Project (Un)Popular Book #1

by Kristen Tracy

  “He is totally amaze-balls,” Venice said, staring at Leo’s backside as he walked to his table. “And so are you. I’m so lucky to have you guys.”

  As soon as we opened our account, we saw the photos. Ms. Kenny had picked four.

  “They look awesome!” Venice said. “We are going to write the best captions for them.”

  The first photo was of Mr. Mortimer standing with his arms outstretched and the python winding itself around his neck and shoulders.

  The second was a crowd reaction shot. “Rocky DeBoom looks like he’s freaking out. It’s so cool.”

  The third one was a photo I’d taken of Venice standing next to Ms. Kenny and the blue box before the snake was let out.

  “When did you even take that one?” Venice asked. “I look like I’m disgusted. My face is so puckered.”

  “You look cute,” I said. “That’s why I took it.”

  And the fourth was of Anya, Sailor, and Sabrina standing next to Mr. Mortimer. The other people in the shot weren’t in focus. It wasn’t an amazing picture. But it was the only one of everybody holding the snake.

  “It sucks that the ones with Derby near the head didn’t turn out,” Venice said.

  I tried not to think about Derby and that day too much. Back then, I had still believed I could help people and change the system. Now I didn’t feel that way. I needed to wait until next year, until I had more power. And I guess that meant Derby and the rest of the school nerds had to wait too.

  “Look!” Venice said, pointing to the photo of Rocky DeBoom. “You got a great picture of Leo. He’s totally photo-bombing Rocky.”

  “Huh?” I said. Because I specifically remembered not taking his picture. That little sneak. He’d lowered himself a full row to fall in line with my jock photo. And Ms. Kenny had picked it.

  “Thank you so much for taking such a good picture of him,” Venice said. “You’re the best.”

  I looked at Venice and smiled. I almost felt sorry for her. Because if she only knew that Leo was using her and was actually amaze-awful, she would probably start crying. It was crazy how much he’d been able to deceive her in such a small amount of time. It was like he was an expert at it. Like instead of watching TV or going to the mall, he spent all his free time practicing deception techniques. It made me sick to my stomach. Because Venice deserved to be with somebody who was way better than that. Somebody who had her best interests in mind. She actually was lucky that I was in her life. Because she needed a friend like me to get things back on track for her.

  Walking Tacos

  It took three days before Derby Esposito agreed to eat lunch with the three of us. During this time, Anya nearly lost her mind. She was thrilled that I’d been able to convince Venice and Leo to take on Derby as a project. But she worried that she didn’t have more influence over the ongoing operation.

  “I just wish I knew what Leo was telling Derby in PE,” Anya said. “I feel so helpless. What if something goes wrong?”

  I shrugged. Because at this point she really just had to trust her own plan. And Derby’s instincts to act strange all the time. Things were really up to him. “We’ll know a lot more after today,” I said.

  Anya frowned. “Is there any way you could get out of class after lunch and come talk to me?” she asked. “It’s going to kill me to wait until after school.”

  I pointed at her so she’d know I meant business. “I can’t. I have Idaho History, and Mr. Falconer doesn’t let people make up missed classes. He’s strict,” I said. I mean, seriously. What was she thinking?

  “You’re totally right. Forget that I asked,” she said, handing me a pile of photos. “Can you caption these for me?”

  “What are these for?” I asked. Because I didn’t even know which section they belonged in, and that was important as far as coming up with the right tone.

  “These are bonus photos. They’re shots I love and I’m not sure where they go yet,” Anya said.

  When I heard that, I worried that she’d assigned me a bunch of extra work that might not go anywhere.

  “So they might not even make it into the yearbook?” I asked.

  “I’m ninety percent sure that eighty percent of those photos will make it in,” Anya said.

  I knew how to do math. That meant there was a 10 percent chance I was wasting all my time. And a 90 percent chance I was wasting 20 percent of my captions.

  “When do we shoot group photos again?” I asked, because the dates kept shifting. Ms. Kenny had asked us to take the photos this week. But Anya wanted to make everybody attend another month of meetings, to make sure they were really committed to their clubs. Because she didn’t want to take a bunch of pictures of club members who were going to drop out as soon as pictures were taken. “Quitters don’t deserve to be in the yearbook photos,” she’d argued.

  But I was really excited to do group photos, because Anya had said that I got to take them due to what she’d called my “innate gift for posed shots.”

  “There’s no rush on group photos,” Anya said.

  “But that means we’ll be shooting the first football games at the same time we’re shooting the clubs,” I said. “That’s a lot of work.” Because that meant we had to attend all the club meetings after school. As well as all the football games after school and on weekends. And also some of the practices after school. That basically took all my after-school life.

  “That’s Yearbook!” Anya said. “It’s a tremendous amount of nonstop work.”

  “Right,” I said. Then I drifted off and joined Venice, who was busy arranging the layout for the upcoming sixth-grade portraits. I really missed my old life with her.

  “I saw you talking to Anya,” Venice said. “She’s seemed stressed out all week. She’s super alpha about the group photos.”

  I nodded. But really, I wished Venice had said, “Perry! It’s great to see you!” And then not said anything insulting about Anya when she was standing ten feet away.

  “Did Leo tell you he brought cannoli for Derby?” Venice said.

  I glanced at her. Leo was really going to try to make this Derby thing work. It was almost impressive. Except I still hated Leo, so it wasn’t. Also, I’d never heard of cannoli before. “What are they?” I asked.

  Venice smiled in a weird way, like she was excited to tell me about cannoli. “They’re tubes of fried pastry filled with sweetened ricotta cheese. And Leo put chocolate chips on the ends.”

  “Oh,” I said. Except for the cheese, those sounded decent.

  “They’re Italian,” Venice said.

  “Okay,” I said. But really I didn’t care where my food came from as long as jalapeños and/or sauerkraut hadn’t touched it.

  “He called me last night when he was making them. I’m the one who told him to add the chocolate chips. I had them that way at a restaurant once,” Venice said.

  She still had that goofy smile on her face. It was sort of distracting to sit next to her, so I focused on labeling the photo files. But then I thought of something I really needed to ask her.

  “Do you and Leo ever take photos together?” I asked.

  Venice smiled big when I said that. And I got worried they were out there secretly doing that. And that she didn’t care that he sucked at it. Which started to make me feel awful. Because that was something that up to this moment I thought only Venice and I did together. And I didn’t want to lose that, too.

  “Leo doesn’t take pictures,” Venice said. “He cracked the lens on his phone last year, and he doesn’t own a camera.”

  I almost gasped. What a liar. I’d seen his terrible pictures. He definitely owned a camera! I mean, why would he lie about that? It was just one big manipulation. The same way the cannoli were meant to manipulate Derby into liking and possibly trusting Leo. What a faker! It was so obvious to me now. The more Venice liked Leo, the more he could influence Venice and her behavior around Anya. It wasn’t a coincidence that Venice kept disliking Anya the more she liked Leo. And that Ven
ice kept bucking all of Anya’s ideas. Leo was playing Venice big-time. And my hands were tied and I couldn’t say anything about it yet because I’d made a promise to Anya in that stupid closet. This was rotten.

  “Hey there,” Leo said, breezing by us on his way to the pencil sharpener. “Just so you know, Derby wants to eat at a table that gets sunlight. So look for us on the south wall.”

  I glared at him. How was I supposed to know which wall was south? Did he think I brought a compass to school?

  “That’s the wall farthest from the dump cans,” Leo said.

  I kept glaring at him. He was so good at lying. It was like he didn’t even notice he was doing it.

  “Are you okay?” Leo asked, reaching out and touching my shoulder.

  It took every piece of willpower I had not to knock his hand right off me. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

  He squeezed my shoulder one last time before letting go. “Yeah,” he said. “It looks like it.”

  Then he walked off and I shot eyeball daggers into the back of him. Because he’d basically told me that I had a stressful face.

  “How much should we tell Derby about why we want to start hanging out with him?” Venice asked. “I mean, it’s rude to tell somebody that we basically think he’s the most unpopular person ever and we want to help him improve his life.”

  I agreed. That approach did seem pretty rude. “Maybe we just pretend like we think he’s interesting,” I said. Because I really hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just kept hoping we’d get to the part where the stress of group work drove Venice and Leo apart, so they could start hating each other’s guts as soon as possible.

  “That’s a smart idea,” Venice said. “Leo was thinking he’d kick off the conversation. You know. Because they’re both guys.”

  “Right,” I said. But I was pretty sure Leo would fall on his face. I mean, this was a pretty delicate operation that stood a high chance of failure. I couldn’t imagine Leo connecting with Derby.

  “Leo is great at connecting with people,” Venice said.

  And I totally rolled my eyes at that comment. Because the only person Leo was great at connecting with was Venice. And that was because their whole relationship was built on lies. As far as I was concerned, lunch couldn’t start soon enough.

  —

  Finding Derby at a south table was pretty easy, because he was dressed head to toe in stripes like a referee. Plus, he was wearing sneakers with coat-hanger laces.

  “Hi, Derby,” Venice said as she set her tray down across from him.

  I set my tray down too and then I waved. “Fun outfit,” I said.

  Derby took a fork and gently pried open his milk carton with it. “I’m playing a diabetic referee in a scene today for Drama.”

  We watched as he placed three napkins inside his collar and draped them over his chest area.

  “Walking tacos are pretty messy,” Venice said, imitating the gesture and tucking a napkin in her own shirt.

  Since there were also cheese sandwiches on the line that day, I was surprised anybody at our table had bought a walking taco. But Venice, Leo, and Derby had. I actually didn’t like those tacos for several reasons. First, you had to eat your taco out of a corn-chip bag. Second, the chili inside the bag made the corn chips soggy. Third, the sour cream got steamy and didn’t taste awesome. Fourth, I was pretty sure the chips were made with genetically modified corn (Piper had told me that).

  “I just want to make sure that my stripes stay white,” Derby said. “When I act, I channel a lot of energy from my clothes.”

  “That makes sense,” Leo said, scooping out a big bite of taco.

  And then it was sort of like we all froze. I froze because I was waiting for Leo to take charge of the conversation. I suspected that was why Venice froze too. And I didn’t know why Leo froze. Probably because he was just as awful at connecting with Derby as I thought he would be.

  “Is this about the python?” Derby asked.

  And that really surprised me. Because why would we even want to discuss that publicly? It had been a low moment for all of us.

  “No,” Venice said. “What would make you think that?”

  Derby shrugged. “Because that’s the only interaction I’ve had with you guys. When you tried to force me to hold a deadly reptile’s head.”

  Wow. This was going pretty terribly. I thought I should probably jump in. Because I was probably the only one who could explain that disaster. “That was totally my fault. I was trying to get a good picture of the python and I thought your height worked well with the handler and the snake’s length and girth. I just got caught up in framing the shot,” I lied, trying to make it sound totally reasonable.

  “Yeah,” Leo said with way too much enthusiasm. “She was framing the shot.”

  “Oh,” Derby said.

  Then there were two whole minutes of complete and total and awkward silence.

  “This feels awkward,” Derby said, chomping on his soggy chips. “If this isn’t about the python, I’m not sure why I’m here. I mean, none of you have ever talked to me before.”

  “That’s not true,” Venice said. “You trick-or-treat at my house every year and I always compliment your costume. Two years ago when you came as a tide pool, I absolutely loved those fake sea urchins you wore for shoes.”

  Derby wiped his mouth with three paper napkins, one after the other, like he was super worried he had walking taco stuck to his face.

  “Those were sea anemones,” he corrected, glancing around the table.

  “Oh,” Venice said, sounding super disappointed. But she shouldn’t have sounded like that at all. I was impressed she’d been able to remember Derby’s Halloween shoes from two years ago. Because I didn’t even remember all my own shoes that were in my closet.

  “I thought you said you were bringing cannoli,” Derby said.

  Leo popped the lid off the plastic container and handed it to him.

  “Are they all for me?” Derby asked.

  And then Leo did something majorly shocking. “Sure,” he said, giving away all our cannoli.

  We just sat there and watched Derby eat. It was gross. He kept sticking his tongue into the fried pastry tube, like he was afraid to eat that part. I think he noticed us staring because he stopped and said, “After I eat hard foods like corn chips, sometimes my teeth feel sore. It’s my braces.”

  Derby smiled at us and revealed a mouth filled with braces and walking taco and cannoli filling. It was disgusting.

  “So why am I here?” Derby asked, picking off the chocolate chips from his second cannoli. “What’s the deal?”

  And I wasn’t sure if he meant my deal, or Venice’s deal, or Leo’s deal, or if he thought we had a collective deal.

  “Well,” Leo said. “I’m glad you asked.”

  But as soon as Leo started talking, Derby did something totally weird. He reached into the front pocket of his referee shirt and pulled out finger pinches of dirt.

  “Is that dirt?” Venice asked as Derby dropped it into his mouth.

  “Do you really think I’m putting dirt in my mouth?” Derby asked. “Do I look like an animal?”

  I shook my head. “You look like a referee.” I felt like I had to say something. Because everything just felt too awkward otherwise.

  “Ms. Stott took away my flower,” he said, gesturing to his front pocket. “She said it was a class disturbance.”

  But I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

  “I filled my front pocket with chocolate cookie crumbs. And I stuck a plastic daisy in it,” he explained. “So I don’t have my daisy, but I’ve got my dirt. I thought it was a cool look for the scene I’m doing fifth period. I’m a referee who goes into diabetic shock. But I’m brought back around with my own cookie crumbs.”

  “What play is that from? And is it part of your grade to dress like that?” I asked. Because I was considering taking Drama next semester. But now I was worried I’d have to wear costumes
and pretend I had a medical condition even when I wasn’t in class.

  “It’s a monologue I wrote,” Derby said. “I’m wearing this because it helps me identify with my character. It doesn’t have anything to do with my grade.”

  That was pretty shocking. Because I’d only wear an outfit like that if it guaranteed me an A.

  Derby squirmed a little bit in his chair and looked in the direction of his drama-geek friends at the next table. I wasn’t sure why Leo was doing such a terrible job of talking to Derby. If Leo didn’t make his move soon, Derby might bolt. I mean, Leo really shouldn’t have given away all the cannoli until he’d presented Derby with the plan. It was like when my parents took me to Hogle Zoo and I got to feed the giraffes. I made sure to pet the giraffe before I fed it my cracker. Otherwise, it would have taken the cracker and run off.

  “So, um, I think it’s really great that you joined us for lunch today,” Leo said. “Are you having fun?”

  Derby shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Well,” Leo said. “Um, that’s too bad, because I’m really glad you’re at our table. I’m having a lot of fun.”

  “You’re acting really weird,” Derby said. “You’re scaring me.”

  And it sort of felt like Derby might have been a better judge of character than any of us had realized.

  “Don’t be scared,” Venice said, jumping in to rescue Leo. “We’re actually very nice people.”

  But that statement didn’t really lighten the mood.

  “This still feels weird,” Derby said, reaching deep into his pocket and pulling out more of his cookie crumbs.

  “We actually want to talk to you about your status,” Leo said.

  But I thought that was the wrong thing to say. Because Derby’s status was awful. Was Leo going to tell Derby that to his face?

  “Oh,” Derby said. “So you’ve heard.”

  Then we all looked at one another. We’d heard he was a geek years ago. Probably everybody in the state of Idaho knew that.

  Derby smiled again and I really hoped he had a toothbrush in his locker. Because it was going to take some serious circular brushing to defood those things. “Ms. Harlow made me student director for the school play.”