Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (38 page)

Tim shook his head. “What was it about?”

“Oh, spring and a girl whose boyfriend is on the baseball team. I called it
Run Home
.”

“When did you leave it there?”

“Yesterday. I just forgot about it, and—When I went back just now, because the deadline's coming up—as you know . . .” She shrugged. “I guess someone must have thrown it out.”

“Don't you make notes? Don't you have a draft?” Tim asked.

“No, I just . . . write. Well, maybe, it was on the table, probably somebody just picked it up with some other papers of theirs and didn't even notice. I'll ask around.”

“Let me know if it turns up, okay?”

She looked puzzled but agreed, “Okay, sure.”

After Brenda left, Tim turned to Felix and said, “Remember that really good new writer I told you about? Her poem? It sounds just like Brenda's.”

“I remember.”

“But it was Cathy Johnson who submitted it.”

“You think she stole it? She's on the paper, isn't she?”

“A proofreader. But without notes, or without a draft, how can Brenda ever prove it's hers?”

“What can you do? Accuse Cathy? Throw her off the paper? Because that's plagiarism, isn't it? Or does plagiarism have to be copied from something published?”

“I'll have to talk to Stuart. He can ask Miss Marshall, that's
what advisers are for. We're not printing it, that's for sure, so we'll need something for that space. But about Cathy? I don't even want to—Why would someone do that?”

“How could someone think she'd get away with doing that?” Mikey asked. “When the paper came out, Brenda would know, everyone would know. So, we meet tomorrow morning to learn how to call lines? Here at school? At nine?”

Cassie objected. “Saturday mornings I sleep late.”

“I'll call you to make sure you're up,” Mikey promised. “Meet me at the courts, behind the gym. Let's go, Margalo. The more people I have, the more courts we can cover.” She rose and Margalo followed her, out of the cafeteria and partway down the hall before they realized they didn't know where they were going next.

They met up with Louis accidentally. He was thundering down the broad cement staircase, with Sal at his side and Danny Schake right behind them. Louis pretended he didn't see them, pretending he was engrossed in whatever Sal was telling Danny, but Mikey planted herself right in front of him and he had to stop. He stood on the lowest step, glaring down at them.

Sal and Danny moved on a little ways, then they stopped too. They were curious, since everybody knew how little these three liked one another and for how long. But everybody also knew about the weird bet Mikey and Margalo had going, about getting Louis to pass Math and English, so who knew what might happen next? Sal and Danny were hoping that
something might happen, something that might even end up with people getting in trouble, or at least getting into a fight.

Louis took the offensive. “I have until after school. You said, you both said. I'm going to do the work in my free periods.”

Mikey and Margalo just waited.

“It's not like you're doing me some big favor,” Louis said, with a glance over at his cousin and their friend to be sure they could see how unwilling a participant he was in this encounter.

“Actually,” Margalo said, “we want you to do
us
a favor.”

“You owe us,” Mikey pointed out. “You owe us two, three if you count Math separate from English. If you can count as high as that.”

Louis's face got satisfyingly red, maybe embarrassment, maybe fury, they didn't care. Either one was equally desirable.

“I did what you asked about Chet,” he reminded them in a low voice.

“That was for Ronnie,” Margalo pointed out, adding, “And for your whole family.”

“For Ronnie's reputation,” Mikey specified.

“I'm your bet,” Louis argued.

“Lou-ie! We're waiting,” Danny called.

Sal said, “Whatsa matter, man? You need help?”

Louis shook his head at them and said to Margalo, “I gotta go.”

“You know,” Margalo said, “if you were tutoring someone in something he didn't know much about, you could teach him the wrong things. Couldn't you, Mikey?”

Mikey had never thought of that. “You could.” Already she could think of two ways to do that to Louis.

“You could teach him incorrect spelling and bad grammar,” Margalo suggested.

“Hey,” Louis protested. Then he thought of the argument. “You'd lose the bet,” he reminded Margalo.

“I'd win,” Mikey said.

“
And
you'd be in a different class from us forever,” Margalo said.

“All
right
,” Louis said. “So, what is this big favor?” he asked, but as if he couldn't care less about it. He turned and waved a hand in circles in the air, to show how they were talking on and on and wouldn't stop, so his friends could see he was cool.

Mikey started to explain. “I was thrown—”

“I already know that and I don't blame her. I wouldn't want you on any team of mine.”

“Yes you would,” Mikey said. “If you wanted to win.”

“I'd never want to win that bad,” Louis said.

“Badly,” Margalo said. “Grammar,” she said in answer to the expression on his face.

“All I'm trying to do is get even,” Mikey said.

“Get even with a teacher? With a coach?” Louis wasn't beyond that temptation. “Let's get Sal over too. Or is it only me you want?” He seemed to think this might be the case.

“Hey, Sal,” Mikey called quickly. “You too, Danny. Louis needs you.”

They slouched over, cool, and she explained the idea, and
Margalo explained why they would have to learn something about how to do it, which meant learning something about how the games were played.

“Yeah, but,” Sal said, looking at Louis for confirmation, “I heard—We all heard you got benched. Insubordination. I thought that was why you walked out on the tennis team.”

Mikey shook her head. “Not true. Not even close to true.”

“Maybe a little close,” Margalo allowed. “Maybe in the same neighborhood?”

“Maybe a neighborhood in the same city, if the city's Tokyo,” Mikey said.

“The thing is,” Sal explained to Danny, “she doesn't lie.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “She bites and kicks and punches—”

“I never bit anybody.”

“But she doesn't lie,” Louis concluded, a TV newscaster reporting the latest bad news.

“So, what
did
happen?” asked Danny, who because he had met Mikey and Margalo only in ninth grade, and then mostly by hearsay, didn't have a long history of hostilities to keep him from asking for their side of the story.

“She wanted me to call anything close in my favor,” Mikey said.

“Well, dunnh,” Louis commented.

“Even if I wasn't sure,” Mikey said. “In tennis if it's not out for sure, you're supposed to call it in.”

“She actually said that? Told you to cheat?” Sal asked.

Mikey had to admit, “Not exactly, but essentially.”

“So you're going to fix things so that can't happen,” Danny said. “I can dig it.”

“But it only makes sense to call in your own favor,” Louis pointed out.

“Yeah, sure, I'll do it,” Danny said. “Coaches think they can get away with anything.”

“Coaches know what they're doing, man. Doesn't everybody cheat a little? If they can?” Louis asked.

Sal said, “Lou? What do you think, are you gonna help them?”

“Ronnie is too,” Margalo offered. “And Tan, Tim, Felix, Jace—”

It wasn't an entirely geeky group, which gave Louis the opening to say, “Yeah, man, I guess.”

“I'll get Ronnie to call you about when we meet to learn how,” Mikey told Sal, and at last the three boys were free to walk away. They took their opportunity.

“Sometimes,” Margalo said, “I almost feel sorry for Louis.”

“I always do,” Mikey agreed.

“No, I mean
really
sorry for him.”

“That's why it's important to keep him on his toes,” Mikey agreed. “He needs pins stuck in him, like, once a week, otherwise he'll really do himself permanent harm.”

“Yeah, but I thought we hated him.”

“That's one of the things I don't like about ninth grade,” Mikey said. They had been standing close to the pale cement wall, letting people pass them to go up the staircase or pass them after coming down the staircase. Nobody noticed them.
Everybody was too busy doing whatever interested them to pay much attention to anybody else. “It's not as simple to hate somebody as it used to be.”

The bell rang, separating them for the afternoon.

The biggest surprise of the day was Ira Pliotes, who came up to Mikey as they were both entering Math class to ask, “Can you use me to call lines?”

“How'd you hear?” Mikey demanded, angry. “Coach Sandy's going to find out, and she'll try to stop me.”

Since fifth grade Ira had grown tallish and thinnish, but his ears still stuck out more than ears should, and he was still a nice person. If he hadn't been such an all-rounder—a good student, but not a brain; a pretty good athlete in both soccer and baseball; okay looking, but not outstandingly cute—other boys would probably have made fun of his ears, and the girls would have followed their lead. But Ira seemed to know how to get people liking him. Mikey pretty much respected him: Ira went his own way and thought his own thoughts; he was just normal, but Ira's normal included sometimes disagreeing with other people's normal.

Now he took Mikey's complaint seriously and thought about it. “Probably nobody will tell her,” he decided. “I wouldn't. I wouldn't tell any of the coaches about it.”

That reminded Mikey. “Aren't you on the baseball squad? Don't you have practice after school?”

“It's JV and I'm about the fourth-string third baseman, so
I don't have to be there if there's a tennis match. I've got good vision, Mikey. I'd do a good job.”

“I
know
that,” Mikey told him, irritated. She could appreciate nice, but sometimes it
was
annoying. “Okay, then,” she said. “Tomorrow morning at nine, at the courts.”

“Thanks,” Ira said, and went on to take his seat.

Mikey took hers—Thanks? What was Ira doing thanking her? She couldn't wait to see Margalo's face when she reported that Ira Pliotes had asked to be one of her line callers.

Mikey figured she had had about all the surprises any day could offer, but there was one more waiting for her beside her locker, its long blond hair now cut short and held to the side by a plain black barrette, its shoes dark blue canvas slip-ons. “Rhonda?” Mikey asked it.

“Yes,” Rhonda admitted. She smoothed down the front of her skirt. “I have to catch the bus, but . . . I heard.”