Taking A Look At Veronica Sawyer

It 's the first day of school, 1989, and seventeen-year-old Veronica Sawyer is frustrated with the hellish competitive social hierarchy at Westerburg High School, where nerds and underclassmen are pushed around by brutish, idiot jocks like Ram Sweeney and Kurt Kelly. After trying to defend her best friend, the cheerful, overweight Martha Dunnstock (cruelly renamed "Martha Dumptruck" by the uncreative Kurt), Veronica longs for the days of elementary school when life was simple and everyone was friends. She wishes desperately to be above the drama, but there is only one elite clique who can do that: the Heathers, the three most beautiful, most popular girls in school. They are the weak-willed head cheerleader Heather McNamara; the sullen, bulimic

She orders Veronica to forge a romantic note from him, and gives it to Martha. She tries to stop them, but backs down when the Heathers threaten to destroy her social life ("Candy Store"). Their threats are witnessed by a mysterious, trenchcoat-wearing, Baudelaire-quoting new kid, Jason "J.D." Dean, who criticizes Veronica for betraying her friend in exchange for popularity. Ram and Kurt take the opportunity to pick a fight with him, and he unexpectedly fights back and defeats them. Watching the fight, Veronica finds herself attracted to the stranger ("Fight for Me"). At Veronica 's house, Chandler ridicules her for being into someone below her social status, and subtly insults her parents, who aren 't sure they like their daughter 's new friends ("Candy Store

With Heather Chandler dead, Heather Duke breaks free of her subservient status and assumes control. Veronica and J.D. watch her give sob story interviews on multiple news channels (and in multiple languages) at J.D. 's house, where Veronica witnesses first-hand J.D. 's tense relationship with his father, demolitions expert Big Bud Dean. Veronica 's displeasure at the new status quo is equaled only by that of Chandler herself, who appears as a ghost to berate Veronica from beyond the grave. Veronica gets a call from Heather McNamara, begging her to come to the cemetery, and when she gets there, she discovers the Heathers locked in a car, trying to fend off a drunk Kurt and Ram. It emerges that they escaped date-rape by the intoxicated football players, who are desperate for sexual relief, by telling them that they can have Veronica. The boys aggressively beg her to have sex with them ("Blue"), but she escapes by feeding them more alcohol until they pass out. The next day, Veronica discovers that Heather Duke has taken on Heather Chandler 's role of leader, as she takes Heather Chandler 's red scrunchie (a symbol of her power) from her locker, and that Ram and Kurt have told everyone that she had sex with them ("Blue (Reprise)"), and she is branded a slut by the other students