Bad Girls in Love

by Cynthia Voigt

  “Hadrian Klenk,” Ms. Larch said next. “You come on up here right now, Hadrian.”

  Hadrian, who was younger than anybody else in the eighth grade, looked lost as he approached the steps. He looked totally confused. Some people groaned softly, which was the usual response to Hadrian Klenk. If there was a wrong way to do something, Hadrian Klenk found it. If there was something useless to say, that’s what Hadrian said, and in a weird, creaky voice you couldn’t ignore. The groans got shushed—some people really did try not to be mean to Hadrian—as he got up to the stage and started wandering off to stand, wavering a little, beside the teacher. Ms. Larch whispered something to him, and Hadrian drifted over toward Louis.

  “What is that kid taking?” was one question and “Why would she choose Hadrian?” was another.

  At that point Hadrian seemed to become aware that there was an audience, and he bobbed his head at them.

  Margalo, who thought she had figured out Ms. Larch’s casting choices, wanted to applaud Hadrian; he was exactly right for the little priest.

  The next names puzzled her, partly because they were paired, but mostly because they were girls, and if Margalo was correct in her guess, they should have been boys. “Rhonda Ransom—”

  “Oh, good,” Mikey said.

  “—and Heather—”

  “McGinty, say McGinty,” Mikey pleaded, but she was doomed to disappointment.

  “—Thomas.”

  “Who’s Heather Thomas?” Mikey asked as two girls marched together down the center aisle while many voices called out congratulations to them.

  “A friend of Casey’s from the other A-level English class. She likes Ralph. You remember Ralph.”

  Mikey did. “Ralph was an OK fighter.” She thought. “I’d have won if Mr. Saunders hadn’t stopped it,” she maintained.

  That was last year’s fight over last year’s issues and not current news. Margalo stuck to the current. “Last weekend he asked Heather to go to the dance with him,” she reported.

  “Why do you even want to know these things?” Mikey demanded.

  While they held their low-voiced conversation, Rhonda and Heather Thomas ascended the steps together, one big and blonde, the other just as blonde but shorter, slimmer, overall smaller. They moved in unison without looking at each other, like two coaches, each one of whom thinks he is the best coach of the most important sport. They walked together like two girls, each one of whom thinks she is the one everybody is looking at and wants to date, but doesn’t want to hurt her friend’s feelings by saying so. They crossed the stage together, to stand together by Louis and Hadrian. They bowed minimally, just a little nod of their heads; they were too important to offer the audience more than that.

  “Ira Pliotes and Jason Summerton,” Ms. Larch called out, two names that met with general approval, including Mikey’s and Margalo’s. Ira, who had been in their class since fifth grade, was a pretty well-liked boy, pretty smart, a pretty good athlete; he got along with pretty much everyone. People clapped for Ira, and for Jason, too, since Jason was one of the coolest of the cool and did glamorous things like summer camp in Canada and winter holidays in the Bahamas. Jason was stuck up, no question, and Ira was about the opposite; what they were doing paired up like this was a puzzle. They pushed against each other as they went up the steps and didn’t stop the jostling when they stood side by side on the stage. They had to be the quarreling brothers in the play, Margalo thought.

  “Frannie—” Ms. Larch didn’t finish the name before the applause began as Frannie walked up onto the stage in a stately manner. “—Arenberg.”

  Of course they all knew that Frannie was their age, fourteen, and an ordinary eighth-grade girl, except for being nice and really meaning it. They were used to the plain way she dressed, because Quakers are plain people in their dress as well as their beliefs, and the styleless style in which she wore her wavy brown hair, parted at the side and held off her face with a barrette, never longer than her chin or shorter than her ears. They all knew Frannie Arenberg, and they knew she was good at math and English, science and seminar, and sports, in the same including way she was popular with both girls and boys, coaches and teachers. They all knew her and counted her a friend, but seeing her onstage was different. She looked like somebody’s mother or a vice principal.

  “This is like . . . it’s like some time warp,” Margalo said. “I feel as if I’m seeing into the future. What if this is some science fiction experiment, where going up on this stage shows people as they really, really are? Or who they will be? I wonder what we’d look like up there.”

  “Who cares?” Mikey asked. Then she gave herself away by saying, “Louis looks totally sketchy.”

  “If Louis ends up an alcoholic, would you be surprised?” Margalo asked.

  “Just as long as he doesn’t end up living next door to me,” Mikey said.

  “And Rhonda—it’s like we’re seeing who she’ll be when she’s thirty. She’s like her mother, isn’t she? She’s all . . .” Margalo tried to think of the words.

  “I know the right way to act,” Mikey supplied. “You had all better behave.”

  Margalo finished it. “Or I’ll get you in trouble, because I know important people.”

  “Hadrian, at least, doesn’t make me want to leave town. He reminds me of Piglet.”

  “Sweet and helpless.”

  “But nobody could be that innocent in eighth grade,” Mikey decided.

  “Somebody two years younger could be.”

  “Mudpies, Margalo. Remember us in sixth grade?”

  Margalo didn’t bother arguing. Besides, Mikey was right. So Hadrian was pretending, up there, acting his part, and nobody doubted him—and that was a curious thing, now that she thought of it. If Hadrian Klenk could act, that meant he could probably lie, too—curiouser and curiouser.

  “I wish I had gotten the part,” Margalo said to Mikey. “You could have told me what I look like, up on stage.”

  “I can tell you now: like a beanpole. An overdressed, underfed beanpole.” Then Mikey had a better idea. “Or a praying mantis. Have you ever heard what they do to their mates?”

  Margalo jabbed at her twice with a bony elbow, once for beanpole, once for overdressed.

  “They eat them,” Mikey said.

  Margalo jabbed again and caught her in the ribs.

  “After,” Mikey said.

  Jab.

  “Starting at the head,” Mikey concluded, blocking the last jab with her arm.

  At this point Ms. Larch emptied the stage, sending the seven actors back to their seats before she announced the final four parts, the four biggest roles. First she called Melissa Martinez, who had dark eyes and long brown hair. Melissa had many wanna-be boyfriends in the eighth grade, even though the rumor was that she already had one, from summer camp. There was a lot of applause and a few whistles for Melissa, who curtsied shyly.

  Next, Ms. Larch called Timothy Farmer, a quiet, round-headed, blushing boy, the kind of boy who would never even dare to think about having a crush on Melissa. Margalo thought that they must be playing the young couple, and that maybe Ms. Larch was someone who knew how to pick the right people for a play.

  “Aimi Hearn, you’re next,” Ms. Larch called, and stepped forward to hold out her hand to the tall, dark-skinned girl who had taken Margalo’s part. Aimi approached the stage and ascended the stairs, like a model or a queen or a dancer, with her long back straight, her head high, proud.

  “What do you know about her?” Mikey whispered to Margalo.

  “Not much. She keeps to herself. She plays baseball.”

  “You mean softball.”

  “She looks like she might be interesting,” Margalo said just as Ms. Larch summoned up the last member of her cast.

  “Shawn Macavity. Show your face up here, young Shawn.”

  Who? Shawn who? For a minute, nobody remembered any Shawn Macavity.

  An uneasy silence rose up from the gathered seventh and eighth graders,
who turned to their friends in puzzlement, then looked around to figure out who this person might turn out to be, to see who was getting up and starting down the aisle.

  Ms. Larch started clapping her hands to fill the silence, and Mr. Saunders joined in, and a few of the students, too, the kind of people who always clap first and ask questions later. But the clapping faded quickly as a boy came striding down the center aisle, a dark-haired, long-legged boy in black jeans and a pale, old blue work shirt. He took the steps two at a time, nodded briefly to Ms. Larch, and then turned to face the audience.

  They started to remember. “Oh, yeah, him.” “Didn’t he used to wear glasses?” “He’s in my math class.” “He never says a word in class.” “I think he was in my grade school—but never in my section.” “Who’s he hang out with?”

  Shawn Macavity could barely keep from laughing as he looked down at everybody and saw how surprised they were. Surprised, and amazed, and stunned, too. He wasn’t surprised. He had expected to see just what he was seeing, first surprise and then—the expressions changing—almost immediately, amazement that they had never before noticed how cool he was.

  After a few long seconds, real clapping began.

  Shawn Macavity let it go on for the perfect length of time—a slow count to four, or ten, or fifteen—before he smiled, a smile that fell over them like sunshine, no more concerned with them than sunshine is. Then he bowed elaborately, with a broad flourish of his arm, bowed deeply from the waist, like a prisoner about to be executed by a firing squad because he wouldn’t reveal the names of the other members of his resistance group. “Don’t shoot!” you wanted to cry out, or like Pocahontas with John Smith, run up and throw yourself in front of him, to save him, or to die beside him.

  Because Shawn Macavity was handsome. He had dark, dark hair, and skin as white as marble, and bright blue eyes. His nose hooked out, like on an ancient Roman coin. This was the same nose that got him teased when he was younger, like last fall, before everybody could see what a great nose it was, which today they did. When Shawn Macavity smiled carelessly at them from up on the stage, the whole room got brighter and the girls who had boyfriends were sorry. He was so tall—five nine or ten, at least—and so skinny that you worried he wasn’t eating enough. He was so confident, and mocking, that you were afraid he’d never look twice at you.

  The applause continued on after Shawn’s deep bow, as if it had forgotten it was supposed to stop.

  Mikey wasn’t applauding. For once she had nothing to say. Margalo would have said something to Mikey about her silence, but as the applause was finally dying down Ms. Larch called out one last name—

  But there were no more parts in the play—

  But the name was hers.

  “Stand up, Margalo Epps, and let everyone get a look at you. You’re not shy, are you?”

  Furious, Margalo stood up. What was Ms. Larch calling on her for? Loam! Compost! Topsoil! This wasn’t fair, nobody had warned her, and she hoped her face didn’t give away what she was thinking.

  “Margalo is going to be my assistant director,” Ms. Larch announced. Her dark, dramatically outlined eyes and hoarse, low voice made this a really big announcement. Nobody applauded or said anything. They waited to hear what made it so big. People in the audience turned their attention back to the stage, so only the five people onstage were still staring at Margalo.

  Furious, she sat down. She didn’t want to be the subject of any big announcement, and especially not of any big unexpected announcement. “What—,” she started to ask Mikey, and then, “Assistant director?”

  But Mikey was lost in thought. Or lost in dreams. Or just lost, lost in place.

  Ms. Larch concluded, throwing her arms out wide, with a rippling of scarves and a falling free of hair, “I am very enthusiastic about this wonderful play with these wonderful actors.” She raised her arms above her head and smiled proudly down on everyone, until they started clapping again, so that she would be satisfied enough to leave the stage and let them get on with their lives.

  After that Mr. Saunders dismissed them. The audience got up, in a hurry to leave because they were getting five extra minutes of free time before classes started. Talking, shoving, people crowded into the wide aisles.

  But Mikey sat.

  Like a bump on a log. Like she’d been beaned with a bat. Like a pet rock, a scoop of mashed potatoes, a dead body.

  Unlike any Mikey Elsinger that Margalo had ever seen.

  As people streamed out of the auditorium the air filled with the sounds of voices and footsteps. Still, Mikey didn’t move.

  Could Mikey be having a blood clot? Margalo wondered. She was too young for a stroke, wasn’t she?

  It was as if Mikey had been changed into something entirely different from her usual self, magicked away (but Margalo didn’t believe in magic) or stolen out of herself by aliens (but Margalo didn’t believe in aliens).

  It was definitely different, and it was a little anxiety producing because Margalo couldn’t figure it out. She stared at Mikey’s expressionless profile and Mikey stared at the stage, where the microphone stood alone. Margalo had no idea what was going on with Mikey. She tried to think what—

  And then she knew. It was the only thing that made sense—even if it made no sense at all—and it made her laugh out loud. Here was an unforeseen development, maybe an unexpected calamity. She had no idea how Mikey would react to falling head over heels. She had no idea how Mikey would land after the fall—on her feet, on her head, or in some horrific belly flop.

  Margalo’s laughter brought Mikey out of her daze long enough to inform her friend, “It’s not funny.”

  3

  BEAUTY AND THE BEHOLDER

  Everybody else had left the auditorium, but Mikey remained in her seat, like a lifeless life-size model. She stared at the empty stage.

  Margalo knew pretty much exactly how her friend was feeling, but they had class to get to. “Time’s up, Mikey,” she said, and stood. “Mikey?” she asked. No response. “Miykee!”

  “All right,” Mikey groused. “I hear you. I don’t know what’s—” Then her face lit up—she had an idea! It was with this same gleam in her eye that she connected for a cross-court forehand winner. Mikey surged up out of her seat and shoved past Margalo, dumping her backpack on the floor. “See you in seminar”—and she ran up the aisle.

  By the time Margalo got to the hall, carrying both of their backpacks, Mikey had made her way to the front of the flock of girls who hovered around Shawn Macavity like seagulls circling a fishing boat. Most pretended to be doing something else—tying a sneaker, talking to a friend, tidying hair, or even, in one case, reading a book, although that was Casey Wolsowski, and she might not have been pretending.

  Mikey, however, didn’t pretend anything. She walked right up to ask, “How do you spell your name?”

  “M-a-c-” His eyes were sparkling and his mouth couldn’t stop smiling, although he lounged back against the wall as if all this attention didn’t interest him much. His body language said, I’m unbelievably cool, but his face asked, Isn’t this great? “A-v—”

  Mikey didn’t let him finish. “I mean the Shawn part. What kind of a Shawn are you?”

  “S-h-a-w-n,” he spelled agreeably.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be like the rest of them!” Mikey crowed.

  Margalo hung back by the auditorium doors, watching this. She didn’t want anyone thinking she was included in this scene of mass pursuit, but she didn’t want to miss anything either.

  “What sport—” was Mikey’s next question.

  “Listen, Mikey,” Heather McGinty interrupted, with such heavy tactfulness that if it had been a tray, it would have taken both her hands to carry it. She stepped close to Mikey, as a friend might step close to give private good advice to stop her friend from making a fool of herself. Heather smiled up at Shawn; they were two superior beings dealing with a dork. “Nobody wants to be pestered with questions,” she said to Mikey. To Shawn sh
e explained, “You have to excuse her.”

  Mikey smiled back at Heather, but nobody would have mistaken it for friendship.

  At that sight Shawn backed off from both girls, one step, two. “Hey,” he said with a What-can-a-boy-do? look around at the watching faces, backing up another step.

  Heather followed him, one step, two, three. “Mikey doesn’t know anything about guys,” she told Shawn, and her eyes promised him without words, But I do. She giggled. “She doesn’t even like them.” But I do.

  Mikey paid minimal attention to this and shouldered her way in front of Heather, looking right into Shawn’s face. “But what sport do you—”

  Rhonda Ransom interrupted to advise Shawn, “You better come with me. Before she punches you. You don’t want to mess with Mikey.”

  Shawn shrugged, looked at Rhonda, looked at Heather, looked at Mikey, and shrugged again. “We’ve got science,” he said to Mikey. He was apparently blind to the victory smirk Heather and Rhonda exchanged as they carried him off between them, the three going down the hall like the President and two Secret Service agents. His attendant blondes kept four alert and wary eyes out, warning off anybody who might come too close to their man.

  And Mikey just stood, watching. Not making a snide remark. Not even snorting in disgust. Just watching them walk away from her.

  Not Mikey, Margalo said to herself. She wanted to deny it. But she couldn’t. Mikey looked every bit as goopy as the skunk in Bambi, or the rabbit—Thumper, that was his stupid name. Margalo could practically see red cartoon hearts circling around Mikey’s head. “C’mon, Mikey,” she said again. “Let’s get going.”

  At last Mikey registered Margalo’s voice and took the backpack Margalo shoved at her. They were going to have to motor to get to their lockers and then the classroom before the bell rang.