“I’ve got better things to do.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Like right now, trying this on a yellow background. Yellow or orange, what do you think?”
Margalo thought yellow, against which the image they had made contrasted well, the plump, white, bubble-headed muffin wearing a jolly red-lipstick smile and happy half-moon eyes with long, stiff eyelashes, with its stick-figure legs under the pink ruffled skirt of its muffin cup. The certificate was pretty simple, like all good advertising graphics. It had a blue ribbon border ending at the bottom of the page in a blue first prize rosette. The merry muffin on its long dancing legs appeared at the middle of the page, slightly below center. Below her was a slogan Mikey and Margalo had argued over until they both liked it: THERE’S NOTHING MORE SWEET AND SMILEY THAN MY MORNING MUFFIN. And along the top ran the title: THE LITTLE MISS MUFFIN AWARD.
Against the bright yellow background, the bright red title in 24-point Old Gothic font would be readable from yards away, as their awards greeted Heather, Annie, Stacey and Lacey and Tracey, and Linny, especially, because Linny had changed from being a not-stuck-up queen of their sixth-grade class to being someone who wouldn’t even say hi to you if you weren’t in some in-group. Margalo’s job that morning was getting those six award certificates taped up on the six lockers, and herself to gym not suspiciously late. She was in such a hurry, she didn’t even stand back to admire their work.
Later, Margalo didn’t have a chance to stand back and admire, because there were groups of people crowding the hall, reading and laughing; either that, or watching the papers being ripped off and ripped up, and laughing.
Mikey and Margalo arrived from different directions, so they had to watch the scene separately. “I think the real winner is Linny,” some boy said. Another argued that Heather was the roundest, most muffin-like, and another that Tracey had the most stick-like legs. “But Linny’s the one who dances like that,” insisted the first boy.
This turned into a chanting, cheering contest—“Miss Muf-fin, Miss Muf-fin, Miss Muf-fin”—with rhythmic clapping, and each candidate with her own group of supporters, both boys and girls. “Sta-cey, Stacey,” battled with, “La-cey, La-cey,” for airspace, while one group maintained, “Annie’s eyes, Annie’s eyes.”
The six contestants were bunched together in the center of all this, trying to look like good sports, looking to one another for reassurance, trying not to be caught getting angry, or weepy, or embarrassed. “Ha, ha-aha, ha, ha,” they pretended to laugh.
“Who—?” they muttered to one another, and, “Where’s—?”
Heather McGinty leaned over to whisper something into Annie’s ear, and Annie’s eyes swung to Mikey like a compass needle finding north. “Mikey,” she muttered to the other five, and Mikey smiled right at them. Gotcha!
Margalo watched Rhonda Ransom slip up beside Heather McGinty, big blond hair next to sleek blond style, and whatever Rhonda said to Heather, Heather looked at Margalo and didn’t believe it. Margalo thought she knew what Rhonda was saying, and if Heather McGinty had asked Margalo’s advice, it would have been, “Believe it.”
Gradually, the group dispersed to all show up late for their next classes, temporarily unconcerned with getting into trouble, because they had all—with six exceptions—been having such a good time. Mikey and Margalo exchanged a satisfied glance and went their separate ways. They could have made more copies and kept posting and re-posting the award certificates, but Margalo had convinced Mikey that once was enough, once was the way to do it, once would get exactly the ongoing humiliation that Margalo and Mikey hoped for.
So that when Rhonda turned on Margalo in gym the next morning, shrieking like some demented mother whose children won’t behave in the supermarket, her eyes filled with tears as she cried out, “You’re ruining my life!” when all Margalo had done was ask, “How’s it going, Barbs?”—that was the end of their revenges.
They had gotten even, and maybe a little ahead.
But what Mikey didn’t ask Margalo, and Margalo didn’t ask Mikey, although both of them wondered it, was this: That probably blows it for both of us, don’t you bet? Neither one of them needed to say out loud to the other, I’m not a bit sorry. They both already knew that.
6
The Cheese Stands Alone
Mikey arrived at school the next morning ready for a fresh start. Not a fresh start at being popular—or even a fresh start at being less disliked. No, she was finished with the whole popularity question. What difference did it make, anyway, if people liked you? She couldn’t think of anything she wanted that being popular would make it easier to get. Being unpopular could make it harder to get certain things, she did understand that. But she wasn’t convinced that harder was an insurmountable obstacle.
And, besides, she didn’t have anything against obstacles. In fact, she kind of liked them. So as long as she had Margalo for a friend, Mikey was as popular as she needed to be.
Mikey did understand that it wouldn’t be quite as easy for Margalo. Margalo had been sort of quiet on the bus going home the day before, and her voice had been sort of little on the phone last night, when she said the few things she had to say. But Mikey had been feeling more and more energetic, and had lots to say, the more she thought out what was bound to happen after what they had done. Mikey’s opinion was, people could dislike her as much as they wanted now that they knew they couldn’t ignore her.
In fact, Mikey would prefer not to be someone people liked.
She hopped down off the school bus, eager to explain this to Margalo, and convince her how great things were going to be, from now on. Halloween was behind them and Thanksgiving only a couple of weeks away, and it was a cold, gray November morning with a few little flurrying flakes of snow drifting down in the air. Her grandmother had called to ask could she fly over and spend Thanksgiving with her only son and her favorite granddaughter, to which both Mikey and her father had said, “Yes! Great!” Then Mikey’s father had asked, if he hadn’t been the only son, would she have gone to a brother’s instead; and Mikey had demanded to know why she wasn’t the favorite grandchild; and Mrs. Elsinger had cackled away on her end of the phone while they cackled back at her.
So things were looking pretty good, Mikey thought, looking around for Margalo—who wasn’t there.
Mikey went inside to find her. It could be that Margalo’s bus was late, but it might also be that Margalo was too cold to wait outside for Mikey because she hadn’t yet gotten herself a winter jacket, or whatever she was going to wear that year. Margalo could probably come to school wearing an old blanket pinned at the neck with a baby’s diaper pin, one of those big pins with a yellow duck on the end, and she’d look good. Mikey thought she’d tell Margalo that.
Mikey went to the library and stood inside the door, looking around, but she didn’t see Margalo. Nobody noticed Mikey; at least, nobody looked at her, or smiled at her. So she went to the art room, where the arty-smarty clique spent their free time, and just stuck her head in. One or two people who didn’t know her looked up, without any interest, and the rest ignored her.
You didn’t think junior high was going to be warm and snuggly, Mikey reminded herself, going back to her locker. Because she was uncomfortable, as if the skin of her body didn’t fit right, as if it were too tight, maybe. Or as if her skin were too baggy and loose, dragging around after her.
But where was Margalo? She wasn’t at the lockers, either. Mikey went to homeroom.
When Margalo’s desk was unoccupied, Mikey had to notice how everybody else was talking to somebody, and how nobody said anything to her.
Okay, Mikey said to herself. So nobody in this room likes you. Big surprise.
Margalo never showed up for homeroom, so that by the end of it Mikey had to admit that she was absent. And would probably not show up all day.
And hadn’t called Mikey to warn her.
Mikey was angry, which was a lot more comfortable than being alone. Her anger go
t her to math, and once the teacher came in, everything was pretty much normal. One of the good things about teachers was: When they were running the room, the kids weren’t Another good thing was that teachers kept everybody paying attention, so if someone had something to say, even if she wasn’t popular she got to say it, and at least one person—the teacher—would listen.
But Margalo had really dropped Mikey in the soup by being absent, and Mikey wasn’t going to forgive her easily; that was what was on her mind as she pulled books out of her locker, put books in, checked to be sure she had her homework, and went back to classes. Lunch, she was beginning to realize—going down the crowded halls in her own little bubble that everybody gave a wide berth to and nobody even looked at—would be the worst.
Standing alone in line. Crossing alone to her table. Sitting alone to eat.
Before she even went near the cafeteria, Mikey went to the pay phones in the hall just outside the main office. She put in her coins and dialed Margalo’s number. As soon as Margalo said, “Hello?” Mikey let her have it.
“You could have called me,” she said. “I didn’t even bring a book to read.”
“You don’t read books, and there’s a whole library, anyway,” Margalo answered, as if she was the one who was angry. What did she have to be angry about? She wasn’t the one stranded here, behind enemy lines.
“You know what I mean,” Mikey said. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Nothing.”
“I mean, what kind of sick are you?”
“I’m not.”
“Then why don’t you come to school?” Mikey leaned her forehead against the cool silver metal front of the pay phone, not letting herself be distracted by the sounds around her.
“I don’t want to,” Margalo said, cross.
“Well, neither do I, but I’m here. And you didn’t even call me up to tell me you were staying home.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why? Your hand was cut off in the night? Jeepers, Margalo—and why aren’t you in school, anyway, if you’re not sick?”
“I had to baby-sit Lily and be here for Stevie’s car pool.”
“What about Aurora, that’s her job. Or Steven, if she can’t.”
“Steven has to work. Aurora had to go downtown.”
“Downtown? Shopping? And you’re baby-sitting? Talk about skewed priorities.”
“Downtown to get Howie.”
“Get him where?”
“From jail.”
“What was Howie doing there?” Mikey demanded.
“He got arrested last night. Actually, this morning. The police picked him up on Threadwhistle Street—”
“But that’s all private houses.”
“I know.”
“Private houses in a good neighborhood.”
“I know. That’s why the people there get nervous about loiterers. Especially teenaged boys. That’s why somebody called the police.”
“Why didn’t the cops just bring him home?” Mikey asked, since this seemed to be why Margalo had to stay home.
“It was the third time,” Margalo explained.
“The third time they picked him up? What is he doing?”
“There’s a girl he’s in love with. It’s love.”
“So he lurks around her house in the middle of the night? Real smart, Howie. Aurora should have left him in jail. You’re missing a day of classes,” Mikey pointed out.
“He’s home now, anyway. She’s giving him a bowl of soup. Canned chicken-and-rice. He’s going to need a lawyer, and Aurora isn’t sure his father will pay.”
“Send him back to his father. He’s no relation, anyway,” Mikey argued.
“Aurora thinks he is. He thinks he is. He might as well be, I guess.” Then Margalo changed the subject. “What did you have for lunch?”
“Nothing.”
There was a silence from Margalo’s end. Mikey waited.
“I couldn’t call, Mikey. Aurora was on the phone talking to the bail person and lawyers, trying to find Howie’s dad. It was pretty frantic here. I really couldn’t.”
“Okay, okay. Who’s complaining? Don’t get all worked up,” Mikey said.
“How’s school?” Margalo asked now, and about time.
Mikey didn’t need anybody feeling sorry for her. “How bad can it be?” she asked. “What can they do, stick needles under my fingernails?”
She could hear Margalo smiling, and she smiled herself when Margalo said, “Does it count if they only want—really want—to?”
“What kinds of needles?” Mikey asked. Maybe she’d just talk to Margalo all through the long lunch period.
But somebody tapped her on the shoulder and said, “You’re not the only person in the world, Elsinger.”
Some girl whose name she didn’t even know. Maybe even an eighth grader. Who cared? But there were several people waiting, and there were only two phones. Mikey hung up, but she was wondering: Why didn’t the school have enough phones for the people who wanted to use them?
And she wasn’t about to go into that cafeteria alone, either.
Margalo should have called.
The halls were empty because people were either eating lunch or in class. As Mikey approached her locker, she became aware of a stink. Not a nasty, rotten stink; a nasty sweet stink. Like the smell-advertising in those fancy women’s magazines. Horrible perfumed air was floating around in the hallway near Mikey’s locker.
Because the smell was coming right from her locker. And the front of it looked wet. She put out her fingers to touch it. Oily. Because somebody had sprayed some oily horrible perfume all over the front of Mikey’s locker, and probably up into the ventilation slots, too; probably it was all over her books and papers, too.
Mikey opened the combination lock, and her guess was right.
Somebody—she understood this right away now—wanted to tell her she stank.
As if she cared.
But didn’t dare tell her to her face.
As if, even if she did stink, she cared.
What chickens.
That was when Mikey became aware that she was no longer alone. She turned around slowly, to see who had showed up.
Lots of people, lots of familiar faces, lots of faces whose names she didn’t know. Preppies and Barbies, arty-smarties and jockettes, and of course jocks, and of course, Louis Caselli’s grinning baboon face. People from her old school, and people she hadn’t even known existed until this year, and some people she’d seen—and scored goals past—on the soccer field, and a couple she’d played tennis against. What did they think she was, a circus show?
A satisfying anger was building up in Mikey as her smile, You’re-going-to-be-sorry, fell on the faces at the front of the ring of faces. Rhonda next to Heather McGinty with tag-along Annie tagging along.
Mikey waited for her fury to hit the right temperature and then she went for the person standing right in front of her.
It was some Heather or some Lindsey, nobody she knew. But it was right there enjoying itself, that face, so Mikey dove for it, and punched, once, twice. Somebody pulled her off before she could land anything solid.
“What’s she—?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s the same one who—”
The voices eddied around her, like waves, and she turned to face the person who had pulled her away, a boy. She thought he was in her math class, a brown-haired boy in a blue sweater, maybe his name was Tom. Or maybe she’d never seen him before.
As soon as he let her go, she gripped her hands together, palm to palm, fingers intertwined down beside her left thigh, and brought up a two-handed backhand stroke—and slammed him on the cheek.
He backed off, but he didn’t back away. He raised crossed arms to protect his face, hands clenched, and stood his ground. Well, he was a good half-a-foot taller and many pounds heavier; if she’d been him she wouldn’t back away, either. Mikey lowered her hands for a two-handed forehand swing at hi
s other ear.
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
“As if,” Mikey answered.
She saw Louis Caselli push his way up to the front row of a crowd that was chirruping in gasps, like muppets in a panic. “You come anywhere near me, Louis Caselli,” she warned him, and he didn’t.
“I don’t hit girls,” the boy she was fighting said.
“Hunh,” Mikey grunted. But she unclasped her hands. “Okay,” Mikey said, and he relaxed a little.
Which was a mistake, because she went after him with her feet, kicking his shins, stomping on his toes. She was wearing sneakers, but if you put enough ankle snap behind it, you could get a good kick off a sneaker. And if you had strong thigh muscles, which Mikey did, and you got up into the air a little, you could really stomp somebody’s foot.
“Hey!” he protested. “Cut it—!” and he kicked back at her.
She danced out of his way. She was quicker than he was—until he landed his foot hard just beside her kneecap, so hard that she almost fell over sideways.
She swayed in a circle, to keep on her feet, balanced, and put out her elbows so that when she went back at him she could use both feet and elbows.
“Wow,” somebody said. “It’s feet of flame.”
“Pull her hair! She hates that!”
“Man—is that chick coordinated or what?”
“Look out!”
But it was never clear who was supposed to look out for what, because Mr. Saunders had run up on the scene, and suddenly everybody started to be in a big hurry to be somewhere else. He put one hand on the boy’s neck, ready to squeeze. “What seems to be the problem, Ralph?”
Ralph? Mikey had never heard of anyone named Ralph. What was this Ralph stranger doing trying to get into her fight?
“Nothing,” Ralph answered. “Ask her,” he said.
“She hit Heather!” a girl’s voice cried.
“Heather didn’t do anything!”
“Nobody did anything!”
“She hit Heather first!”
“I was just trying to stop it, sir,” Ralph said.
Mr. Saunders let go of the boy’s neck and turned his attention to Mikey. “Is that true?”
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