Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  It was a stupid, random Sarah-J.-style insult that would have normally had me fumbling for words, but—I don’t know, maybe it was thanks to Andrew’s letter—my creative juices were flowing. Or maybe it was Em’s influence, and I’d picked up great comebacks by osmosis. Whatever the reason, like some kind of magical brain gift, the perfect insult came to me. I only hesitated a second—because this never happens to me.

  “That lesbian rumor is really old,” I said. “Don’t you have anything better?” She looked at me in shock, but I went on, not giving her the chance to answer. “Also, I know my eyebrows don’t look great. But they’re growing back. At least my nose isn’t crooked. That kind of deformity is permanent.”

  She paused. “Is she talking to me?” Sarah asked Joyce.

  I turned to Andrew and said loudly, “I can’t believe I never noticed it before”—I squinted at Sarah carefully—“but it curves to the left, doesn’t it? Maybe it got knocked loose when Em hit her with that sandwich.”

  “What is she talking about?” Sarah turned to Maggie and Joyce, who shrugged before giving me dirty looks. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said lamely, then they walked off toward the concrete ledge. But as I watched them go, I swear to God, I saw Sarah put her hand up (just quickly) to touch her nose.

  “Did you really just say that to her?” Andrew asked in awe, or shock, or maybe both.

  “I really just did,” I said, hardly believing it myself.

  “Wow,” he said. “Now, that’s one side of you I’ve never seen before. You just lawn bowled Sarah J. flat.” And I smiled, because I actually had.

  As if to celebrate, Andrew bent down, scooped up a pile of bright leaves, and threw them up in the air. They floated down on us like confetti, and we never did end up having that important talk. But I figured it was okay. Why ruin the great feeling? We’d talk later.

  After that, I spent the whole morning feeling pretty proud of myself for the hit I’d gotten in at Sarah J. (I’d even caught her checking her nose again in her locker mirror), but as good as it had felt, it still wasn’t anywhere near enough to make her cry. Em was about to take care of that, and to win our bet.

  It all started when Michelle showed up to English class wearing kitten-heel boots, which she was actually doing a pretty decent job of walking in. I admit I was impressed. I’d tried on a pair of Grandma Betty’s chunky beige old-lady heels once and nearly tripped through a screen door.

  “Aren’t those a little formal for a school day?” Sarah said, taking Michelle in as she came down the aisle. “And no offense, but they almost make you look too tall. I don’t think heels are meant for everyone. Just because Emily Warner from New York wears them doesn’t make them stylish.…”

  Obviously, Sarah was talking loudly enough to be overheard, like always, and Em wasn’t about to take that one lying down.

  “Right,” she said from across the room. “Because Darling, Ontario, is a fashion mecca, so Sarah would know.” Michelle kind of slid into her desk, crossing her legs underneath to hide the boots. “Don’t listen to her, Michelle,” Em said. “Most runway models are six feet tall, minimum. You look great in heels.”

  “Yeah, but Michelle’s not a runway model.” Sarah J. looked pointedly at Michelle’s solid build.

  “She’s probably just jealous because you’re an athlete, Michelle. And she’s well…not.”

  “Excuse me?” Sarah J. stood up from her desk. “If you’re trying to say that I’m fat, I’m not. I haven’t gained a pound since the beginning of sixth grade.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I got confused. Maggie’s the one who’s fat.…Or at least that’s what you’ve been telling people. No offense”—Em imitated Sarah’s tone exactly—“but it’s not very nice to talk about your friends like that.”

  Maggie looked down at her desk. Sarah J. glared at Em. Em smiled. Then Gorgeous George walked in with his earphones on, oblivious to it all.

  Sarah J. waited until he’d almost reached his desk before walking over. “Hi, George,” she said. He slid off his earphones. “I just thought I should let you know. There’s no way Margot and Em have the new SubSonic single. Think about it. Everyone is waiting to hear ‘Velocity.’ K.wack’ed isn’t going to hand it to some seventh grader with bad roots, even if she does know him, which I doubt.” She fixed Em with a steady stare. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but she’s a liar and a big fake.”

  George looked from one girl to the other.

  Sarah continued. “If you don’t want to waste your time, why don’t you just ask out my cousin’s friend Shawna—that girl from the pool party? You guys can double with me and Matt at the movie on Saturday.”

  Em stood up. “Dude,” Ken called from across the room. “Duck! You’re about to get caught in a catfight.”

  Em ignored him, walked forward, and smiled warmly at George. “Besides the single, K.wack’ed sent a whole box of autographed promotional posters. Obviously, you don’t have to come, but I hope you will. I’m only going to play the song once.” She turned and walked back to her seat, leaving Sarah J. to roll her eyes while George just stood there looking stunned.

  At lunch, Ken came up to ask us if he could have any leftover autographed posters after the party to sell on eBay. Michelle got Em’s phone number to give to her mom, and Zoe Daniels, an eighth grader, asked if she and her friend Kiki could sleep over. It didn’t seem like Sarah J.’s little outburst had changed anybody’s mind about showing up, which is why I don’t know if I’ll ever understand why Em did what she did next.

  We were in the locker room, getting ready for gym class. I’d just finished tying my shoelaces when Em’s phone buzzed. She took it out of her bag and read the text before handing it to me.

  Message from Jason Wyatt

  Still having a party this weekend?

  “Ew,” Em said. “He remembered.”

  “What are you going to tell him?” After all, we had kind of invited him that day at the 7-Eleven.

  “I’m going to tell him it got canceled,” Em said. “But wait. He goes to Sterling High, right? First I’m going to see if he knows Sarah’s boyfriend.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Why not?” She keyed in a message with lightning-fast thumbs. Honestly, Em would have been awesome at War of the Druids if she’d ever given it a chance. The phone buzzed again and I leaned in to read the display.

  Not really, but his girlfriend’s my lab partner. Why?

  We exchanged a look. Three texts later, we knew this: Matt’s other girlfriend’s name was Tania Baker. The 7-Eleven guy wasn’t positive they were going out, but they definitely made out sometimes. Also, she hated dissecting worms. That last part wasn’t especially enlightening, but the rest was absolutely shocking.

  “Do you think Sarah knows?” I whispered, feeling a little sorry for her, despite everything.

  “Are you texting on school property?” I jumped when I heard Sarah J.’s voice behind me. She walked by with Maggie and Joyce, who were wearing nearly identical Lululemon Athletica outfits. “Don’t make me report you.”

  Suddenly I didn’t feel that sorry for her anymore. “Of course she doesn’t know,” Em whispered back as The Group girls pushed through the door and walked out into the hall, talking about how much they loved each other’s groove pants.

  “Should we tell her?” I asked.

  Em looked at me like I was crazy. “Do you think she’d believe it, coming from us?” She had a point.

  I shoved my stuff into my gym cubby. “Okay, then, we just act like we never found out Matt was cheating?”

  “Well, we can’t do that either,” Em said.

  “So?” I turned to her. We were the only two people left in the locker room now. “What do we do?”

  She seemed to think about it for a second, then marched across the room. “We kill two birds with one cell phone.” By the time I caught up with her, Em’s arm was already deep inside Sarah J.’s backpack. “Found it,” she s
aid, lifting out a pink phone. She flipped it open and started pressing buttons.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered. She passed me Sarah’s phone. A sent text message was on the display.

  Sorry, baby. Can’t make it for our date Saturday. My face is ugly right now so I’m hiding in my house.

  “What?” I shrieked, closing the phone and quickly wiping it on my shirt. The last thing we needed was for Sarah to find it covered in our fingerprints.

  Em took it from me, flipped it open, and deleted the message history.

  “She’s going to find out we sent that to Matt, and then she’s going to kill us!!” I said.

  “Relax,” Em said, passing me the phone. “It’s going to be fine. Better than fine. Matt, the scumbag cheater, doesn’t get his make-out date with Sarah J., and Sarah J. gets what she deserves. Justice has been done.”

  Sarah’s phone started vibrating just then. It scared me so badly I almost dropped it on the floor.

  Message from MattyPoo:

  We’ll go another time. I got stuff I have to do anyway. What’s up with your face?

  Em walked over, read it, deleted the message, then dropped the phone into Sarah’s bag. She glanced at the clock. “You should go, or you’ll be late for class. I’ll be a minute. Can you tell Mrs. Rivera I just started my period or something? I’ll be there in a sec.”

  “I don’t mind being late,” I said. I didn’t want to walk into the gym alone. I was too scared Sarah would see the guilty look on my face, guess what we’d done, and strangle me with a jump rope from the equipment room. “I can wait.”

  “Really. Go,” Em insisted. “I have to take care of one more thing.”

  I don’t know what I thought.…Maybe she was going to text 7-Eleven guy back to say the party was canceled, or call her dad to arrange for the SubSonic autographs. So I went. It didn’t seem like a big deal.

  And it wasn’t until we were changing back into our clothes after gym that I started to suspect something else might be up. Sarah J. was on the other side of the locker room, touching up her makeup when the freak-out started. “Oh my God,” she said to Maggie and Joyce. “My face cream smells weird. Smell this.”

  She held it out, and both girls sniffed obediently.

  “Ew. That’s nasty.”

  “Do you think it went bad?”

  “Check the expiration date.”

  “It doesn’t have an expiration date.”

  “Yes it does.”

  “Oh my God. Guys. My face feels weird.”

  “It looks okay.”

  “No. It feels really weird.” Sarah ran into the bathroom. I glanced over at Em, but she was calmly tying her shoes.

  “Ready to go?” she asked, and we both picked up our bags. We stopped outside the locker room for a minute to give this girl Amber directions to Em’s house, and were just starting up the stairs to French class when Sarah J. came shoving her way through the crowd behind us. “Move,” she was ordering. “Get out of my way! Move!” she snapped at a group of eighth graders who were talking at the bottom of the stairs. It was overthe-top pushy, even for her. “You’re dead, Margot,” she said. “I can’t believe you did this. Just because I made fun of your ugly eyebrows this morning.” My heart started beating frantically. Obviously she knew what we’d done with her cell.

  But Em didn’t seem at all worried. “Ignore her,” she said, pulling at my sleeve.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Sarah J., feeling almost bad for her. Her face was splotchy and red. At first I thought she must have been crying about her canceled date, but then I noticed that something else about her looked different.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “What happened to your eyebrows?”

  And that was about the last thing I remembered before I was suddenly falling backward. It was the same lurching, tidal-waves-in-your-stomach feeling you get on a roller coaster, but in slow motion. I remember looking for something to grab, but there were people between me and the banister. I remember the sharp edges of the stairs scraping against my thighs; noticing that somebody’s shoelace was untied. And then, next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, looking straight up and listening to somebody scream.

  A minute later, Em was standing over me, plus Ken and Gorgeous George and a bunch of eighth graders. And then Andrew appeared out of nowhere, squatting down beside me. And the next thing I knew after that, I was in his arms, watching the fluorescent lights of the hallway pass over my head.

  21

  My Mother Behaves Like a Responsible Parent

  I KNOW IT’S DUMB, BUT WHEN I was younger (okay, like six months ago), I used to have daydreams where I was in a forest. Oh, okay, what have I got to lose? It was an enchanted forest. Go ahead: laugh. Got it out of your system now?

  Good.

  I’d be wearing this tattered dress—because I was a poor peasant, out gathering berries or looking for pixies. That part didn’t really matter. And then this werewolf, or bear, or magical lion (that part also didn’t matter) suddenly leaped out and attacked me. And I passed out. And the next thing I knew, my eyes were fluttering open and this handsome prince (who looked exactly like Gorgeous George), would be brushing my straight, tangle-free hair back from my face. He’d pick me up carefully in his very strong arms and lift me onto the back of his shiny, black horse.

  After that, the fantasy would usually jump to this incredible canopy bed all covered in satin blankets, where I’d be waking up. And after that it would somehow work out that the prince would kiss me and we’d fall in love. But I didn’t get that far very often. I was mostly obsessed with the horse part.

  I know there’s feminism now, and women are strong and can take care of themselves, and it’s really great. But you’ve got to admit, there’s something romantic about being rescued by a guy with strong arms.

  In theory, anyway. In real life, it wasn’t romantic because, first of all, it was the wrong guy. Not to be picky, but in the fantasy the prince never smelled like BO. And then there was the fact that Manning is no enchanted forest. Oh, and they don’t have satin canopy beds in the emergency room at Darling General.

  I do have to admit riding in an ambulance was cool. And after they called my mom and we waited eons to get an X-ray, I got a cast—which was another thing I’d always wanted, except it was made of fiberglass and you can’t get people to sign it (which is the whole point of wanting a cast in the first place). This one was shiny and blue, and itched like crazy. Also, my shinbone was broken. The doctor said it wasn’t a bad break, but it felt like somebody was zapping an electric shock from my heel to my knee. Constantly. Still, even though I was in agony, and pretty zoned out on painkillers, I didn’t lose sight of what was important.

  “Can I still sleep over at Em’s house on Saturday night?” I asked my mom as she backed the van out of a parking space at the hospital.

  Her response was so annoyingly momlike: “Absolutely not, Margot. You’ve only got one leg, and there will be other sleepover parties.”

  “Actually,” I corrected her, “I’ve got two legs.”

  “Margot, don’t be smart with me,” she answered, signaling left. She was obviously shaken up about the whole broken leg thing. “I just don’t understand. Why do you think Sarah would have pushed you down the stairs on purpose?”

  “Because something happened to her eyebrows.”

  “What happened to them?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, they were blotchy. I only saw them for a second.”

  “And what did that have to do with you?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  My mom gave me a concerned look. “I’m going to call Mrs. Vandanhoover as soon as we get home,” she said, pulling up to a stoplight and turning toward me. “I don’t like the sound of the way things are going for you at school this year.”

  It was almost too ironic for words. It was the first time in my entire educational history that things were actually going right for me, and now she was stepping i
n?

  “Mom, please don’t,” I said, letting my head fall back against the seat. I closed my eyes for a second and sort of mini fell asleep, jerking back to consciousness a second later. Everything outside the window was moving faster than usual and seemed sort of wavy and far away. It was probably why the pharmacist had strictly forbidden me to operate heavy machinery. Smart pharmacist. I could have done some serious damage with a bulldozer right about then. “I can totally handle this,” I said. “I lawn bowl girls like Sarah now.” It made perfect sense in my mind, but my mom gave me a strange look. And then I just put my head against the window and fell asleep for real. It had been a long day.

  And an even longer night followed, filled with weird drug-induced dreams about talking horses doing basketball drills on roller skates. Obviously, on Thursday morning, going to school wasn’t even an option. Normally I would have been happy-dancing (at least with my arms), but for once in my life I actually wanted to be there…so I could keep planning the party with Em.

  Needless to say, I was pretty excited when she showed up right after school to tell me what I’d missed.

  “I’ll be in the front room doing Mrs. Scott’s reading if you need anything, Margot,” Mom said, hovering in the living room door after showing Em in. Grandma Betty had taken the triplets out to the park so the house would be quiet.

  “All right,” I answered, wishing she’d go away. I didn’t like the accusing way she was looking at Em. When she’d talked on the phone with Mrs. Vandanhoover the day before, my mom had learned that there was an ongoing fight between me, Em, and Sarah J., involving a sandwich and some posters. She’d asked me for details, and I’d told her none of it was our fault, but still, Mom had made a point of saying, “I’m not too keen about that new friend of yours.”