Project (Un)Popular Book #1

by Kristen Tracy

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, popping open the passenger-door lock.

  Luckily, I was wearing all black, so I didn’t get any visible grass stains.

  “Aren’t you hot?” my mom asked.

  And even though I felt pretty hot, I didn’t want to admit that. Because it seemed like my mom was criticizing my outfit. It was like she just couldn’t accept that some days, even when the sun was out, a person needed to wear all black. I wished she could trust me more. I wished she could understand that I had an agenda that required power outfits.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I asked. Because it seemed like leaving my dad’s office early two days in a row was a bad idea. I mean, I knew he wouldn’t fire her. But she always talked about all the data she input and folders she filed. Who was doing that now?

  “Maryann, the new office assistant, inputs data like a beast,” my mom explained. “Looks like I might be getting a lot of afternoons off.” She smiled really huge when she said this.

  “Wow,” I said. Because I didn’t even know my dad had hired a new office assistant, let alone that she was a beast.

  “Hop in,” she said. “Help me run some errands.”

  “Um,” I said. Because eating muffins and watching television sounded better.

  “Come on,” she said. “I need to go to the mall. Maybe we can get you a new shirt for your sixth-grade portrait.”

  I didn’t want to turn down a new shirt. I really loved getting new clothes, especially from the mall. I climbed into the car and before I could even buckle my seat belt, my phone rang.

  “That sounds like Venice,” my mom said, turning off the radio.

  “Hello,” I said. I probably should have told Venice that I was in the car with my mom. But Venice didn’t give me time to work that into the conversation naturally.

  “So I have an idea,” Venice gushed. “And Leo thinks it’s pretty good.”

  I pictured the two of them riding the bus home together. Talking. Laughing. Sharing ideas. How had he wormed his way into my life so quickly? He really was a decomposer.

  “Ask Venice if she wants us to pick her up,” my mom said. “I can make a U-turn right here.”

  I hated it when my mom made U-turns, because sometimes other drivers honked at us. I shook my head. “Let’s just go to the mall.”

  “What are you talking about? I can’t go to the mall,” Venice said. “I’m still on the bus.”

  “I actually wasn’t talking to you,” I said.

  “Okay,” Venice said. “Anyway, here’s my idea.”

  It really hurt my feelings that Venice didn’t ask me who I was talking to if I wasn’t talking to her. Did she just automatically assume it was my mom? She should have assumed it might have been a new friend I was considering replacing her with. Because at the rate we were going, that was definitely a possibility.

  “Here it is. We need to find our own person to include for What’s Hot,” Venice said. “We’ll pick an awesome sixth grader who’s doing amazing things. And not some superpopular, wears-all-the-right-clothes sixth grader. We’ll pick one who deserves it.”

  That seemed like it was in line with what Anya wanted anyway. So that was okay.

  “Do you mind if I stop by the bank first?” my mom asked.

  I nodded and stuck a finger in my nonphone ear. Didn’t my mother understand that I needed to concentrate?

  “Okay,” I said. “I bet Anya will go for that.” I was sort of happy that Venice had come up with a decent idea, even if she had shared it with Leo first.

  “Ugh,” Venice said. “Stop kissing up to Anya. Who cares what Miss Bossy McBoss-Boss-Pants wants?”

  “Whoa,” I said. Because when did we start calling Anya Miss Bossy McBoss-Boss-Pants? I wasn’t on board with that. And before I could object to this new nickname for Anya, I heard Leo laughing in the background.

  “That’s a good one,” Leo said.

  My mother steered the car underneath the shade of a giant pine tree. Then she rolled down all the car windows. “I’ll be right back, okay?” she said, hopping out of the car.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’m so relieved to hear you agree with me,” Venice said. “I was actually worried that you and Anya were becoming friends or something.”

  “Well—” I said, but then Venice cut me off.

  “The best thing about this plan is we’ll pick somebody who needs to be recognized. And that way we can make the stupid new section fair. It won’t just be about Anya’s friends.”

  I was pretty sure Anya wasn’t going to just include her friends in What’s Hot. She had a lot of friends. And one of the topics was fro-yo. Anya wasn’t friends with fro-yo.

  “Who were you thinking?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I thought you and I could figure it out together,” she said. “Pick somebody really cool and deserving.”

  That sounded like a fun idea. I liked hanging out with Venice. And if we could decide on our What’s Hot ideas together, then Leo wouldn’t influence her thinking. He could stick to the business side, where he was actually wanted. And over time, when Anya felt comfortable with it, I could reveal to Venice that Leo-the-saboteur had been using her. And while that might hurt when she first learned about it, in the end that news would help everything return to normal. Because wasn’t it better to be told you had a jerk in your life rather than misunderstand what was happening and wrongfully think the jerk was your friend?

  “Bye, Leo,” I heard Venice say in a distracted way. “Text me later.”

  It was really hard for me to hear Venice say that. Because I didn’t like picturing her texting Leo. I wanted to picture her texting me.

  “So maybe you should come over this weekend?” I asked.

  But nobody said anything.

  “Hello?” I said. Had Venice hung up on me? Were we finished talking? I stared at my phone. Normally we said goodbye. Were we not going to do that anymore? Because that seemed rude.

  That was when I got a call I wasn’t expecting. Anya!

  “Hello?” I said, sounding a little nervous.

  “Is this a bad time?” she asked.

  To be totally honest, it was sort of a bad time, because I was really disappointed that my best friend had decided hanging up on me and not saying goodbye was going to be the new way we said goodbye, but I figured that wasn’t what Anya wanted to hear about.

  “It’s a good time,” I said. I didn’t think I should share all my feelings with her right now.

  “So do you have any news?” Anya asked.

  “Um,” I said. “I’m in a parking lot waiting for my mom.”

  “I mean, did anything happen with Leo today?” she asked.

  I thought I was supposed to report to her in Yearbook. I didn’t know I was supposed to be checking in with her in the afternoons, too.

  “I don’t have any classes with Leo. I only see him in Yearbook,” I explained.

  “He’s up to something,” she said.

  “I think he’s still on the bus,” I said.

  “Daphne Tanner told me that Leo and Venice are coming up with a list of three crazy plans,” she said.

  “I think they only have one plan,” I said.

  “What do you mean? You know about their plans and you’re not telling me?” she said.

  “I just found out,” I said. “I haven’t even been home yet. My mom swerved and picked me up.”

  “Okay,” Anya said. “Here’s the thing. You need to keep me in the loop. I can’t get blindsided.”

  She sounded really paranoid.

  “What’s the plan?” she demanded. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

  “Well, I only heard him in the background. Venice did all the talking,” I explained.

  “I knew it,” Anya said. “They’re both saboteurs, aren’t they?”

  It definitely felt like a bad idea to label Venice a saboteur, so I tried to label her something else.

  “She’s definitely n
ot a saboteur. She really likes you. She said a whole bunch of nice stuff today about your pants,” I lied. But really it was only a partial lie. Because Venice had mentioned Anya and pants today. Just not in a flattering way.

  “I don’t totally buy that, but whatever. Tell me about their slimy plan,” Anya said.

  “Well, Venice wants to pick out a sixth grader to include in the What’s Hot section,” I said, conveniently leaving out that I was going to help find the person.

  “That’s bogus,” Anya said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It seems like a good idea. I mean, the sixth graders matter too.”

  “Oh yeah,” Anya said, sounding really sympathetic. “I agree. But I’m saying that plan is bogus. I know Leo. He’s craftier than this.”

  “You think that Venice called me and told me a fake plan?”

  “She might not know it’s a fake plan, but I’m pretty sure it’s a fake plan.”

  My mom startled me when she opened her door. “Sorry that took so long,” she said, climbing back inside the car. “The person in front of me couldn’t remember his PIN.”

  I nodded.

  “Tell Venice that if she still wants to come with us, it’s easy for me to swing by,” my mom said, pulling out of her stall and aiming the car toward the mall.

  I shook my head and whispered to her, “I’m talking to Anya now.”

  “Who’s with you?” Anya asked. She sounded even more paranoid than she had the first time she’d sounded paranoid.

  “I’m with my mom,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, sounding instantly pleasant. “Put me on speaker so I can say hello.”

  I glanced over at my mom. I didn’t really want to do that. “She’s driving,” I said.

  “It’ll be quick,” Anya said.

  I looked at my mom again. “Can I put my phone on speaker so Anya can say hello to you?”

  No friend in the history of people I’d been friends with had ever made this request and so it seemed totally weird to me and oddly like a power move.

  “Absolutely,” my mom said.

  “Hi, Mrs. Hall,” Anya gushed. “I’m the editor in chief for the yearbook. I just want you to know that I adore having Perry on our team. She’s so talented. And such a hard worker.”

  My mother beamed as she took a right turn into the Grand Teton Mall.

  “Thank you, Anya,” my mother said. “I’m a big fan of Perry’s as well.”

  This was so embarrassing. I didn’t need my mom to tell people she was my fan. I was pretty sure people already knew that. “We’re at the mall now,” I said. “Gotta go!”

  And I meant to just take the phone off speaker and say goodbye to Anya like a civilized person. But I accidentally hung up.

  “That was a little rude,” my mother said, applying a fresh coat of lipstick.

  “Yeah,” I said. Because I sort of agreed with her.

  I climbed out of the car and saw that Anya was texting me. At first I was worried that it would be an angry text for hanging up on her. But it wasn’t. She was just acting paranoid again.

  Anya

  Stay on him. I’m trying to prevent an ambush.

  Luckily, I was pretty good at texting and walking.

  Me

  Venice doesn’t ambush.

  Anya

  I’m worried about her boyfriend.

  Me

  Don’t call him that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  “Perry, I brought you shopping,” my mom said, pointing toward my favorite store, Scoop. “Can you text later?”

  “Totally,” I said. “Just let me say goodbye.”

  Me

  At mall. Must go.

  Anya

  OK. Me too. At gym. With Victor. Bye!

  I stared at that last text. Victor? Did she mean Venice’s brother? He worked as a trainer at the gym. Did Anya train? Why hadn’t she mentioned that she knew Victor? Then I thought maybe there was a second Victor. Idaho Falls felt big enough to have two Victors with muscles.

  “Why does it look like you’re studying your phone?” my mom asked.

  And even though I was tempted to ask her how many Victors with muscles she knew, and conduct an unofficial poll about our city’s buff Victor population, instead I turned off my phone and hooked my arm around her waist.

  “Can we try a different store?” I said. Because while I loved every single thing that Scoop sold, even their seed-bead hair ties, I was pretty sure I needed to buy more than a shirt for my sixth-grade portrait. I needed to buy another power outfit.

  “Sure,” my mom said. “Lead me there.”

  I led my mother to the newest store in the mall, Dark Chalk. To make the store look mysterious, black paper covered the glass panel next to the entrance. My mom paused and nervously tried to look inside.

  “What’s that smell?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure. It reminded me of something I’d smelled in our rental car two years ago when we visited Canada. “Probably men’s cologne,” I said, shrugging.

  Walking into Dark Chalk sort of intimidated me. Because the first thing we saw was an authentic Yugoslavian army dress jacket made out of communist-socialist Soviet-era khaki wool.

  I knew that about the jacket because my mom read the tag and then said, “This just doesn’t feel like your kind of store, Perry.”

  “Let’s not judge it too fast,” I said. I tried on an Austrian army cadet cap and looked in the mirror. It was not a good look for me.

  “Aren’t hats banned at your school?” my mom asked, grimacing at my cadet cap.

  “Technically,” I said. “But every year they have Crazy Hat Day and so you can put anything you want on your head and come to school.”

  My mother looked a little anxious to learn this. But she shouldn’t have been. I wasn’t about to waste my shopping chance on a cap.

  “I think what I really want is a shirt,” I said.

  My mom and I wandered to an area stacked with T-shirts.

  “Perry, I refuse to buy you anything with Stalin’s profile on it,” she said, holding up a black-and-red T-shirt with the outline of a guy’s face I didn’t recognize.

  “That’s fair,” I said. Because I was surprised my mom would think I’d even wear that terrible shirt.

  My mom looked really disgusted when she found that same image on toddler-sized pajamas. I hoped that she wasn’t disgusted with me. Because I didn’t plan to buy anything super offensive or for babies in this store.

  “Do you need any help?” a store clerk asked. He was dressed in a blue military jacket with patches. I wished he wore a tag so I would know which country he was representing.

  My mother shook her head pretty aggressively. “No.”

  I really didn’t want my mom to have a meltdown in Dark Chalk. But I also really wanted to find something that would make me look tough and also conceal cat hair. Plus, I thought it would be a good message to send to Venice that I now went clothes shopping without her. Because basically I’d never done that. And she needed to learn that if she was going to start wasting time on Leo, I was going to start wasting time at Dark Chalk buying new clothes without her.

  “Maybe I should get pants,” I said, pointing to the back wall, which was covered in them. “They look interesting.”

  My mom followed me there and continued to look unhappy. “They’re all camouflage. They look like something soldiers wear. Is that the only thing this store sells?”

  I shrugged. Because it was my first time here. So I didn’t know how often they rotated merchandise or tweaked their apparel themes. Plus, considering the job ahead of me, dressing like a soldier didn’t seem like a totally bad thing. I found a pair of camouflage leggings made up of multiple shades of green and gray. I held them up to me. Not only would I look tough wearing them, I thought they’d probably conceal cat hair. And if I ever needed to hide in a tree, I bet they’d work for that too.

  “You’d wear those to school?” my mom asked, looking alarmed. “With what?”
/>   I pressed my future leggings against my thighs so I could imagine exactly what they’d look like on me. “Probably my tunics,” I said. But I really thought I could wear these with almost all my shirts. I could also wear them underneath most of my skirts.

  “Fine,” my mother said, yanking the leggings away from me. Then she balled them up and walked them over to the cash register.

  “This is the only thing I’m buying you in this store,” my mother said.

  I glanced at a stack of Swiss army dungarees that looked like something a weird cartoon character would wear.

  “Okay,” I said.

  After the clerk rang up the leggings, my mother huffily handed me the bag. “FYI, they have a zero return policy here, so I hope you don’t change your mind.”

  It didn’t surprise me that Dark Chalk had that kind of policy, because I bet a lot of people regretted their purchases here.

  “Don’t worry. I’m truly in love with these,” I said. I might not have learned much in middle school yet, but I had learned that if you want to make somebody feel good in an instant, exaggerating was a good strategy.

  “Perry!” a voice called as I walked into the mall’s main hallway.

  My mom and I both looked. It was Reece Fontaine. And she was hanging out with Hannah Jones and Fletcher Zamora. They looked exactly how you’d expect popular kids to look at the mall. Trendy, relaxed, and attractive.

  “You shop there?” Fletcher asked. “I’ve never seen anybody shop there.”

  My mother looked at me like she felt sorry for me. But I didn’t feel sorry for me. I hadn’t bought anything weird or lame there. Leggings were always a safe purchase.

  “Don’t pick on her,” Reece said. “Is this your mom?”

  My mother smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Perry’s mom.” And I sort of wished my mom could have figured out a way to slink off and let me talk to kids from my school by myself.

  “See you later,” I said, walking off to avoid anything embarrassing happening.