wished Archie was in the same section of fine arts, but he had it fifth period instead. She entered the classroom and automatically set her notebook and purse on her desk, tucking her backpack under her seat. She pretended to ignore Reggie, Moose and Frankie talking smack in the corner. Betty noticed with dismay that Nancy’s desk was empty, meaning that she didn’t have a partner. She didn’t mind cooking alone, but no one else was as good a cook. Betty wanted to get an A on her project, so that meant not getting paired up with someone who didn’t know a tablespoon from a cup.

“Have you seen Nancy?” Jughead looked up from a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic he had tucked inside his history text, slightly startled.

“No. Why?”

“Just wondering. She’s my partner.”

“Chuck’s not here today, either.”

Coincidence? Betty considered the possibilities. Nancy and Chuck weren’t the types to play hooky, especially since Nancy’s mom was, as she so eloquently put it, “one of those shoe-throwing mothers who’d just as soon snatch you baldheaded if you rolled or cut your eyes.”

Betty sighed. “This sucks.”

“So? You’ll get another partner. You could be mine, if you wanted to.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What? I’m a good partner. I’ll help you clean up,” he reasoned.

“Clean your plate,” she shot back, tsking and shaking her blonde head. It was true. Jughead was her scraps disposal, constantly looking to polish off the leftovers of her class projects once they were tasted and graded. Croutons, biscuits, dumplings, it didn’t matter; Jughead was always there over her shoulder, long skinny fingers sneaking into her pan at every opportunity or filching from her plastic take-home bag.

But at the very least, he stopped being such a jerk and started talking to her as a human being. The way to a man’s heart really was through his stomach, if having Jughead’s heart meant having him offer her actual words instead of well-timed burps and farts in her general direction. Once in a while, Jughead frequented her lunch table with her narrow circle of friends that included Nancy, Midge, Ronnie, Ethel and Maria, and more recently, Sabrina, who was always very nice despite rumors around the school that she lived with her two freaky aunts who talked to their cat like he was a grown man. Jughead was best friends with Archie, true, but Archie had a long-standing “best frenemy” bond with Reggie Mantle that made Betty wrack her brain.

How could he stand Reggie? It was like putting two beta fish in the same tank.

Jughead professed not to be interested in any of the girls they knew, yet he hung out with them often enough, more than likely when Reggie was holding court at the guy’s table with all the jocks. Archie and Reggie were neck and neck every season, in every sport for MVP.

Betty sighed. In a sense, Jughead was one of the only boys who gave her the time of day. Lucky her.

“C’mon, Bets! Don’t leave me hangin’!”

“I’m not. You already have a partner.” Jug made a sound of disgust.

“Dilt’s a whole heck of a lot better with test tubes than he is with measuring cups.”

“So help him. You know how to cook,” she accused.

“I don’t want to go through all the effort. It’s too much work when you can do it instead,” Jug shrugged, grinning. Betty grabbed a dish towel, rat-tailed it, and watched him dart out of the way as she flicked it at him.

It was an injustice that he could eat so much and never gain a pound. Betty still had a healthy metabolism, but she noticed that despite playing various sports, including basketball, softball and volleyball, she was gaining curves she didn’t have before. She migrated up from a three to a five that fall when her jeans suddenly hugged her burgeoning hips too snugly. It made her self-conscious when she eyed her reflection in the mirror, doing the tell-tale turn and looking over her shoulder at her backside every morning.

All of the chatter in the room suddenly ceased when Miss Haggly clumped into the room in her homely sky blue crocs and beige cardigan. Her gray eyes scanned the class and squinted in annoyance. “Back in your SEATS!” she barked like a drill sergeant. There was a scrambling of feet and scraping of chairs as they complied.

“I don’t want any nonsense,” she snapped. “I run a tight ship. I don’t care what you’re used to from your regular teacher. With me, you’ll learn how to cook. You,” she gestured imperiously, flicking her bony finger toward Reggie, “pass out the recipe. Hop to it!”

Betty had never seen Reggie move that fast and she suppressed a snicker. Miss Haggly paused in her large, noisy scrawl across the chalkboard and shot her a look. Betty straightened up. “Something funny?”

“Not that funny,” she confessed. Her stomach jumped slightly.

“I like a joke as much as the next person,” she suggested, voice flinty. She gave Betty a more knowing look. Betty shook her head.

“It’s nothing.”

“Good. So why don’t you save ‘nothing’ for after class? Do you mind if I show the class how to make cinnamon rolls now, or were you not through being funny?” Muted snickers floated through the class. Betty’s cheeks burned, but she wasn’t afraid of the skinny substitute teacher.

“I don’t mind.” Miss Haggly gave her a long-suffering sigh.

“’Tweens,” she muttered under her breath. Behind her, Reggie was still passing out copies of the recipe, but he was dawdling, pausing to snigger behind the teacher’s back. Betty caught him out of the corner of her eye, doing a convincing imitation of her stance at the front of the class, mouthing her words by Frankie’s desk.

“Siddown, ese!” Frankie hissed loudly. Moose snorted behind him.

“Dude,” he whispered. Frankie twisted his head around.

“What?”

“C’mon. I need goalposts, man!” Frankie sighed, furtively twisting the rest of the way around in his seat. Reggie reluctantly moved on, peering back at them as Moose set a small, folded paper triangle on its end against his desk. He lined it up, then “kicked” it with his index finger, sending it flying through the opposing L’s of Frankie’s fingers and thumbs.

“Ooh!” Reggie suppressed a laugh unsuccessfully.

“If you want a detention, young man, go ahead. Keep making those little footballs.” Miss Haggly didn’t even turn around to face them. She just kept pounding away with her stick of chalk on the blackboard, writing out the recipe by rote. There were also key words for the day in large block print that she underlined with sharp slashes. “Sit down, now,” she ordered Reggie just as he returned the last of the spare sheets to the desk.

She took roll call and sized up the class.

“Hmmph…what’ve we got, what’ve we got, two, four, sixxxxxx…” Her sibilant drag on the last number died as she finished counting up the pairs of students with her eyes. “Hunh. Why do I have two mavericks? What’s wrong? Does your breath smell funny?” she asked Reggie pointedly. She nodded to Betty. “You afraid this young man has cooties?” Betty’s shoulders shook. Reggie cocked his eyebrow in disgust.

“Please,” he muttered.

“Don’t be shy. Partner up. Over there.” She nodded to Betty’s customary work station. “There you are. Now you won’t be lonely.”

“But,” Betty argued.

“Aw, c’mon,” Reggie whined, equally aghast. His dark brown eyes raked over Betty like she had grown warts.

“Do you want to get credit for today’s lesson or not? Two and two, just like everybody else,” Miss Haggly snapped. “Suit up.” She tossed each of them an apron. Reggie’s was long and navy blue, butcher-style with flat pockets. Betty’s was white cotton printed in bunches of grapes and trimmed in ruffles. It was girly, something she usually didn’t mind.

“You look like ‘I Love Lucy,’” Reggie muttered under his breath.

“Jerk,” Betty hissed back as they took their copy of the recipe to the counter and began assembling their ingredients.

She snuck looks at him. Reggie didn’t look bad in the apron.

In the back of her mind, he even reminded her of Ricky Ricardo, except that Reggie couldn’t sing, and Ricky didn’t throw spitballs at Lucy or snap her bra straps during gym class. Reggie Mantle, in Betty’s estimation, was a merciless prick.

Despite that, he wasn’t bad looking.

She’d argued that when Veronica expressed it out loud, however.

“He’s cute.”

“No, he isn’t! Ew!”

“He looks good. Check him out. He’s wearing Abercrombie and Fitch.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means he has money,” Veronica sniffed.

“So do you. You’re not a jerk.”

“I still think he’s cute.”

“So? Tell him.”

“No!” she snorted. “I don’t like him as much as Archie, silly.”

Betty pouted. The narrow sliver of an opportunity to distract Ron from the redhead of her fantasies died upon its inception.

Her face was sour as she retrieved the ingredients from the refrigerator while Reggie goofed off with Moose and Frankie while their partners did all the work. Betty sighed.

This wouldn’t do at all. It was bad enough she had to listen to that blowhard. She wasn’t going to do his work for him and let him take all the credit. Miss Haggly seemed to read her mind.

“That’ll be enough of that, you little hooligans,” she snapped, clapping her hands and shaking her wooden spoon in the boys’ general direction. “Get back to your stations and help your partners. Heat up those burners! We’ve got some wet ingredients that need mixing, people! Hop to it!” Reggie hurried back to the stove/sink island and stared at the assembled items.

“Now what?”

“Milk,” Betty said, pointing to the recipe sheet, without looking at him. “Measure it out. Then add the sugar.”

To her surprise, he actually seemed to know what he was doing. Reggie set the Pyrex cup down on the counter, stooped down and poured, watching the liquid rise until it was eye level. He deftly dumped it into the saucepan, only spilling a few drops.

“Careful!” Betty hissed anyway.

“Shut your face. It’s fine.”

“I don’t want a big mess to clean up.”

“You call that a big mess,” Reggie muttered. “You’re such a goodie-goodie. I bet you vacuum the dirt in your front yard.”

“I’d rather do that than be a slob,” she retorted. “Do the sugar.” She handed him the pink box.

His fingertips grazed hers as he took it. She flinched, and a hot flush rose up into her cheeks. “Why’re you all jumpy, Bets?”

“M’not,” she argued.

“Sure, you’re not,” he said, disbelieving. His dark brows drew together and he smirked.

They fussed back and forth over the contents of the pan.

“Is that ‘almost melted?’” Reggie eyed the butter, which was leaving yellow trails across the milk’s surface in the saucepan. He squinted down at the instructions on the sheet, which were vague to him.

“Looks like it,” Betty mused.

“I wanna do the eggs.”

“Knock yourself out.” Boys liked to break things, Betty figured. But he actually rapped them gently against the bowl, unlike Moose across the way, who bashed his so hard that they splattered. Betty turned off the burner and held the saucepan with both hands while she poured the warm mixture into the well of flour and yeast. Reggie beat her grab for the whisk and began to stir it. “Scrape down the sides,” she nagged.

“Pfft. I am. God, you’re bossy, Miss Goody-Goody.”

“Then do it right. I want an A.” She glared at him as she set the pan in the sink of hot water she already filled.

“So what else is new?”

“What’s wrong with me wanting to get a good grade.” He shrugged.

“You’re such a bookworm,” he muttered. “Don’t you have a life?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my life,” she protested indignantly, scowling.

Reggie liked the tiny wrinkles around the bridge of her nose that she got whenever she got mad. Her large blue eyes narrowed.

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“I’m telling you that, Reg.”

“I’m telling you that, Reg,” he mimicked, turning up one nostril and crossing his eyes as he turned back to the dough. He dumped in the eggs. She shoved the wooden spoon at him and walked off. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m getting some water.”

“Wah. I’ll be so lonely while you’re gone.” There was a sneer in his voice; his words bounced off her retreating back as she stalked off.

Her hips looked nice in those jeans. His dark brown eyes ate her up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Miss Haggly repeated Reggie’s demand, hand on her hip.

“Water fountain.”

“Hurry back. No shenanigans.” Betty tried hard not to smile at the word “shenanigans.”

But in the hall, she sighed in exasperation. Why Reggie, of all people? Her day had been going just fine. Why did he always have to pick her to pick on? What was up with him? She began to regret that she hadn’t taken Jug up on his offer, even if it just meant he would freeload off of all her hard work.

She headed for the fountain and took long, thirsty gulps just to avoid having to go back to class.

“Hey.” Betty eyes darted toward the voice just shy of her left elbow. They were just level with the horizontal white stripe of Archie’s black sweater. She choked, sputtering and coughing as she straightened up.

“Hi…*karrgh*…Arch…*koff*.”

“Geez, you okay?” His blue eyes danced as he looked her over. “Nice apron.”

“Thanks,” she grinned through trying to clear her throat and flick at the corner of her watery eye.

“Home ec?” he inquired of the obvious.

“Cinnamon rolls,” she clarified for him.

“Cool. I have that today, too, then.”

“Miss Haggly’s the sub.”

“Shit,” he muttered, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“She’s gonna give Moose detention.”

“He practically lives there, anyway.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Her sigh was wistful. She was running out of small talk but was enjoying his voice. And his scent, which was a mixture of Axe deodorant and a mint breath strip.

“Psst. Psst…Arch!”

It was Reggie, peering furtively back into the classroom from the doorway. He was sizing them up and smirking again.

“What’s up?”

“They paired me up with Betty Crocker, here,” he scoffed. Archie’s shoulders shook as he peered back at Betty. She felt her cheeks turn an angry, ugly red, heating up all the way to her scalp. She stepped away from him.

“Betty Crocker,” Archie chuckled.

“See ya,” Betty offered quickly as she darted back into the classroom, brushing past Reggie, who feinted back with his hands held up in surrender. Her shoulder grazed his chest when he didn’t move back far enough, fast enough, taking up all the space in the doorframe.

She wanted to kill him.

She settled for pounding the dough onto the floured rolling board in the guise of kneading it.

“Put some back into it, kiddo,” Miss Haggly encouraged.

“Why are boys so stupid?” she muttered under her breath.

“I’ve been asking myself that for twenty years,” her teacher admitted sagely. “Don’t overwork it, it’ll get tough.” She called back to Reggie, who had gone back to Frankie’s station. “Get back over here and pull your own weight, Twinkle Toes. I don’t have to give both of you the same grade, y’know.”

Betty knew they were talking about her, if Frankie’s darting glances were any indication. She stuck out her tongue at him. He held up his hands helplessly. “What’d I do?” he yelped back innocently. She turned her back on him. “Miss Haggly, Betty’s making faces at me.”

“Can’t blame her. You’re funny looking,” Miss Haggly snapped. “Don’t interrupt the woman while she’s cooking. Which you should be doing.”

She overheard Reggie murmuring “should have seen the look on her face” and “Arch” over the sound of her fists hitting the dough.

It was a triumph for Reggie, score two, over Betty, zip. One: He’d gotten a rise out of her. And two, he’d diverted her from his chief rival in the process.
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Pigtails