Work What You Got by Stephanie Perry Moore Page A

to be more work than I ever thought. Mind games were something.
    We pulled into the parking lot that Trisha had been instructed to go to. Four other cars were there waiting. It looked like people were in those cars. None of us in Trisha’s car wanted to exit.
    â€œSo what, are we just supposed to sit here?” Bea said.
    No one had answers, so we sat. All of a sudden, my cell phone rang. I looked at it and saw it was Penelope. I answered.
    â€œYes, I understand,” I said to her as she confirmed that we were in a parking lot with four other automobiles.
    She gave me twenty minutes to get everyone to a new location. But we had to be in uniform. Once I explained that to the girls in my car, we panicked, thinking there was no way that could happen.
    â€œThey want us to go twenty miles from here, and be there in twenty minutes, dressed alike?” Bea said.
    â€œWe’ve got to figure out a way to do this,” Trisha said.
    I stepped out of the car and motioned for everyone to get out of the other cars too. After I explained our task, everyone was talking at once. There was no way we could devise a plan. We lost two minutes just trying to figure the whole thing out.
    So I yelled out, “How many people got a few dollars on them? We gotta pass Wal-Mart heading out of town. Let’s get some white T-shirts. I think six come in a pack or something.”
    I looked around and tried to figure out what else we could do. I prayed, “Lord, this may seem crazy to you, but we all want to be successful. Help us figure this out. Please.”
    Opening my eyes, I looked at Bea. Her pants looked weird. I saw a tag. So I asked, “Bea, what kind of pants are you wearing?”
    â€œGirl, don’t laugh. I’m wearing my pants inside out.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThat’s what a Beta told me to do,” Bea said.
    â€œThen that’s the ticket. It doesn’t matter what kind of pants we have on—as long as they’re inside out, they’ll be uniform,” I announced.
    Twenty minutes later we arrived at the University of Southeastern Arkansas campus. My stomach dropped worse than when I was on the wildest amusement park ride. I only hoped we could stay on our game.
    â€œWe can’t just walk into an empty building on campus like this,” a girl, whose gold chain said Lanna, shouted out.
    I smiled. “Yup. We can. Line up. Shortest to tallest. All the lines I saw last year were that way, so they would expect us to enter correctly.”
    There were twenty of us. I was number ten in the line. When we walked into the room we couldn’t believe there were ten other girls from the host school lined up tight by height, all wearing nice black jogging suits. There had to be about sixty or seventy Betas scattered throughout. It was crazy. They even had scary music playing in the background, like we were in some horror flick. The Betas were practically salivating, ready to pledge our two lines together.
    â€œYou guys couldn’t even be on time,” Keisha said, moving close to us and looking scarier than a witch.
    â€œI heard Keisha is the craziest of them all,” Trisha said from in front of me.
    â€œWho was that?” Bea was number eleven, so she was behind me.
    Trisha said, “She’s called the meanest Beta in the state of Arkansas. We’re probably about to get our butts kicked tonight.”
    â€œWho told the fat girl to come in?” Keisha said, as she pulled Bea out of the line and punched her in her gut.
    I couldn’t believe I was just standing there and doing nothing. Bea was tough though. She didn’t let out one moan.
    â€œOh, so that’s not gonna do it. Then how about your whole line pay for me having to look at your bulging stomach? This T-shirt is too short.” Keisha turned and looked at her sorority sisters. “Y’all, because I’m looking at her big self, um, I want a cake. I want to see which of these