Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  “I’ll just clean up,” Bryan said, after he’d opened the van door and handed me my crutches. “I’ll be right in.”

  “Okay.” I climbed out, being careful not to get puke on my shoe. I almost hated to admit it, but for once in his life, Bryan was actually acting kind of cool. When I got to the door, I even stopped, planning to say thank you, but he had his back turned. All I could see was the moon shining off his bald head while he uncoiled the garden hose at the side of the house.

  25

  I Am Both a Dog and a Two-Headed Doll

  IN THE MORNING, I WOKE TO the sound of barking. I opened my eyes to look at the clock. It was 8:15. I flopped back down, trying to ignore the noise, but it only got louder.

  Have I mentioned yet that we don’t have a dog?

  “Magoo,” the triplets called. Six tiny paws hammered at my door.

  When I didn’t answer, they were quiet for a second, then they started barking again.

  I put a pillow over my ear, then shouted as loudly as I could without hurting my own head: “Stop barking.” My voice came out gravelly.

  “No,” Alice shouted back.

  “We’re doggies,” said Aleene.

  “A hundred and one damn nations,” Alex added.

  The barking started again.

  “Go away!” They stayed put.

  “I’ll pay you a hundred dollars to stop barking.” They didn’t even consider it.

  Then I had a stroke of brilliance. “The school bus is outside.” I pulled the pillow off my head. “It’s waiting for you. And it’s full of dog bones.” There was immediate silence in the hall, followed by the pitter-patter of tiny feet moving in the opposite direction. I took a deep breath, ready to drift back to sleep. But a minute later, my door opened.

  “Margot?” Bryan was standing in the same pajama pants from the night before, with his hands on his hips. A patch of hair was poofing from his bathrobe. His face looked gray, like he’d barely slept, which, come to think of it, he probably hadn’t. “Did you tell your sisters there was a school bus full of dog bones outside?”

  I rolled over, pulling the blankets up all the way to my chin. “I was kidding.”

  I could hear screaming coming from the kitchen—the kind of anguished wailing only three two-year-olds deprived of a school bus full of dog bones are capable of. “I’d like it if you came and apologized. Then have some breakfast with us. I’m making scrambled tofu from scratch, with sun-dried tomatoes and feta.”

  The thought alone made me nauseous, but after what Bryan had done for me the night before, I owed him big-time—even if that meant eating tofu for breakfast, in the same room as my mother, who I was still furious with.

  “Good morning, Margot,” she said, once she’d finally gotten the triplets to stop whimpering and settled them down in their high chairs. “How’s your leg feeling?”

  “It hurts.” I poked at my tofu with my fork and took a small bite. It wasn’t as horrible as it sounded. At the very least, it wasn’t VTV.

  “I talked to Sarah’s mother yesterday,” she said.

  I looked up.

  “She declined my invitation for tea. In fact”—my mom stabbed a tofu chunk—“she barely gave me the time of day.” I wasn’t all that surprised to hear it. Meanness must run in the family. “According to her mother, Sarah says she didn’t push you down the stairs or have anything to do with a poster campaign. And when I suggested that perhaps Sarah might have some long-standing issues with aggression, she actually hung up on me.”

  I couldn’t believe my mom had actually said that to Sarah J.’s mother.…But before I even had the chance to tell her how embarrassing it was, Bryan stepped between us, setting down the triplets’ bowls on their high-chair trays.

  “Do you have something you want to say to your sisters, Margot?” he prodded. Mom glanced up, obviously impressed by his active parenting.

  “Sorry I said there was a school bus full of dog bones when there wasn’t,” I mumbled. “That wasn’t very nice of me. We can play dogs together after breakfast if you want, okay?”

  And that’s how I ended up spending my entire Saturday morning pretending to be a dog in a house made of sofa cushions.

  It was after lunch before I got to the computer. There was an IM waiting from Em.

  Em&Em: Hey Button, how are you feeling after your drug overdose?

  Margot12: I didn’t overdose! I had four pills!!

  Em&Em: That’s not what George told me. =) He said you were hilarious.

  I felt my stomach flip. Hilarious? She obviously had no idea what had really happened between us.

  Em&Em: He said you talked about a pair of mittens for five minutes straight.

  I’d almost forgotten about the mittens. In the light of day, it did sound kind of dumb.

  Em&Em: Anyway, don’t worry. After you left, I told him you were flirting with him for a bet.

  My stomach flipped again.

  Margot12: You told him WHAT??

  Em&Em: I didn’t want him thinking you were easy or weird or anything.

  I tried to remember everything I’d said to George the night before. I knew he’d told me he liked my hair. And he also said he thought I was pretty cool. Weren’t those definite signs that he liked me? But then other memories started to surface, too. Like, did I actually say something to him about vegetable korma?

  Talking to George had felt so easy at the time, but now the events of the night seemed fuzzy around the edges, and I wasn’t certain that I’d seemed nearly as charming and cool to him as I’d seemed to myself. What if I had acted like a weirdo? And now he thought I’d been using him for a bet…when, really, all these years I’d loved him.

  I couldn’t help it. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  Margot12: Do you think he hates me thought now?

  Em&Em: Of course not, stupid! He thought you were funny. He also said you looked like a different person.

  My heart leaped up again. I couldn’t believe he’d actually said that!

  Em&Em: I was thinking we should invite Maggie and Joyce to sneak out to the sushi place for lunch on Monday and NOT invite Sarah J. You in?

  Maggie and Joyce? We were getting more popular, for sure, and things were bound to be even better after word got out about how good the party was. But Maggie and Joyce were Sarah J.’s best friends. Would they actually sneak out with us? Plus, wasn’t sushi raw fish? Still, I knew better than to doubt or contradict Em. If she’d suggested we eat dirt, I would have probably done it.

  Margot12: I’m in.

  I quickly Googled “types of sushi,” then picked one randomly off the list so I’d sound convincing.

  Margot12: I love unagi rolls.

  Em&Em: Never had them. Anyway, see you Monday?

  I desperately wanted to change the subject back to George before we stopped talking. Had he mentioned the moment when I touched his hair? Did she notice if he’d been looking at me when I was sleeping on the couch? What, exactly, did he say about me after I left? If it had been Erika, we would have analyzed the entire party, minute by minute, drawing diagrams of where everyone was sitting and what they were wearing, dedicating at least two hours to a serious discussion of the Gorgeous George thing and what it might mean…but this was Em. She’d already logged off.

  After that I spent the rest of the day feeling exactly like this two-headed doll named Benita I’d had when I was little. She was made of cloth and had a skirt you could flip back and forth to hide whichever one of the heads you weren’t using. One of the heads was frowning and had blue tears stitched to its face (sad Benita) and the other had rosy red circles on its cheeks and was grinning (glad Benita).

  When I finished talking to Em, I lay on my bed for a long time with my sad-Benita head on. I was disgusting. There was no way he liked me. I cupped my hands over my mouth and exhaled into them, then tried to smell the air I’d breathed out. I had to do it a couple of times before I could tell for certain, but I definitely had bad breath. I also had a zit just sta
rting to form beside my nose—the kind that hurts when you press on it. I was positive he’d noticed.

  Eventually I dragged myself to the living room, where the triplets were building monsters out of giant Lego blocks.

  I sat down beside Aleene on the couch and added two special googly-eyed blocks to the top of her monster, plus a red piece for a tongue sticking out. She looked up at me in amazement—like I was the number one top Lego builder on earth…and there was something in that look of surprise and delight that I recognized. I could have sworn that, as I’d reached out to touch his hair, I’d seen it cross George’s face too. Then I remembered how sincere he’d sounded when he’d said he liked my hair.

  But sad Benita showed up again when I was washing my face before bed and noticed that the zit had grown even bigger and that my eyebrows were still uneven. Then glad Benita pointed out that he had told Em I was hilarious and that I looked like a different person. Plus, what do guys know about eyebrows anyway?

  Then sad Benita remembered the way he’d looked at me like I was an alien when I brought up the hockey stick mittens he’d worn in third grade. But glad Benita said if he really liked me, some weird conversation about mittens wasn’t going to change it. Then sad Benita was like, “Oh please, mitten girl. Do you actually think he’d like you?”

  And it basically went on like that until 12:30, when I couldn’t sleep because the Benitas wouldn’t shut up, and it occurred to me that this whole talking-to-myself thing might be kind of lame and pathetic, at which point sad Benita said, “Lame and pathetic? Kind of like telling him, out loud, that you think he’s ‘gorgeous and so cool’?” and even glad Benita was too depressed to think of a comeback.

  26

  I Taste the Gummi Frog of Acceptance

  STILL, WEIRDLY ENOUGH, when my alarm went off the next morning, I felt ready to face anything. Bring it on, world! I thought. Of course, by the time Bryan dropped me off in front of the school, I felt like climbing up the maple tree and hiding all day so I wouldn’t have to face George.…Which was partly why I was happy that the first person I saw was Andrew. He’s always glad to see me. Or—he usually was. That morning there was something kind of sad or disappointed in his expression. Thankfully, only a few seconds passed before he helped me figure out why.

  “Did you have an okay weekend,” he asked, “even though we couldn’t go to that party?” If I’d been able to do it while standing on one leg, I would have kicked myself for forgetting that I’d told Amir Em was going to invite them.

  “Not bad,” I said, barely hesitating before launching into yet another lie. I just couldn’t face telling him that I’d gone without him. “I got to watch lots of TV.” That part was true. “Anyway, sorry Em didn’t get around to inviting you guys. I guess with all that happened…” I trailed off. “I’m sure we didn’t miss much.”

  “Agreed,” he said, holding the door open for me and seeming to brighten a little. “I saw a SubSonic video once. It was basically a really mad girl in a bra rapping about how cool she is.” Now that he mentioned it, that described SubSonic almost exactly.

  “How’s the leg, anyway?” he asked.

  “Not too bad,” I answered. “But my armpits are killing me.”

  “Want an armpit massage?” he said, coming in prepared to tickle, but I fended him off with my crutch. “Damn. Now you’re armed and dangerous. I don’t stand a chance, do I?”

  “You never did.” I smiled. “Remember. I’m the dragon master.” He laughed and followed me up the ramp to the door.

  When we got inside, he pressed the elevator button for me before jogging up the stairs. “See you at lunch, Margot,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Sure,” I called back. I breathed a sigh of relief, then smiled to myself as I got into the elevator. I’d barely made it through the door and already it was turning out to be a pretty good day. The Andrew situation was under control. The sun was shining. The air was crisp. Thanks to Em’s magical frizz control serum, my hair looked good. I’d just found out I wasn’t the only person on earth who secretly hated SubSonic. Then it got even better. Mr. Learner was still sitting behind Mrs. Collins’s desk when I got to English class. Sarah J. was absent—and so were Maggie and Joyce. A whole bunch of people were saying hi and crowding around to talk to me.

  “Welcome back, Margot!”

  “Oh my God, how are you?”

  “Can I see your cast?”

  Em waved. Gorgeous George nodded when I smiled at him. My desk was covered in chocolates. Leprechauns were dancing underneath rainbows. Unicorns were prancing through fields of cotton candy. Okay, maybe those last two things didn’t happen, but my desk was covered in chocolates. And cards. Well, one card, and one huge box of assorted chocolates. I picked up the envelope. The handwriting on the front looked messy and flat—like it had possibly been written by a guy. As I slid my finger under the flap, I tried not to make eye contact with George. I didn’t want him to see me blushing in case it was from him.

  The card had a cartoon chicken lying in bed eating soup. “Want some quackers with that?” I flipped it open. Inside was tons of tiny writing in different colors of pen. The whole class had signed. I forced myself to smile, despite my disappointment that it wasn’t from George. “Thanks guys,” I said to the whole room.

  Mr. Learner put down his book and stood up. “Welcome back, Miss Button,” he said, then he told us to get into our groups to keep working on our Lord of the Flies presentation.

  “You’re with me, Ken, and Tiffany,” Em filled me in.

  As people started pushing desks together, I opened the card from the class and scanned it, looking for George’s signature. I found it in the bottom corner. Broken legs suck. —From George. Not exactly a love poem, but he’d probably signed it on Friday, before what happened at the party, so it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  When the desks were all arranged, Ken took a pig-shaped drawing out of his binder.

  “We’re supposed to map out how we’d make our camp,” Tiffany explained to me.

  Ken, who had elected himself president of the island, was the one doing the drawing. So, needless to say, it looked horrible. He was busy drawing millions of little triangles.

  “Stop putting tents all over the place,” Em said. “We want the camp to be all together. For security.”

  “Who needs security?” Ken countered. “We’re on an island. Plus, this way it looks like the pig’s got spikes.”

  I tried to pay attention, but I could hardly concentrate. I was watching George out of the corner of my eye. He was sitting alone with Amir, who was bent over the drawing of their island. Obviously, some combination of Maggie, Joyce, or Sarah—who were all still missing—must have been their other group members.

  “Button. Buuuuutton. Earth to Button.” Ken was waving something green in front of my face. “You want one?”

  “What? What is it?”

  “A gummi frog. With a marshmallow center.”

  I gave Ken a strange look. Not because the marshmallow gummi frog sounded disgusting (it did), especially at 9:00 a.m., but because my first instinct was to wonder what was wrong with it. Had he dropped it on the floor? Or rubbed it in his armpit?

  But Ken wasn’t wearing his usual smirk. I took the frog candy and turned it over in my hand. It looked clean. I put it in my mouth and chewed. It was gross, but not in any abnormal way. “Want another one?” He held out the bag.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching for it, amazed at how quickly and completely things could change.

  At 9:30, Maggie and Joyce came to class. They sat down beside George and Amir, and I watched as they leaned in, telling George something. He listened intently, then glanced my way. I could hardly believe it. First the gummi frog and now this? I almost didn’t want to let myself think it, but they must have been talking about the party, and about whether or not he liked me. What else could it be? By the time the bell finally rang, I couldn’t stand the suspense a second longer. As everyone put their books
and binders away, I reached out and tapped his shoulder.

  “Hey.” I tried to sound casual. “Did you have a good time at the party?”

  “Yeah, not bad.” He shrugged.

  Not bad? I tried not to panic. “Not bad” could mean “could have been better,” but you could also take it literally, in which case “not bad” was the opposite of bad, which was “good.” I decided to go with that.

  “I had a good time too.” I paused, then added, with what I hoped was a meaningful look: “A great time.”

  He smiled nervously, and I felt a thrill go through me. He was nervous too!

  “About what Em said—” I went on. I had to let him know I wasn’t flirting with him because of some stupid bet. But he interrupted me.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?” I looked deep into his eyes. The word “YES” was ready to burst out of my mouth. I pictured us holding hands in the yard, slow dancing under crepe paper decorations at the Valentine’s dance, hanging out on the swings at the park during summer vacation.

  “About Em. Is she going out with anyone?”

  I leaned against the desk to steady myself. My stomach lurched as my dreams crash-landed right in front of my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I don’t think so.”

  “Cool,” he said, like it was no big deal. “See you.” He walked out, leaving me alone, feeling like I might collapse and never be able to get back up.

  And I didn’t even get a minute to recover. Em was waiting for me outside the door. Maggie and Joyce were standing on either side of her. “Margot, I invited Maggie and Joyce to sneak out for sushi with us,” she explained. “They said okay.”