Mission (Un)Popular (27 page)

M
OST MISUNDERSTANDINGS
are easy to fix. Like in first grade, when Grandpa Button left his white pipe near my toys and I poured bubble stuff into it, and then he inhaled a mouthful of dish soap.

(I just explained that I couldn't find my bubble pipe so I borrowed his. And he admitted that he shouldn't have left his real pipe near my toy box. And then he bought me a new bubble pipe.) Or last week, when Bryan asked me to take out the garbage, and I said “yeah-yeah,” because I was watching TV. And then I didn't do it. (I just explained that I can't focus on what he's saying when
Decorating by Design
is on. And he said next time he'd ask me when I wasn't watching TV.)

But other misunderstandings are not so easy to resolve…especially when the person who misunderstood you is refusing to even talk to you, like Erika-with-a-K, and now Andrew, Mike, and Amir. When I passed them in the yard the next morning, they barely even looked my way. And Amir spent the whole day avoiding me, even taking the long way around in math to get to the pencil sharpener. Still, even though I felt awful, I didn't have all that much time to obsess about it. Because, aside from being an occasion when
all
of my old friends were officially furious with me, the day also marked Sarah J.'s return to school after her suspension—and it wasn't pretty.

We were all trying to act like we didn't care, but secretly I was a disaster. Maggie and Joyce seemed anxious too. I could tell from the way they were talking even faster than usual, and constantly glancing at the door. Em didn't seem worried, though—even when Sarah walked back into English class wearing a new suede jacket and Lucky jeans. Through some miracle of makeup, you couldn't even see the gap in her eyebrow, and her skin had stopped peeling. In fact, it looked annoyingly peachy and perfect.

She sank down into her usual seat, tossing her hair in her usual way. Bethany and Charlie were whispering about her at the back of the room, but she silenced them with a glare. Still, nobody went over to talk to her. And even Mr. Learner seemed to know that it was best to leave her alone, skipping over her entirely when he was calling out people to read sections of
Lord of the Flies
.

Maggie and Joyce hung out with us at lunch hour, and we all thought that would be when Sarah would snap, but instead she just waved to us carelessly as she left the yard. “I'm going to meet Matt behind the mini-mart,” she said, as if we'd asked.

Then after gym, Em told me that Sarah had even changed in a different corner of the locker room, not looking once in their direction.

But she couldn't avoid us forever. When we got to French class, Mr. Patachou had the TV set up. “
Aujourd'hui, nous commençons notre unité au sujet des annonces publicitaires.
” A bunch of us looked confused. “Television commercials,” he explained. Oh. We understood now. Then he explained that we were going to stop the TV after each commercial and talk about the technique the advertiser was using to sell products.

The first commercial was for deodorant. It showed two girls, both flirting with a guy at a party. They were wearing low-cut black dresses, and when a waiter came by with a tray of food, they both reached for it. The camera zoomed in on one girl's armpits, and a red circle appeared around the white stain on her dress so we'd be sure not to miss it. Then, in the next scene, you saw the guy leaving the party with the girl who didn't have marks on her dress. Mr. Patachou stopped the tape.

Nobody raised their hand, so I figured I'd try.
“Ils utilizent la technique de…ummm…”
I stalled. “You know,” I said, giving up on French, “they want girls to be scared they'll never get a date if they use the wrong deodorant.”

“C'est ça,”
Mr. Patachou said, before telling me to say it in French next time.

Next we watched a car commercial that was apparently trying to use the technique of humor to sell hatchbacks, only none of us got the jokes. Then another one for diapers that showed all kinds of pictures of newborn babies, which made a lot of the girls go “Awww.” Clearly they'd never had to deal with newborn triplets. If they had, they'd be too busy thinking about what would be
in
those diapers to find it adorable.

After we'd watched a few more, Mr. Patachou told us to get into groups of five. We were supposed to invent a product and make our own French TV commercial to sell it. Each group was going to take one of the school's video cameras home to film it.

Em, Maggie, Joyce, and I all looked at each other. I almost felt bad for Sarah. She was staring down at her notebook so she wouldn't have to make eye contact with anyone. I knew the feeling. She'd end up having to tell Mr. Patachou she didn't have a group. And he'd add her to a group of friends who didn't really want her there.

“Sarah,” Em shouted. “We need a fifth.” Maggie, Joyce, and I all gave her confused looks, but she just mouthed, “Don't worry.”

Sarah took her time shutting her notebook and gathering her stuff, like it was no big deal, but she must have been relieved. The only other group that didn't have five yet was Amir, Erik Frallen, Cameron Ruling, and Stuart Smythe. And they'd probably end up inventing some kind of space travel helmet that would have totally ruined Sarah's hair.

“So, New York.” Sarah sat down. “Why don't you just do this project for us, since you know so many celebrities and you're from New York and you probably know everything about directing movies.”

“Okay,” Em said pointedly. “As director, my first decision is that Sarah takes the notes. Everyone else good with that?” We all nodded. Sarah glared at us, but she knew she was outnumbered. She picked up her pen.

“We could do some kind of cosmetic,” Maggie suggested.

“Yeah!” Sarah agreed. “Like, what about a face cream that burns off your eyebrows? Oh wait”—she smirked at me—“somebody already invented that. Oh, I've got one,” she went on. “What about a shampoo with bleach so you don't have ugly roots all the time?” She looked at Em. “Or mustache bleach? Margot, no offense, but you could use some of that.”

“Screw you, Sarah,” I said. I'd just bleached a few days before. Was it honestly that bad already? Still, I wasn't about to let her know that she was getting to me by going to the bathroom to check, so I pulled myself together. “Okay, seriously,” I went on. “I like the idea of using the technique of social fear, like that deodorant ad. What about a product for people with really big, crooked noses?”

“Ici on parle français,”
Mr. Patachou announced to the room in general.

“I mean,
les personnes avec les nez très grands et crooked
.”

“What about concealer that makes your nose look smaller?”

“Or a nose-job center?”

“Or…a cone that you wear on your nose so people won't notice how big it is!”

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” Sarah finally spoke up. “Who would wear a cone on their nose?”

“Nobody,” Em said. “That's why it's so funny.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“We could call it Les Clothes de Nose,” I suggested.

“Perfect!” Em said. It wasn't exactly French, but it sounded good. And anyway, practically half of French is English anyway, like
le weekend
and
les hot dogs
.

As we worked, I kept looking behind me, pretending to read the giant calendar on the bulletin board, but really trying to see what George was doing and if he was watching Em. He was in a group with Ken, who was busy making his trademark farting noises with his armpits. You could tell they were going to end up with a really mature commercial.

“Can you type that up in good copy for tomorrow?” Em asked Sarah, when the bell rang. Sarah rolled her eyes again.

“Didn't your grandma ever tell you your face could get stuck like that?”

“Didn't your grandma ever tell you not to tell huge lies about everything?” Sarah mumbled at Em, almost too quietly for anyone to hear.

Em slapped her binder shut, making everyone jump. “I was asking you nicely. Type it up in good copy.” Her voice had a definite “don't mess with me” tone. She picked up her bag and started for the door. Maggie, Joyce, and I followed.

“Okay, so you hook the hose up to your butt, right, and then it connects to the gas tank, but how do you power yourself? I mean, where does all that gas come from?” Ken was talking to George as they walked up to our lockers after class.

“Burritos,” George answered.

“Of course.” Ken slapped himself on the forehead. “Why didn't I think of that? Dude, you're a genius.” George flipped his flippy hair, looking proud of himself.

“So we put burrito holders here and here.” Ken had opened his binder and was pointing to a drawing with his pencil. “And here.”

“Do we even want to know?” Em turned to us. We all shook our heads.

“It's a fuel-efficient, fart-powered family sedan,” Ken explained. “L'Auto Fart-O. Revolutionizing the automotive world and saving the environment, one fart at a time.”

“You're so immature,” I said to Ken.

“And you're so beautiful,” he said back, obviously just to bug me and shock me into silence. Maggie and Joyce said “Awww,” at the same time, then started laughing. I turned to get something out of my locker so Ken wouldn't see that I was blushing.

“You guys want to hang out for a while?” Em asked.

“Sure, why not?” Sarah J. stuck her giant crooked nose into the conversation.

“I don't think anyone invited you,” Maggie said softly.

Sarah just looked straight at Em, though, like she knew who was really in charge.

“We're just going to sit on the ledge,” Em said. “It's a free country.” Sarah gave Maggie a smug look. “Just don't go assuming it means we've forgiven you or anything,” Em added, which left Sarah looking less self-satisfied. Still, she followed us as we walked to the door, which just goes to show how desperate she must have been to have a group of people to be seen with.

Bryan was already waiting outside, so I waved good-bye to everyone quickly.

“See you tomorrow, Margot,” Em called, as The Group settled themselves on the ledge.

Ken blew me a kiss, which I pretended to ignore.

“Did you have an enjoyable day?” Bryan asked as he put my crutches in the backseat. He was already dressed for his real estate class in a denim button-up shirt and black pants, along with his usual scuffed loafers.

“I don't know.” I flipped the sun visor down and opened the flap on the tiny mirror to check how bad my mustache really was.

“You don't know?”

“That's what I said.” I leaned in closer. There were two especially dark hairs, almost right under my nose. Disgusting. It was definitely time to bleach again. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and opened them again quickly, trying to pretend like I was seeing my own face for the first time, like a stranger would. Minor mustache problem aside, I wasn't ugly. I could admit that much. But I definitely wasn't so beautiful.

“You don't know if your day was enjoyable?”

“Right,” I said, probably a little more impatiently than I needed to. I flipped the mirror shut.

Bryan nodded quietly without taking his eyes off the road. Of course, then I felt bad because I'd obviously hurt his feelings. Again. “Okay,” I admitted, “it wasn't the greatest. A few people are mad at me because of something I did, that's all.”

“Well, if it's anything you want to talk about, Margot, you know I—”

But that last thing I'd said had reminded me of something.

“Oh, can we stop?” I asked suddenly, as we got near the corner store at Larson and Springlade. “I just remembered. I have to get something.” Bryan glanced at the clock on the dashboard. His real estate class started at 4:30, sharp. It was only 3:27…but he always had to be at least a half hour early for everything.

“It's something I
really
need,” I added urgently, in a way that suggested it might be maxi pads. He pulled into the first available parking spot.

“Do you need money?” he asked.

“I've got some.” I felt my pocket just to be certain. The three five-dollar bills and the toonie left over from my taxi/ flower money were all there.

I went inside and was standing at a pathetic little card rack trying to decide between a card with a sailboat on it and another with a bird, when the shop bells above the door jingled and two girls walked in.

“I think we should get the kind with almonds today,” one of them was saying. “Almonds are high in vitamin E and healthy fats.”

“Sure, I guess,” the other answered. My heart leaped up at the sound of her voice. I turned my back and pretended to be studying the card in my hand intently so Erika wouldn't see me there, or—if she did—she'd think I hadn't seen her. Erika and the other girl walked up to the cash register and put something on the counter.

“Trail mix again?” The cashier laughed. “You girls are going to deplete my stock.” I glanced over. The girl standing beside Erika was in a Sacred Heart uniform too. Her red hair was in a single thick braid down her back. I didn't see her face, but everything else about her—right down to her choice of snack foods—screamed Goody Two-shoes.

“I hope this one will be fresher,” the girl said in a matterof-fact tone. “In the pack we had yesterday, the sunflower seeds were chewy.” No kidding, I thought. Because nobody buys trail mix at a convenience store. It was probably nineteen years old.

“Well, if you have any problems with that one, bring it right back, you hear?” the woman said, smiling. They both turned to go, and as they did, Erika's eyes caught mine for the briefest second. They went wide and questioning when she saw the cast on my leg, then we both looked away. I waited until the door closed behind them before quickly grabbing a spider plant (the only flowerlike thing they had) and the bird card.