Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (9 page)

“There's never anyone around. That's their MO,” Felix explained.

Cassie continued. “Mr. Robredo had them in his office for two hours—before he suspended them.”

“Had them in his office all three? Or one at a time?” Mikey wanted to know. She had not personally met up with the legendary Mr. Robredo, but she had heard about him. Even Louis Caselli didn't want to mix it up with Mr. Robredo, even Louis Caselli on his most foolhardy, suicidal, delusional days.

The worrisome thing about Mr. Robredo was that he was absolutely serious about his job, and absolutely straight. He wouldn't cut you any slack, even if he thought you were funny, even if your parents knew him socially. He wouldn't cut anybody any slack, he didn't take any lip off anybody, he was happy to consider expelling people, and he did what he said he'd do. Nobody wanted to be taken in to see Mr. Robredo. With somebody that fair, you couldn't be sure how it would turn out for you.

Cassie reported, “One at a time. Then the police came. Casey, ask your father what happened.”

“No,” Casey said.

“Don't be such a priss. I didn't mean go ask him now. We
all know that at school you pretend not to be related. I mean, this weekend. I mean, tell us Monday.”

“I don't
believe
this,” Mikey announced, although she did.

On Monday, however, there was no need for Casey to report anything, or for rumors to be sifted and sorted to get at their kernels of truth. On Monday, Hadrian was back in school. His left arm was in a sling—“Luckily, I'm right-handed,” he said—because his collarbone had been broken. “They were shoving me. It's what they do. It's
one
of the things they do,” he reported, in case they wanted the whole picture.

Cassie demanded, “What are you going to do about it?”

“I just have to keep it immobilized. I don't have to return to gym until after New Year's,” Hadrian told them happily.

Cassie insisted, “Aren't you furious?”

“More likely frightened,” said Felix. “That's what I'd be.”

Cassie ignored him, asking, “Don't you want to go after them?”

“Him and what army?” Tim asked.

“Can you sue?” Margalo wondered. She suggested, “Aggravated personal assault.”

Hadrian shook his head. “Besides, they're out of school for three weeks. I can relax.”

At lunch that day many people stopped off to tell Hadrian “Hey.”

What was that supposed to mean? That now they were
going to be his friends? That they felt sorry for him? That it would never happen again?

Ronnie came by, said, “Hey, Hadrian,” and slipped away. Derrie and Annaliese also lingered long enough to say “Hey,” and “Hey.” Jason said “Hey,” and added, with feeling, “
man
,” while Shawn just put a hand on Hadrian's thin shoulder as he walked by behind him.

The hand made Hadrian jump up from his chair, but once he saw who it was, he sat down again.

Tan said “Hey” to Hadrian, then turned on Mikey and Margalo. “What are you going to do about this?”

“What can
we
do?” Mikey demanded right back, while Hadrian pointed out pacifically, “They're suspended for three weeks.”

“That doesn't change anything. What about after that?” Tan asked. But she answered herself. “Never mind. I know. It's not anybody's fault.”

“Of course it's not my fault,” Mikey agreed.

“It's not Hadrian's fault either,” Margalo said.

“That's what I mean,” said Tan.

“It's just the way things are,” said Cassie. “It's high school.”

“And
that
,” declared Tanisha Harris, “is
why
they're this way. Nobody ever does anything and it's never anybody's fault. The people that can do something don't want to, and the rest of us don't dare. Or don't care.”

“We
care
,” argued Tim.

“Right,” said Cassie, cramming as much sarcasm into one
word as most people needed a sentence to use up. “I can tell. So can Hadrian. Can't you, Hadrian?”

Hadrian shrank down into his seat, suddenly deaf from birth, and Tan walked away, her skirt swishing a little.

“What's wrong with
her?”
asked Casey, looking up from her reading, which that day was
Pride and Prejudice.

“You have to ask?” Cassie answered.

“Has anyone ever put a restraining order on your mouth?” asked Felix unexpectedly.

Margalo looked at Mikey to comment silently on this leaping-to-Casey's-defense: Did Felix want to be Casey's boyfriend?

“Besides me, I mean,” said Felix.

“Ha, ha,” Cassie countered.

A couple more people swooped by, hesitating only long enough to say, “Hey, Hadrian,” and “Hey,” as they went on to their destination tables. Ira Pliotes added a little more. “Good to see you back,” he said, and waited until Hadrian had looked up and answered, “Thanks.”

It was almost a pleasure to have Louis Caselli come strutting up to their table and
not
say “Hey.” Louis was so pleased with himself that he was dancing from one foot to the other. “I guess you aren't the only smart people around here,” he announced, as if it was just the three of them—him and Mikey and Margalo—in the room.

At his news Margalo glanced in wide-eyed mock surprise at
Mikey, then back at Louis. “I'm sorry,” she said insincerely, adding dishonestly, “I couldn't hear you.”

Louis strutted a step closer. “I said,” he practically yelled, “that you aren't the only smart people around here. Because I got a B in wood shop. Not a B minus, a straight B. That's an honors grade,” he told them, in case they had forgotten.

“Good going, man,” said Tim. “Congratulations.” Then he asked politely, since Louis lingered, “How were the rest?”

“English and Math don't mean anything, not in the real world,” Louis informed him. He noticed Hadrian Klenk. “Klenk,” he began, decided against it, and strutted off away, stopping to announce his good grade at another table.

“That's gotta be Louis Caselli,” Tim said to Margalo. He turned to his best friend, sitting beside him, “D'you know who that was?”

Felix had no interest in Louis Caselli. “At the movies on Friday?” he asked the table. “You know who I saw? You'll never guess.”

“Just tell us,” Cassie advised him.

“Chet Parker.” He looked around expectantly.

Mikey and Margalo weren't sure who Chet Parker was, although they thought they'd heard the name. Mikey was sure she could take Felix's way of telling news for only about one half second longer.

“He's a senior, Mister Cool. He's got great facial bones, photogenic, you know? He's on all three varsities, drives an '88 BMW,” Felix said. “He's got everything. And he's smart,
too, or anyway, he gets the grades. He's applied early admission to Duke, and he'll probably get in.”

“The girls are all over him,” Tim added. “He can have anybody he wants.”

Cassie snorted a
Not me
snort.

“He was at the movies with that long-haired blonde. Rhonda?” Felix said. He grinned an
I'm in the know
grin and said, “Her Mommy's going to be sorry she didn't take Sex Ed. But that makes me think, we should all go to the movies next Saturday. Anybody want to? Tim? What do you say, Mikey? Jace?”

“You'd probably pick something with subtitles,” Mikey objected. “Or aliens.”

“I'll hold your hand if you get scared,” Felix offered.

“I don't get scared,” Mikey told him.

“Then you can hold my hand, because I do. Or we could go the week after. That one's animated. Japanese.”

Nobody, including Hadrian, made the mistake of thinking he was part of the general invitation. Mikey declined on account of her regular Saturday-afternoon father-commitment, or more precisely, father-and-girlfriend, or most precisely, father-and-girlfriend-and-girlfriend's-two-little-boys. Margalo had a job interview, although she was pretty sure they wouldn't give it to her, since the ad specified cash register experience. “You lied?” asked Tim, and she reassured him, “I just didn't say what kind of experience I have on what kind of cash register.”

Margalo had a good time telling them about the interview the next Monday, and she didn't mind a bit their knowing that she didn't get the job. “They had a test. I was supposed to ring out a basket of groceries, so they figured out right away that I didn't know what I was doing.”

“Didn't they even think of teaching you?” asked Tim. “That's pretty shortsighted of them.”

“Too bad” and “Tough” and “Better luck next time” were the general opinions on her failure, but it was Mikey who said, “So probably there's no sense in lying on job applications because it's pretty sure you'll get found out. Were you embarrassed?” she asked.

It had never crossed Margalo's mind to be embarrassed. “No, why should I be?”

It was interesting—to Margalo, at least—that the thing she didn't like talking about was Drama. She wasn't like Mikey, who didn't care how bored you got with her obsessive interests, tennis mostly, with her day-by-day reporting of progress up the tennis ladder. “I'll be halfway through the juniors, at least, by the end of the fall season,” Mikey promised them, until Cassie finally groaned, “Who
cares?”
and asked Mikey—who of course didn't get it—“What are you going to have to talk about in the winter, without tennis?” “Basketball. Why?” asked Mikey.

In this respect Margalo considered herself about the exact opposite of Mikey. The more something mattered to her, the less able—and willing—she was to talk about it. She could
never find the right words for the really important things, things she had a lot of hope attached to, or a lot of pride attached to. Or things that, if she lost them, her whole life would be different, every day of it. When she tried to talk about those things, feelings swelled up inside of her—big, unmanageable feelings, the kinds of feelings words couldn't convey.

Whereas Mikey thought the only things worth talking about, and thinking about, were whatever was really important to her. About the exact opposite of Margalo.

Except, of course, that Margalo
could
talk to Mikey about those important things, and Mikey, when she and Margalo were just talking, didn't mind what the subject was. So even while they were opposite to one another, they were also opposite to their usual selves when they were with each other.
(People are so interesting!
Margalo thought, the kind of thing people say to themselves when what they also mean is,
I am so interesting!)

A couple of days later Margalo could tell them about an interview for a job at a veterinarian's boarding kennel—“This is for that college account of yours, right?” asked Tim, impressed—and Hadrian's arm was out of its sling and he had enjoyed ten days of leisurely lunches. It was the second-to-last Friday before Thanksgiving, by Mikey's count the tenth Friday of the school year. Also, it was Friday the thirteenth. “Are you superstitious?” Casey asked Felix and Tim, and
Mikey reminded them, “Remember, we can't count Friday of Thanksgiving week,” and Cassie said, “Whadda you mean
we?”
while Hadrian told them all, as if it was an announcement of the utmost importance, “There's only one more week.”