The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection

by Megan Mccafferty

Anyway, Coach Fleet was eager to see what kind of shape I was in. So she timed me and the rest of the team as we ran a mile and a half around the track. Six laps. The Sampson twins took off together and never looked back. I only saw the backs of their PJHS T-shirts. Molly started out with them for the first lap and a half or so, then fell back. I passed her on the third lap. Padma never tried to run any pace but her own. She started and finished behind me but just ahead of Molly.

  I kind of surprised myself—and my teammates—by how easily I was able to complete the six laps. Don’t get me wrong, I was tired and out of breath when I finished, but I didn’t, like, collapse in a heap. The Sampson twins finished about three-quarters of a lap ahead of me. Padma and Molly finished about three-quarters of a lap behind. No one talked as we cooled down. And in that quiet, I got paranoid. What if Molly and Padma were mad at me for running faster than they did?

  Then Padma started rapping.

  “J.D. got herself some crazy fast feet/Thank you, thank you, thank you, Coach Fleet!”

  Her lyrics needed some work, but I appreciated the message anyway. Molly just smiled and nodded. She wasn’t much of a talker.

  “How long have you been running?” Shandi asked as she bent over to stretch her legs.

  “Um.” I recalled my time on the clock: 10:58. “About eleven minutes, I guess.”

  “Did you hear that?” Shandi asked.

  “I did!” Shauna answered.

  “Eleven minutes!” exclaimed the Sampson twins.

  Then they burst into rapid-fire laughter: h-h-h-h-h-h-h-HA! They laughed fast, they talked fast, they ran fast. Everything the Sampson sisters did was fast. They were so fast that they frequently overlapped each other’s sentences, as if the one sister wasn’t expressing herself fast enough.

  “What I meant was…” began Shandi.

  “How long have you trained…” middled Shauna.

  “… to be a runner?” ended the twins together.

  It took some getting used to.

  “Eleven minutes,” I repeated.

  The Sampson twins laughed again—h-h-h-h-h-h-h-HA!—then good-naturedly punched me in the shoulders. Shandi picked the right. Shauna the left.

  “That’s funny,” they said.

  “I like this girl,” Shandi said.

  “Me too,” Shauna said.

  “Welcome to the team,” they said.

  This was a very big deal because the Samspon twins are kind of famous around school because they’re athletic and smart and pretty. And there’s two of them. They’re also lean and strong and graceful and could be star athletes in just about any sport, so nobody understands why they’re on the girls’ cross-country team. Though the boys’ team never has a problem with its numbers, it’s definitely the least popular sport among girls at Pineville Junior High.

  By the end of that first practice, I think I already understood why the Sampson twins chose to be on the cross-country team: They love to run. And they’re natural leaders who don’t like—or need—to follow. For them, it’s just that simple.

  I wish it were that simple for me. Maybe someday it will be.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I’ve been practicing with the cross-country team every day after school for the past two weeks. I’m not close to catching up with the Sampson twins, but Coach Fleet is thrilled by my swift progress and so am I. Our team hasn’t won any meets yet, but we’re all in agreement that it’s better to have a shot at winning than not having a shot at all. And despite our 0–4 record, it’s an improvement over staying home and feeling sorry for myself and the mess I’ve made of seventh grade so far.

  My parents have come to every meet to cheer me on. At the end of my first race, Padma heard Dad congratulate my fourth-place finish by my nickname. Inevitably, she started rapping, “Yo, yo, yo, yo! Notso! Notso! Go, go, go, go! Notso! Notso!” Ever since then, the Sampson twins call out “Yo, Notso!” whenever they see me in the halls. This recognition by two of the coolest eighth graders impresses all the girls at my lunch table except Manda because she doesn’t respond very well when anyone gets more attention than she does.

  Actually, now that I’m on the cross-country team and I’m not in fear of failing Woodshop anymore, my friends are really the only sore spot in my life at the moment. (Other than my shins, which are so tired and achy from running up and down the bleachers and are currently slathered in a mentholated soothing balm that smells like cough drops, Christmas-tree air fresheners, and cat pee. But that’s not what I meant by sore spot and I’m probably babbling parenthetically because my friends are a really awkward subject right now and I’m not sure how to begin. I guess I could start by closing these parentheses and moving on.)

  Okay. Moving on.

  So. My friends. The problem with my friends is even more complicated than my best friend hating me. Even my friends who don’t hate me are causing drama. Most of the time at least one of us in the group is annoying the fecal matter out of someone else in the group. (Confession: I’ve noticed that Miss Orden gives me bonus points on my essays when I swap regular words with fancy thesaurus substitutions. That’s why I used fecal matter instead of crap. Miss Orden isn’t grading this story, but my Nerd Self couldn’t stop my Trying to Be Normal Self. This happens a lot.) I don’t feel guilty about saying this because I am equal parts irritated and irritating.

  Take today’s lunch, for example.

  “Jessica,” said Manda, “you’re annoying the fecal matter out of me.”

  Only when Manda said it, she said crap.

  Why was Manda so annoyed with me? I’d forgotten to wear the school colors—red, white, and blue—in honor of Pineville Junior High Spirit Day. Quite frankly, after I retired as mascot, I’d put all displays of school spirit behind me. And besides, I wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten. Sara showed up for school in a pink polo and blue denim skirt. Why wasn’t Manda hassling her?

  “She’s co-founder of the Spirit Squad,” I said, gesturing toward Sara. “Not me.”

  That’s when Manda turned to Hope for backup.

  “You’re the artist,” Manda said to Hope. “Please explain to Jessica what happens when you combine red and white.”

  Without looking up from her doodles, Hope said, “Red and white make pink.”

  Manda turned to Sara.

  “Sara, what color is your shirt?”

  Sara frowned like this was a trick question and there was no way she was going to answer it without being totally humiliated. Like, what if today was the day Sara discovered that her pink is everyone else’s green?

  “Pink?”

  “Pink,” Manda said with a curt nod.

  And I swear Sara looked triumphant, as if she’d just discovered the solution to global warming. (Actually, she’d be crushed if she ended global warming. Global warming, she believes, is good for her tan. She’d be like, “You can have my Nobel Prize! I need to get back to the fake and bake!”)

  Anyway, Manda grabbed the hem of my T-shirt.

  “And what color is your shirt, Jess?” Manda pressed. “It’s not pink. Or red. Or white, is it?”

  She stood there, hands on hips, waiting for me to deny this charge I couldn’t deny. Recently I’ve decided that I actually like some of Bethany’s old T-shirts. I keep wearing them even though I’ve come to realize that by Manda’s definition, interesting means ick. Anyway, the Beatles shirt I was wearing at the time was black. It wasn’t pink or red or white or any other color but what it was. Black.

  “Actually,” Hope said, tossing her notebook aside. “Jess’s shirt is pink. And red. And white.”

  Manda and Sara both “whatevered” her.

  And then Hope surprised us all. Especially me.

  “Light is made up of all the colors of the spectrum. When light hits an object, it can be absorbed, reflected, or it can shine right through.” Hope took a breath before continuing. “Black is the absence of any reflected light, but it absorbs all the colors of the spectrum including pink. And red. And white.�
��

  “Omigod! Nerd alert! Shut up!” shouted Sara.

  I happen to appreciate that Hope also uses bonus-point vocabulary words like spectrum. But I have a feeling she doesn’t have to cheat with a thesaurus like I do.

  Manda just huffed for a few seconds. Then she whipped out her wand and applied gloss to her lips, even though as far as I could tell they had already achieved maximum luster. (Maximum luster is thesaurus for shiny.) Then she huffed some more.

  “Puh-leeze,” she replied at last. “Anyone who can’t remember something as simple as wearing school colors on Spirit Day has cranio-rectal syndrome.”

  Only Manda didn’t say “has cranio-rectal syndrome.” She said “has her head up her butt.” And then she decided she’d had enough of me. It was time to flirt with Scotty Glazer, the only seventh-grade football player skilled enough to start with the eighth graders, which makes him cool enough to sit with them at lunch.

  “Come on, Sara and Hope, let’s show the team our spirit!”

  Hope didn’t get up right away. As we sat alone together, I noticed that she was wearing a black-and-white-striped T-shirt under her overalls.

  “You never wear red, white, and blue on Spirit Day,” I said to Hope.

  Suddenly and without warning, a ball of crazy boy energy came crashing down beside Hope. It was Aleck! From Woodshop! I was surprised for two reasons: (1) Aleck had Language Arts seventh period and wasn’t supposed to be here. (2) Aleck had been kind of distant with me ever since I retired Mighty the Seagull, as if that secret was the only reason he had bothered talking to me at all.

  “Hey, Hope!” he said. “How’s it going?”

  Hope kind of half smiled, half winced.

  “Uh. Okay. My friend Jessica and I were just discussing the lameness of Spirit Day. Have you guys met?”

  I tried to hide the shock on my face. Hope and Aleck knew each other?

  Aleck half smiled and said, “No. I’ve never met Jessica.” He put special emphasis on my real name. “Have I?”

  “No,” I replied. “I guess you haven’t.”

  Then he turned back to Hope.

  “You’re a conscientious objector to Spirit Day for follicular reasons,” he said, pulling one of Hope’s curls, then releasing it like a spring. “Like me.”

  It was all happening so fast that I barely had time to process what had just happened. Conscientious WHAT? Follicular HUH?

  “See ya in Woodshop,” he said with a wave, “Jessica!”

  And then he sped off to the corner of the cafeteria where all the detention kids hang out.

  I just kind of stared at Hope like, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

  “We’re both redheads,” she tried to explain. “Our hair clashes with the school colors big-time.”

  “Not that,” I said. “I mean, you know Aleck, too?”

  “Alec? His name isn’t Alec.”

  “Oh! I know! But that’s what our Woodshop teacher calls him. As in Smart Aleck. Or in his case, Dumb Aleck.”

  I turned around in my seat just in time to see Dumb Aleck balancing an open carton of milk on the tip of his nose. Straw and all.

  “That’s Marcus Flutie,” Hope said simply. “We went to the same elementary school. He’s friends with my older brother.”

  And that’s when the carton of milk came crashing to the floor, splashing all over everyone who had a first-row seat to Aleck’s—I mean, Marcus Flutie’s—show of stupidity. They were too busy cracking up to care. For someone with such an impressive vocabulary, Marcus Flutie is an idiot. But I didn’t settle for idiot.

  “Well,” I said, pausing dramatically. “He’s terminally bizarre.”

  Terminally bizarre is a new phrase I’m trying out. I mean, if Manda could make and break mondo, why can’t I create a new buzzword? But Hope just kinda shrugged when I said it.

  Hmm. I’m not confident terminally bizarre will catch on.

  I was about to ask Hope about her older brother—how old was he and what was he like and did he ever TOTALLY MESS WITH HER HEAD?—when Manda called over to her from the jocks’ table. She was rubbing Burke Roy’s bicep.

  “Come here, Hope!” Manda commanded. “Burke here wants a Pineville Chicken tattoo and we need you to sketch it for him!”

  Maybe Hope mouthed, “Seagull.” I can’t say for sure. I was too busy noticing that Manda was flirting with the boy everyone knew was supposed to officially ask out Bridget any second now. Even from across the room I could see Bridget’s face had turned as red as the P on her PJHS CHEER TEAM!!! uniform. She had obviously noticed, too.

  “Come onnnnnn, Hooooope.”

  Hope looked back and forth between Bridget and Manda/Burke. She wore an expression of weary resignation, then sighed heavily before standing up.

  “Duty calls.”

  She was a half step away from the table when she turned around.

  “You’re so lucky you get to escape to Woodshop,” she said. “I’m still mad at the guidance department for not switching me to Visual Arts. You have no idea how much I hate being in the middle of all this drama in Home Ec.”

  Oh, that’s where Hope was wrong. I had an excellent idea of how much she hated being stuck in the middle. I’ve been stuck in the middle ever since I started seventh grade. Maybe that’s why some junior highs are called middle schools.

  Anyway, it was clear that Hope didn’t want to go over there as much as I didn’t want to go over there. What a relief that Manda didn’t call for me. Because I don’t think I could have lived with myself if I had gotten up, too, just to make good on IT List #4: Stick with the IT clique.

  And while I’m being honest, I guess I should say this: I had looked forward to “meeting” Marcus Flutie in Woodshop today. But he must have cut class because he never showed up. I felt like such a foolish girlie-girl for being disappointed by his absence.

  I don’t want to feel that way again.

  And that, to me, is reason enough to skip IT List #3: Pick your first boyfriend wisely.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  September turned into October and I’VE GOT BIG NEWS.

  The first bit of big news is that Bridget and I are talking to each other again.

  I was the one who initiated the reconciliation by showing up at her house uninvited with sugary cereal and soda. Everyone in school knew that Burke had finally asked out Bridget and they were officially a couple. I figured that if she ever really believed that I had a thing for him—which, for the record, I never did—that she would be over it by now because she got him and I didn’t, which is totally fine because I never wanted him anyway.

  “Hey,” I said when she came to the front door.

  She was wearing her PJHS CHEER TEAM!!! uniform. There’d been a football game that afternoon. Somehow, even without the unique entertainment provided by Mighty the Seagull, the team managed to draw a crowd. Even if their 0–5 record was hardly anything to cheer about.

  “Hey,” she said.

  And then I just stared at her faded welcome mat because I didn’t know what to say next.

  “I’m not supposed to eat that stuff,” Bridget said. “If I want to fit into my uniform.”

  Then she actually pinched the waistline of her cheer skirt. Ack. Was fear of junk food yet another thing Bridget had in common with my sister and mother?

  “Oh” was all I could say.

  It was so awkward. So, so awkward. Until—suddenly—it wasn’t anymore.

  Bridget grabbed the box out of my hand and hugged it to the PJHS logo on her chest.

  “But I don’t care because I’m starving!”

  She plopped herself down on the front step and I just kind of stood there for a moment, unsure of whether she wanted the box to herself or what. Then she brushed away some leaves and gestured for me to sit down beside her.

  “Come on, Jess,” she said, “I know you’re starving, too! You must run, like, a bazillion miles at practice every day!”

  Someone else must have told her I was on the cross-countr
y team because I hadn’t. It’s possible she’d seen me running all around the school while she was at CHEER TEAM!!! practice. Maybe she couldn’t help but notice me even when she was mad at me.

  I sat down next to her. We opened our sodas and toasted with plastic bottles.

  “CHEERS!!!”

  I shouted it like Bridget had on our last junk-food picnic.

  Bridget’s eyes lit up. Then she shouted right back at me.

  “RACES!!!”

  I was looking at her like, Wha…? when—duh!—I got it.

  She cheers. I race. We should celebrate both.

  We didn’t apologize to each other. We didn’t talk about what happened between us because I don’t think either of us understood what had happened between us. Avoiding that awkward conversation was fine with me because my best friend was talking to me again. The only downside to avoiding the awkwardness was how it could be interpreted as a sign that we weren’t really best friends anymore.

  Perhaps my changing friendship with Bridget wasn’t an upside or a downside but a… middleside?

  “I think the CHEER TEAM!!! should cheer for cross-country and other sports besides football,” Bridget said when we got to the bottom of the box. All that was left was a squinch of sugary cereal dust.

  “Really?” I asked as she picked up the box and the bottles and stood up.

  “Our football team, well…” She paused and looked around for eavesdroppers. “It kinda sucks.”

  I feigned horror. “Bridget! I could have your pom-poms revoked for such talk!”

  “Don’t tell Burke I said so, but it’s true!” She was laughing harder than I’d heard her laugh in a long time. It was so great to hear her laugh like that, a laugh I’ve heard a bazillion times. “They’ve got the worst record in the whole school!”

  I promised I wouldn’t say anything to Burke or anyone else.

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  As I jogged back across the street to my house, I thought about how Bridget was probably the only person in the whole school who knew that the PJHS girls’ cross-country team had ended its losing streak.

  Yes! This is my second bit of big news! We won our first meet today!