Hillridge Library
Check Out Desk:
~ The Rise And Fall Of The Kate Empire
~ The Lizzie Mcguire Movie Junior Novelization
Reading Conner:
The Rise And Fall Of The Kate Empire
CHAPTER ONE
Lunch tray in hand, Lizzie Mcguire stood before the crowed outdoor courtyard at Hillridge Junior High, searching for a table. Lunch tables. They were claimed, named, and declared group truf the first day of each school year. There was the math club table, the skate rat table, even a table for the future misfits of America. But what really irked Lizzie was the cheerleaders' table. Theirs was the very table Lizzie and her best friends, Gordo and Miranda, had claimed for themselves at the beginning of the school year--- only to have the cheerleaders reclaim it for themselves the next day. Ever since, finding seats for herslef and her friends was a major pain. And today, Lizzie's patience was thinned by hunger. All she wanted to do was plop down and devour her cafeteria special. Was this too much to ask? Couldn't everyone jus get along? At least long enough to scarf down a plate of mac and cheese? Lizzie blew a strand of blond hair out of her eyes and searched around some more.
"I don't see any seats," Miranda said with a sigh, holding a tray with a now chilled slice of pizza and a carton of orange juiced on it. Gordo joined thjem, holding his mom's specially prepared sushi rolls in a paper bag. They had to find three seats together; otherwise they'd be stuck sitting on the muddy grass again.
"There's three over there," Gordo said excitedly. Lizzie and Miranda took a step toward the place where he was pointing and then stopped. It was the cheerleaders' table.
Lizzie looked at Gordo, waiting for the punch line. But it appeared he wasn't kidding. "Gordo, we can't sit there," she said.
Lizzie Toon: The cheerleading table is like the Oscars. You only go if you're nominated.
"Why not?" Gordo asked in a logical tone, as if logic had anything to do with it. "It's lunchtime. And I'm not eating bologna in the grass. Again."
"Yeah! We should take a stand and take those seats back!" Miranda chimed in. Lizzie raised her eyebrows in surprise. Normally, Miranda was the first to obey the social hierarchy of junior high. But there she stood, holding her tray out like a soldier ready for battle. "Gordo?" Miranda said.
"It's time to draw a line in the sand," he declared. they both looked at Lizzie.
Lizzie Toon: Sand? i don't even like the beach.
Lizzie looked at the cheerleaders. They're just people, she tried to reason. Beneath the poms-poms, there must be hearts. "Okay." Lizzie said nervously. "After you, Gordo." Together they all marched over to the cheerleaders' table, with Gordo leading the way.
Kate Sandars, captain of the cheerleading squad and self-proclaimed queen of Hillridge Junior High, sat a t the head of the table, spooning yogurt out of a little plastic container. Watching her, Lizzie thought how much Kate had changed. In grade school, Kate was actually one of Lizzie's best friends. But the came junior high and Kate became a cheerleader. From that moment on, Kate mocked Lizzie relentlessly for her noncheerleader/nonpopular status. It was like Kate had traded her soul for a pleated skirt.
Sitting next to Kate was her new best friend, Claire. Claire was the squad's stuck-up junior captain who seemed to enjoy mocking all the school "losers" more than Kate did. As Gordo, Lizzie, and Miranda approached, Kate and Claire looked them up and down, their glossy mouths open in total disbelief.
"Um, Gordo, are you and your friends a bit confused?" Kate asked. "this is a cheerleading only zone."
"Buh-bye." Claire sneered as she waved the trio away.
But Gordo wasn't in the mood for pom-pom girls with with a superiority complex. "You know, the cheereleading act is wearing a little thin," he snapped. "It's time things changed around here. Cheerleaders and noncheerleaders can sit down and eat at the same table." With each word, Gordo's voice rose untill he was almost shouting.
Suddenly, Gordo slammed his lunch tray down on the table with a loud smack. Kate and Calire jumped. It was one of the coolest things Lizzie and Miranda had ever seen.
"I'm stayin'. I'm finishing my lunch here," Gordo announced. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at Kate and Claire, as if daring them to make a move.
The two cheerleaders blinked at him, startled. Then they turned to each other and smiled.
Moments later, Gordo, Lizzie, and Miranda found themselves sitting on the wet muddy grass between two tables.
"It's no that I dislike Kate," Gordo said, glaring at the queen of all things evil. "It's just that I hate everything she represents."
"Yeah," Lizzie agreed. "I just wish one time she would know what ir feels to sit on the grass."
"It feels scratchy," Miranda said. Then feeling the damp seat of her new plaid pants, "And wet," she added with a tight grin.
Suddenly, a loud shout boomed out across the quad, startling them all. "Gimme an H!" Lizzie turned to see the cheerleaders parcticing their routine right behind them on the grass.
"Great," Lizzie snapped. "It's not bad enough we have to eat in the grass---now we have to watch them?"
"This is a cruel and unusual punishment," Gordo said. "There are rules about this is the Constitution."
Miranda looked at him. There were? Gordo knew the strangest things. "Where does the Constitution stand on wet pants?"
But just as Gordo was about to answer, the loud cries of the cheereleaders' cheering drowned him out. There was nothing Lizzie, Miranda, and Gordo could do but watch Kate russle her pom-poms and toss her ong, perfect blond hair. She looked like she was born to do this. Lizzie scanned the courtyard and realized that everyone was awestruck by Kate's performance.
"Why is it that Kate always gets what she wants?" Lizzie asked with frustration.
"Because it's her world and we all just live in it?" Miranda suggested.
"I have everything I want," Gordo said---"except a seat. I hate picking ants out of my cheesey puffs." He shot an ant off his puff, then pooped it into his mouth.
The cheerleading squad finished their rah-rahs and were now ready for their big finale. This was their specialty---the big crowd-pleasing pyramid. Five girls kneeled on their hands and knees, three more girls jumped on their backs and then kicked up one foot. Not it was all about Kate. Eyeing her target, Late ean, sprang, and then landed gracefully on top of the triangle of bodies. Kate was standing twelve feet above everyone else and she was beaming. She shot her hands up high in the sky.
Wathcing Kate, Lizzie frowned. "I wish that just once someone would come alongand knock Kate right off her pedestal," she said.
Lizzie Toon: Where's that big gust of wind when you need it?
Just then, a looked of uncertainty falshed across Kate's face. Her legs began to wobble. She flapped her arms in the air, trying to regain her balance, but it was too late. With a piercing squeal, Kate pitched off the top of the pyramid and landed with a loud thud on the grass.
Miranda's and Gordo's mouths fell open. They turned and looked at a stunned Lizzie. "How'd you do that?" Miranda asked.
Lizzie Toon: Since when do i control the wind?
The toppled cheerleaders climbed to their feet, laughing and dusting off their skirts. All except Kate. Kate wasn't moving. She was still lying in the grass where she had fallen. One of the girls reached out her hand to pull Kate up, but she groaned loudly and slapped the hand away.
"Well, I guess cheerleading practice is over," Gordo said cheerfully.
Lizzie winced. "Oh, that can't be good," she said.
The Lizzie Mcguire Movie
CHAPTER ONE
Today was a very big day for Lizzie McGuire. It was graduation day. Good-bye, Hillridge Hunior High School! Hello, brand-new, unhumiliating life!
Lizzie was getting ready in her bedroom, singing along with the radio, blissfully unaware of the evil about to be unleashed upon her.
Only a room away, Matthew McGuire, little brother and official Lizzie Tormentor, was putting his latest plan into action. He'dalready wedged his little digital video camera under the hood of his radio-controlled police car. Not he slipped a videotape labeled Blackmail inot the tape player and hit RECORD.
"Some say, juvenile," he whispered to himself with an evil chuckle. "I say, genius!"
When Lizzie heard a thump on her bedroom door, she immediately stopped singing and opened it.
In zoomed a remote-control police car. "Matt!" she shouted angrily, slamming the door and trapping the car inside. This was so not the time for stupid parnks. "Say good-bye to your little toy!" she yelled.
Little did she know that she was doing exactly what Matt wanted. Her every embarrassing move on his computer screen. "And say hello to Matt owning his big sister for eternity," he said.
Thinking she was alone, Lizzie began singing into her hairbrush "microphone," applying makeup, and doing a little dance across the florr. Lizzie began rooting through her closet lokoking for a graduation outfit. She was looking for something special. Something that said, I am stylin', yet serious about my future. But there wasn't an article of clothing that saide andything remotely close to that.
Quickly she painted her toenails, polished her fingernails, applied lip gloss, checked it out, then wiped it off. So not her color.
And then Lizzie began to sing again. As she lost herself in the music, her voice began to rise. Lizzie didn't usually sign loudly. It wasn't that she didn't have a good singing voice---quite the opposite. Lizzie had a great voice. She was just too shy to let anybody her it.
Lizzie began to dance, twisting and twirling and singing away, right into her bathroom. Disaster came swiftly---she tripped over the bath mat, and down she went, squealing and thumping and taking the shower curtain with her. She landed in the bathtub. Burning with humiliation, she just lay there, covered by the shower curtain.
Matt watched from his room with complete and total satisfaction. Slowly and seriously he rose to his feet. "I shall win the Academy Award," he pronounced.