Mission (Un)Popular (8 page)

Even George was giving me a disapproving look.

“I—” I started, confused, but a second later I figured it out.
So, Simon, how was your summer?
Could I have put any more S's in that sentence? “I didn't mean it like that! I was just asking if he had a good summer.”

“Right,” Sarah said. By now Simon's face had gone completely red.

“I'm so sorry, Simon.” I clapped my hand over my mouth, realizing I'd done it again. Sarah J. sighed. “I honestly didn't mean it like that.”

He nodded once and went back to looking down at his desk like he just wanted the whole thing to be over with.

Sarah took an aquamarine zipper-closure binder out of her bag, then squinted at me. “Don't take this the wrong way, but did something happen to your face?”

“No,” I said, reading the poem Mrs. Collins had handed out so I wouldn't have to look at her. It was called “Away, Melancholy,” and our vocabulary word was right at the top.
MELANCHOLY
.

“Did you burn your eyebrows off or something?”

I didn't answer.

“No offense, but whatever you did, it doesn't look that good.” She wrinkled her nose and kept staring at me. “Are you sure you didn't burn them?” I felt my cheeks getting hot.

“Of course she didn't burn them,” Em spoke up. “She tweezed them.” I shot her a quick, pleading look. She was only going to make it worse. “Everyone does it. And actually,” Em continued, “your brows are looking a bit bushy. You might want to think about getting them shaped.”

The smile fell from Sarah J.'s lips. “Shut up,” she retorted.

Em just shrugged. “Okay, be like that. I was just making an observation.”

Sarah scowled. “Oh, and I guess you know everything about eyebrows, right? You probably learned all about it at
modeling school
.”

Without blinking, Em said, “Yeah. But it's pretty simple. You always want to pluck from underneath and line the arch up with the pupil. Margot had the right idea.” She looked at my eyebrows. “She just overplucked, which is better than not plucking at all, if you ask me.” She shot Sarah an appraising look.

Oh, this was definitely not good. Did the new girl have a death wish? “We should get started,” I said loudly, trying to change the topic to poetry before any blood could be shed. “I'll get a dictionary.” I flew across the room, grabbed a
Canadian Oxford
, raced back, and threw it on the desk. “Why don't you look up the word, Em?” I suggested.

“Sure.” She flipped through the pages. “‘Melancholy,'” she read. “‘Noun. A deep sadness or depression.' But you can also use it as an adjective.” She slammed the dictionary shut loudly. “That's a cheerful word. How many sentences do we need again?”

“Five,” I answered. “One each.” We all stared blankly at our notebooks for a few seconds.

It was Gorgeous George who finally broke the silence—and he broke it by speaking to me! “Does your look hair different?” he asked, but not in a mean way.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed. “No offense,” which is what she always said right before saying something really mean, “but it looks kind of retarded at the front.” And then she looked at Em. “But I guess that's a modeling thing too?”

“That,” Em said, looking at me, “is just a bad hair day.” Then she pointed her pen at Sarah. “Don't pretend you don't have them too.”

“I use good products,” Sarah J. said. “And at least I don't dye it some fake color and then let the roots grow out.”

Normally, I would have been busy obsessing over the fact that Sarah J. was picking on me, yet again—and in front of George, no less—and wondering what it meant that he had noticed that my hair was different.
He'd noticed my hair on other days, when it wasn't different?
But right then I was too shocked by the way Em was standing up to Sarah J. on my behalf, and too worried about how she was going to pay for it. If only I'd warned her the day before when I'd had the chance.

“Let's just read this, okay?” Simon spoke up, not lisping once. I think we were all so surprised to hear his voice that we were shocked into silence. Everyone looked down at the poem for a few seconds.

“Hey, where's Nerdette, anyway?” Sarah said, her attention span for English literature coming to an end as quickly as it had begun. She was talking about Erika-with-a-K, who always got straight A's in everything but gym.

“None of your business,” I mumbled. The last thing I needed was for Sarah to find out that my ham stealing had gotten her sent to Sacred Heart, or that we weren't even friends anymore, which meant I officially had no friends at all except Andrew. “Can we please do the sentences?”

“Fine,” Sarah snapped. “It makes me feel
melancholy
when people whose names start with M are so rude.” She shot me a look. “And it also makes me feel
melancholy
when new people show up and think they're all that just because they're from New York, because honestly, they're not, and that's the most
melancholy
part—because they don't even realize it.”

Em considered this for a few seconds, tapping her pencil calmly against her notebook. “It's a run-on sentence,” she said, “but it'll do. Extra points for using the word
melancholy
three times. You're really smart. Okay,” she went on, not pausing long enough for Sarah to make a comeback, “here's mine: ‘A feeling of melancholy was in the air as the girl mourned the loss of her father.' What's yours, Margot?”

“How about…‘The love song on the radio made the girl feel melancholy because she wasn't with her true love'?” I looked at Gorgeous George as I said it, but he didn't react.

“Sure,” Em answered, moving things along. “And you?” She looked at George.

“He has a name,” Sarah J. snapped, but Em ignored her.

“‘The man was melancholy'”—he stared out the window again—“‘because he lost his shoes.'”

“Good,” Em said. She looked to Simon.

“‘The boy that thhhat alone felt melancholy,'” Simon supplied.

“Cool. We're done,” Em said. “Anybody want to play hangman?” She reached into her backpack and took out a lined notepad.

Sarah J. glanced at George and raised one eyebrow like,
hangman
?
I
ha
d
t
o
admit
,
I
hadn'
t
playe
d
hangma
n
sinc
e
fourt
h
grade
.
I
woul
d
hav
e
though
t
that
,
bein
g
fro
m
Ne
w
York
,
E
m
migh
t
hav
e
know
n
a
cooler
,
mor
e
curren
t
game
.
Hangma
n
wa
s
olde
r
tha
n
m
y
mom
.

“Dirty hangman,” she added.

Gorgeous George grinned. “I'm in,” he said.

“Me too,” I added quickly, eager for any chance to redeem myself in his eyes after the whole accidentally insulting Simon thing.

“Have fun with your game.” Sarah waved one hand at us in this floppy-wristed way, like she was dismissing us from her royal throne room. “I'm going to write a note to Matt.”

“Simon?” Em said, ignoring Sarah completely, but he just shook his head. “Okay, then. Go.”

“E,” I tried.

Em flashed me a Vanna White smile as she filled the letters in. We went back and forth picking letters until we had this.

M _ _ _ E _  _ U C _ E _

“All right, groups. You should be almost ready to present by now,” Mrs. Collins called, holding up her hand for silence. Suddenly, in a flash, I could see it.

“Oh!” I slapped the desk. At that exact moment, two things happened: the room went completely quiet and I shouted the word—the bad word—the
very
bad word—the one that rhymes with BROTHER TRUCKER.

In the hush that followed, the sound of my swear word echoed off the walls.

“Margot Button,” Mrs. Collins said in a soft, scary voice. “To the office.”

I
KNOW I SOMETIMES SAY THE
the wrong thing at the wrong time, and that I don't always “focus on the task at hand,” but the truth was, besides the glazed ham, I'd never really been in serious trouble. So as I sat in the principal's office, staring at my warped reflection in the supermodern stainless steel counter the secretary sat behind, many questions were racing through my mind. Questions like:

1. Do normal people shout swear words at the top of their lungs in English class? And do guys like George think it's hot? (Somehow, I doubt it.)
   
2. Can you get expelled for something like that?
   
3. Do I really look as bad as I do in my reflection?
   

Needless to say, when the secretary finally told me to go in, I was freaked out. I ended up getting lucky, though. Mrs. Vandanhoover was on her way out to some kind of principal's jamboree with the school board, and didn't have much time to talk to me. She also completely bought it when, in a stroke of genius, I told her the bad word slipped out when I stubbed my toe on my desk.

“Oh. Well. That can happen. But you know, Margot, it's important to watch your language—especially at school.” She was packing things into her sleek black laptop case. I nodded like I shared her concern.

“Do you know what I say when I'm frustrated, or when I've hurt myself?”

I knew I wasn't supposed to answer, so I waited, looking interested.

“Fish sticks.”

“Oh.” I nodded as if this were an extra-wise and original piece of advice.

“I just scrunch up my fists and I say…FISH STICKS!” she shouted, and banged her open palm on the metal desk, which made this awful, hollow, clanging noise. She smiled calmly. “And then I feel so much better. I'd like you to try that, Margot.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will.”

“Right here, with me.”

“Okay…” I answered. “Fish sticks?”

“A little louder.”

“Fish sticks.”

“As though you've just stubbed your toe.”

“FISH STICKS!” I yelled. I hoped to God that nobody could hear me in the hallway.

“That's it!” Mrs. Vandanhoover shouted, as though I'd accomplished something big. “Off you go.”

Armed with my new inoffensive swear word, I was in my next class before Mr. Tannen even had time to start our introduction to fractions. Of course, it was the last place on earth I actually wanted to be. Everyone seemed to be staring and whispering.

While Mr. Tannen was busy helping Cameron Ruling with a problem, Ken walked past my desk to sharpen his pencil. “What did you say, Button?” he asked. I hadn't said anything. He cupped one hand around his ear and pretended to listen. “Button! I'm outraged at your inappropriateness. My virgin ears will never be the same!”

Charlie Baker, Maggie, Joyce, and the volleyball girls snickered.

“What?” He leaned in again. I still hadn't said anything. “Margot, honestly. You're offending us all with your potty mouth.” The same people laughed.

I was just about to tell him to shut up when Amir, who sat in front of me, suddenly pushed his math book off his desk. It landed on the floor with a huge thud, and he turned to stare hard at Ken before bending down to pick it up. “What are you looking at, Amir-a-med?” Ken asked, pronouncing his name like it was all one word. But thankfully the noise of the book hitting the floor had caused Mr. Tannen to look up.

“Everything all right over there, Amir?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Tannen,” Amir answered. And Ken walked back to his desk.

At lunch, I wandered dejectedly into the yard. Andrew, Mike, and Amir were at basketball tryouts, which meant I had nobody to sit with, and I wasn't about to face the cafeteria alone. At least it was still warm enough to be outside, where people were less likely to see me. I picked a tree, slid
CosmoGirl
out of my backpack, and sat down.

I'd been reading for about half an hour and was just flipping through the “Must-Have Fall Accessories” article when I heard a voice. “Is that
CosmoGirl
?” A second later, Em slid down beside me, stretching out her legs. I noticed she was wearing Diesel shoes. I wasn't surprised. Besides having good fashion sense, people from New York also have a lot of money. I crossed my legs and tucked my feet underneath my thighs to hide my Payless Converse knockoffs, then quickly readjusted my T-shirt to make sure it was hiding the butterfly belt.

“Yeah,” I said. She just kind of nodded, leaving me wondering if she thought
CosmoGirl
was kind of cool, or really lame.

“That was
so
funny in English class,” she said. Well, at least that made it official. Everyone was enjoying my misery. “Did you get in trouble?”

“No,” I said. “She basically told me to say
fish sticks
next time.”

“And you didn't tell her it was my idea to play dirty hangman, right?”

“No,” I said. I might have been weird and loserish and have had bad hair but I wasn't a tattletale.

“Good. So then?” Em slapped my arm. “What are you so mopey about?”

“I'm not mopey.”

“You
look
mopey.”

“Okay then. First of all, everyone is making fun of me. And second, would you look happy if this was your head?” I pointed to my poodle face.

“I see your point,” she said. “Want me to fix it?”

“It's un-fixable.” I pulled at my bangs.

“I've seen worse.”

“Where? At modeling school?” It came out sarcastic, and I felt bad the instant it left my mouth. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn't mean that. So, it's true? I mean, you actually model?”

“Yes!” she said, clearly offended. “Not in this kind of magazine,” she said, fluttering the pages of my
CosmoGirl.
“My agent mostly gets me cast for commercial modeling jobs, like clothing stores, toothpaste. Stuff like that. I once did this billboard shoot for Chuck E. Cheese's when I was little. I had to hug a guy in a stinky mouse costume for, like, two hours.”

“That's really cool,” I said. “Not the stinky costume but, you know, modeling.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged like it was no big deal. “So?” She paused. “Do you want me to do your hair or not?”

“I guess,” I said. What did I have to lose? She pulled a brush out of her backpack, motioned for me to turn around, and took out my bobby pins.

There was something I'd been dying to ask ever since the first time I'd seen her, but I glanced around first to make sure nobody was close enough to overhear. “Quit moving your head,” Em said.

“Sorry,” I answered. “Hey, you know that thing? That stupid thing we were at? When we met?”

“Yeah?” she said.

“Did somebody make you go?” I remembered how she'd shouted at the woman in the hall. How the goat lady had opened the door and peered out cautiously. “Or did you want to be there?” I added, so it wouldn't sound like I already knew the answer.

“Why would anybody want to be there?”

“What were you doing there, then?” I asked.

“What were
you
doing there?” she answered. I hesitated. Em was new. She didn't know anybody. More important, she didn't know me, and she didn't know the glazed ham story. And, sure, she'd probably find out one of these days, but that didn't mean it had to be today. She yanked the brush through my hair, hard. I yelped.

“Sorry,” she said, but she didn't sound very apologetic.

“I was there because my mom made me go.”

“Me too,” she said.

And then, since neither of us wanted to talk about it, I changed the subject.

“So, what part of New York did you live in?” I asked, trying not to wince as she brushed, no more gently than before. “The east part, or the west part, or the middle? Which would be Central Park, of course,” I added.

“Brooklyn,” she said, brushing my bangs straight back and holding them down with one hand.

“Oh. That's a nice place,” I said, in a tone that made it sound like Brooklyn and I went way back. The second I'd said it, though, I started to have doubts. Was Brooklyn the part of New York where everyone got mugged? You know, the
projects
? Or was that Harlem? I'd never been very good at geography. “I mean, I've heard it's nice,” I confessed. “I've never been there personally. Did you like it?”

“It was pretty great,” she said.

“Then why did you move?”

She didn't answer for a few seconds. “We just needed a change. Our lifestyle was really hectic there.” Her parents were probably high-powered stockbrokers, I figured. Pretty much everyone in New York was.

“So, where's your new house?” I asked.

“Lakeshore.” Just like I'd thought, she was rich. The front lawns there are so huge you practically need one of those ride-on mowers just to cut the grass. “It's near the water. The one with the turrets.”

“I love that house!” I almost screamed. You've got to understand, though, I
love
that house. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to live there. Obviously, I needed to know. “Is your bedroom in one of the turrets?”

“Yeah,” she said, like it was nothing.

And then I went off on this big embarrassing thing about how it must be really challenging to decorate a round room when practically all furniture is designed for square or rectangular spaces. “I don't think you should get discouraged, though,” I finished breathlessly. “A combination of custom pieces, window seating, and a round area rug would work.…” I finally trailed off, realizing I'd talked for almost five minutes straight without asking her any questions or bothering to check if she was actually listening.

“You know a lot,” she said, but I couldn't tell if she meant it in a good way. “You're done.” She handed me a compact out of her bag.

“Put some of the dark brown shadow on your bad eyebrow. It'll look better. You can keep that.” The bell rang, and she stood up to go. She was already halfway across the yard before I'd managed to put my stuff away and push myself to my feet to follow. I flipped open the compact and looked at my reflection.

I actually smiled.

Using only a brush, her fingers, and a silk scarf that had been tied around her wrist, Emily Warner from New York had performed the greatest hair miracle of the twenty-first century. She'd done better than make me look human again. I pretty much knew right then that I'd do whatever it took—I needed to be her friend.