Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  As if to prove her wrong, Sarah heaved again and threw up a little on the sleeve of her shirt.

  I looked from Em to Sarah and back again. I knew what I had to do. I knew what the consequences would be, and how badly it would suck. “Okay,” I said to Em. “You’re right.” Her entire face relaxed. “She’s probably going to be fine. But we need more towels. If you go get some, I’ll start cleaning up.”

  “Good,” she said. “Be right back.” Then she turned and left. As soon as I heard her footsteps on the stairs I pushed myself up and hopped across the floor, taking care not to slip in any puke. I grabbed the cordless phone.

  “Sarah?” I said again. When she still didn’t answer, I punched in the number.

  “Police, fire, or ambulance?” a woman asked.

  “Ambulance.” My voice quivered. My heart started pounding loudly.

  “Address, please.”

  “Um. Lakeshore,” I said. “I don’t know the house number. My friend is throwing up a lot. I just—”

  “Is there anyone there who knows the house number?”

  What choice did I have? I couldn’t leave Sarah, so I covered the receiver with my hand and yelled as quietly as possible into the living room. “Maggie, Joyce! Can you go check the house number and tell me what it is?”

  “What do you want?” Maggie yelled back.

  “She said the house number, I think,” I heard Joyce explain to Maggie. “Why do you want the house number?” she yelled. “We don’t know it.”

  “No, go check it. It’s on the front of the house,” I said in my loudest whisper, but by then Em must have heard us.

  She came running down the stairs and into the kitchen, holding practically an entire closetful of fluffy white towels. “Who are you talking to?”

  I probably should have lied, but I couldn’t think straight enough to come up with something. “9-1-1,” I said.

  “Give me that.” She grabbed the phone from my hand, pushed the hang-up button, and slammed it back on the charger. “Why are you such an idiot, Margot? Do you know how close you just came to getting us all in major trouble? I told you! She’s going to be fine.”

  I turned away from Em, lowered myself onto the floor, and lifted a strand of Sarah’s hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. Her forehead was really sweating now. She reached out for my hand, and I held on to hers tightly. “Well, shouldn’t we at least call an adult?” I asked. “I could call my stepdad. He won’t tell anyone. I know he won’t.” I knew that wasn’t true, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

  “No,” Em repeated.

  “Okay, fine. Well, can you at least get me a wet washcloth?” I asked. “And a clean shirt for her?”

  Em sighed heavily. “I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare try anything else like that,” she said, then walked out, taking the phone with her.

  My mind started racing. Maybe there was a phone in the next room I could get to. Or maybe I could convince Maggie or Joyce to find one. But just after Em left, Sarah sat up. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “Are you okay?” I rubbed her back a little. “Do you want some more water?”

  She shook her head. “I think I’m dying,” she said, putting her hand to her forehead. “What did I eat?”

  I told her.

  “Oh my God.” She covered her mouth. At first I thought she was just reacting to the grossness of what was on the spoon, but then she actually heaved and vomited again. Em came into the kitchen just in time to see it. She took a step back, making a face before tossing me a washcloth and a white T-shirt.

  I folded the cloth into thirds and pressed it against Sarah’s forehead like my mom used to do when I was sick. “Aren’t you at least going to help me?” I said.

  “No. This is your problem. You’re the one who decided what went on the spoon.” Em turned to go, but before she could leave the room, the doorbell rang. Her eyes went wide. “Did you call somebody else?” she accused.

  “No,” I said. “You took the phone, remember? It’s probably just the pizza guy.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Can you get that?” she called to Maggie and Joyce. “Tell him I’ll come with the credit card in a sec.” Then she turned back to me, but I never found out what she was going to say next. The pizza guy was obviously in a hurry. He was banging on the door now. Hard. And then we heard a deep voice in the front hallway.

  “A 9-1-1 call was traced to this residence. What’s going on here, girls?”

  Em poked her head through the doorway. When she turned back, she was glaring at me. Her jaw was clenched. “Fantastic,” she spat, her eyes narrowing. “Awesome job, Button. The cops are here.”

  33

  We “Talk It Out”

  DO YOU KNOW WHAT I hate most about hospitals? More than the disinfectant smell of the floors? More than the sick people in blue gowns that gape at the back? Even more than the constant PA announcements about people code-redding, code-blueing, and code-yellowing?

  It’s the waiting.

  I hate waiting at the best of times, but hospital waiting is the worst because you’re almost always waiting for life-altering news. Like, it’s a boy…or it’s a girl (or it’s three girls)…or the surgery was a success…or, I’m so sorry, we did everything we could.

  I’d been checking my watch obsessively ever since I’d sat down on the orange plastic waiting-room chair. It had only been twenty-five minutes since Bryan and I had arrived at the hospital to check on Sarah, but they’d been the longest twenty-five minutes of my life. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened.

  Back at Em’s house, there’d been two police officers: a man and a woman. Em had tried to keep them outside, but they’d pushed past her. The male officer had hardly taken two steps into the kitchen before he reached for his belt. I thought he was going to pull his gun on us, but he was only reaching for his radio to call an ambulance.

  The female officer bent down beside Sarah to ask her name and how she was feeling, then she asked if I was the one who’d made the call. I was certain she was going to start yelling at me for hanging up before giving the full address, but instead she patted my knee. “Good girl,” she said.

  Minutes later, the ambulance showed up. The female officer stayed in the kitchen with Sarah and the paramedics while the policeman took us into the living room to ask questions, writing everything down on a notepad. Then they made us call our parents.

  Bryan was the first to arrive, coming through the door breathlessly like he’d run all the way there from real estate class. I was expecting him to freak out, but instead he caught me up in a bony-armed Bryan hug, smushing me against his chest so I could hardly breathe. Em looked on with an expression of absolute hatred. While Bryan was giving the officer our address, she took one finger and drew it across her throat while clearly mouthing the words “You’re dead, Button.” I just looked away.

  A few minutes after that, Maggie’s and Joyce’s moms showed up and made a big commotion before taking them home. That’s when Em completely zoned out. Her mom was missing in action. Apparently her phone was off, and Em claimed she couldn’t remember where the benefit was. So the officers had to take her with them.

  I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.

  * * *

  “You must be Margot.” I looked up from a brochure about multiple sclerosis, which I’d been unsuccessfully trying to read to distract myself. Standing in front of me was a blond woman. She was old, but younger than middle-aged—maybe thirty. I’d never seen her before. “The nurse told me you were waiting outside.” She held out her hand. “I’m Angela.” I must have looked at her blankly. “Sarah’s sister.”

  Bryan stood up. “Margot’s stepfather, Bryan.”

  Angela shook his hand, then sat down in the seat beside me. I’d never known Sarah had a sister, let alone a much older one. “I was just in with her,” she explained. “They’re getting her settled into a room for the night.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” I hadn’t
said a word since we got there. My voice came out squeaky and strange.

  “She’ll be fine,” Angela said. “They thought they might have to pump her stomach, but they won’t. She’s thrown up so many times.”

  I felt a huge wave of relief wash through me. “That’s good,” I said softly, trying to hold back the tears, which were threatening to start again. I unfolded and refolded the brochure in my hands.

  “Can I ask you something?” Angela said, setting her purse down at her feet. I looked up. “Why did you do it?”

  It was a simple question, but the answer was so complicated. Because Sarah was mean. Because she’d always hated me. Because, even though I’d hated her, I wanted to be like her and have what she had. And then by trying to be like her, I’d become somebody I barely recognized. I wished now, of course, that I’d never made that stupid bet with Em, and that I’d never let things get so out of hand.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I was really mad at her. She’s not always very nice.” I didn’t mean to, but I glanced down at my cast as I said it.

  “I figured,” Angela said. “I actually came out here to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “For calling 9-1-1,” she explained. She obviously saw the look of disbelief on my face. “No. Really. There are a lot of people who would have panicked instead of telling the truth. I’m sorry about your leg,” she said. “Sarah…she’s the baby of the family. It’s like my parents think she can do no wrong. Anyway.” She stood up. “She can have visitors now, Margot, if you want to come in with me. My mom’s busy with paperwork, so it would be a good time to get her alone.”

  I so didn’t want to get her alone. Really. If somebody had asked me which I would have rather done—sing the national anthem naked in front of everyone in the room or go talk to Sarah, I would have been stripping off my clothes and humming the first few bars of “O Canada.” Unfortunately, though, nobody was giving me that choice.

  “I’ve talked with my mom,” Angela said. “We’re going to ask the police to drop any charges.” A second wave of relief washed through me. “On one condition. Whatever’s going on between you, it stops today.”

  Bryan leaned forward in his seat, giving me a meaningful look.

  “Agreed,” he said, as if anyone had asked him.

  “I’ll come in with you,” Angela said, “to make sure you and Sarah talk it out.” She passed me my crutches, and I stood up reluctantly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “She’s had some time to cool off. I’m sure she’ll want to thank you for what you did today.”

  I swallowed hard, imagining all the ways I was sure Sarah would want to thank me. Clubbing me over the head with an IV pole was the first thing that came to mind.

  When we got to the elevator, Angela pushed the button. “You okay?”

  I nodded, but I was picturing Sarah pacing the floor of her room, sharpening a scalpel, and planning to plunge it into my heart. The elevator door dinged open and we got inside.

  “You can do this,” Angela said, once the doors shut. “Trust me, she’s not as scary as she seems.”

  Of course, that got way harder to believe when I stepped into the room. Sarah was sitting up in bed surrounded by pillows, flipping through a fashion magazine. She turned her head, took one look at me, and freaked right out.

  “Oh no,” she said. “Angela. Get her out of here. I told you, I’m not talking to her. She tried to kill me.” Sarah glared at me.

  “I didn’t—” I started.

  “You did,” Sarah said. “You poisoned me.” She paused, then added dramatically, “In cold blood.”

  “It was an accident,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “In cold blood,” Sarah repeated, glaring at her sister now.

  I looked helplessly at Angela. Obviously this whole talking-it-out thing wasn’t going to work.

  “Kind of like the way you pushed Margot down the stairs?” Angela asked calmly.

  “That was so different.” She paused. “I only meant to grab her backpack and make her stumble a little, and then she went flying. It wasn’t the same.”

  “I was just going to give you one spoonful,” I explained. “And then, I don’t know. Things got out of control.”

  “Sounds kind of the same to me,” Angela said.

  “Yeah. Out of control, Margot? I almost died.”

  “Nobody almost died,” Angela said reasonably. “Nobody was trying to kill anybody else. Can we at least agree on that?”

  “We can agree on that when Margot stops trying to kill me,” Sarah shot back. “And when she stops stealing all my friends.”

  “I didn’t steal your friends.” I was starting to get really mad. “Like it’s my fault you were talking behind both their backs.”

  “Whatever,” Sarah answered. “What about Erika Davies?” I looked at her blankly. “Oh, come on. Like you don’t remember?” As far as I knew, Sarah J. had always thought Erika-with-a-K and I were unworthy of being in her presence. “In first grade?” she prompted. I still had no idea. “My birthday party?” She looked irritated that she was going to have to explain. “Me and Erika were best friends, okay? I invited her, and she said she’d come. But next thing I knew, she changed her mind because you invited her to some stupid singing hayride thing.”

  And then I remembered: the apple-picking hayride at Organic Orchards. They always had two big horses pulling a wagonful of hay, and they’d hand out these song sheets that had normal songs converted into lame lyrics about apples. Stuff like, “Hi-ho, the derry-o, the farmer picks an apple.”

  My mom used to take me every year, and come to think of it, there was a photo somewhere of me and Erika with a basket of apples. I didn’t remember anything about Sarah’s birthday party, though, and I definitely didn’t remember anything about the two of them being best friends.

  “And I know you told her not to come,” Sarah accused, “because you were jealous I didn’t invite you.”

  “I don’t even remember that,” I said honestly.

  Angela looked amazed. “And that’s why you pushed Margot down the stairs, Sarah?”

  “Well, duh. Of course not,” Sarah answered, letting her head fall back against the pillows. “It wasn’t just that. She’s always hated me.”

  “You’ve always hated me!” I shot back.

  “Well, you’ve always hated me more,” she said.

  “And you’ve always hated Erika!” I added. “You call her Nerdette.”

  “So?” Sarah said. “I liked Erika.” She paused and looked out the window. “She used to give me the Fruit Roll-Ups from her lunch.” She paused. “And then you and your new friend started throwing sandwiches at me, and trying to break up me and my boyfriend, and burning my eyebrows off. And you purposely didn’t invite me to your party, just to get back at me for the time I didn’t invite you to mine.”

  In first grade? Did she seriously think anyone would hold a grudge that long?

  “We didn’t invite you because you called us lesbians.”

  “Well, I only called you lesbians because you acted like lesbians.”

  “Okay, stop,” Angela said, and held up her hands. The room got quiet. “I don’t care who didn’t invite who to whose party. I don’t care who called who what. This ends. Today.” She took another breath. “Are you listening to yourselves? You’re not in first grade anymore. You’re big girls now.”

  She reminded me of myself for a second; the way I often told the triplets how big girls were supposed to behave: “Big girls don’t throw things and hurt other people.…Big girls don’t whine.…Big girls say please and thank you.…Big girls use the potty.” It was true. Sarah and I were almost thirteen. But (with the exception of that last point about the potty) we’d forgotten some pretty basic things.

  There was no excuse for the way I’d treated her. I was a better person than that. Or at least I wanted to be. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it, “about feeding you furniture polish.” The words caught in my throat.
“And also about all the mean things Em and I have said and done to you since school started. That’s what I came in here to say. I’m not going to fight with you anymore.”

  Angela smiled. “Sarah?” she prodded. “Is there something you’d like to say to Margot?”

  Sarah pretended to be looking out the window. I was just beginning to think she wasn’t going to say anything at all when she finally turned her head. “If you tell anyone I held your hand in the kitchen, you’re dead,” she spat.

  Angela sighed heavily. “Sarah! For God’s sake!”

  “Oh fine.” Sarah gave in. “And I’m sorry. About pushing you down the stairs, and also about a lot of other things.” I didn’t know if she meant it, but it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t scared of her anymore, and I definitely wasn’t jealous.

  Angela took a deep breath. “So we’re good here?” Neither of us answered.

  “See you at school, Margot,” Sarah said, opening her magazine.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “See you at school.” Then I walked out to meet Bryan.

  34

  I Smell the Old Spice

  I DON’T REMEMBER THIS, BUT apparently, when I was little, I asked my grandpa Button what it was like to live before color was invented. He was confused until I went to the shelf, pulled down some old photo albums, and showed him how all the pictures of him and Grandma Betty as newlyweds were in black-and-white.

  “Margot has always had an interesting mind,” he used to finish the story.

  Still, even after he explained the wonders of full-color versus black-and-white film, I was always bored to death when he or my grandma would take out those pictures and start meandering down memory lane.

  It’s weird, isn’t it, how other people’s photos are boring…but you can look at a photo from your own life for ages. You see yourself, six years old, standing in your princess pajamas, grinning at the camera in the kitchen of the house where you used to live. Suddenly you can remember what it was like to run your tongue over the gap where you’d just lost a tooth; the sound of the radio—which was always on—playing some boring talk radio show; the way the air smelled like lilacs when the back window was open in the spring.