Margie Kelly Breaks the Dress Code

by Bridget Farr

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Bridget Farr

  Interior art-supply ornaments copyright © JosepPerianes/Shutterstock.com

  Cover art © 2021 by Julia Bereciartu. Cover design by Angelie Yap.

  Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  First Edition: July 2021

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Farr, Bridget, author.

  Title: Margie Kelly breaks the dress code / by Bridget Farr.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2021. | Audience: Ages 8-12. | Summary: After her first day of middle school is ruined by a dress code violation, Margie Kelly begins to notice blatant sexism and decides to protest the school’s gender inequality.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020048833 | ISBN 9780316461573 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316461566 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316461559 (ebook other)

  Subjects: CYAC: Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Protest movements—Fiction. | Dress codes—Fiction. | Fathers and daughters—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F3678 Mar 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048833

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-46157-3 (hardcover), 978-0-316-46156-6 (ebook)

  E3-20210617-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgments

  For my parents—

  just by listening, you showed me I had something to say

  Chapter 1

  A scuffed wooden ruler with worn black numbers waits right between my eyes. Maybe Ms. Scott is going to rap my knuckles with it like I saw in one of the old movies Dad likes to watch on rainy days. That wrinkled teacher had tiny rectangular glasses at the end of her pointy nose and a really high bun at the top of her head, her hair wrapped up tight like the detonator to her dynamite. Her lips were pursed in a tight coil, the ruler in her hands ready to strike. Even though Ms. Scott looks like she could still be in college, she has the same rectangular glasses and high bun, so at the moment I’m panicking. I didn’t think teachers could do that anymore: whack your hands with a ruler. And I didn’t even do anything wrong! I’ve been in sixth grade for literally five minutes. I hadn’t even finished writing my last name, Kelly, on my handout.

  I’ve followed all the rules since I came to this pale-blue classroom. I even got here a few minutes early, skipping the huge line at the water fountain so I wouldn’t be late. I went straight to the desk with my name on it and didn’t even try to switch the sticker so I could sit next to my best friend, Daniela, even though I saw a boy in the back row do it so he could sit next to his best friend. I didn’t smile or wave at the few other kids I recognized from elementary, either. I wrote my name only after Ms. Scott told us to start. And in print because my cursive isn’t that great. We barely practiced it last year.

  I answered the silly “Would you rather…” questions she had on the board: “Would you rather have an elephant trunk or a giraffe’s neck?” Giraffe neck. “Would you rather wear clown shoes every day or a clown wig?” Clown shoes.

  Would you rather stand behind your teacher’s desk while she holds a ruler in front of your face or show up to the first day of middle school wearing a diaper?

  Diaper all the way.

  Okay, probably not.

  But I really wish she didn’t have that ruler in her hand.

  “Margaret, did your family get a copy of the handbook at orientation?” Ms. Scott asks, resting the ruler on her denim skirt. Behind me pencils scratch as people finish their “Would you rather…” questions, the timer counting down the minutes until they’re ready to stare at me.

  “I think so. My dad took all the papers.”

  She smiles. “Okay. Well, he’ll need to look at it again, so he can review the dress code. Your skirt is out of compliance.”

  I look down at the three perfect navy tulle tiers in my first-day-of-school skirt, each layer trimmed in sequins that swing when I walk. Last week when Dad and I went shopping at the Lone Star Mall, we had the skirt-versus-leggings discussion and how Texas is too hot in August for anything but a skirt. I didn’t want anything too princess-cupcake, but I couldn’t resist the shimmer of the purple and turquoise sequins. The skirt was perfect, like a chocolate-dipped Oreo. I run my hand along the bottom ruffle.

  “I need to measure your skirt real quick, and then we can send you to the office to change if my assumption is correct. But I’m never wrong about this.”

  Dad thought this skirt was perfect. Just like me. Just like my first day of middle school should be. Turns out Dad was wrong.

  I flash a look over my shoulder to see if anyone is watching. Every head is down except for Daniela, who is looking at me as if her eyes are going to pop out of her head. “Are you okay?” she mouths. I snap my head around. Please don’t cry.

  “Whew, it’s hot in here,” Ms. Scott says, her pale cheeks flushed red. She wipes a drip of sweat from her hairline before turning to the class. “You have two minutes to finish that warm-up, so we can start to get to know each other,” she calls. “It’s your first official assignment of sixth grade!” She whispers to me, “If you’ll just turn around quick, I have to measure from the back of the center of your leg.”

  I slowly turn around, trying to find where to look. The clock? The “Classroom Expectations” poster written in Ms. Scott’s perfect teacher handwriting? Daniela? Definitely not Daniela. If I make eye contact, I will totally cry, and I cannot cry on the first day of middle school. The ruler feels cool against my skin.

  “Yep. Exactly what I thought. Five and a quarter inches. Over an inch too short.”

  “My dad bought it,” I whisper, the words catching in my throat. Normally we just shop online,
but he said that for the first day of middle school, we could spend the whole day shopping at the mall together and even get frozen yogurt. Grandma Colleen was there, too, since she lives with us now, but he didn’t let her argue about how much money we were spending. The skirt wasn’t even on sale. Not even close to on sale. At $59.50 it’s the most expensive piece of clothing I own (except for my winter coat, but Dad says I’ll wear that for years since it never gets too cold in Teravista, Texas, a suburb just north of Austin).

  Dad picked out the top, a white T-shirt with “Fabulous” written in shimmering turquoise letters with these little tassels that hang beneath. “Because you are fabulous,” he said. We tried on the whole outfit last Wednesday before he left for work in Chicago, and he took my first-day-of-school picture on the front porch even though it technically wasn’t. We tried to have Grandma take one of me and Dad with his phone, but she kept getting it blurry or putting her finger in it, so we only have the one of me. Dad said the outfit was perfect.

  “It’s a great skirt, just not for school. You wouldn’t wear a bikini to school, right? Same thing with short skirts. No time at Live Oak Middle School for any distractions.”

  I’m a distraction? Ms. Scott taps my shoulder, and I turn around. My cheeks flame with embarrassment.

  “Take this note to the front office, and they’ll give your dad a call.” She scribbles on a small yellow notepad. “If he can’t bring you a change of clothes, they’ll find you something in the nurse’s office to wear. No one gets suspended for dress code on the first day.”

  Suspended! I grab the note and rush to my desk, cramming my notebook and my perfect first-day-of-school mechanical pencil into my bag. I sneak along the edge of the classroom, hoping no one sees me, but of course they do. They’re all staring at me and my distracting skirt. One boy turns and whispers to his friend, but mostly everyone’s mouths just hang open in shock.

  “Margie, what’s going on?” Daniela whispers, but I can’t open my mouth. I pull down on my skirt and race out the door.

  Chapter 2

  “We’ve got extra extra small or extra extra large. What’s your pick?”

  Nurse Angela holds up two pairs of gym shorts that look like they’ve been in a locker for years. Are they even clean? She’s wearing scrubs with teacups on them, and she smiles, the only comforting thing in her bare office. I waited for twenty minutes in one of the plastic chairs outside after an eighth-grade office aide dropped me off; Nurse Angela was giving a sixth grader his meds. I was hoping she’d forget I was waiting. She didn’t.

  Nurse Angela spreads the shorts out on her desk as if I’m supposed to judge between two prized dogs at the National Dog Show Grandma Colleen loves to watch at Thanksgiving. Both shorts will go down to my knees because they’re that baggy-gym-shorts style—but the extra-extra-small pair looks much cleaner. The stripe down the side is still crisp white, and the Live Oak Middle School emblem hasn’t started curling around the edges or been picked off by previous wearers. Still, there’s no way I can fit into the extra extra small. But I don’t know how I’ll keep the extra extra large from falling down as I walk around school.

  “So?” Nurse Angela asks as she gives the shorts a little shake. Their stale smell floats into my nostrils. Bleachy? I hope so. I take the extra-extra-large pair.

  “Thattagirl! You can change in here.”

  She gestures toward a narrow door I thought was a closet, maybe is a closet. Please, oh, please may it have a little door that leads to Narnia or some other world so I don’t have to come out wearing someone’s stinky old gym shorts.

  I open the door, and it’s only a bathroom. There’s a tiny window up in the corner, too high for me to reach, and no little escape hatch. I sit on the toilet seat lid with the shorts in my lap.

  I don’t want to cry. Not on my first day of middle school.

  I cried every day the first month of kindergarten.

  I cried every day the first week of sleepaway camp.

  I don’t want to cry on the first day of middle school.

  But here I am using these old shorts as a tissue. They don’t smell as bad up close as I thought they would.

  “Get movin’, little lady,” Nurse Angela calls through the closed door. Then, softer, “No one’s gonna care what you’re wearing.”

  She knows nothing about middle school.

  I change into the shorts, ignoring the mirror. In my backpack I find a hair tie to wrap around a corner of the waistband to keep them up, but then it gives me a weird tail. So I remove the hair tie and roll the waistband down three times instead, causing a doughnut effect around my hips. I walk back and forth between the sink and the toilet a few times, and if I push my hips forward or backward, the shorts don’t slide as much. I’m not sure which looks sillier, the tail or the lump, but nothing can be worse than losing my pants in the hallway. I finally look at myself in the mirror: my “Fabulous” shirt laughing at the disaster happening below. My curly hair’s expanding in the humidity, and behind my blue glasses my eyes are ringed in red. I flip over the St. Joan of Arc pendant Dad bought for my birthday last year, noticing I’ve already chipped my turquoise nail polish.

  Setting my glasses on the miniscule sink, I splash a bit of water on my face and dry it with some toilet paper since the paper towel machine is empty. For a moment I’m grateful Dad won’t let me wear anything more than lip gloss so I don’t have black streaks down my face like sobbing ladies in movies. I fold up my skirt—the perfect skirt—and stuff it in my backpack. I hear Grandma Colleen’s voice in the back of my head. You think you have it rough? When I was a child in Ireland, we had to walk two miles to school with only a hot potato in our pocket to keep us warm.

  Today, I would rather have the hot potato and the two-mile walk.

  When I open the door, Nurse Angela is snacking from a bag of almonds. “You said your dad’s in Chicago, but is there anyone else who could bring you a change of clothes?”

  The tears catch in my throat, and I hold really still, no breathing, no blinking until the feeling goes away. Last night on the phone, Dad kept apologizing for missing my first day. That’s why he let Grandma and me order Chinese takeout, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s not here when I need him. It’s only me and him (well, and now Grandma), since Mom died of breast cancer before I was two, so he tries to be around as much as he can. Up until a year ago he worked from home, so he was always hovering, practically smothering me with his desire to be a good dad. Then his company got bought by a firm in Chicago. Now he has an office in downtown Austin for weekdays and monthly trips to meet with his bosses in the Windy City. He’s constantly missing my first somethings. “No, I don’t have anyone else I can call.”

  “You have your grandma listed as a contact. Can she bring you something?”

  I shake my head, clutching my backpack closer to me. “She can’t drive anymore. She has cataracts.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll just have to sport a little Live Oak pride today.”

  I nod. I feel a lot of Live Oak shame today.

  “You can head back to class now. Just let me write you a pass.”

  I put my backpack on the floor and stand at the desk as she fills out a yellow pass with the messiest handwriting I’ve ever seen. The blue squiggles can’t possibly be words. The bell rings, and Nurse Angela looks at her watch. “Second period already?”

  I missed all of first period. My first period of middle school. I won’t see Daniela now until lunch, I think. I didn’t get to check our schedules. We were supposed to do that in first period. My stomach clenches.

  “Do you think I can stay here a little while? My stomach hurts.”

  Nurse Angela looks up at me like I’m a little puppy left out in the rain. “That’s not your stomach hurting; that’s your pride.”

  She hands me the yellow pass, and I grab my backpack, brushing off the dust that’s already clinging to the pink flamingo fabric. I yank my shorts up.

  “Have a great first day!”
Nurse Angela calls as I walk out the door.

  She has got to be kidding.

  As I walk down the crowded hallways, jostled by people running and laughing and loving their cute first-day outfits, I think of an alter ego, like a spy on a secret mission. If anyone asks, I won’t be Margaret Colleen Kelly today. I’ll be someone else. Someone lame. Someone who would wear rolled up gym shorts on the first day of school. And then tomorrow I can come to school with French braids or even a new hair color if Dad will let me, and no one will remember me as the girl with the baggy, stinky gym shorts lumped around her waist.

  I stick close to the yellow lockers no kids use, watching the older girls pass by in faded skinny jeans and plaid shirts loosely hanging over tight tank tops. They don’t bother to look at me, too busy trying to sneak a peek at their phones while they walk.

  “Ahhhhh, dress coooooooode!” someone yells, and I turn to see a tall boy pointing at me, his mouth open in laughter as he tries to get his friend to turn and look. I start to walk faster, bumping into someone’s shoulder. I notice a girl’s phone pointed in my direction. Is she filming me? Please don’t let her post this to Instagram! She flips her black hair over her shoulder and shoves the phone in her back pocket. Maybe it wasn’t about me at all.

  “Margie!” Daniela calls from somewhere in the crowd behind me. “Margie, wait!” It’s only been a minute, and already my cover is blown. I’m instantly jealous when I’m reminded how perfect Daniela’s first-day-of-school outfit is for her: cuffed black jeans and a short-sleeved blue button-up with little birds all over it, her thick dark hair in a massive braid down her back. She’s been wanting to cut it short since last year, but her mom won’t let her. Grandma Colleen would call Daniela a “tomboy,” but no one says that anymore. Over the summer, Daniela finally stopped wearing exclusively summer camp T-shirts and one pair of light-wash blue jeans, but she still dislikes dresses and skirts. The only dress she ever wore was for her First Communion, and that’s only because her mom made her. She’s still figuring out her style, figuring out what (and who) she likes. Of course, Daniela’s not wearing makeup—she would never ever ever—but she doesn’t need it with her thick eyelashes and flawless brown skin. She’s never even had a zit. I haven’t, either, but any red spots will blare like sirens on my pale, freckled face.