Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  “Okay, brace yourself,” Em said, sitting me back in the chair. “This is going to be pretty bad.” I felt the tip of the spoon against my lips. “Smell it first,” she suggested, but I didn’t want to. I opened my mouth and swallowed as quickly as I could.

  In case you’re wondering what was on the mystery spoon, it was peanut butter, honey, and pepper—which was disgusting, but not nearly as gross as the mayonnaise, vinegar, and Tabasco sauce I got her back with—or the counterattack of vegetable oil, horseradish, and hot mustard. By round four, Em and I were both laughing our heads off. She even called me “the Master of Mystery on a Spoon.” But the whole time I was secretly watching the clock, thinking about Erika crying her eyes out in her bedroom, and waiting for Em to leave so I could write her a long e-mail, explaining and apologizing.

  Unfortunately, though, Em didn’t seem in any hurry to get home.

  “Show me your room,” she said, when neither of us could handle one more spoonful of disgustingness.

  I hesitated. I really needed to write that e-mail. Plus, there was so much babyish stuff in there. “It’s pretty messy,” I said, hoping she’d take the hint. She didn’t.

  “Here it is.” She showed herself down the hall and pushed my door open. It wasn’t hard to find. I have this embarrassing Winnie-the-Pooh nameplate my grandma bought for me at the dollar store off one of those racks of personalized key chains and things. It was the only time I’d ever seen one that actually had my name on it—spelled right, too.

  Em stepped into the room, kicking aside some piles of junk to make a path to the bed. She flopped down on my butterfly quilt and looked up. “You’re kidding, right?” she said. “Eternal Crush? In New York, fourth graders listen to that.” On the wall over my bed was a magazine photo of Ian Donahue, the lead singer of our favorite band, Eternal Crush. Erika and I had plasticized his lips with Scotch tape so we wouldn’t wear them out from kissing him. Our favorite band. It made me nervous just thinking that. What if I was too late? And Erika didn’t forgive me? What if there wasn’t any us anymore?

  But before I could dwell on it, I was distracted by Em, who rolled over and looked up at me disapprovingly. “Oh, that. I barely listen to Eternal Crush anymore,” I said. “Only when I’m in the mood for something corny.” I silently prayed Em wouldn’t notice the huge pile of Eternal Crush CDs on my dresser, or the full-sized crushing on you tour poster that was, thankfully, hanging on the back of the open door, facing the wall.

  “Who do you listen to?” I asked.

  “Ummm,” she said, letting her head hang over the edge of the mattress while she pretended to think. “Punk, hip-hop, like SubSonic.…Not Eternal Crush.”

  “Oh,” I said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “I like that stuff too. Especially SubSonic.” The truth was I’d never heard of them before.

  Em sat up and glanced around at the rest of my room. “You don’t look like your family.” Her eyes had landed on this framed photo on the dresser. It was of me, my mom, Bryan, and the triplets. We got it taken last year for Christmas cards. The photo-studio lady nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to get all three triplets to sit still. “Are you adopted or something?” she asked.

  It wasn’t the first time in my life I’d been asked that question, but it still caught me off guard. “No.” I stood up and looked in my full-length mirror while I tucked some stray hairs back under the hair band/scarf. “My dad’s Indian. But he’s in California right now, working.” I don’t know why I said that, but I liked the way it sounded. Like he was some kind of important businessman who had a perfectly good reason for not being around—instead of the not-at-all-reliable, more-than-a-little-selfish person my mom says he actually is.

  In case you’re curious, the way the story goes is that my mom met my dad at this interfaith retreat center in Massachusetts when she was thirty-one. She was there to meditate. He was there to find God and kick his habit of smoking marijuana. None of that quite worked out for him, but he met my mom in the communal kitchen one night while they were washing dishes, and one thing led to another, I guess.

  When my mom found out she was pregnant, she says she was scared but really happy. She settled down in Darling to be close to Grandma and Grandpa Button. She also contacted my dad to let him know. He said that new life was beautiful, and that he’d send money for me whenever he could—but that was about it.

  My mom says he’s just that kind of person. He lives life in the moment without thinking too much about other people. She says she feels sad for him that he hasn’t bothered to get to know me, and that it’s his loss because I’m beautiful and interesting and very, very special, etc. Twice he’s written to say he was passing through our part of Ontario and would definitely visit, but he never showed up. It made my mom furious, but it wasn’t the end of the world. To tell you the truth, I’m so scared of meeting him that I’ve never even tried writing back to the addresses on the envelopes of his cards. What if the shape of my nose reminds him of some relative he hates? What if we just have nothing to say? What if, after he does get to know me, he decides I’m still not worth sticking around for?

  All the same, sometimes at night, if I’m feeling depressed, I’ll get the ball-and-maze game he sent me down from the shelf, and do it over and over, wondering if he tried playing it before putting it in the envelope, and if he made it to the end. If he ever does end up coming, I’ll show him. I’ve practiced so many times I can do it with my eyes closed.

  “Is this your stepfather?” By now, Em had walked across the room and picked up the photo. Her hand was dangerously close to the stack of Eternal Crush CDs, but she still hadn’t noticed them.

  “Unfortunately,” I said, tucking the last strand of hair back under my headband. “What about you? Do you have brothers or sisters? Or stepparents?”

  “No,” she answered simply, and set down the photo.

  “Why did your parents pick Darling when you decided to move?”

  She sproinged the bobble-head turtle on top of my computer screen while she answered. “My mom picked it off the map. She liked it because it was in the middle of nowhere and she figured nothing would happen here. The total opposite of New York.” I tried not to take offense at her description of my hometown. It was kind of true, after all. “Like I said, we wanted a break. I was worn out from modeling. And my mom was burned out from so much acting.” That made sense, even if it didn’t explain the social worker. I knew Bryan was always exhausted after a day on set, and that was just for a thirty-second commercial. Since Em’s mom was on soap operas, she probably used to film every single day.

  “But we’ll only be here a year, I think,” she went on. “Then we’ll go back to New York.”

  I gulped. Of course she wasn’t staying. She was nice to me, and cool. Plus, she was a model with a famous mother. It was all too good to be true. I shouldn’t have been so surprised there was a huge catch. Em noticed the look on my face.

  “I said I’m going to be here a whole year,” she said. “Stop looking so depressed. We have tons of time to have fun.”

  She went up to my mirror and started smudging her eyeliner a little with her pinkie finger, then she looked up, noticing a necklace that was hanging over the corner. It was one of those heart pendants broken in two that says “Best Friend” on it. Only, the words are stacked one on top of the other, so instead of one half saying “best” and the other saying “friend” it has half of both words.…Mine says BEFRI and Erika’s says STEND. Her mom bought it for us two Christmases ago, but we’d both decided it was too dorky to wear in seventh grade.

  “I used to have one of these,” Em said, fingering it idly.

  I was about to ask her who had the other half when I glanced at the clock. It was 6:30—almost two full hours since Erika had run off. If I wanted to have any hope of holding on to my STEND I needed to write that e-mail, STAT.

  “Oh my God. You never called home!” I said suddenly.

  “Oh my God, relax!” Em imitated me. “
Don’t worry. My mom won’t care. She probably hasn’t even noticed I’m not home yet.”

  I glanced at the clock again. 6:31. “Yeah, but…it’s getting kind of late. I should probably do some homework or something, so—”

  “You’re kicking me out?”

  “No,” I said quickly. She’d been so nice to me, giving me the green jacket and walking me home. And now, especially with Erika at Sacred Heart, seriously mad at me and potentially never planning to forgive me, I couldn’t afford to lose her as a friend, too. “You can stay!” My voice sounded too eager. “My stepdad won’t be home until eight. We can do our homework together.” She raised her eyebrows, giving me this look that made it clear she wasn’t interested in being study buddies. I took a deep breath, determined to act normal. “I mean, if you want.”

  “It’s fine. I have stuff to do. I probably should have left ages ago, actually. Where’s the phone?”

  About ten minutes later, the same black car with tinted windows came to pick Em up, and she waved from the sidewalk, seeming to have forgiven me.

  “See you tomorrow,” she called. “And don’t forget to wear lip gloss. You never know if it might be your big day for kissing floppy hair guy.” I forced a smile.

  The second the car drove away, I ran back to my room to see if Erika was on IM. I knew she would be. She always was that time of night, but her status must have been set to invisible. So I sat down and wrote her the long e-mail, telling her how sorry I was. Then I sent it, and waited ten minutes. When there was no response, I called her house.

  “I’m sorry, Margot,” her dad said. His voice sounded tired. “Erika’s indisposed at the moment.”

  “Well, could you ask her to call me back?” I said. “Please?”

  “I’ll ask,” he promised.

  After hanging up, I wandered miserably to the kitchen. I cleaned up the stuff from the spoon game, drank a huge glass of water to get the lingering tastes out of my mouth, and went back to my room to recheck my e-mail. Nothing. But as I turned off the monitor and looked around, I couldn’t help noticing that the room was full of Erika. Her Parasuco jeans were still on the floor, but that was only the beginning.

  On the dresser was a stuffed platypus she bought me for my birthday in third grade. The sticker books we were obsessed with in fourth grade were shoved sideways on a shelf, right beside this chapter book series about magical horses she’d lent me, which I’d never really gotten into. The note she’d put in my pocket for School Year’s Day was still sitting unfolded on the dresser. I knelt on the bed and kissed the Ian Donahue lips picture. I didn’t care what kids in New York listened to. He’d always be my eternal crush.

  After turning on the computer one more time, checking my e-mail and sighing, I went to microwave some eggplant bharta. It was mushy and brown, but it tasted okay. I ate it in the quiet kitchen and was just throwing the carton into the recycling bin when I saw the bag of onions sitting on the counter. I don’t know what made me do it, but I grabbed three and glanced at the second hand on the clock. I threw them into the air and got a good rhythm going. I didn’t look up until the first one hit the floor.

  And it was while I was bent down, crawling under the kitchen table to pick it up, that I finally lost it. I’d just hit twenty seconds, blasting the all-time summer orange juggling record out of the water. Plus, I had exciting new information—Spanish onions are even easier to work with. But Erika didn’t want to talk to me, and there was nobody else in the world who would even care.

  15

  I Share a Personal Connection with the Lead Singer of the World’s Coolest Band

  WHEN I WOKE UP on Tuesday morning, I found my mom in the living room. She was lying on the couch watching a yoga video while the triplets ate VTV organic oatmeal on the carpet. The oatmeal looked awful—like beige snot. My mother looked worse.

  “They’ve been up since four thirty,” she said, blinking heavy eyelids. “I don’t understand. They’ve been sleeping so well lately.”

  “That’s weird,” I said, feeling slightly terrible. “I hope it wasn’t my fault,” I added. “I put them to bed a little early.” Somehow this made me feel better, even though it was still a lie.

  “Did your new friend end up staying to help you babysit?” my mom asked, switching off the TV and sitting up. I nodded. “That was nice of her,” she said. “Speaking of friends, I haven’t seen Erika since school started. How’s she doing at Sacred Heart?”

  “Good,” I lied. “She’s been busy. Tons of homework.” I turned my back and walked to the window to open the blinds so my mom wouldn’t notice the sad look on my face.

  The last thing I needed was for her to get all concerned and bug me about “working things out” with Erika—like I wasn’t already trying. I’d checked right before going to bed, and again first thing that morning, and she still hadn’t answered my e-mail, which made it clear: she was pretending I didn’t exist anymore.

  My mom stretched out her back before bending to pick up the oatmeal bowls. “I found a green jacket on one of the kitchen chairs this morning. Does it belong to your friend, Em?”

  “Oh. That’s mine. She gave it to me.”

  “Are you sure she cleared that with her mother first? It looks like an expensive jacket.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s like nothing to her family. They’re really rich. Her mom’s a soap opera actress and her dad’s like, a stockbroker or something.” I didn’t technically know if that last part was true. Actually, now that I thought about it, Em hadn’t said anything about her dad at all…but he probably did something like that.

  My mom looked surprised—and doubtful, I think. I could tell by the way she paused and looked up at me for a second before picking up the last oatmeal bowl. I couldn’t exactly blame her. It wasn’t like soap stars and stockbrokers were flocking to Darling, Ontario, by the dozen. “Anyway,” I added, tickling Aleene, then scooping her up off the floor and flipping her upside down so she squealed like a piglet, “I have to get ready for school.”

  I ended up doing a near-perfect job on my hair. And I chose a plain white T-shirt, which looked good with the army jacket. The only problem was my pants. All my jeans were in the wash, so I chose a pair of black cords. They would have been normal looking, too, if they hadn’t been so short. I put on a pair of black socks with them (hoping nobody would notice that they ended practically an inch above my ankles), dodged a bowl of VTV oatmeal snot my mom held out to me, and ran out the door.

  I rounded the corner and was partway down Delaware when I spotted the enrichment-program girls from Colonel Darling who I’d walked behind on the first day of school. You could tell they were good friends. Just the way they were talking to each other made me miss Erika.

  “Did you honestly forget?” one of them was asking.

  “No, I just didn’t remember,” another one laughed.

  “Don’t worry. You can copy mine,” a third said. “I owe you anyway. You’ve saved my butt a squillion times.”

  “Thanks,” the girl answered, pulling her red hair back into a ponytail and fastening it with an elastic band from her wrist. They walked in silence a few steps. “Hey, did you hear about that thing yesterday, with Sarah J. and the sandwich?” My ears perked up.

  “I had band at lunch, but Caroline saw the whole thing,” the first one answered. “She said there was mustard all over Sarah’s clothes and her face.”

  “Oh God. That could not have been pretty.”

  “Well, personally, I’m glad. I hate that girl,” said the one with the red hair. “I used to be friends with Maggie Keller until Sarah brainwashed her against me last year and turned her into a clone. Now she won’t even talk to me.”

  “Yeah,” one of her friends consoled her. “But you’re better off now, right?” The girl nodded, and I felt a small burst of pride. I mean, it was only a mustard stain, but still, I felt like I’d made some small contribution toward righting the wrongs of popularity for the little people.

 
“Margot!” I heard somebody call. I turned to look over my shoulder. It was Andrew, running to catch up with me. I stopped, letting the enrichment-program girls walk ahead. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Not much.” I spun a little in a pile of leaves.

  “Not much?” he said. “I saw what happened yesterday. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  “They are?” I answered, curious to find out what else people were saying about how Em and I had heroically and permanently rid the school yard of Sarah J. and Matt’s lip slurping.

  “Yeah. Amir said Sarah was glaring at you all through French class. And Mike heard that her boyfriend tried to beat you up after school.”

  “What? Sarah J. always glares at me. But nobody tried to beat me up.” I raised my fists and smiled, hoping to erase the worried look from Andrew’s face. I threw an incredibly wussy fake punch into his shoulder. “Anyway, did you see Sarah’s boyfriend? He’s four feet tall. Okay, four and a half if you count his hair. He wouldn’t stand a chance.” Andrew smiled weakly. The truth was, Matt could pulverize me, and we both knew it.

  “Yeah, well,” Andrew went on, fake punching me back. “Just be careful, okay? Amir’s sister knows that guy Matt. She says he’s a jerk. If you want me to walk you home after school or anything…” He let his words trail off. I didn’t miss noticing that he couldn’t seem to look me in the eyes.

  “Thanks,” I answered. “That’s really nice of you.…” I ran my fingers along the fence as we came up to the school yard, then grabbed a leaf that was sticking through the chain link and studied its thread-thin veins. “But you have basketball after school most days, right? I don’t want to make you miss it.”

  “Right.” He shrugged and smiled at the same time. “But you know, still…if he ever bugs you.”

  “I’m pretty sure Em and I can handle it.” I smiled a little because I liked the way that sounded: Em and I. What I didn’t know, of course, was that my very new friendship was about to get very complicated.