by Meg Cabot
“It’s not a slave auction,” I said, showing him the ad in the paper. “It’s a talent auction. People are volunteering their talents for the community to bid on. Not their—whatever you’re thinking.”
“Oh,” Darren said, looking a little disappointed. “How do you know so much about it?”
“Because,” I said. I tried not to sound proud, since pride is akin to arrogance, according to The Book, and arrogance is not a desirable trait in a popular girl. “I’m the one who came up with the idea. And I’m running it.”
Darren looked shocked. “You? But you’re—”
He stopped himself, though.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You can say it.”
“Oh, thank God,” Darren said. “It’s just that—honey, you’re such a Steph Landry!”
“But I won’t be for much longer,” I was able to inform him with total confidence.
* * *
Want a surefire way to win the hearts and minds of the people in your crowd?
Be creative!
Speak up!
And follow through!
Don’t sit back and let others make decisions for you. Come up with opinions/ideas of your own…then get others excited about them by acting excited about them yourself!
Enthusiasm wins.
And winners are popular!
* * *
Twenty
DAY FOUR OF POPULARITY
THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 6 P.M.
I was crazed all day getting ready for the auction: signing up last-minute people, then getting their names/talents to Mr. Schneck so that he could practice saying them…getting the guys from the audio-visual club to set up the sound system in the gym, so everyone could hear the auctioneer…getting the bidding paddles (hand-fans I got Day Mortuary to donate. But I’m sure people won’t mind. I mean, about being reminded of dead people during the auction).
Things were so nuts, I didn’t get lunch OR dinner. I never even got to go home after school! Thank God Becca stuck around to help…and, surprisingly, Darlene. It turns out Darlene is a natural at getting people to do stuff. If I hadn’t had her around all afternoon, I don’t know what I would have done. She just has to lower her eyelashes and go, “You guys, will you move the podium over there?” and people—well, okay, guys—practically fall over themselves to do it for her.
And she really isn’t as dumb as she looks. When the local cable television station showed up, because they want to record the auction and show it on public access this weekend, and they didn’t have the right wires, Darlene turned to Todd and went, “Todd, run to the office and ask Swampy if you can borrow the coaxial cable from the teacher’s lounge.”
And the AV guys, their eyes all wide with worship, were like, “How did you know it’s called a coaxial cable?”
And Darlene realized she’d accidentally let her smarts show, and was like, “Oh, did I say that? I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
But later, when the guys weren’t around, and I asked her, “How did you know what kind of cable they needed?” Darlene was like, “Well, duh. Everyone knows that.”
Which caused Becca to ask her, “Did you REALLY not know honey comes from bees that time in the eighth grade?”
And Darlene laughed and said, “Well, no. But that class was so boring. I just wanted to liven things up a little.”
“But doesn’t acting dumb make people look down on you?” Becca wanted to know.
“Oh no,” Darlene said. “Because it gets people to do stuff for me, and then I have more time to watch TV.”
Which actually makes sense. Sort of.
Darlene and Becca weren’t the only ones helping out. Mark and a bunch of his team members came in after practice to help hang the FIRST ANNUAL BLOOMVILLE HIGH TALENT AUCTION banner that I spent my whole lunch period painting, with the help of some cool senior girls and—though she offered it begrudgingly, at best—Lauren.
Lauren came by after school, too, with Bebe Johnson. Her usual shadow, Alyssa Krueger, has been notably absent from Lauren’s side since the TO STEFF incident. I caught a brief glimpse of her scuttling through the cafeteria when I stopped by to grab a soda before heading off to paint my banner, apparently hoping no one would see her buying a tuna sandwich and sneaking out to the flagpole to eat it by herself, since she’s no longer welcome at Mark’s table.
I probably should have felt triumphant, seeing one of Bloomville High’s leading It Girls doing the Walk of Shame through the caf.
But the fact is, the sight just saddened me a little. I don’t have anything against Alyssa Krueger. Much. I mean, she’s a heinous troll, and all of that.
But it’s Lauren I want to see go down.
And WILL see go down. Tonight. If there’s any justice in the world.
While we were painting the banner, one of the senior girls accidentally dribbled paint on the free throw line of the gym floor, and Lauren started laughing.
“God, Cheryl,” she said. “Way to pull a St—”
We all knew what she was going to say. But she stopped herself at the last minute.
I looked over at her and raised one eyebrow (a trick I’d spent hours in front of the mirror—much to the amusement of Jason—teaching myself in the fourth grade, after I became addicted to Nancy Drew, who was always going around, raising one eyebrow at people).
Cheryl, who didn’t notice my eyebrow, went, “I know, I know. Way to pull a Steph Landry. Anybody got a paper towel?”
When nobody said anything, Cheryl looked up and saw everybody—including me—looking at her.
“What?” she said, genuinely not knowing.
“I’m Steph Landry,” I said, trying not to let my anger show. Because anger isn’t a desirable emotion to show if you want to be popular.
Cheryl, a pretty red-headed member of the school dance team, the Fishnets (after the Fighting Fish), went, “Right. Funny. Seriously, who has the roll of paper towels?”
“I am serious,” I said.
Cheryl, realizing I was telling the truth, started to turn as red as the paint she’d spilled.
“But you’re—I mean, you’re—and Steph is…she’s—” she sputtered. “I know your name is Steph, but I didn’t think you were THAT Steph. I mean, that Steph…didn’t she, like, shoot someone?”
“No,” I said.
“No, but seriously. She put a car in Greene Lake or something. I know it.”
“No,” I said. “And I should know. Because I’m Steph Landry. And I didn’t do any of those things. All I did was spill a Big Red Super Big Gulp on someone once.”
And I shot Lauren what I hoped was a meaningful look.
“Is that all?” Cheryl wrinkled her little Fishnet nose. “God. I love Big Red Super Big Gulps. That’s, like, the best flavor.”
“Right,” another senior girl said. “But it stains like crazy. I spilled one on my mom’s white carpet, and I still hear about it sometimes when she’s mad at me for something else.”
“Totally,” Cheryl said. “Come on, though, seriously, you guys. I have to clean this paint up before it dries. Does anyone have a tissue or anything?”
And that was it. Lauren, red-faced, went back to painting. And no one said another thing about it.
And after tonight? No one ever would again.
* * *
Get a life—an extracurricular life, that is!
School is important, it’s true, as are grades and studying.
But nobody likes a know-it-all or bore!
So take a break from the books now and then and cultivate interests outside of school.
It doesn’t make a bit of difference whether your hobby is sewing, gardening, cooking, stamp collecting, or horseback riding. An interest makes YOU interesting to others…and may help you cultivate talents you never even knew you had!
So get out there and get involved!
* * *
Twenty-one
STILL DAY FOUR OF POPULARITY
THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 8 P.M.
It’s started.
And I don’t think I’d be flattering myself to say that it’s going GREAT.
And okay, we didn’t get the seven thousand people who usually manage to drag themselves into the gym for basketball games.
But we’ve got a good three thousand, I bet. That’s a heck of a lot more than we’d get for a car wash.
And people are spending money! Gordon Wu and his three hours of computer lessons went for thirty-five dollars. The guy with the stump grinder? Fifty-eight dollars. Some girl who claims she can teach anyone to make a perfect strawberry and rhubarb pie? Twenty-two bucks.
But by far the best-selling talent of the night so far has been Darlene’s makeup lessons. Todd and those guys were all bidding against one another—ostensibly for their mothers. Todd won—for a whopping sixty-seven dollars.
I really hope his mom is worth it.
And so far, the one thing I was really worried about happening—someone standing down there on the little dais they’ve erected next to the podium and having NO ONE bid on them—hasn’t happened. Even Courtney Pierce, our class suck-up, managed to get bids on her Spanish tutoring.
So I wasn’t really worried when Mr. Schneck read off the name of the next person whose talent was to be auctioned off, and it was Becca Taylor. I mean, scrapbooking is a popular hobby in our town. There’s a whole store devoted to it—Get Scrappin’—out by the mall. Becca’s not popular, or anything—people still remember her sleeping-in-school days.
But somebody would bid on her.
“And here we have eleventh grader Becca Taylor,” Mr. Schneck began in his auctioneer patter. He even had donned a bow tie and suspenders for the occasion. No one could ever accuse Mr. Schneck of not being devoted to his art. “Becca’s offering up three hours of scrapbooking tips for any beginner scrapbookers out there. Any of you interested in scrapbooking, but need a little push to get started? Well, Miss Becca Taylor is your girl, then. She will come to your house, bringing with her her own scissors, adhesive, and journal pens, as well as layout ideas and plenty of refill pages to get you going on your album. Let’s start the bidding for this very special service at ten dollars.”
I looked around from my seat on the very bottom bleacher. The very bottom bleachers—the ones closest to the gym floor—are the ones the A-crowd always sit on, because they’re the people who are usually being called over to the middle of the gym floor to receive awards or dance with the Fishnets or whatever.
And tonight, I was sitting with them. Not just with them…I was actually sitting next to Mark Finley.
And okay, Lauren Moffat was on his other side.
But he’d chosen to sit next to me—he’d walked into the gym, seen me on the first bleacher, where I’d been busy handing out Day Mortuary hand-fans, and he’d sat down beside me.
And the entire rest of the A-crowd—with the exception of Alyssa Krueger, who’d slunk up to the nosebleed seats where Jason and I usually sat, on the few occasions when we’d been forced to attend an event in the gym—had sat down with him.
And I was one of them. I was an A-crowder, one of the beautiful, popular people. I had made it.
And everyone knew it. I could feel their gazes on me—Courtney Pierce and Tiffany Cushing and all those other girls who, B-crowders at best, had still taken every opportunity to say, “Don’t pull a Steph Landry” within my hearing. They were jealous. I knew they were jealous.
But they shouldn’t have been. I’d worked to get to my position there on the bottom bleacher. I’d worked my butt off.
Almost literally.
The gym was crowded with familiar faces, not all of whom belonged to students at Bloomville High. I could see Becca’s parents looking down on her fondly. They were excited their daughter was finally taking part in a school-related activity. They’d asked me at the door, when they’d come in, if my own parents were going to be here, thinking they could sit together. They looked kind of disappointed when I said my parents were too tired—Mom on account of the baby, and Dad on account of the younger kids—to come.
I didn’t exactly mention that they didn’t even know about it. Well, that they did—the whole town knew about it—but they didn’t know I was the one running it.
And there was Dr. Greer, sitting with his wife and a guy who looked like the mayor—the MAYOR had shown up…alone, since he and his wife were in the middle of a nasty divorce we sometimes got to read about in the Gazette. Swampy Wampler was sitting with them, looking barely recognizable in jeans and a cotton sweater, as opposed to her usual gray or black suits. She kept looking over at Mayor Waicukowski and flipping her mouse-brown hair around. It was kind of obvious she was flirting with him.
And it was also kind of obvious he didn’t mind.
At the last minute—just before Mr. Schneck had led us all in a ritual fish slap—I saw the last person I would have ever expected to see at a school-related event sneaking into the gym through a side door: Jason.
He had his friend Stuckey—a lumbering guy who traditionally wears nothing but excessively baggy Indiana University T-shirts and man-pris—with him. The two of them climbed the bleachers—not quite to the nosebleed seats, but close—and sat down, looking around. I saw Jason’s gaze land on me. I lifted a hand to wave at him. After all, he’s the one who apparently has a problem with me. I don’t have a problem with him. Well, except for the whole calling me Crazytop thing.
Jason didn’t wave back. And I know he saw me.
I hate to say it, but that sort of stung. I mean, that he’d ignore me like that. What did I ever do to him?
Except accept a ride in Lauren Moffat’s 645Ci.
Which isn’t exactly what I’d call very nice BMW Courtesy. His snubbing me like that, I mean, on account of being in someone else’s 645Ci.
But fine. If he wants to be mad at me for that, he can be mad. What do I care?
It’s just…well, it’s going to be a little awkward when he has to escort me down the aisle at Grandpa’s wedding on Saturday and we aren’t speaking.
But whatever.
I looked at Becca, standing on the dais, looking pretty in khaki capris and a pink flowered shirt. She is on the big side…a lot like Stuckey, actually. Only she actually dresses in clothes that fit her. She was holding one of her scrapbooks and smiling at the crowd in the bleachers.
Except…except there was something sort of wrong with the way Becca was smiling. Her lips were curled up at the edges, and all. But the smile didn’t seem to go all the way to her blue eyes. It sort of stopped at her gums.
That’s when I noticed that the edges of her lips were trembling.
And that Mr. Schneck, the auctioneer, was saying, “Come on, folks. This is a service you can’t get anywhere else. I know how popular scrapbooking is in this community, because there are nights when I can’t get into the Sizzler because the Rather B Scrappin’ Scrapbook Club is meeting there, and every table is filled up. So do I hear ten dollars for this little lady’s valuable scrapbooking insights? Anyone?”
And suddenly it hit me, like a lightning bolt from the blue:
No one was bidding on Becca.
It was like a nightmare come true. Becca was standing there, trying to smile bravely and not burst into tears, while the knuckles on the hands that were clutching the scrapbook went whiter and whiter….
“We have a bid of ten dollars,” Mr. Schneck cried, to my intense relief. “Do I hear fifteen? Fifteen dollars anyone?”
I spun around in my seat to see who had raised their Day Mortuary hand-fan….
And my heart sank. It was Mr. Taylor. Becca’s DAD was bidding on her.
This was actually worse than if no one had bid on her at all.
“Something wrong, Steph?” a deep voice at my side asked.
I spun around the other way—
And practically bumped heads with Mark Finley, whose clear hazel eyes were gazing down at me with concern.
“You look upset,” Mark said. “Is everything all right?�
��
Sputtering, I pointed at Becca.
“S-someone needs to bid on her,” I said. “Someone who isn’t her dad!”
And before I could say another word, up went Mark’s Day Mortuary hand-fan.
“Fifteen dollars!” Mr. Schneck shouted, pointing at Mark. “We have fifteen dollars for the young lady’s scrapbooking genius from the school quarterback. Do I hear twenty?”
The entire gym had fallen silent the moment Mark raised his paddle. It was as if no one could quite believe what they were seeing—the most popular boy in school bidding on the scrapbooking services of a girl who used to have to be shaken awake when it was time for recess. You could tell a lot of people thought he’d lost his mind—Lauren among them, since I heard her go, “Babe, are you kidding me?” under her breath.
But Mark didn’t care. He held his Day Mortuary hand-fan high.
And the corners of Becca’s mouth stopped shaking.
“Twenty dollars, folks,” Mr. Schneck said. “Anyone care to bid twenty dollars? No? Becca Taylor’s scrapbooking tutelage going for fifteen dollars, everyone. Fifteen dollars. Going once. Going twice. Sol—”
But before he could pronounce the d in sold, a voice rang out through the gym.
“A hundred and sixty-two dollars and fifty-eight cents!”
Every neck in the building cracked as people whipped their heads around to see who was willing to plunk down such an exorbitant sum on Becca.
I don’t think I was the only one who was totally astonished to see Jason, standing with his paddle raised in one hand, and his wallet—whose contents he’d clearly just scanned—in the other.
“SOLD!” Mr. Schneck yelled. “To—to—that guy up there, for one hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty-eight cents!”
And his gavel came slamming down.