Mission (Un)Popular (6 page)

But then, about two weeks earlier he'd written one last e-mail where he'd said he missed me, and he'd signed his name with two X's and an O. That kind of freaked me out. I mean, how was I supposed to know what he meant? Were they regular X's or actual e-kisses? And what if I didn't XX him back? Would he get all offended? It seemed safest not to risk it.

“Yeah, well. Couldn't be worse than an entire summer of babysitting,” I said.

“You sure?” He sucked in, shaking his head. “I went lawn bowling and ate cereal with fiber. But at least I got a sweet tan.” He held out his arm so we could compare, but he was joking, obviously—making fun of the popular girls who have an unofficial tan competition every summer. Andrew is black—one of the only black kids in our old school, and definitely the darkest kid in our grade.

“I thought you looked different,” I teased, squinting at him. But in actual fact, he kind of did. Like most of the other guys, he seemed to have grown a foot in two months, and his normally curly hair was cropped short, making him look older.

I was going to take a serious moment to make some excuse about not having time to answer his last e-mail, but before I could, the bell rang and distracted me. Andrew and I joined the pack of kids heading toward the door.

“I can't believe Erika is late on the first day,” he said, whistling through his teeth as we started across the lawn. “She's gonna get it.”

“She's not late.…She's not coming.” And then I told him the whole sad story of what happened on Friday.

“Damn,” he said when I'd finished. “That sucks.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm so depressed.”

“Don't be,” he answered. “You can still see her after school, right? Plus, it means you get to spend more time with your amazing friend Andrew.”

I almost said, “Great!” but realized he might take it the wrong way. Instead I said, “You wish!” and punched him in the arm.

As we filed through the main doors, two teachers directed the seventh graders to the old gym and the eighth graders to the new gym. I shuffled along like a prisoner. I'd been inside five seconds, and the yellow cinder-block walls and smell of disinfectant had already confirmed the hopelessness of the situation.

Everyone found a spot on the floor, and the principal, Mrs. Vandanhoover, walked to the front of the room and tried to look imposing, which must have been hard for her. She was even shorter than some of the kids. She held up her hand for silence. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she shouted. “And welcome to Manning Middle School. Most of you know each other from Colonel Darling Elementary,” she went on, “but there are several students joining you from other schools—and even other cities. I urge you to look around for these students and make them feel at home. We're a big family here at Manning, after all.” She paused as if she was giving us time to spot the new students, and a few people
did
look around. “We've got plenty of ground to cover, so I'm going to get straight into announcements, then I'll call out the seventh grade class lists.”

That was what we were really waiting for, of course. Normally I would have been clutching Erika's hand, and we'd both be putting every fiber of our beings into willing our names to be on the same list, but things were so different now.

Mrs. Vandanhoover started a long speech about the school's anti-bullying policy and how there would be “zero tolerance” for violence and weapons. It was predictable stuff, so instead of listening, I started looking for Gorgeous George.

It only took me a few seconds to find him. He was sitting close to the back. I have his wardrobe memorized, so I could tell he was wearing a new shirt. His hair was shorter, but thankfully not too short. And he was leaning back, with both of his palms flat on the floor behind him. I could have stared at him all day, but I only let myself look for a second.

Vandanhoover was going on about the new healthier choices in the school vending machines, so I took the opportunity to drift off into a Gorgeous George fantasy. In this one, it turned out that finally, for the first time since fourth grade, we'd ended up in the same class. His name got called first, and mine got called right after, even though we're nowhere near each other in the alphabet (Button and Wainscott). This was partly how you could tell that us ending up in the same class was magical and meant to be.

When he heard my name, he looked at me and smiled slowly as I gracefully got up off the gym floor. I walked toward him, tossing my straight tangle-free hair. “Margot,” he said, tipping his head to one side so his hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it back. “You look hot in those jeans.”

And I was like, “Oh, these? Thanks.” And then he motioned for me to come closer, so I did. He leaned in, cupping his hands around my ear, like little kids do when they're telling secrets. He smelled incredible. Like soap and ocean air.

“Know what I want?” he whispered. I smiled shyly and gave him this mysterious/confused/meaningful look. He cupped his hands around my ear again and whispered: “Be my girlfriend.”

I looked deep into his eyes, but I couldn't tell you what I said back. The words “class lists” finally came out of Mrs. Vandanhoover's mouth, and I immediately snapped back to reality.

“We'll begin with Seven-A, first period teacher, Mrs. Collins.” The teacher who stood up had shiny brown hair cut in a bowl shape with bangs straight across. Her lipstick was bright red, and she had excellent posture. She was wearing a sweater vest. In a way, she reminded me of one of those creepy puppets ventriloquists use.

“Amir Ahmed,” Mrs. Vandanhoover called. “Tiffany Abraham. Bethany Bluffs. Charlie Baker. Margot Button. Michelle Cobbs.”

“Bye,” I mouthed to Andrew. Amir waved at me as I stood up to join the class. Tiffany, a quiet girl with braces, smiled. Michelle was too busy celebrating being with her friend Bethany to notice anyone else. Still, even though she clearly wasn't my biggest fan, she wasn't the meanest girl on earth, either.

“Hey, Margot!” Amir said, giving me a high five as I came to stand beside him. “Maybe Andrew will be with us too.”

“Hopefully,” I said, turning my attention back to Mrs. Vandanhoover. I couldn't afford to miss a single word that came out of her mouth.

One by one, people got up from the floor and joined the class. There was Erik Frallen, who can do crazy-hard math in his head; Laura Inglestone, who was also kind of quiet but seemed nice; and then—dammit—“Sarah Jamieson,” Mrs. Vandanhoover called. Sarah J. got up, holding on to her friend Joyce's hand and pulling it away like they were star-crossed lovers about to be parted for life.

“Maggie Keller,” Mrs. Vandanhoover called. Seriously?! Maggie was Sarah J.'s second-best friend. Not as bad as Joyce, but bad enough. “Joyce Nichols.” Oh God, shoot me now. “Cameron Ruling, Simon Sable, Ken Shapiro.” Ken is George's idiot best friend. He spends ninety-nine percent of his time making farting noises with his armpits. “Stuart Smythe.”

But then Mrs. Vandanhoover recited the three sweetest syllables in the entire English language: “George Wainscott.” Oh miraculous miracle! I could have practically kissed somebody (preferably Gorgeous George, but anybody would have done). I couldn't wait to tell Erika. It suddenly didn't seem to matter so much that everything else in my life sucked. I was going to get to see George five hours a day, five days a week, for the entire school year.

“Guys! Seven-A rocks!” I heard Sarah J. say as George and Ken joined her and The Group girls. I tried to shuffle a tiny bit backward so I'd be able to see over Erik Frallen's math-genius head to get a glimpse of George, but there were too many other people in the way. In fact, I realized with sinking hopes, Gorgeous George and I were standing about as far apart as we could get while still being in the same class. He, of course, was on the side of ultimate coolness. I was somewhere beyond Erik Frallen's giant head.

“And last but not least, Emily Warner,” Mrs. Vandanhoover called. “Welcome, Emily,” she said, and a girl sitting at the back of the gym stood up and unwisely (unknowingly) walked over to the cool side of the class. It took me about two seconds to realize she was the girl from the self-esteem workshop: the rebellious, spunky, smart Sagittarius with bleached-blond hair. I tried to catch her eye to see if she recognized me, but she was looking the other way.

Mrs. Collins called for everyone to please follow her, and I waved to Andrew. He ran a finger down his cheek like a pretend tear, but I just shrugged in response. We'd see each other at lunch anyway. He shrugged back, agreeing.

Or at least I thought that was what he was agreeing to. But as Mrs. Collins led the way out of the gym, and I turned to wave to Andrew one last time, Ken Shapiro, of the farting armpits, purposely kneed Simon Sable in the back of his legs for no good reason, causing him to lose his balance. He bumped into Laura, who tripped and stumbled into Cameron Ruling. He nearly groped Tiffany Abraham by mistake, making her jump back in surprise and crash into Erik. It went through the class like a chain reaction, ending with me and Amir both getting shoved hard in the back. Maybe, I realized, Andrew hadn't been
crying
about missing me at all. Maybe it was more of a symbolic show of sympathy. Maybe he knew as well as I did that Seven-A was going to be a very dangerous place, and that I was officially, unquestionably doomed.

B
Y THE END OF FIRST
period it was official: my new teacher hated my guts.

It turned out Mrs. Collins's room was in the basement, which had to be the most depressing place in all of Manning. It was dark and dreary with small windows way up high, just at ground level, so all you could see were people's shoes, and that was if you were lucky enough that someone was walking past.

To disguise how dismal it was, Mrs. Collins had plastered the walls with inspirational quotes and pictures of authors looking thoughtful. Cutout letters on the bulletin board spelled:
LET'S MAKE LEARNING FUN FOR EVERYONE
!

Even the i ♥ the public school system coffee mug on her desk seemed too cheerful to be real.

“You'll find a name tag on the desk that's been assigned to you,” Mrs. Collins instructed as we funneled through the door.

“Please stick it on your shirt and wear it for the rest of the day so all your new teachers can get to know you.”

Most kids were still standing around in groups, talking to their friends, but since I didn't really have anyone to talk to besides Amir, I found my desk pretty quickly. I sighed a little when I saw that my name had been spelled “Margo.”

“Mrs. Collins?” I raised my hand politely. “You spelled my name wrong. I'm Margot Button. Margot is supposed to have a T at the end.”

She glanced down at some papers on her desk. “Oh. It wasn't spelled with a T on the class list,” she said pleasantly, then went back to shuffling her papers.

“But it has a T in real life,” I pointed out. “Like, on my birth certificate.”

She looked up again, stretching her red lips into a grin. “Well, you're in seventh grade now. I'm sure you know how to write the letter T.” She smiled even more tightly. “I'm sure you have a pen.”

“I'm sure you have a pen.” I mimicked her perky voice under my breath as I dug around in my backpack. “Great. An English teacher who can't even spell my name.”

“Margot Button.” I heard Mrs. Collins's voice, and by the time I looked up, she was standing in the aisle in front of me. “In this classroom we don't tolerate disrespect. Why don't you join me at lunch recess, hmmm?” I clenched my hands into fists underneath the desk, but managed to keep myself from saying anything else stupid. The second she started back up the aisle, I grabbed my name tag and furiously added a T to my name. I scratched so hard that the pen tore right through the label. Fantastic. Not only had I managed to get a lunchtime detention within the first two minutes of being in the classroom, I was also going to look like an idiot wearing a name tag with a hole in it all day.

But just then, like a single ray of sunshine bursting through the suckiness that was my morning, Gorgeous George walked up the aisle and sank down into the seat in front of me! Into the permanent, assigned seat in front of me. He was so close I could smell the laundry detergent his mom used. But before I could even fully appreciate the gorgeousness of his shiny brown hair, his friend Ken followed behind and threw a car magazine onto his desk.

“Button,” Ken said, winking at me and my stupid name tag. “Don't feel bad. The letter T is a hard one. I didn't learn it until like, second grade.” He flashed me a big fake smile.

“I remember you,” I heard someone say. I looked to my left and saw that the girl from the self-esteem workshop had been assigned the seat beside me. She couldn't have sat down at a better time.

“Hi!” I said, way too enthusiastically. “Em, right?”

“And you're Margot,” she said. For a second I was flattered that she still knew my name, then I remembered I was wearing the stupid name tag. “Are you still dying a little bit on the inside?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“Depends. Are you still trying to live a healthy life in a world obsessed with consumerism?” I'd had to work so hard to hold in my laughter during Mrs. Carlyle's description of Em's fruit, nail polish, and sports car collage that I'd nearly started crying.

“That workshop was beyond lame,” Em said.

I just smiled. Mrs. Collins had stepped into the hallway to talk to another teacher, and Sarah J. had taken the opportunity to get out her cell phone. She was standing one row over at Maggie's desk, reading a text off the display.

“Matt's coming to pick me up at lunch today,” she announced loudly. “He says he misses me too much to be apart for the whole day. Isn't that the sweetest?”

“That's
so
adorable,” Maggie agreed.

“I know. Ninth grade guys are so much more mature and sensitive than guys our age.”

Sarah had a boyfriend who was in high school? Wasn't that illegal or something?

“I went to that mall you were telling me about,” Em said as she took a black binder and red canvas pencil case out of her bag. I was so absorbed in Sarah's conversation that it took me a second to remember what she was talking about. “At Southvale? Is that
really
the best one in this town? It was so empty.”

All of a sudden, Sarah J.'s super-senses seemed to kick in. Maybe she'd sniffed out the fact that somebody in the room wasn't secretly paying attention to her, or maybe it was because she'd heard the word “mall.” Whatever the reason, she suddenly flipped her phone shut and spun around.

“Oh, hi. You must be a new person,” she said to Em. “I'm Sarah Jamieson.” She smiled ever so sweetly.

“Hi,” Em said. “Nice to meet you.” Then she gave Sarah a strange look when she kept standing there looking at us. “So, about that mall?” Em prompted.

“You mean Southvale?” Sarah cut in. “It sucks. You want to go to Connor-Leaside. It's not as white trash…Hey.” She squinted at Em like she was trying to measure her with her eyes to decide which level of loserdom she belonged in. “Do you girls already know each other from somewhere?” Sarah thinks everything is her business.

“Kind of. We met at this lame workshop—” Em started, then thankfully stopped. I think because she noticed the look of terror on my face. If she expanded on that sentence, we might as well make big hats that said “superloser” and wear them all year long, because Sarah J. would never forget, and she'd tell everyone.

“A workshop?” said Sarah, sounding all interested.

“It wasn't a workshop.” My mind was racing, trying to think of a way out.

“Yeah,” Em said matter-of-factly. “It was more of a convention.” She bent down and took another binder out of her bag, like there was nothing more to say.

“What kind of convention?” Sarah J. pressed.

I was on the verge of telling her to mind her own big, fat, hairy business when Em looked up and said with a completely straight face: “It was a junior modeling convention.” She paused, giving Sarah a bored look. “In New York.” You could practically see Sarah J.'s eyes pop out of her head with disbelief. “I won't get into the details,” Em continued. “It was a really boring one, wasn't it?” She turned to me.

“Yeah. Well. Not the greatest,” I answered awkwardly.

Sarah J. grinned wickedly. “Wait, Margot
models
?”

“What?” Em faked surprise. “Is that hard to believe?”

Apparently it was, because Sarah started laughing. Gorgeous George had turned around in his chair to look at me by now. Then things got worse. Ken, the biggest jerk on earth, who was still standing at George's desk, grabbed the car magazine they'd been flipping through. “Hey, Hamburglar. Is this you?” He held up a picture of a red car with a brown-skinned model draped across the hood. She had huge pouty lips and heliumballoonlike cleavage. Sarah laughed even harder, covering her mouth. I literally wanted to melt into a puddle and seep into the carpet. “I'm sorry,” she said.

Em just shrugged. “Don't be. You've obviously never seen Margot's portfolio. She's totally photogenic, and all the casting agents say she has real potential. I mean, she's
so
thin.” She had that part right. I'm a boobless twig. That hardly made the lie more believable, though.

Mrs. Collins came back into the room then, and called for everyone's attention.

“Here,” Sarah said softly, slipping her cell phone into George's palm. “It's got the pictures from the pool party last week. There's one of that girl named Shawna my cousin invited, wearing a bikini. Now,
she
should be a model,” Sarah said, giving me a look. “No offense, Margot. Don't get that confiscated,” she said to George, then she walked back to her desk. While Mrs. Collins waited for the class to settle down and George scrolled through Sarah's pictures underneath his desk, I opened my planner and started counting the days until Christmas vacation.

“It's lovely to see you this morning,” Mrs. Collins began. “I hope you all had a pleasant summer. Most of you know one another from Colonel Darling, but we have one international student joining us.” Mrs. Collins paused. “I'd like you all to welcome Emily Warner.” Everyone turned in their seats. “Emily just moved to Darling from
New York
!” Mrs. Collins said the New York part like it was some kind of unbelievable thing. Honestly, her tone of voice would have been the exact same if she'd said “Emily just moved to Darling from
the moon
!”

Everyone looked at her a second time. Even I did. I'd never met anyone from New York before. Come to think of it, it explained why she had such good hair and cool clothes. It's a commonly known fact that people from New York have better fashion sense than people from Canada. They're just born with it.

I glanced across the room at Sarah J., who was looking directly at Em, mouth open wide like she was trying to put the pieces together. If Em was from New York, maybe she
was
a model. I mean, she could be. And if she was, maybe—as unlikely as it seemed—Sarah J. might believe I was one too. It was a long shot, but it was my only hope.

Mrs. Collins spent the rest of the period doing a classroom orientation and going over how to make a book-cover protector using a brown paper bag. When she asked if anyone had questions, I raised my hand. “Why don't we just plasticize the book covers so kids don't need to do this every year?”

She didn't even take a second to seriously think about my very practical suggestion.

“Well, Margot,” she said. “If you'd like to find a plasticizing machine and personally plasticize everyone's book cover, you're certainly welcome to do so.”

“Awesome idea, Button,” Ken snickered from the other side of the room. I glared back at him, but he didn't seem to notice. I left at the end of the period thinking three things:

1. Maybe I will find a plasticizing machine and plasticize every single book cover for every single person.
   
2. I hate Mrs. Collins.
   
3. Bad things always happen when I open my mouth. If I have any hope of being more normal, my first step will have to be an oath of complete silence until the end of the year.
   

Next we had math class with Mr. Tannen, which included a second fascinating lecture about how to cover textbooks with paper bags. Then, as we were getting our stuff from our lockers before lunch, things took another turn for the worse. I heard The Group girls around the corner near the water fountain.

“She doesn't look like a model,” I heard Sarah whisper.

“I know, right?” Maggie agreed. “She's not even very tall.”

“Or very thin,” Joyce added.

“She could be one of those fat models that are supposed to look like real people,” Maggie suggested. “But I hate her hair,” she added when that didn't seem to go over very well.

“Yeah…her roots are grown out, like, this much,” agreed Joyce.

Em, who was putting her books away three lockers over, either had really bad hearing or really thick skin. She bent down and tied one of her shoelaces without even glancing in the direction their voices were coming from, then stood up and walked away.

Part of me wanted to run after her to tell her not to worry…that if she kept out of their way and didn't draw attention to herself, they'd probably get bored and start leaving her alone in a few days. But another, bigger, part of me was still mad at her for the weird modeling convention lie. Plus, I didn't have time. I had a 12:00 detention with my new favorite teacher, Mrs. Collins.

I stuffed my lunch into my bag. “Well, at least she looks more like a model than Hamburglar does,” I heard Sarah J. say, and they all snickered. I couldn't help it. I stared hard at the floor as tears welled up in my eyes.

I had to give the new girl credit: sure, she might tell lies, and yeah, her roots
were
growing out…but I wished my hearing was half as bad as hers. I glanced at the hallway clock. Still three hours and twenty minutes to go. Besides finding a rock to hide under, the only thing on earth that would make me feel better would be hearing Erika's voice. Which was why, when the bell rang at 3:20, I was so relieved I didn't even care that I was about to face two and a half hours of babysitting. I practically ran the six blocks home. It wasn't easy, considering I was carrying four textbooks. (I had a long night of paper bag book-covering ahead of me.)

“Margot!” Grandma Betty exclaimed when I walked in the door. “How was your first day?”

I didn't have to say anything. She could tell by the look on my face. “Oh, I know, sweetheart.” She gripped my shoulders. “You must have been missing Erika. I'm sorry. The world can be a difficult place sometimes.” She flashed me a brave smile. “But we persevere.” I nodded, feeling like a wimp.

When my grandpa died three years ago, Grandma Betty said the same thing to everyone as she accepted their hugs with a determined smile. “We persevere.” I never even saw her cry. On the day of the funeral she had her hair pulled back into her usual neat French twist, then she put on her pearls and her bravest face. Meanwhile, I was sobbing my eyes out, and she was the one comforting me—and everyone else.