It's Not Easy Being Bad (15 page)

“Maybe Frannie will eat lunch with me.”

Neither one of them asked
Are you listening to me?
They each knew that the other was listening.

“Dad'll come by for my books after work. He's staying home with me tomorrow if my temperature isn't below a hundred.”

“Do you think you'll be well enough to come to school on Tuesday?”

“Don't forget.”

*    *    *

Margalo felt a little uneasy arriving at West Junior High School when Mikey wasn't going to be there. She scurried down off the bus and scurried right on into the building, went to her locker and then to the library. She could always read something while sitting in the, stacks, which was maybe two degrees less obviously unpopular than doing your homework in the library. And she
did
have her civics current events topic to get, too. This was Mr. Cohen's way of getting students to at least look at a daily newspaper.

Margalo usually got her items from the library's copy of the
Monitor
while Mikey—who took her topics from her father's copy of the Sunday
New York
Times
—usually hovered around, interrupting. The
Monitor
had all the big stories on its back page, both national and international, as well as a column of odd facts, like which cities were the most expensive to live in, or if some bank robber had crashed his getaway car right into a police station. Looking for a topic would give Margalo something to do.

But arty-smarty Cassie was sitting at a table with the
Monitor
open in front of her. Margalo got into position, hoping that Cassie wasn't the kind of person who minded people reading over her shoulder.

“Hey, Margalo, what's new?” Cassie asked. She indicated the empty chair beside her. “Park your buns. I guess you have Cohen for civics, too.”

Margalo nodded, sat. “Seventh period.”

“Weren't you surprised to find him at the head of that army of revolutionaries?” Cassie asked.

“I think
he
was the surprised one,” Margalo commented. Cassie thought that was funny, which made it
So far, so good
for Margalo, on her own in junior high for the first time. She looked down at the newspaper. “He lets you bring in arts items?”

Cassie shrugged. “Art's important.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
started a war.”

No, it contributed to starting the war
, Margalo corrected,
but not out loud. Out loud, “I guess you're right,” she said. “Or Picasso,” she added. You could always mention Picasso and be right about art.

“Exactly,” Cassie said, so probably she didn't know anything about Picasso, either. She went back to reading but pointed with a finger to a paragraph, to mark her place, and looked up again to say, “Except he doesn't allow anything about TV. I tried.”

Cassie had painted her fingernails a light metallic blue, and they were cut short, not even reaching the tops of her fingers; this was not a look Margalo admired. “Cool nails,” she said.

“Okay, I'm done,” Cassie announced. “I never spend more than twelve minutes a day on homework. What they get is what they get.” She grinned. “Don't you just hate it?”

“School?” Margalo asked, not exactly agreeing with Cassie, not exactly disagreeing.

“Can't you barely wait until we get out?” Cassie commiserated.

“I take it you don't mean just Christmas vacation,” Margalo said.

Cassie thought that was funny, too. “Are you taking in that item about gangs in schools?” she asked Margalo now.

“Do you think we have gangs here at West?”

“Not so's you'd notice,” was Cassie's opinion. “Saunders would be all over them. ‘Here at West Junior High we have no gangs, only cliques,' ” she said in a soft, saleslady voice.

“Which are just wanna-be gangs,” Margalo commented.

“On the nose, Mar,” Cassie commented, as if she wasn't, herself, a member of a clique. “I'm taking the article to see what Cohen says.”

Frannie approached them and greeted them, asking Margalo if she was finished with the
Monitor.
“Where's Mikey?” she wondered, and Margalo said, “Home sick.”

“Tell her I hope she feels better,” Frannie said, and wandered back to the table she came from, carrying the paper.

“That girl is so nice,” Cassie remarked. “I mean, like, she really is. And pretty, too, isn't she? I shouldn't like her.”

“I can't not, either,” Margalo agreed. “But, Cassie, how do you get homework essays written in only twelve minutes?”

Cassie liked being asked that question. “I manage. Sometimes, I keep them really short. Short and brilliant.
Or I use an old one. It's not cheating,” she assured Margalo, in case Margalo wondered. “It's just—school's a place I'm serving time, like a criminal in the penitentiary, and my crime is being a kid, until I turn sixteen and can go to art school.”

“Can you go to art school at sixteen?” Margalo asked, but the bell rang then, so Cassie said, “Talk to you later,” and they hurried off to their homerooms.

Definitely
So far, so good.

Going down the hall toward English class, she greeted Ronnie, “Hihowareyou?” and was answered, “Cool, how're you?” to which her answer was, “I'm cool.” Heather McGinty approached them, her face all saddened by fake sympathy, to say, “I meant to tell you how sorry I am that your petition didn't make any difference.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Margalo said, faking acceptance of the fake sympathy, and added, “I'm sorry your lemon bars didn't sell any better.”

Heather accepted that as if she thought she had cornered the insincerity market. “It's funny because my mother's bridge club just loves them, which is why she made them for us. But Frannie bought four, one for each person in her family. She wanted them for Friday dessert. You can tell when someone's mature,”
Heather McGinty informed Ronnie, “by their mature taste.”

“Did you guys see the hunk on the cover of the new J.Crew catalog?” Annie Piers asked as she came up to join them.

“No,” Margalo said truthfully.

“He's the cutest,” Annie said. “I'll bring it in.”

“I always think the best-looking guys are the ones in the Brooks Brothers catalog,” Lacey said. “Even the old guys in there are handsome, and—they all look so rich.”

Margalo's house didn't get any catalogs. Years ago, Aurora had written some special address to cancel all mail-order catalogs, regardless of price, content, or source. Aurora shopped sales, not catalogs. But Margalo agreed with Lacey, anyway, and when Ronnie disagreed, Margalo got pretty emotional. “Holy moley, Ronnie, there's just no comparison.”

Ronnie started to giggle. Margalo went right on. “Those J.Crew guys all look so soft. You know? Soft, sensitive types.” She was making it up as she went along.

“That's why I like them,” Ronnie said, grinning. “You're just arguing for the sake of arguing, Margalo.”

“Her and Mikey, they disagree with everybody about everything,” Heather McGinty announced. “They just want to be different.”

“Of course,” Margalo agreed. “Otherwise it would be too boring.” And since she was ahead, she detached herself from the group, exiting with Ronnie's comment, “You're just
bad.”

Everything went along excellently. At noon, Margalo entered the cafeteria, her lunch bag in her hand and an eye out for Tanisha, because she knew Tan from way back. And if Tan's jockette friends refused to welcome Margalo? Well, she could eat standing by her locker, get down at least enough to get through the afternoon before some teacher caught her. After lunch was going to be the worst time, and she could spend that in the library.

But she ran into Casey Wolsowski—literally ran into her back since the girl came to a halt, right in front of Margalo.

“Hunhhph,” Margalo said. “Oh, Casey, hihowareyou?”

“Cool,” Casey answered, not looking up from the paperback book she was reading.

“What's so good?” Margalo asked, expecting—she didn't know, maybe
Forever
, maybe a Harry Potter.

Casey turned the book over to show her—
Watership Down.

“My stepbrother's reading that in high school,” Margalo said.

“Probably he has my dad for English. This is my second time. In fact,” she smiled, half-proud, half-ready to be made fun of, “I finished it yesterday afternoon and started it all over again right away.”

“I usually let an hour or two go by before restarting a book,” Margalo admitted, which was almost true. “I didn't know you were so good in English,” she said to Casey.

“I'm not. I just read. You're the one who's good.”

“Not really. Grammar, spelling, you know. The easy stuff.”

“That's not the easy stuff,” Casey said. They were moving together in the cafeteria line, not that Margalo was going to get anything, and not that Casey noticed. “Have you read this?”

“Howie doesn't share.”

“I'll loan it to you when I finish. What about
Lord of the Rings
, if you like fantasy? Do you like fantasy?”

“I like everything,” Margalo said, and that was true.

“Try
Lord of the Rings
” Casey said. “But start it on
a Friday, or over vacation. Because you won't want to be interrupted.” She put a filled plate on her tray.

Margalo didn't tell Casey she'd read Tolkien's trilogy for the first time this summer, and for the second time, too; she figured, if Casey felt like she'd introduced Margalo to something, she'd like Margalo better.

“How about
The Thirteen Clocks?
” Casey asked now, a book Margalo had never heard of. Casey added a bowl of fruit and two perfectly round cookies—sugar cookies? Nut cookies? Oatmeal cookies? “Aren't you eating?”

Margalo held up her brown bag, a show-and-tell.

“That's smart,” Casey remarked, and “See you around,” she said, walking off to join the other preppies at Heather McGinty's table, turning back to observe, “You never said what books you like,” before turning away again.

Margalo thought she might mention
Jane Eyre.
If she understood Casey, that would be just the book to mention. Meanwhile, she drifted over toward where Tan sat. “Hey, whazzup?” she greeted them, and asked, “Can—?” waving her lunch bag gently in the air, not exactly asking so that they wouldn't have to say exactly no. “Whazzup, Margalo?” Tan asked, indicating an empty seat. “Mikey sick?”

“Flu,” Margalo said. “She'll miss practice. She doesn't know about tomorrow.”

“She'll be back as soon as she can,” Tan said, sure of it. She turned to the girl on her other side to explain, “Margalo and her friend Mikey are the ones who started that basketball petition.”

“Hey, whazzup?” the girl greeted Margalo now. “I thought that was Frannie.”

“Her, too,” Margalo said.

“Frannie's a real good sport,” the girl said. “She a friend of yours?”

“Frannie's a friend of everybody's,” Margalo said.

“Margalo doesn't play sports,” Tan said, grinning now at Margalo, remembering grade school.

“But I'm interested in watching,” Margalo answered. “I'm an interested audience. Like, I always wonder about plays. Basketball plays, especially. I always wondered, because you only see the plays in games.” (Well, she
had
watched one pro game with Mikey, on TV last year; that counted, didn't it?) “I wondered if you practice the moves. Like dancers, rehearse them until you do them without thinking? Otherwise, how do people get so good at doing the right moves when they're in the middle of a point, or a game?”

“A lot of practice,” Tan said, “and talent, too. It's gotta be both, don't you think, Ellie?” she asked her friend, who added, “Also, going with the flow,” which Tan thought was, “The same as practice and talent, just different words.”

They talked on happily, about scrimmages and whose game was really on, and about how Mikey made a lousy guard but was a natural shot, even though she was too short and chunky, really, for basketball. “But she makes up for it in competitiveness. I guess you're not competitive,” Tan said to Margalo, sounding surprised, as if she'd never thought of this before.

Margalo shrugged. If that was what Tan thought, what would be the point of denying it?

“Maybe that's how you and Mikey stay friends,” Tan said. “You are still friends, aren't you?”

“Absolutely,” Margalo said. Although, she had to admit and she didn't mind admitting to herself, it felt kind of good to have Mikey be absent. It was like Margalo was the only person onstage, the star of the show, when Mikey was home sick; and it looked like she could do just fine, onstage alone.

But Tanisha had reminded her of her responsibility, so she went off to get the homework for Mikey's
morning classes, which meant having a reason to talk to even more people, and make her own impression on them.

*    *    *

Mikey was absent again on Tuesday, but, “Getting better. I better get better or we won't have cookies for Friday and that'll interfere with my plan,” she had said on the phone. “What do cookies have to do with making high honor roll?” Margalo had asked, and when Mikey said, “No, the California plan,” Margalo asked, “You aren't really going to try to
sell
your cookies to the committee, are you?”

“Have some imagination,” Mikey had said, then, “I'll call you tomorrow. After school.”

So Margalo went in on her own Tuesday morning, again. And she felt that morning like she was in charge of things. She had her connection into every group. Except the Barbies, she thought, taking a look at Rhonda Ransom standing in the hallway among her big-haired, small-waisted, high-heeled friends. But there had to be a way to get connected to a Barbie, because they were just seventh graders, after all. Taking a look, thinking, Margalo wondered if she could figure out what the way might be.