Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  Mrs. Collins came back into the room then, and called for everyone’s attention.

  “Here,” Sarah said softly, slipping her cell phone into George’s palm. “It’s got the pictures from the pool party last week. There’s one of that girl named Shawna my cousin invited, wearing a bikini. Now, she should be a model,” Sarah said, giving me a look. “No offense, Margot. Don’t get that confiscated,” she said to George, then she walked back to her desk. While Mrs. Collins waited for the class to settle down and George scrolled through Sarah’s pictures underneath his desk, I opened my planner and started counting the days until Christmas vacation.

  “It’s lovely to see you this morning,” Mrs. Collins began. “I hope you all had a pleasant summer. Most of you know one another from Colonel Darling, but we have one international student joining us.” Mrs. Collins paused. “I’d like you all to welcome Emily Warner.” Everyone turned in their seats. “Emily just moved to Darling from New York!” Mrs. Collins said the New York part like it was some kind of unbelievable thing. Honestly, her tone of voice would have been the exact same if she’d said “Emily just moved to Darling from the moon!”

  Everyone looked at her a second time. Even I did. I’d never met anyone from New York before. Come to think of it, it explained why she had such good hair and cool clothes. It’s a commonly known fact that people from New York have better fashion sense than people from Canada. They’re just born with it.

  I glanced across the room at Sarah J., who was looking directly at Em, mouth open wide like she was trying to put the pieces together. If Em was from New York, maybe she was a model. I mean, she could be. And if she was, maybe—as unlikely as it seemed—Sarah J. might believe I was one too. It was a long shot, but it was my only hope.

  Mrs. Collins spent the rest of the period doing a classroom orientation and going over how to make a book-cover protector using a brown paper bag. When she asked if anyone had questions, I raised my hand. “Why don’t we just plasticize the book covers so kids don’t need to do this every year?”

  She didn’t even take a second to seriously think about my very practical suggestion.

  “Well, Margot,” she said. “If you’d like to find a plasticizing machine and personally plasticize everyone’s book cover, you’re certainly welcome to do so.”

  “Awesome idea, Button,” Ken snickered from the other side of the room. I glared back at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. I left at the end of the period thinking three things:

  Maybe I will find a plasticizing machine and plasticize every single book cover for every single person.

  I hate Mrs. Collins.

  Bad things always happen when I open my mouth. If I have any hope of being more normal, my first step will have to be an oath of complete silence until the end of the year.

  Next we had math class with Mr. Tannen, which included a second fascinating lecture about how to cover textbooks with paper bags. Then, as we were getting our stuff from our lockers before lunch, things took another turn for the worse. I heard The Group girls around the corner near the water fountain.

  “She doesn’t look like a model,” I heard Sarah whisper.

  “I know, right?” Maggie agreed. “She’s not even very tall.”

  “Or very thin,” Joyce added.

  “She could be one of those fat models that are supposed to look like real people,” Maggie suggested. “But I hate her hair,” she added when that didn’t seem to go over very well.

  “Yeah…her roots are grown out, like, this much,” agreed Joyce.

  Em, who was putting her books away three lockers over, either had really bad hearing or really thick skin. She bent down and tied one of her shoelaces without even glancing in the direction their voices were coming from, then stood up and walked away.

  Part of me wanted to run after her to tell her not to worry…that if she kept out of their way and didn’t draw attention to herself, they’d probably get bored and start leaving her alone in a few days. But another, bigger, part of me was still mad at her for the weird modeling convention lie. Plus, I didn’t have time. I had a 12:00 detention with my new favorite teacher, Mrs. Collins.

  I stuffed my lunch into my bag. “Well, at least she looks more like a model than Hamburglar does,” I heard Sarah J. say, and they all snickered. I couldn’t help it. I stared hard at the floor as tears welled up in my eyes.

  I had to give the new girl credit: sure, she might tell lies, and yeah, her roots were growing out…but I wished my hearing was half as bad as hers. I glanced at the hallway clock. Still three hours and twenty minutes to go. Besides finding a rock to hide under, the only thing on earth that would make me feel better would be hearing Erika’s voice. Which was why, when the bell rang at 3:20, I was so relieved I didn’t even care that I was about to face two and a half hours of babysitting. I practically ran the six blocks home. It wasn’t easy, considering I was carrying four textbooks. (I had a long night of paper bag book-covering ahead of me.)

  “Margot!” Grandma Betty exclaimed when I walked in the door. “How was your first day?”

  I didn’t have to say anything. She could tell by the look on my face. “Oh, I know, sweetheart.” She gripped my shoulders. “You must have been missing Erika. I’m sorry. The world can be a difficult place sometimes.” She flashed me a brave smile. “But we persevere.” I nodded, feeling like a wimp.

  When my grandpa died three years ago, Grandma Betty said the same thing to everyone as she accepted their hugs with a determined smile. “We persevere.” I never even saw her cry. On the day of the funeral she had her hair pulled back into her usual neat French twist, then she put on her pearls and her bravest face. Meanwhile, I was sobbing my eyes out, and she was the one comforting me—and everyone else.

  Grandma Betty took a step back so she could look at me properly. “I know.” She clapped her hands together once. “Your mother’s next client—the one with the lips—will be here in a few minutes.” She was talking about Sheila Wheeler, this woman who wears black lipstick and needs an emergency reading every time she gets a new match on Lavalife. “The girls are watching The Little Mermaid.” I could hear Sebastian the crab singing in the next room. “I’ll make you all a snack. You go call Erika to see how her first day went.”

  “Thanks, Grandma,” I said. “I’ll only be ten minutes. I know you’re supposed to leave at 3:45.”

  “Take your time,” she said, opening the fridge door and giving me a conspiring look over her shoulder. “I think I’d better just stay until Bryan gets home so you can keep an eye on me. Maybe you’ll get some of your homework done while you’re at it.”

  The phone rang twice before Erika’s mom picked up. “Hi, Mrs. Davies,” I said, trying to sound extra polite so I’d seem like a good influence. “It’s Margot. Is Erika there?” I already knew exactly how I was going to start the conversation…by saying how I almost died at school without her, but that at least I had a bit of good news…and that it just might be about Gorgeous George.…

  “Oh, Margot.” Mrs. Davies sounded distracted. “She’s not home yet. She’s out with a friend from school. I’ll let her know you called.”

  “Oh,” I said, at a loss for any other words. “Thanks.” I set the phone back in the charger, feeling numb. All day long I’d been taking mental notes about everything I was going to tell Erika. All day I’d been wondering how her day was going. After so many years of telling each other about every crush, consulting with each other before every haircut, venting about every disappointment or parent-related frustration…one day at a new school and she had a new friend? I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.

  I dragged myself into the living room, where the triplets were watching the cartoon fish convincing the prince to “kiss the girl,” and sank down onto the couch.

  “Magoo?” Alice said softly, putting her little hand on my arm.

  “What, Alice?”

  “You smells like butter hearts,” she whispered. I was pretty sure she meant the
butter tarts Grandma made. The gooey ones with raisins. And it was the nicest thing anyone had said to me all day.

  “You smell like butter tarts too, Alice,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and rubbing my cheek against her soft hair.

  In the end, Grandma Betty stayed until 5:30. I sat at the kitchen table wrapping my textbooks in brown paper bags while she fed the triplets ravioli. It took me an hour and a half to do four books. (It’s no coincidence that every year, at least one teacher writes on my report card: “Margot has trouble focusing on the task at hand.”) I was just finishing the last one when we heard the van pull into the driveway. Grandma kissed us each quickly, then grabbed her coat off a chair. “We won’t tell your mother or Bryan I stayed so late, will we?” She grinned like a mischievous little kid before hurrying out the back door.

  Bryan came in the front about thirty seconds later, lugging a ratty square briefcase with him. He was wearing his usual button-up shirt with a tiny poof of chest hair sticking out the top, but you could tell he’d made an effort to dress up to fit in with the real estate crowd, because he’d actually ironed it and he was wearing pants that weren’t jeans.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” the triplets called. Judging by the joy in their voices, you’d think he’d just returned from a five-month trek across the Sahara.

  “Hello, budgies,” he said, putting his briefcase down and going to hug each of them. “Were you good girls?” They all grinned at him with tomato sauce mouths. “Look at this nice dinner Margot made you!” Bryan exclaimed. “What do we say, girls?” he asked. “Thank you, Margot?” None of them said thank you, but none of them said anything about how Grandma Betty actually made the dinner, so I was grateful enough just for that.

  “Daddy. Look! I got a hurt,” Alex whined. She held out one finger and showed him the cut she got while “helping” me cover Destination Math, Level 7 an hour earlier.

  “Oh,” he said, looking at it with grave concern like it was a gaping wound instead of a microscopic paper cut. “That must have hurt. Poor budgie. I bet you were really brave.” He kissed it better. I started to pack up my books.

  “And how was your day at school, Margot?” he asked, still holding Alex’s injured finger.

  I knew he was only asking because he thought he had to pretend to treat us all equally. Even though, really, there was nothing equal about the way he felt. The triplets were his budgies…his sweeties…his funny-funny girls. I was just some kid he’d gotten stuck with.

  “Fine.” I zipped up my backpack.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” He laughed. “Us both starting school on the same day.”

  “Yeah,” I answered, already edging out of the room.

  “You know,” he said brightly, “I’d forgotten how tough it can be, trying to take notes while the teacher’s talking. How do you do it?”

  I was trying to be nicer to him, like I’d promised my mom, but, honestly, I’d had such a long day. I was too tired to play along with the, “Gee, let’s be buddies” routine. “Try point form,” I said.

  “Right, good idea,” he answered cheerfully. Bryan really was a pretty good actor, but when I turned my back I could hear him inhaling deeply to a count of four. “Can I get you something for dinner?” he tried again.

  “I already ate, thanks,” I said, then felt the tiniest bit bad, so I turned around and added, “Oh, and Bryan?”

  “Yes?” he answered eagerly.

  “I love your briefcase. It’s really…retro.”

  “Thank you, Margot,” he said, smiling. Then I figured we’d both made enough effort for the night. I went into my bedroom and closed the door behind me.

  7

  My Hair, Like My Language, Is Shockingly Bad

  ONE TIME, IN THIRD grade, Erika and I got an idea for improving her front yard. The whole thing was basically green grass and rose gardens. It was okay, in a boring kind of way, but what it really needed was a koi pond. We sat on her front steps imagining it for the longest time. It would go from the front path to the maple tree and would be surrounded by white stone. (We even knew where we could get some—from the neighbor’s driveway across the street.) And it would have a waterfall, plus a small bridge with trailing vines where Erika could sit and feed the fish. Seriously, I wish you could have seen this thing in our minds. It was breathtaking.

  But then Erika’s mother—who came home from the grocery store to find a two-inch-deep mud hole in her new sod—would probably disagree. As it turns out, the vision you have and the reality you end up with can be entirely different. Another thing I learned, yet again, the hard way.…

  After leaving Bryan in the kitchen I flopped down on my bed, feeling rejected. Erika still hadn’t called. She hadn’t e-mailed either. I knew because I’d run back to my room about ten times to check. Clearly, she was much too busy swapping Bible stories with her new Catholic friend to think about me. I stared at the ceiling for a while, checked my e-mail a few more times, then got up and went into the bathroom.

  I spent a long time looking in the mirror, trying to come up with something new to do with my hair. I kept thinking of what Em had said: “You obviously haven’t seen her portfolio. She has real potential.” Even though I knew she was lying, I wanted to believe her. Maybe I did have potential. Maybe with some lipstick and some mascara…? I pulled my hair back and made a pouty model face.

  I didn’t look awful—not really. It was just that, with my hair back like that, my bushy eyebrows took over my entire face. They were disgusting, like flattened caterpillars. I felt so relieved. Becoming the new, improved, more normal Margot Button was going to be easy. All I needed was twenty minutes, a pair of tweezers, and the “Beautiful Brows” article from the September issue of CosmoGirl.

  The first step, according to the magazine, was to visualize a straight line from the base of my nose to the inner edge of my eye. That was where my eyebrow was supposed to begin. I wrinkled my nose at my reflection. The situation was obviously serious. Next, I was supposed to look straight ahead and notice the spot above my pupil. This was where the arch should go. It sounded easy.

  And it honestly would have been, except for the fact that it hurt so much. I had tears rolling down my cheeks before I’d even yanked out five little hairs. It took twenty minutes just to finish one eyebrow. It looked good, though. Thank God. Otherwise I never would have been able to get through the pain of the second one. I turned on Mix 85.4 and sang along while I worked. Personally, I blame the really good Eternal Crush song for what happened next.

  I started plucking to the beat, taking pain breaks to dance around the bathroom. I was so energized that I finished in about ten minutes this time. But when I took a step back and looked in the mirror, it was pretty obvious that the second arch didn’t match the first.

  I didn’t panic. I just had to make the arch in the first eyebrow archier. It was going all right, too, until, through the blur of pain-induced tears, I accidentally got a bunch of extra hairs stuck in the tweezers and pulled them out all at once. I wiped at my eyes and stared at my reflection in horror. There was a huge gap in my left eyebrow right where the eye-enhancing arch was supposed to be. I tried to brush the other hairs over to see if that would hide it, but it only looked like some kind of pathetic eyebrow comb-over.

  I dug around in the cabinet for makeup, but all I could find was a black eyeliner pencil. It was my mom’s, left over from the pre-triplet days when I still slept over at my grandma and grandpa’s sometimes, while she went out with friends for nice dinners. It was a little on the crusty side, but I grabbed it anyway and tried to draw fake hairs. But besides being crusty, it was the completely wrong color and just made the gap look worse.

  More than anything in the world, I wanted to call Erika. She would know what to do. And, if she didn’t know, her mom would. Mrs. Davies is the kind of person who gets her nails done professionally. She owns three different kinds of eyelash curlers. She knows girl stuff. But what would I say?

  “Hi, Erika, I know you
’re busy socializing right now, but I’m having this problem with my eyebrows…Could I talk to your mom…?”

  So instead I did the only thing I could think of. I brushed my hair down in front of my face, folded it up a few times to test how it would look, measured just below my “ideal” eyebrows, grabbed the scissors from under the sink, and cut bangs.

  I can’t quite explain the few seconds that followed. It was like things were happening in slow motion, to somebody else. The radio must have still been playing, but everything seemed silent. The huge clump of frizzy hair I’d just cut landed softly in the sink. I stared at it for what felt like minutes before I set the scissors down and looked up.

  I was a poodle with a human face. I wanted to die. The bangs didn’t lie flat and hide my eyebrows. Not at all. Instead, they stuck straight out, making it look like I’d made a pom-pom out of my own hair and glued it to my forehead. I took some deep breaths and tried to think it through rationally.

  Obviously, there had to be options. I could wear a hat at all times. Or I could get hair extensions. Only where do you get hair extensions at 7:00 on a Tuesday night, and how would I pay for them? I turned on the tap and stuck my head under it to see if I could wet the bangs and, somehow, force them to dry straight.

  With the water running, I didn’t hear the knock on the bathroom door, I guess, because suddenly it opened a crack and I heard my mom’s voice. “Margot, is everything all right in there?”

  “Fine,” I shouted.

  “In the middle of my shift this morning, I realized we forgot to take the back-to-school picture,” she said. “We could take it now, if you’re still dressed. It won’t be quite the same, but I think we could—What are you doing?” She opened the door wider.