Mission (Un)Popular (10 page)

“I could actually kick it for you too, if you want,” Amir put in.

“We'll triple kick it, evil-wood-nymph style,” Mike pledged seriously, without looking up from the DS.

I reached for another chip, smiling. Obviously, nobody was going to be kicking any English teacher butt. But somehow, hearing them say it made me feel like I had the magic dart
and
the golden arrow
and
the force field of friendship on my side. I had Em and her quick comebacks
and
Erika-with-a-K's total devotion
and
Andrew, Amir, and Mike's goofy, boy-style loyalty—which meant that Sarah J., her friends, and even Mrs. Collins could try what they wanted. None of it would kill me.

E
XCEPT, YOU KNOW THAT
whole thing about anything that doesn't kill you making you stronger? Turns out it's a complete lie. It's just a thing people say to keep you from giving up on life completely, barricading yourself in your room, and refusing to come out except to use the bathroom. The warm fuzzy feeling I had on Thursday didn't last long, and the next day, instead of making me stronger, the things that didn't kill me definitely made me wish I were dead. That morning, energized by the respectable outfit I'd picked out (a new pair of Levi's skinny jeans my mom had bought me from Walmart, and a stretchy plaid shirt I'd rediscovered under a pile of books), and excited about the good friends who were waiting for me, I actually got to school early. I walked with a pep in my step past the old gym, where the girls' volleyball team was gathered, reading some kind of pink sign. “Hey, Michelle.

Hi, Bethany, Brayden, and Claire,” I called out.

“Um. Hi,” Michelle answered, eyeing me strangely. I figured she was just taken aback by the unusual amount of morning energy I had.

“Simon! How are you?” I asked, careful not to use a single S in my sentence, except for the one in his name, which couldn't really be avoided. He turned, seeming surprised that I'd spoken to him, and shoved a pink piece of paper into his locker. What were these posters? Maybe there was a dance? Or some kind of student body election I hadn't heard about yet?

I spotted Em down the hall at her locker. “Hey, Em.” I smiled widely as I approached. She turned, a cold look on her face. “What's wrong?” I asked, but she didn't answer. Instead she just ripped a pink poster off her locker and shoved it at me. Sarah J. (or one of her evil followers) had obviously gotten creative overnight. NEW YORK LESBO, read the sign, in big block letters.

Em walked over to my locker and ripped down a second. NEW YORK LESBO'S INDIAN LOVER. I gulped. Obviously,
Hamburglar
wasn't the worst nickname ever, after all.

“This is
not
cool,” Em said, clenching her fists. “
So
not cool.” She walked a few steps, turned on her heels, and walked back like a tiger pacing.

From where I was standing, I could see pink signs all the way down the hall. I grabbed one. EM + MARGOT = LESBIAN LOVE. Another, with little hearts all over it, said MARGOT & EM, TOGETHER 4EVER. A third one read: MARGOT & EM FOR
PROM
DRAG QUEENS.

“Come on,” I said, starting down the hall, ripping off posters as I went. “Help me with this, okay?” All I wanted was to get rid of them before anyone else (especially Gorgeous George) saw them. “Then we'll go straight to Vandanhoover's office and tell her.”

“Right,” Em said. “Because that's going to do us any good.”

“Well, what else are we supposed to do?” I asked.

She didn't answer, but went to the opposite side of the hallway and started ripping down the pink sheets too.

As it turned out, Em was right about Vandanhoover being useless. At 10:30 she called us down to the office and asked about the posters. And when we told her who we thought had done it, she just nodded. “I'll speak to Sarah and see if we can't work together to get to the bottom of things,” she promised in that important-sounding but vague way adults have. But obviously, Sarah J. wasn't stupid. She was just going to deny it. There wasn't going to be any “getting to the bottom of it,” and we all knew it. Seriously, between this and the fish sticks thing, I was starting to wonder what kind of skills they even taught at principal school.

By the time Mrs. Vandanhoover sent us back to class, things felt ten times more hopeless. “I'll see you in math,” I said to Em. I had to pee, plus I needed a minute to myself.

As I was washing my hands, the door opened and Tiffany Abraham—one of the quiet girls—walked in. I breathed a sigh of relief that it was just her, and started to fix my hair. But a few minutes later, when she came to wash her hands at the sink beside me, she kind of cleared her throat. She seemed to be taking forever, rinsing the soap off each finger individually. Eventually I glanced over.

“Hi,” she said softly. I smiled a little, then flipped my hair upside down to tousle it. When I flipped it up again, I could feel her watching me in the mirror.

“Listen,” she said finally, reaching for a paper towel and not looking me in the eyes, “I think it sucks, those posters and everything.” Her cheeks were going a bit pink. I could tell it was taking a lot out of her to say this.

“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it.

Tiffany seemed to gain courage from my response. The words were coming easier now. “Like, really. I don't think it's anybody's business that you're a lesbian.” My mouth must have fallen open a little. “Not that it's my personal style,” she explained quickly. “But—my older brother is gay. So I'm really cool with it. I don't think you should be ashamed of who you are.” Then she turned and left.

As soon as the door swished shut behind her, I banged my open palms down onto the countertop, then took a deep breath before looking up and staring at myself miserably in the mirror. The great outfit I'd picked out that morning suddenly looked all wrong. Em's head scarf, combined with the plaid shirt and my general scrawniness, made me look like a skinny, ten-year-old farm boy. It was no wonder people thought I was a lesbian. I ripped the hair scarf out furiously and splashed water on my bangs to wet them down, but it didn't help, so I put it back on. Then I went into a bathroom stall, where I pressed my back against the pink partition and stayed for a long, long time.

“How's it going?” Andrew said when I went out to meet him at lunch that afternoon. Em, who'd had another “personal thing” to take care of, had left me at our lockers again. I'd watched her walk off down the hall, but hadn't had the energy to follow.

“Fine,” I answered. Then I threw my backpack on the ground like everything was normal, but I saw them all exchange a quick look.

“Do you want to play War of the Druids?” Andrew held out the DS. I have the world's suckiest hand-eye coordination. Erika and I played Mario Kart in Andrew's rec room once, and I kept accidentally driving backward, or veering off the track and crashing into shrubs. But after all that had happened that morning—call me crazy—I had a serious urge to stab someone through the heart with a poison dart. I reached for the DS.

“Okay,” Andrew said, leaning in so close that I could smell his BO. “You're the Druid King—a master warrior. And this is your horse. To make it rear up and kick, you hold down
A
and press
X
. Try it.” I did, and the horse kicked an evil wood nymph in the face, sending him flying off a cliff. It was pretty satisfying.

“Nice,” Amir congratulated me, leaning in on my other side. I turned my horse and headed for the magical forest, where Andrew told me the enchanted sword of Elron was hidden.

I made it through most of level one, with Andrew beside me coaching, and was just about to face off with the first forest dragon, when I heard Em's voice.

“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“She's slaying the Dragon of Elron Woods,” Andrew said, his voice full of pride. “You should see this. Have you seriously never played War of the Druids before?”

“Seriously,” I said.

I squeezed over on the bench to make room for her.

“War of the Druids?” Em said. “Sounds awesome.” But it was clear from her tone that she didn't really think so. At all. “I've got Mario Kart too,” Andrew offered, leaning down and reaching into his bag. And that was when I saw it: the corner of a familiar piece of hot pink paper.…Andrew shoved it down when he saw me noticing it, but it was too late. Em had seen it too.

“What's that?” she asked sharply.

“It's not what it looks like, Margot,” Andrew said quickly, giving me a pleading look.

“It's not?” Em said. “Because I'm pretty sure it is.”

She reached past Andrew and pulled a sheet out of his backpack.

“We were taking them down,” Andrew explained. “But we didn't want to put them in the recycle bin in case someone saw them and put them back up or something.”

We?
I nudged Amir's backpack with my foot. It made a crunching noise. Mike looked on sheepishly. I didn't know what to say.

“Where were you taking them down from?” Em asked.

“Downstairs hallway, near the gym. We saw them before basketball practice this morning,” Andrew said. “I think we got them before anyone else saw.”

“But there were more upstairs before lunch,” Amir added. “They must have put them up after the bell went, I think. Plus, there were a bunch near the guys' bathroom.”

“Idiots,” Em said. I handed the DS back to Andrew, tears welling up in my eyes.

“That's it.” Em stood up like the matter was decided. “Sarah J. and her friends have gone too far.” She kicked a glass bottle, sending it skidding across the yard. I saw Amir and Andrew exchange a look. “Margot, stop,” she said. “Don't cry.”

“Maybe we should report it to the office,” Andrew suggested. Em just rolled her eyes.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me off the bench. “I need to talk to you alone.”

Andrew shot me a worried look, but I just shrugged. Em had been right, after all. Vandanhoover hadn't been able to do anything.

“Look,” she said, once she'd dragged me to the maple tree. “Your friends took down a few posters and that's great, but honestly, there's nothing else anybody can do for us. We have to look out for ourselves. Stop crying. Right now. Are you listening to me?”

I nodded, but tears were still running down my cheeks.

“I'll make you a bet. I'm going to make
her
cry.”

I just kept crying. In fact, I wasn't planning to stop. Ever.

“Are you listening to me?” Em asked again. I nodded, but I didn't believe her. Make Sarah J. cry? It was impossible. “Give me a few weeks,” she added.

As much as I wanted to see Sarah pay, I also happened to like Em—and need her. “Don't,” I said, sniffling. “She'll make your life hell.”

“Like I care,” Em said. Then she added with a glint in her eye, “But there are always two parts to a bet. If I make that girl cry—and I mean bawling her eyes out in a bathroom stall—you have to kiss floppy hair guy.”

“What?” I said.

“You heard me.” She adjusted her backpack on her shoulder. “Floppy hair guy. I think his name is George. You like him. You're always staring at him. It's
so
obvious.”

Was it? Now I really wanted to die.

“So?” she pressed, holding out her hand. “It's a bet?”

I dried some tears off my cheek with the back of my hand.

“Sure.” I shook on it. “Because I guarantee you it won't work!”

“It'll work,” she said. “You just met me. Trust me. You have no idea what I'm capable of yet.”

Em Warner: rebellious, spunky, smart
. I wondered, was it possible? If anyone could pull this off, maybe it was her.

“I don't even know how you're going to find his lips, though,” she said in an offhand way as we started to walk back toward Andrew, Mike, and Amir. “With his hair flopping all over like that.” Despite my misery, I half smiled.

One thing was certain: whatever happened, at least it wasn't going to be a boring year.

B
ET OR NO BET, IT WAS
, however, a boring weekend. Well, boring in some ways. Humiliating in others, and disgusting, to top it all off.

On Friday night, Mom came home from covering a late shift at All Organics and called Bryan, the triplets, and me into the kitchen to make this announcement:

“We've been selected for an exciting promotional opportunity,” she said, shrugging off her coat. “We're going to be a VTV Dinners test family!”

“VTV?” I asked.

“Vegan TV dinners,” she said, grinning. “It's a new line of one-hundred-percent-organic vegan convenience foods. When Donatello was placing the store's order, the subject of our family came up. And the moment VTV heard about the triplets and our busy lifestyle, they just knew we'd be a great fit.”

Bryan hugged my mom tightly, practically weeping, like we'd won the lottery. “This is fantastic,” he said. “Our luck is really changing.” But it
so
wasn't.

The first shipment of food arrived by special delivery on Saturday. For dinner that night we had microwaved veggie loaf with a spinach confit. Mom wolfed it down. The triplets mushed it between their fingers (which is what they do with everything). I stared at it. Even Bryan didn't seem so sure about its edibleness. “I've never seen spinach in liquid form before,” he said, taking a tentative mouthful. “It's an interesting consistency.”

The next morning, Mom tried to convince me to start my day with some delicious scrambled tofu a-la-microwave. I declined. After eating my normal bowl of cereal, it was time for some shopping—but not the good kind. While Erika was once again in Toronto, browsing for designer jeans at chic boutiques, I ended up on the hellish flip side of shopping—at Costco, cruising the aisles for toilet paper. I was hoping that if I tagged along, I might be able to get some new hair products. But if I'd known how traumatizing buying in bulk could be, I would have definitely stayed home.

When we got to the store, everyone had a job. I pushed a cart the size of a small house while my mom handled the triple-seater stroller and Bryan navigated using the Costco map. “It says diapers are in aisle G, but here it jumps from D to H.” He scratched at his bald patch like he was trying to unearth the answer from inside his skull.

While I waited for him to figure it out, I steered the cart over to a display of mineral blush. I'd read about it in
CosmoGirl.
It was supposed to be good for your pores. “Mom?” I said, showing her.

“No, Margot,” she answered, barely looking at the makeup. She was busy straightening the stroller's wheels and squeezing it over to one side so a family could get past.

“Oh my God,” a woman cooed, stopping in her tracks and abandoning her cart in the middle of the aisle. “What sweethearts! Are they triplets?” she asked my mom, leaning in to get a better look.

“They are.”

“Hello!” Alex said, on cue. “I'm two.” They started waving—always a crowd-pleaser—and the woman laughed. “I gotsa guitar for my birthday,” Aleene informed the woman, like that was somehow relevant to anything.

“Did you really?” the woman asked with wide eyes. “You lucky girl.” Then, to my mom: “You must have your hands full.” People
always
say that.

“It's a challenge.” My mom
always
answers that.

“Mom?” I held up a 600-pack of makeup sponges. They were only $12.50, and they'd last forever.

“No, Margot.”

“Are they identical?” the woman asked, predictably.

“They are,” Mom answered. Then there was a bunch more gushing about how cute and how verbal they were before someone asked the woman to please move her cart, and she disappeared down the home entertainment aisle.

“Come on, Margot,” Mom said. Bryan had finally found aisle G on the map. I put the sponges down and followed. If my pores looked bad, it would be all their fault.

Half an hour later, with a truckload of mega-value diapers, twenty lightbulbs, one hundred rolls of toilet paper, and six jugs of laundry detergent, we finally approached the checkout. And we would have actually made it all the way there, too, if some cruel person hadn't decided to put a display of Dora the Explorer canned pasta right at toddler eye level.

“Dora!!!” all three triplets shouted joyfully, reaching for the cans.

“Oh no, girls, that's garbage food,” my mom explained, wheeling the stroller a little to the left so they couldn't reach. Meanwhile, I went to get in line with our stuff. I could see where this was headed, and I didn't want any part of it.

Aleene started whining, and when that didn't work, she tried climbing over the stroller's snack tray to get out. Mom asked her to sit her bum down and told her we could have VTV whole-wheat pasta at home. But Aleene isn't dumb. She knew a lame substitute when she heard one. All hell broke loose.

If you've ever seen a two-year-old throw a tantrum, you'll know what this looked like. It basically involves a lot of screaming, whining, and hysterical flailing of limbs—not to mention a flood of tears and snot. It always reminds me of this one time when Mom and I were pet-sitting for her friend, and Erika and I decided to give the cat a bath. The whole thing is messy, moist, loud, and totally out of control. Plus, when it happens in public, people stare at you like you're totally dysfunctional, which maybe we were.

I grabbed a magazine off the rack near the checkout and started to read an article about Oprah's dogs.

“Really,” the woman in line in front of me said, looking at my sisters, then turning to her husband. “I don't know why people bring small children to places like this. It's obviously too much for them to handle.”

I looked up over the magazine at her. She was wearing expensive workout wear with full makeup, and the only items in her cart were two huge decorative urns overflowing with fake fall foliage. It was pretty obvious she didn't have kids. The lady saw me looking at her and smiled, like she thought I was sympathizing with her about the squalling going on by the pasta display. I just smiled back, thankful that the toilet paper was covering up the mega-pack of diapers in the cart, and for once, grateful that I didn't look anything like my family.

I'd just turned the page in my magazine when…“Margot.” I pretended not to hear. “Margot!” My mom's tone was more urgent now. “Can we please get your help over here?” I glanced back. Both Alex and Aleene had managed to climb out of the stroller by now and were kicking and screaming on the floor. Meanwhile, Alice had quietly wiggled most of her body under her snack tray, but couldn't get her shoulders or head through. She was stuck, and whimpering softly.

Bryan and my mom were both crouched down on the floor, talking soothingly and trying different useless techniques like counting to five and threatening to put the girls' giant Legos away for the rest of the day. I could feel the woman's eyes watching me, watching them, and suddenly I couldn't stand it a second longer. I put the magazine back in the rack.

“Sorry if my sisters ruined your bulk-buying experience,” I said, giving her a nasty stare.

Then I abandoned our cart and walked over to hoist Alice back into sitting position in the stroller. I marched past my mom and Bryan, picked up three cans of Dora pastas, and handed one to each triplet.

“Margot!” Mom said sharply, looking up from the floor.

“Just let them have it,” I said, my voice shaking. “It costs fifty-nine cents. Just make them shut up. Please.” I glanced at the line, but the woman had turned her back. “Let's just go home,” I said. “Okay?”

So we did, the triplets holding tight to their Dora pastas the whole way, and my mom staring, exhausted, out the window.