Nice and Mean

by Jessica Leader

  How did people know these things? Elizabeth knew them, and looking at Pallavi, whose hair was in mysterious new barrettes I had never seen before, I knew she knew too. It seemed to come naturally to them, the way solving an equation did for me, but there was no class in the world, not even an after-school activity, to help me catch up.

  As the bus roared up to our stop, a thought popped into my mind: Maybe I could learn about it in a class. Maybe I could do it in Video. I ushered Pallavi into a seat and stood over her while the streets whizzed by. The video I’d liked so much from last year had had a funny beginning, but that part had been followed by interviews. Maybe Marina could do her Victim/Victorious scenes—whatever those were—and I could film interviews to stick in between.

  I knew clothes didn’t make you popular, and I wasn’t interested in trying to start any trends. Still, I wouldn’t mind knowing how Marina’s friends all knew what to wear, or even how Flora and Lainey chose their strange styles. What made Lainey buy a bicycle-chain bracelet, and what made Flora choose that bracelet, out of the dozens in Lainey’s collection, to copy? She liked it, of course, but it was probably more than that. She knew somehow that it was cool, and I wanted to know how she knew.

  My video wouldn’t have anything to do with people’s nationalities, and that was a disappointment. But interviewing people about fashion would be better than standing around holding a camera while Marina directed them down a red carpet.

  Yes. That was it. That was how I could care about our video. And if the bus didn’t hit any traffic jams, I might beat my mother home in time to research it that very afternoon.

  When we got back to the apartment, my research plans flew out the window. My mother was already bustling around the kitchen, and since Priyanka had a test the next day, I felt like I should offer to help with dinner.

  I joined my mother in the kitchen as she pulled a pan from the lower cabinet, poured oil into it, and turned the flame on low. Grabbing onions from the hanging basket, I snuck a look at her. Some days she came home exhausted from the office, where the lawyers sometimes acted bossy just because she was a paralegal. She didn’t seem particularly tired today, though—just her usual efficient self. Efficient enough, maybe, that she would want to bathe Pallavi while I snuck a little time on the computer.

  My mom slid me a cutting board with a strong push. “So,” she said, “you have some news?”

  Her dark eyes were wide and ominous.

  Oh no. Had Priyanka told on me? Why? I’d given her the computer the night before without a single argument. Did she think I had told on her, and—

  “The math test?” my mother asked.

  “Ohh.” I grabbed an onion from the basket above my head. “Ninety-five.” Gripping the knife tightly, I chopped the onion in half. Calm yourself, Sachi. Spies are not lurking around the corner. Priyanka can be trusted. Probably.

  “Not bad,” said my mother, shaking some flour into a metal bowl. “But what happened? You said you knew the material perfectly.”

  “I got one wrong,” I explained, piercing through the layers of onion, “and I didn’t get the bonus problem right. Mr. Morrison said that you needed real algebra to figure it out.”

  “Hmm. Maybe you can ask him for practice problems.”

  “Maybe.” I sighed quietly. I liked math, and I preferred hundreds to ninety-fives too, but I wished my mother could be happy with a ninety-five.

  “Sachi.” I heard a gentle ting as my mother set down the bowl and rested her hands on my shoulders. “I know we push you, but it is for your own good. I do not want colleges to say, ‘She is the third-best Indian applicant from New York City—it’s a shame we only need two.’ I want them to say, ‘She is the best!’ ”

  I could have said this last part along with her.

  “I know, Ma,” I said. “I’ll try to be more careful next time.”

  She kissed me, her cheek soft and dry against mine. “Good. When you finish the onions, would you like to roll out the chapatis while I run the bath?”

  “Okay.” I do like rolling dough. Priyanka and I always fight over it.

  My mom glanced down at my cutting board and smiled. “Look at your beautiful onions! So even and fine, and you never shed a tear. You are going to be a great cook someday, and someone will be lucky to eat your meals.”

  I looked down at the slivers of onion. They had smelled sweet at first, but now they seemed rank. I knew my mom had meant to compliment me, but her vision of my future was depressing beyond belief. So I could chop onions without crying—would that help me work with Marina? Would it convince Alex to like me? Probably, while I was learning how to cut onions, Elizabeth Ellis’s mother was helping her choose the most kissable lipstick.

  My mother touched me lightly on the back as she squeezed out of the kitchen.

  I threw the onions into the pan. They popped and sizzled. Now was my chance. I turned down the heat and snuck into the living room, where I seated myself in front of the computer.

  First I typed in “popularity” and waited. Our Internet was so agonizingly slow! When the results finally appeared, I frowned. I did not want, as one site offered, to “measure the popularity of websites.”

  What about “clothing” and “popularity”? Strike two—it was all advertisements for clothing stores, each one claiming to have the hottest styles. I slumped back in the chair. Research for school was a lot easier. There was always a website on, say, Julius Caesar. I restrained myself from a knuckle crack and thought about how else to search.

  “Sachi!”

  I turned to see my mother standing in the living room doorway, her arms folded. “If I had known you were going to use the computer, I would have waited to cook the onions myself.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t smell them burning?” She stalked back into the kitchen, and I followed to see her scraping crispy brown onions into the trash. “I don’t know what you were doing on the computer, but it must have been fascinating.”

  “I’m sorry, Ma!” Here I’d meant to help, and I’d only messed things up. “It was research for school, and I didn’t want to bother Priyanka—”

  My mother snatched an onion from the basket overhead and began chopping it with quick, angry slices.

  “I can do that,” I said. “Really.”

  “Go do your homework, if that’s what you need to do,” she said. “I’ll make dinner.”

  I didn’t want to risk going back to the computer, so I picked up my things and trudged down the hall, my backpack feeling heavier with every step. As I passed our shrine, I offered up a silent prayer: Raam, give me the courage to make this video. Because right now all I know how to do is make errors on my math test, look after my sister, and burn vegetables.

  MARINA’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK, ENTRY #5

  * Worst Homeroom Interruption: Rachel Winter

  Can I have one day without this girl? One day—that’s all I ask.

  * Best Homeroom Interruption: Sachi Parikh

  Hey, what do you know? She’s useful after all!

  * Most Unbelievably Beautiful: Crystal Cabrera and Natasha Lambeau

  If I have just one day where I look like them, I’ll die happy.

  * Biggest Victim: Come On . . . You Really Need to Ask?

  Ha ha ha ha ha!

  Wednesday morning, before the bell for first period, Elizabeth and I were just sitting in homeroom, talking about TV, when Rachel burst in. Her ginormous hairmop was barely held in place by two bright red chopsticks, and Addie was tagging at her heels.

  “Reener!” Rachel cried. “Bird!” She was so loud that Ms. Avery looked up from her desk. “Guess what?”

  I did not have a good feeling about this.

  “What?” asked Elizabeth, leaning forward in her seat.

  Rachel clip-clopped over and put a hand on her heart. “I just ran into Ms. Mancini, and she asked if I wanted to be the dance captain for Grease!” She clapped and squealed. “Isn’t that the coolest? That means I’ll get to
run dance rehearsals when Ms. Mancini is working on other scenes! And ”—she bent low to whisper—“that means more reasons I get to yell at Julian! Yay!”

  She and Addie grabbed hands and jumped up and down together, like when my sister, Angelica, used to make me play ring-around-the-rosy.

  I think Elizabeth said something like, “Rachel, that’s awesome,” but Rachel and Addie’s giggling was damaging my ears. Captain? Julian was going to have an actual reason to listen to her now? So unfair!

  Rachel’s big scrawny hand clomped on my desk and pulled me out of my thoughts. “I have to get back to homeroom,” she said, “but I’ll see you girls later!” And she and Addie were off, click-clacking toward the door in—ew—matching zebra-striped flats.

  I knew I should say something to Elizabeth so I didn’t look like I cared about Rachel’s news. When I turned to her, though, she was resting her chin in her palm and tracing her other hand over some graffiti on the desk.

  “Hey,” I said, “what’s going on?”

  She kept tracing. “Oh, nothing.”

  “Lizza-Bird.” I moved my desk closer to hers. “What?”

  She shrugged. “I mean, not to be petty, but I’ve been dancing longer than Rachel. I know I’ve got a speaking part and everything, and I’m sure Ms. M. just wanted to make things fair, but . . . whatever. I just thought she was going to ask who wanted to do it, instead of picking randomly like that.”

  I looked down at the words she was tracing—“Jasmine luvs Danny”—and felt a boil of anger that Rachel could get something Elizabeth deserved, probably just because Rachel was loud. “Bird, hold on,” I said. “You don’t want the words “Dance Captain” next to your name on the program, do you? Seriously, what is that—like, you drive the ship?”

  Elizabeth laughed a little, but she was still looking down at the desk.

  “Please,” I said, “dance captain is no big woo. You’ve got an actual part in the play. You get to sing on your own. People are going to remember that. If they remember the dance captain, it’s only because she yelled at them for eight weeks straight.”

  Elizabeth tilted her head from one side to the other. “True,” she said. “Actually, you’re right. I would be too afraid of those eighth graders to boss them around, anyway. Some of them are scary.”

  I laughed. “Bird, you’re so much cooler than any of them, any day of the week.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Reener.” Then she looked up with this kind of waiting expression on her face, and I turned and saw that girl Sachi on the other side of me. Oh, groan. I had already had enough interruptions for one day.

  “Hi,” she said, weaving her skinny fingers together. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a free country.” If she was going to make my day any worse, she was going to feel it.

  “Um.” She took a step closer. “I was thinking about it, and I decided we can make Victim/Victorious for our video after all.”

  “What? No way! That’s great.” Especially since I wanted more than ever to make fun of Rachel. Yes!

  “I did want to say,” Sachi added, “maybe I could—”

  The bell rang, and everyone groaned and scraped back their chairs. “Hey, let’s talk about it later,” I told Sachi. I wanted to walk out with Elizabeth and think of more funny things to say about dance captains.

  Even though Rachel had dominated Spanish with her super-cheese accent, I left class in the best mood. I had written almost half the script for the first scene of Victim/Victorious ! There would be red-carpet shout-outs, Esmé winks, and everything else that was really on the show. Hot, hot, hot.

  The best part, though, was that I had figured out how to make fun of Rachel’s clothes. If I told everyone to dress up for the red carpet, there was no doubt that Rachel would bring in her most over-the-top, I’m-trying-to-be-cool outfits. A few shots of those, a few scenes of her in barfarrific everyday outfits, and I wouldn’t have to get someone to play a fashion victim—I’d have one right in front of me.

  The plan was coming together, and if I got everyone organized, I could start filming the very next day. I’d need that, because Video only went until Thanksgiving, and I had a lot of scenes to film. Maybe for once I could be one of those people who finished a project early. Ooh, and right down the hall stood the person who could help me make it happen.

  “Hey, Sachi!” I called.

  Ahead of me, Sachi froze, her books hugged to her chest.

  I nodded in her direction as if to say, “Yeah, you.” Was there some other Sachi I didn’t know about? “Come here.”

  Sachi said something to her friend and walked slowly toward me.

  “Hey, guess what?” I asked. I knew I sounded off-the-charts perky, but I didn’t care; I just went ahead and told her the good news about the script. “Rachel and Elizabeth already told me that they could film tomorrow during lunch, so that’s two people, and I’m going to ask the others later.” Like Julian, and two extremely cool eighth graders. “Dance captain” would be old news before the day was through.

  “And hey,” I said, thinking aloud, “maybe today, when everyone goes to lunch, we can ask Ms. Avery if we can shoot in her room. You’d help me with that, right?” Teachers didn’t like me, but any fool knew they loooved Sachi.

  “Um,” she said, “okay. And hey, I wanted to tell you this morning,” she said, “I was thinking that maybe I could interview people about fashion and put them between your scenes.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Why?” She would not bore up my video if I could help it.

  “That video from last year had interviews. . . . I think people liked them.”

  “But that’s not part of Victim/Victorious,” I said, trying not to show how crazy she was making me. What was the problem with doing V/V? It was the woo of the century.

  “People, the bell is about to ring!” Down the hall, Ms. Avery was sticking her head out of her room, her usual attempt to get us all into class. I didn’t know why it mattered so much if we lost thirty seconds of English, but I didn’t want any more trouble with Ms. Avery, so I told Sachi, “Look, just meet me in homeroom tomorrow during lunch. We can talk more then.”

  I seriously could not wait.

  I glanced at the clock for the nine millionth time that lunch period, then slipped my cell out of my pocket and checked that, too. The school clocks were a minute and a half behind real time, but right now it didn’t matter. Julian was officially more than fifteen minutes late.

  “Marina?” Sitting on the desk next to me, Elizabeth said my name quietly, but even above Rachel’s screeches, I could hear her. “Do you think we should just start?”

  Her hair was starting to lose its wave. Next to her, Sachi’s face had a pinched look, like she had chewed off the sides of her cheeks. “I’ve rehearsed it enough times with his lines,” Elizabeth added. “I think I can do both parts.”

  I had so, so wanted for Julian to see the script I’d written, and to see that a real captain was more than someone who clutched your arm and laughed at you when you messed up. But if he wasn’t going to show, I was just wasting time. “Yeah,” I told Elizabeth, “I guess we should get started.”

  Elizabeth and Sachi hopped off the desks as I bellowed, “Okay, people! Let’s do this thing!”

  Everyone over in the Chatty Corner—my eighth-grade rock stars, Crystal and Natasha, and my plebes, played by Addie, Madison, and Chelsea—stood up. But Rachel put a hand on Crystal’s arm. “Wait,” she said, “finish the story.”

  Excuse me?

  “Guys,” I said. Was I going to have to go over there? “We only have fifteen minutes. Places!”

  The plebes scrambled. But Rachel giggled, and I could have sworn I heard her say, “Well, if we have to get into places.”

  Crystal and Natasha headed toward the carpet, but I could tell they were snickering at Rachel’s joke.

  Whoa. Rachel had not just scored two new BFFs. I was the one who had crossed into eighth-grade lunchroom terr
itory to recruit them. They were mine!

  As Rachel walked to, yes, her place, I blocked her path, even if it meant coming face-to-face with her fake-pearl necklace. “What is your problem?” I said in a low voice. “You’re totally throwing yourself at those girls. It’s embarrassing.”

  Rachel pushed past me and said, “Oh, get over yourself, Marina.” Then she glanced over toward Crystal and Natasha, like they were the ones she was really saying it for. Thank God they were fastening Natasha’s bracelet and didn’t seem to notice, but hello! This was my set!

  I walked back over to my filming spot, flats clacking, to sit next to Sachi, who looked like she wanted to say something. “What?” I snapped, checking the camera battery.

  “Should I fix the carpet?” she asked. “It’s gotten kind of messed up.”

  “Oh . . .” She did have a good eye for that stuff, I noticed—she’d pinned my curtains to the window shade all artistically—so I needed to keep her in a good mood. “That’s okay,” I said. “I think people are about to stand on the carpet, anyway.” That seemed to relax her a little, and phew. Her stressiness was stressing me out.

  When everyone stood in their spots and had finished checking each other’s makeup, I picked up the camera. Everybody was in focus. “Victim/Victorious,” I announced, “scene one, take one.” Hey, that sounded good. “And—action!”

  Rachel and Chelsea walked by and waved and smiled at the camera. I kept Chelsea’s little round face in the frame for about a second and then zoomed in on Rachel, starting at the bottom.

  Crazy-tall spiked heels.

  V-neck maroon dress with ginormous ballooning sleeves.