It's Not Easy Being Bad (19 page)

“He didn't even give you detention?” Margalo asked.

“It isn't as if I actually
did
anything. Or even said anything. Why should I get detention?”

“That's okay, then,” Margalo said. She turned back to the window.

It was Mikey's turn to ask, “Do you mind being poor, Margalo?”

Now Margalo sighed, to let Mikey know how tired she was of this topic. “I'm not poor. We just need everything we take in, from Steven's job and the child support Howie and Esther's father sends.”

“And from my dad, too.”

“From your dad, too.”

“But do you
mind?
” Mikey insisted.

Margalo blew up. “Of course I do. Jeez Loueez, Mikey, how dumb can you be? Wouldn't
you
mind if”—she tried to think of an example that would matter to Mikey—“if you had to buy your sneakers at a discount drugstore?”

“But those don't last. They don't stand up to any serious wear. I'm hard on sneakers.”

“Or when you wanted to make cookies, if you had to use margarine because it's so much cheaper?”

“But that would change the taste.”

“You're missing the point.”

Mikey explained, “But you
can't
mind very much, because you've never done anything about it.”

“Like what?” Margalo demanded. “Like what can I
do? Rob a bank? I'll get a job when I turn fourteen, Aurora promised I can, and she says I can use what I earn for college.”

“What
about
California?” Mikey wondered now. Were she and Margalo on such entirely different wavelengths?

“What about California? It's a state. It borders on the Pacific. The capital is Sacramento.”

Mikey explained, “You were saving money for a plane ticket to California. For this summer. What is
with
you, Margalo?”

Margalo spoke between clenched teeth. “How can I save money? You have to have money to spend in order to have money to save by not spending it.”

Mikey returned to her main point to be sure that now, at least, she was getting it right. “So you do mind.” She thought some more. “
Zut
, are you a good actress, Margalo.”

“Of course I'm a good actress, you nitwit.”

Mikey decided to change the subject, since this one just seemed to get Margalo het up. There was no sense in having a big fight with the only person who liked you at school, except maybe Frannie Arenberg. “What if we try sugar cookies this week? We could make half sugar cookies and half chocolate chip,”
Mikey said, slipping into the satisfying memory. “Because chocolate chip is my trademark.”

*    *    *

“Here's the plan,” Mikey greeted Margalo the next morning, Wednesday, as she got off her bus, but she was cut off by Margalo insisting that they get inside, out of the heavy rain. “Don't you have a raincoat?” Mikey demanded.

“Lay off, why don't you?” Margalo responded, so Mikey guessed her mood had not improved overnight. Maybe she hadn't gotten enough sleep.

“Here's the plan,” Mikey began again, at their lockers—but Margalo wasn't wearing the sweater anymore. She was wearing some flowered blouse, dark browny red printed with big, droopy cream-colored flowers, and a large soft floppy collar that spread almost to her shoulders, a really goopy blouse, in Mikey's opinion.

“Great blouse,” somebody said. The somebody was Casey Wolsowski, who now said, “Mikey? Love your cookies. I'm Casey, hihowareyou?”

“Wet,” Mikey answered. “Otherwise, pretty good because I got a really good night's sleep. Also, my dad got us bagels for breakfast.” She thought about what else Casey might want to know. “I'm staying with my
mother this weekend, but I don't start getting jumpy about that until Friday. She likes me better since the divorce, but I'm not exactly her favorite person a lot of the time.”

“Oh,” Casey said. “Well. That's—Hihowareyou, Margalo?”

“Cool,” Margalo said. Whatever that meant, Mikey thought. “You?” Margalo asked.

“Equally. Take me shopping with you sometime, will you?” Casey asked. “I mean it. You come too, Mikey. Gotta go.”

Mikey stared at Margalo, who stared right back. “You
could
,” Margalo said.

“Who says I want to?” Mikey demanded.

But there was no time for a fight, not even time for a little quarrel, because Tan came up to ask them, “Whazzup?”

“Nothing,” Mikey told her. “Nothing ever is. Except, I had this idea about free throws. See, if I—”

Tan shook her head and punched Mikey's shoulder. “Show me in practice. Hey, Margalo, whazzup?”

“Whazzup?” Margalo answered, and Tan waved over her shoulder as she went off.

“So do you want to hear the plan? Or—”

Another interruption, Cassie with blue fingernails.
“Hey, Margalo, Mikey. What's new?”

“Nothing,” Mikey said. “This is school, isn't it?”

“It was the last time I looked,” Cassie agreed, and Margalo asked her, “What's new with you?”

“Some of us are sick of Heather McGinty,” Cassie said. “Probably we'll never speak to her again. Of course, we didn't speak to her before this, either.”

“I don't plan to even think about Heather McGinty, ever again,” Margalo said. “She's entirely too uninteresting, isn't she, Mikey?”

“I wouldn't say that,” Mikey answered. “It's kind of fun to watch her shoot herself in the feet.”

Cassie laughed, a sharp, witchy sound. “You're really bad.”

Mikey didn't laugh. “I'm really bad,” she agreed.

Cassie got serious. “You really
are
” She turned back to Margalo. “Come around sometime. Mikey, too, if she wants,” and she went off.

“Come around?” Mikey asked. “Where? What is she
talking
about?”

*    *    *

In the cafeteria, Mikey told Margalo, “I've got an appointment with Mr. Saunders at the end of this lunch. Are you coming with me?” she asked.

Wednesday's lunch was supposed to be Mexican—but
the casserole had gotten as far south as maybe Amarillo, and stopped there. Or maybe the casserole was still in Tombstone, waiting for a decent burial.

“I thought he was through with you,” Margalo said, unwrapping a grape jelly sandwich, made with mayonnaise and slices of banana.

“So did he. But I have this plan—” Mikey stopped, waiting to be interrupted by somebody coming along to talk to Margalo, but nobody did. “There's not enough time,” Mikey said, and took another bite of her lunch. She looked longingly at Margalo's Oreos.

“Not enough time for what?”

“To explain. Do you want to come with me? Or are you too popular?”

“Well,” Margalo explained, “it's easier for people to like someone they feel sorry for than someone they admire.”

“Are you saying they admire me?”

Margalo nodded, considered taking a bite of her sandwich, stopped to explain. “They admire you about the petition, and the cookies, and that fight with Ralph.”

“But I lost the fight.”

“Yeah, but you
had
it. My theory is that most people think other people are just one thing. Like,
everyone says Frannie is so nice, and that settles her for them. They think
you're
tough.”

“I am,” Mikey said.

“Yeah, but—you know what I mean.
Everybody's
more than just one thing, I mean.”

Mikey swallowed her mouthful of casserole and she pointed out the obvious to Margalo. “You're not most people.”

“That's right.”

Mikey continued thinking about her friend. “But I am sort of an extreme, aren't I? And so's Frannie, but you're in the middle. You're sort of everything. Do you do that on purpose?” she asked, with admiration. “So nobody can figure you out or know what you're really like?”

“Except, you do,” Margalo acknowledged.

“That's right,” Mikey agreed, then admitted, “at least, mostly.” She seized the opportunity to ask, “Are you coming with me to see Mr. Saunders?”

“I guess I better. If I don't, I'll never find out this new plan of yours.” Margalo peeled her orange, and only then did she offer Mikey an Oreo, to dip into her scoop of vanilla ice cream.

“That's because people keep interrupting us, now that we're so popular,” Mikey said, and laughed.

“We'll just have to get back on their bad sides again,” Margalo said, and grinned. “I bet we can. I bet we could do it in two days. I bet, if Heather hadn't been so dumb, we could have gotten back to being just as unpopular as we were before by the end of the day today.”

Frannie joined them, so that they could all go to seminar, and of course she wanted to go with them to the appointment. “Don't tell me anything more, Mikey. I want to be surprised,” Frannie said.

*    *    *

Mr. Sàunders wasn't surprised to see Mikey enter his office with a couple of henchpersons at her side. “Hello, girls,” he greeted them warily. “Mikey.”

“Here's the idea,” Mikey said. “I want to sell food at the eighth-grade dance.”

Mr. Saunders didn't miss a beat. “What would your class need more money for?”

“Not for the class,” Mikey said. “For me. And Margalo; she's my partner. I want you to give me the concession.”

Mr. Saunders leaned back in his chair, studying her.

“Or I'll rent it from the school,” Mikey suggested. “Like they do at a stadium, or a circus.”

Mr. Saunders put his fingers together and looked
at Mikey over the top of his finger tent. “I'm not sure that it's appropriate to use school events for private profit,” he said.

“Are you sure it's
not
appropriate?” Mikey asked.

“No.” He shook his head, and repeated himself. “No.”

“Because if it turns out to be, I could always set up outside the building,” Mikey offered.

“You'd still be on school property.”

“Or on the sidewalk,” Mikey said, considering this new idea. “I could do that, and then I could sell to civilians, passersby, too, couldn't I? I'm thinking of some kind of a booth, with a counter, and wheels. It could go anywhere.”

“What food are you thinking of selling?” Mr. Saunders asked. “Cookies, of course.”

“Maybe individual pizzas; we could heat them in toaster ovens. Pizza is always popular. Sandwiches, probably, too. The refreshments committee will have chips and sodas, inside, that kind of junk food, so I'm not going to do drinks.”

“Theirs will be free of charge,” Mr. Saunders pointed out.

“Mine will taste good,” Mikey pointed out.

Then there was a brief silence. Mr. Saunders nodded
his head, once, briskly, and said, “All right, Mikey. Unless there is some reason, in the fire code or the school building usage rules, I see no problem.”

“Good,” Mikey said. “Because I'm thinking I might keep the booth, and set up a concession stand during games.”

Mr. Saunders looked up quickly.

“That
would
be good publicity for the school, wouldn't it, Mr. Saunders?” Margalo remarked, as if she really was a partner and had already talked all of this over with Mikey. “Parents are always impressed when kids do something on their own, don't you think?”

“We'll see,” Mr. Saunders said, then, “I'll see what I can do.” He rose from his seat and said, “I'll do my best for you, Mikey.”

“That's good enough for me, Mr. Saunders,” Mikey said, formally, almost like reaching across the desk for the handshake closing a real business deal.

But Margalo was seized by inspiration. Inspiration got its big, long-fingered hands on her chest and just squeezed the words up into her throat, whispering in her ear that the timing was too perfect to be missed. “Did you want to ask Mr. Saunders about tennis?” she asked Mikey.

Now Mikey was surprised, but Margalo noticed that Mr. Saunders still wasn't.

“The tennis team,” he guessed. “Ask me about playing on the West tennis team this spring,” he guessed.

“You could talk to her coach at the Y,” Margalo suggested.

“And what makes you think I haven't already done that?” he asked.

Margalo knew when to quit. She quit.

They were out of there, and on their way to seminar, with no time for Margalo to get the details of this concession plan out of Mikey, so that she could begin the changes that would make it really good.

*    *    *

They had to wait for the bus ride home to talk. By then, Margalo had had time to think, and do the math, and get some hopes up. “Frannie will tell people about the concession booth,” she said. “Everybody will want to be included.”

“I don't
want
everyone included,” Mikey groused from the window seat. “I don't want any of them.” Margalo couldn't expect her to be cheerful, not this afternoon. Her free throws still sucked, and she wasn't nearly tall enough for jump shots. Hop shots was more like it. Basketball was
hard.

“But you want some other people, sometimes. Like, to sell stuff, and to keep the pizzas coming hot. Who's going to prepare them, have you thought of that? You'll be busy. And you'll probably stink big time as a salesperson.”

“You've been thinking about this,” Mikey complained.

“Of course, I have. I'm a partner. What does that mean, Mikey?”

“It means you do half the work. And you have to get Aurora to take us to Sam's Club for my shopping. Dad'll loan me seed money, I'm pretty sure of that. Or Mom will; it won't be much, and after that we'll be able to cover our own expenses. Mostly it means you'll have to run everything during the tennis season.”

“Does it mean I get half the money?” Margalo asked.