Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  As soon as she left, Em threw the October issue of CosmoGirl down on the table and bounced across the couch toward me. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “A little,” I said. It was the worst pain I’d ever experienced, but I didn’t want Em to think I was a wimp.

  “George was asking about you.” Em grinned.

  Enduring the pain suddenly got easier. “He was?”

  “He wanted to know if your leg was broken or just sprained. I think he was really worried.”

  That settled it. I should have broken my leg ages ago. “And what’s everyone else saying?”

  “Well, Sarah’s still totally denying that she pushed you. She told Vandanhoover you fell. Which is stupid. About eight people heard her say she wanted to kill you right before.”

  “What happened to her eyebrows, exactly, anyway?”

  “I put Nair in her face cream,” Em said, her jaw set. “Nobody calls me a liar and gets away with it. Seriously, you should see her. Her whole face is broken out in a rash, plus, most of one eyebrow is missing. She looks hilarious.”

  I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Em thinking I was going to tattle on her, but it seemed like a crazy thing to do. What if it had gotten in Sarah’s eyes? She could have been blinded for life. It also seemed unfair that I was the one Sarah had attacked when I’d actually had nothing to do with the eyebrow thing.

  “And did she find out what we wrote to Matt?”

  “Yeah. He told her, but it’s not like she can prove we sent it. Plus, now it’s all true. Sarah’s face is really too ugly to go to the movies.” She nudged one of my sisters’ sticky sippy cups over on the coffee table to make room for her feet. “So, are you coming back to school tomorrow?”

  “My mom says maybe Monday.”

  “Well, what about the Anti-Pork Party? You’d better be there.”

  “I don’t think I can go,” I said, bracing myself for Em’s anger. I was just barely holding back tears of disappointment. “My mom said no, so she’s not going to drive me. And I can’t exactly walk there.”

  “Aren’t there cabs in this city?” Em asked, like it was that simple. “Yeah.”

  “Well, then. Call one.”

  “Is it expensive?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Ten dollars, maybe,” she answered. “Or fifteen. Just ask them when you call.” She made it sound so easy. A cab. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Now all I had to do was find some money.

  Just after Em left, I heard my mom at the front door finishing up with Mrs. Scott. “I still can’t get over the last reading,” she was saying to my mom. “Remember how the judgment card came up and I said it didn’t mean anything to me? Then, the next day, bam. A jury-duty notice in my mailbox.”

  “Well, the cards work in mysterious ways,” Mom answered, laughing.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice. I’m heeding the warning of that four of pentacles. I’m going home right now to tell Carl we’re donating that extra furniture to the homeless shelter. It’s only by giving that we can receive.”

  But while Mom and her cards might have been in the mood for doling out that kind of touchy-feely advice, she definitely wasn’t practicing what she preached.

  “Mom,” I said, as soon as she walked into the living room, “I need to talk to you. Erika’s birthday is coming up in three weeks, and I really want to buy her a set of juggling pins. Can I have some money? Twenty dollars or something?”

  “We’ll see,” she said, in a way that didn’t sound promising. She sat down in the wingback chair. “First, I need to talk to you. I’m really concerned about this feud between you, Em, and Sarah Jamieson.”

  “Don’t be. I can handle it.”

  “Can you?” She glanced at my cast. “Because I’m not sure that any of you are working through it constructively.”

  I sighed. “You don’t understand, Mom. There’s no ‘working through things constructively’ with Sarah Jamieson. She’s a horrible person. You know that. She’s been making my life miserable since first grade. Remember the time she splashed green paint all over my backpack and I came home crying? That was just the beginning. Now that I’m friends with someone cool, like Em, she can’t stand it. So she pushed me down the stairs.”

  “Margot, I think we need to be careful about making accusations here. Sarah is saying she didn’t do it. Are you certain that she pushed you?”

  “Of course I’m certain. She was mad because Em and I actually started standing up for ourselves, by throwing the sandwich and things, and she hates it.”

  “Margot, like I said before, I’m not sure how I feel about this new friend of yours. Em seems a little erratic.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just saying, throwing a sandwich at someone is erratic.” If my mom thought making a few Dijon stains was erratic, she’d definitely be furious about the cell phone and eyebrow stuff, so I was thankful Em hadn’t admitted any of it to Vandanhoover.

  “It’s not erratic,” I said. “It’s hilarious.” My mom looked shocked. “It’s hilarious because Sarah deserved it. You don’t know how much she deserved it.”

  Mom just looked sad now. “I don’t think anyone deserves to be treated that way.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, tell that to Sarah. She’s the one who humiliates me, and lots of other kids, almost every day. She put up those posters, Mom, saying that me and Em are lesbian lovers.”

  “You know there’s nothing wrong with one woman loving another woman, right, Margot?”

  I groaned. She was totally missing the point. I wasn’t the one who was being homophobic.

  “Of course I know that, Mom. But we’re not actually lesbians. She just put up the posters to be mean, and to try to embarrass us. Plus, it’s a lot of other things. She tells me almost every day that my eyebrows look retarded. Her friends make fun of me too, and she loves it. She whispers about fat kids behind their backs, and tall kids; any kids who are different. And she acts like she’s so much better than everyone else.”

  My mom sighed, then brightened a little. “I know, what if I call up Sarah’s mother? I could invite them over for some nice herbal tea and a snack. Maybe we could talk this out. Get to the bottom of things once and for all.”

  “Are you crazy?” I could just picture Sarah walking through our house, staring at the Goddess of Fertility painting, the cluttered kitchen and the messy shoe pile, storing up information to use against me at school. “Don’t. Don’t call her mom. I swear, if you call her, I’m never talking to you again.”

  “I’m sorry, Margot. I have to speak with her,” Mom said. “It’s what any responsible parent would do.”

  Anger bubbled up inside me, and I struggled to push myself upright on my crutches. It was too much. “Since when are you ‘any responsible parent’?” My voice was shaking. “You think you’re acting like a good mother by sticking your nose in, but you’re not. Just let me deal with it, okay? You don’t understand the first thing about what’s going on at school. Since the triplets were born, you’ve been totally clueless about my life.” She just sat quietly, looking at her lap as I glared at her, hard. “If you invite Sarah and her mother over, you’re just going to make things so much worse for me. In case you haven’t noticed,” I said, my voice getting harsher by the second, “I can take care of myself. I always do. Also, I hate herbal tea. And right now I kind of hate you.” She didn’t look up, and then I went down the hall, slamming my bedroom door behind me with my crutch.

  22

  I Hold the Blow-Dryer of Deceit

  IF MY MOM ENDED UP CALLING Sarah J.’s mother, I didn’t give her a chance to tell me about it. I stayed in my room all night and most of the next day. She even tried to bring me lunch in bed, but as soon as she left, I pushed it out into the hallway with my crutch. The chunky, mud-colored VTV mushroom soup spilled all over the tray, but I didn’t even care. I left it there and closed the door.

  In fact, I barely came out again until Saturday afternoon,
when I heard Grandma Betty’s voice and the garage door opening as my mom and Bryan headed out to Costco to stock up on diapers. (This time they wisely left the triplets behind.) By then it was almost 4:00, and I’d promised Em I’d help her set up at 6:00. That meant I only had two hours left to figure out how I was going to get there, and I only had one option.

  “Grandma?” I said, hopping into the living room on my crutches, which were really, really starting to hurt my armpits, by the way. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, sweetheart,” she said. She was managing to knit a perfect sweater while making sure the triplets didn’t hit each other, stick their fingers in the electrical sockets, or cut their own hair with their safety scissors.

  I balanced myself on the arm of the sofa. “Can I borrow twenty dollars? Or maybe thirty?” She looked up, and I went on quickly. “I need it to buy flowers for Mom. You know we kind of had a fight on Thursday night, right?”

  “She mentioned,” Grandma said, setting her knitting down.

  “I just thought I should apologize, with flowers. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can save up enough allowance.”

  Her face softened and she reached for my hand, covering it with hers while her eyes glossed over with tears. “Of course, Margot. Your mother is lucky to have a daughter like you.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek with her papery lips. “No need to pay me back. I’m happy to give you the money. I’ll get my purse.”

  I waited until she was in the kitchen, then bit my lip and looked at the floor. I hated lying to my grandma, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. Everything depended on the party. I had to be there.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room, watching the minutes go by and the raindrops trickle down the window, worrying obsessively about how frizzy my hair was going to be. My grandma snuck in at about 5:00 with a plate of contraband nonorganic macaroni and cheese.

  She said my mom and Bryan were in the living room with the girls and asked if I needed anything else before she left. “I’m okay,” I told her, lying on my bed with my comforter pulled up over my clothes. “I’m just going to stay here and rest.” She nodded, taking her plastic rain bonnet out of her bag and tying it over her head.

  “That’s a good girl,” she said.

  I called the taxi at exactly 5:30. They said it would be fifteen minutes, so I sat on the edge of my bed for exactly seven and a half before getting up and peeking into the hallway. Luckily, my mom was still in the living room with the triplets, playing a noisy game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. That made it simple to sneak by and open the front door without being heard. I was almost disappointed by how easy it was.

  The only part that didn’t go so smoothly was waiting, in the pouring rain, for the seven and a half (or so) minutes it took for the taxi to get here. I completely forgot to bring an umbrella or a raincoat, and I couldn’t risk going back in. Finally, a car with black-and-yellow diamonds painted on the sides pulled up. It looked so sleek and sophisticated, for a second I couldn’t believe the driver was actually going to let me into it.

  “It sure is coming down,” the driver shouted as he got out of the car, pulling his jacket over his head. He ran around to the passenger side to open the door for me, then put my crutches in.

  “Yeah. Really coming down,” I answered, trying to seem older than I was.

  The black wraparound Calvin Klein top Em had given me and my baggiest jeans (the only ones that would fit over the cast) were soaked. I was shivering, even though the driver had the heat on.

  “How are you doing tonight?” he asked, once we’d started moving.

  “Oh, fine,” I said. “Just going out. You know, for the evening.” And then, because that seemed good enough, we drove the rest of the way to Lakeshore in silence. I used the time to try to flatten down my hair, even though I could tell from my reflection in the window that it was hopeless.

  “Enjoy your evening,” the driver said as he helped me out of the taxi in front of the turret house.

  “You too,” I answered. “Even though it’s a wet one.” He laughed like I’d said something actually interesting.

  Em’s doorbell sang its entire little doorbell song before she answered.

  “Thank God,” she said. “I thought you were never coming.” She noticed my soaked shirt and disastrous hair. “You look bad.”

  “Thanks,” I said. She stepped aside and let me in. My crutches made a squeaking noise against the marble floor. “I had to wait outside for the taxi. Can I borrow some clothes?”

  “Go upstairs. Take whatever. I’ll be there in a sec. I’m just putting some breakable stuff away.” She went down the basement stairs, leaving me on my own to get up to her room. It took a lot of work, but I eventually managed it by sitting on the bottom step of the curved staircase, then pushing myself up on my butt, one step at a time, pulling my crutches along.

  Inside Em’s room I found a sweater with a wide neck, a T-shirt to go underneath, and a pair of dark-wash jeans that looked like they’d fit even with the cast. I wriggled out of my wet clothes and put them on, then sat down on Em’s desk chair and flipped my head upside down to start blow-drying. And that was when I noticed the photo on the side of the dresser, facing away from the door.

  It was of a white guy in a suit. He was standing in front of some kind of theater, shaking hands with a big black man with dreads who was wearing a leather jacket, a long wool scarf, huge sunglasses, and a sun visor—even though it was nighttime. I recognized him from my Google search. It was K.wack’ed. Whoever took the photo was obviously standing in the crowd, because somebody’s head was blocking one corner of the shot. It would have been a pretty unspectacular photo, actually, except for one big thing: it wasn’t in a frame. And it wasn’t taped up, or even thumbtacked. Instead, someone had taken a steak knife and stabbed it through the suit-wearing-man’s chest, straight into the dresser.

  I got chills, and not just because my hair was still partly wet. Was the white guy Em’s dad? Who else would it be? I squinted at the star. It was definitely K.wack’ed. You could almost make out his pineapple ring. And the man in the suit looked exactly like Em had described her father: busy, powerful, and important.

  I stared at the picture in confusion. Unlike my own radish-farming father who barely seemed to have the time to scribble a few lines on a card for me a couple of times a year, Em’s dad actually called her—every day—even when he was busy because of SubSonic’s new album. He’d sent her an unreleased single just so she could impress her friends. But all the same, if she’d stabbed him through the chest, he must have done something really bad.…Maybe even worse than calling your daughter’s archenemy and inviting her and her mother over for herbal tea.

  “You’re wearing that?” Em said. I switched off the blow-dryer and quickly flipped my head up. I hadn’t even heard her coming in.

  “Well, you’re wearing that, right?” She had on jeans and a plain black T-shirt that fit her just right. She looked great.

  “No,” she said, like I was nuts. “I’m not dressed yet.” Em went to the closet and started pulling things out. A short strappy dress. A ribbed, off-the-shoulder sweater with see-through parts. A super-short flared white denim skirt. She scrunched up her face, thinking hard. “Oh, I know.” She dug around in the back of the closet and pulled out something tight and black that ended up being a skirt with a matching top that had a small row of sequins across the front. “Except, you can’t wear tights with that cast.” Em frowned, then her face lit up and she opened a drawer. “Try these.” She threw a pair of leg warmers at me. “They’ll fit over your cast.” She grabbed a small black bag with beading on it from a hook behind the door.

  Then she found some clothes for herself and left to get dressed in her mom’s bathroom. I seriously had my doubts about the coolness of the leg warmers, but when I’d finished struggling into the outfit and stood up to look in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. The clothes Em had given me a few days before had been a huge improvement on
my regular wardrobe, but this was a whole different level. Instead of looking skinny, I looked willowy. Instead of seeming boobless, I seemed cute and spritelike. The magical outfit even made my hair look better. It wasn’t frizzy, it was voluminous. And the little beaded bag, in which I stashed my pain meds and some lip gloss, added a touch of glamour. Em paused in the doorway on her way back in. “Much better,” she said, before tossing a makeup bag on the bed. “Just one more thing.” She sat me down on a chair and put eyeliner on for me.

  Just as she finished smudging the lines, the doorbell rang. We both glanced at the clock: 6:44. At least we didn’t have to sit around agonizing over whether or not anyone was actually going to show up. “Better get that,” she said with an excited smile. “Oh, and bring those down when you come.” She pointed to the desk where a stack of big, glossy SubSonic posters lay waiting.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I hopped over. The picture was of the band standing in a desolate Arctic landscape. Sparkly snowflakes were blowing around them while gleaming, futuristic metal icebergs rose up from the ground. K.wack’ed, in the middle, was wearing a leather jacket and standing with his legs spread wide. The grumpy girl singer—in nothing but tight pants and a gold pushup bra, despite the bad weather—had one hand on her hip, while the other was raised in this tough pose, like she was personally commanding the snow. The last band member was dressed in baggy striped pants that were too short for him (for some reason, it was cool when he did it). I picked one up and examined the autograph on it. Even if K.wack’ed used way too much punctuation, at least his penmanship was good.

  I straightened the pile, set it down, and was just about to reach for some blush on Em’s bed when I noticed the black ink on my fingertips. At first I thought I must have accidentally rubbed my eye makeup off, but when I gently touched the K, a faint impression of it came off on my finger. I flipped through the rest. My breath caught in my throat. The ink was still wet on the top five posters.

  The doorbell rang again.