Project (Un)Popular Book #1

by Kristen Tracy

  Why did Venice need to kiss Leo? She didn’t. She had her whole life to kiss an idiot. The quiz landed on my desk, still warm from the copier.

  “You have all class to finish,” Mr. Falconer said. “So pace yourself.”

  But I found it really hard to concentrate on this quiz when Venice was possibly going to kiss a jerk and ruin both our lives.

  “Don’t do it,” I whispered.

  “What?” Venice mouthed.

  “No,” I mouthed back.

  “Nez Percé,” Venice whispered.

  She must have thought I’d mouthed the word one and so she’d given me the answer to the first question. But I didn’t care about that. I cared about us.

  “Who said that?” Mr. Falconer asked. “I just heard an answer. I will fail whoever is talking.”

  And that actually frightened me. Because I feared that a few people in that class might actually snitch. So I stopped looking at Venice and focused on my quiz. There were forty questions. Leo never told us there would be that many. This didn’t feel like a quiz. It felt like a major test. And there were way too many hard questions. He wanted to know how many river miles were in Idaho. And which president established the Caribou National Forest in 1907. And the name for Idaho residents.

  3,100 river miles

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Idahoans

  I kept scribbling answers and looking at the clock. I had to come up with one correct answer at least every minute or I wouldn’t have time to answer the terrible short-essay question and review my answers before the bell rang. Geez. Suddenly this class felt very flunkable.

  By the time I finished the quiz, my hand was shaking. And I had a total of six scratch-outs. And I’d gotten so paranoid that Mr. Falconer was going to realize all my scratch-outs said Leo that I scratched hard enough on four of them to make holes in the paper and get ink on the desk.

  Venice noticed. “When you write the wrong answer, you really freak out.”

  And I was too upset to think of a good explanation to give her. Also, I sort of blamed her. Because she was the person who was dragging Leo into my life. And I felt like if these two kissed, Leo would be sticking around longer than ever. Because once two people did that, it meant they were super serious. And even if you broke up or moved, you always remembered that stupid person. Because even my mom and dad remembered their first kisses. Even though they both happened forever ago. Back when nobody wore bicycle helmets and the world didn’t have any cell towers.

  I left that class in a total daze.

  “Have fun in Math in Focus,” Venice said, hurrying down the hall.

  But I didn’t tell Venice to have fun in Geometry. Because she was in there with Leo. And Derby. Then I realized I really didn’t want Venice talking to Derby and figuring out that I was lying about yesterday and today.

  I ran down the hall after Venice. “Wait! Wait!” And then something terrible happened. Venice stopped and turned around at the same time that Derby showed up.

  “Hi,” Derby said, sliding between us to enter his classroom.

  And I was so paranoid that Venice would find out that Derby and his mom were coming over to my house and I hadn’t told her. And I was so paranoid that this would lead to her finding out that my mom had talked to Derby on the phone yesterday. And I was so worried that this would lead her to doubt my truthfulness in other things (which was totally fair, because I had accidentally become a huge liar-face) that I tried to fix everything by telling a public partial truth.

  “Talk to you tonight, Derby,” I said.

  And Derby looked at me like I was crazy. He looked at me like he couldn’t believe I’d run all the way down here just to say that. And Venice looked at me that way too.

  Derby slowly turned back around and walked to his seat. I stood next to Venice, breathing very heavy from all my hallway running.

  “Are you okay?” Venice asked. “You’re going to be late for class if you keep standing here.”

  I nodded. “I just want to make sure nothing gets screwed up,” I said to Venice. “So don’t talk to Derby or let Leo talk to him. Okay?”

  Venice sort of glared at me like she was upset. And it didn’t feel pleasant.

  “Okay?” I asked again.

  “First, that’s not a problem,” Venice said. “We have a test today.” But then Venice frowned at me in a really hurtful way. “Second, it’s rude to think that my boyfriend or I would screw anything up for us. We’re being really careful.”

  That word hit me like a giant bag of rocks. Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend. I covered my ears and opened my mouth in horror. But no sound came out.

  “Perry?” Venice asked, grabbing my arm and shaking it a little bit. “What’s wrong?”

  I closed my mouth. But I didn’t even know how to answer that question. Because there were so many things wrong.

  “Let go of your ears and go to class,” Venice said. “I need to review for my test.”

  And even though I was still standing in her doorway, Venice walked off. I watched her take a seat next to Leo. And then Leo looked up and waved at me. I waved back. Then I grabbed all my stuff and headed toward my math class.

  I wasn’t too surprised when I arrived right as the bell rang. And I wasn’t too surprised that I couldn’t focus all during class and found myself drawing stick figures with lopsided heads without mouths that looked depressed. I had to do something (besides math) so I didn’t go crazy.

  When the bell rang at the end of class and I went to my locker, I really thought Venice would find me. But she didn’t. As I panned the crowd I saw her and Leo walking to their bus together holding hands. I was starting to fear that the Derby project, no matter how stressful, might not break these two up at all. I mean, they looked tight. Plus, I knew this meant they were official now. I watched them board their bus and find a seat. Venice sat near the window. I watched her laugh and laugh. What was so funny? How could she be that happy on a school bus? It was pretty heartbreaking and unbelievable. So I finally just turned away.

  Moms

  The walk home felt incredibly long. I kept asking myself terrible questions. Would Venice kiss Leo on the bus? If Venice and Leo were girlfriend and boyfriend, what did that make me? If I had six scratch-outs and three wrong answers (I knew I’d missed three for sure), did that mean I couldn’t get an A on the quiz? Did I know anybody who could replace Venice as my best friend? How long was I going to have to stay an infiltrator? What was I going to say to Derby? Why did his mom want to talk to me? Do moms really ruin schemes? When had I become a schemer? And was Hayes Ellsworth following me again? I flipped around to check. He wasn’t. But was sixth grade always going to feel this hard?

  I don’t know how it happened, but Derby and his mother beat me to my house. I mean, I walked straight home at a fairly fast pace, but their giant green minivan was already in the driveway. I knew it was their minivan due to the bumper stickers.

  My family didn’t know anybody who would have those bumper stickers. Also, when I peeked into the passenger window, I saw a backpack that had DERBY and a wizard’s cap embroidered on it. I walked up the front steps feeling incredibly nervous. I hoped my mom hadn’t said anything crazy or embarrassing. Actually, considering the real nature of the Derby project, I sort of hoped that my mom hadn’t said anything at all. I carefully opened the front door and looked into my living room.

  It felt really weird seeing Derby sitting on my couch. And it felt even weirder seeing Mitten Man curled up right next to his sneakered feet.

  “Look who’s here,” my mom said. “It’s your friend Derby and his mom.”

  And I looked at Derby and smiled. And I smiled at his mom too. And then I looked at my own mom and I shot her a worried face. Because she really shouldn’t have been labeling people my friends until we’d both agreed that they actually were.

  “Do you want any lemonade?” my mom asked.

  Then I noticed that Derby and his mom already had lemonade. Geez. How long had they b
een here? What had they been talking about?

  “Okay,” I said.

  And my mom handed me a glass.

  “Did you have a good day?” my mom asked. “How was your quiz?”

  And it sort of felt weird to talk about my day in front of Derby, but I did it anyway.

  “It was actually really hard,” I said. “It had forty short-answer questions and one essay.”

  “Sounds like a beast,” my mom said.

  And then something weird happened. Derby started talking to my mom.

  “The teacher found out that students from last year were sharing old quiz questions, so he made it a lot harder,” Derby explained.

  “Really?” I asked. Because that was exactly what Leo had done, which meant that it was Leo’s fault that the quiz had kicked my butt.

  “So what obstacle did you pick for the essay question?” Derby asked.

  It took me a second to realize that Derby was talking to me. Because it just felt so strange having him in my living room.

  “Um, Lewis and Clark crossing the Bitterroot Range,” I said.

  Derby drank some of his lemonade and nodded. “Me too. Which crossing?”

  But I didn’t even understand Derby’s question. “The one where they almost starved and had to eat a horse,” I said. Because that was exactly what Mr. Falconer had told us had happened when Lewis and Clark crossed the Bitterroot Range.

  Derby nodded again. “So you picked the first crossing. I picked their return trip and how they got stuck in the spring snow.”

  I just blinked. I didn’t even remember their return trip. It felt like Derby had just pointed out that I might have failed my essay question by not stating which crossing I’d chosen. Was that what had just happened?

  “Um,” I said. “Now I’m worried I failed that question.”

  Derby drank more lemonade and looked super apologetic. “Yeah. He’s a brutal grader.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t fail,” my mom said. “You had an answer.”

  But that didn’t make me feel any better, because my mom didn’t even know about Mr. Falconer’s terrible scratch-out policy. Or how he graded down for misspellings and grammar mistakes.

  “But I didn’t state which crossing,” I explained. Then I sat down with a big plunk right on the ottoman.

  “Well, let’s not worry about that now,” my mom said.

  But it was easy for her to say that. Because it wasn’t her grade.

  “I saw you carrying a ladder today,” Derby said. “What was that for?”

  He seemed so comfortable on my couch. And I thought that was weird. Because I sure wouldn’t have felt comfortable on his couch. Especially with my mom there. My mom looked at me in a concerned way. Like maybe she didn’t approve of me carrying a ladder around school.

  “Was it for Yearbook?” Derby asked. “Were you doing some cool aerial photography?”

  I couldn’t figure out a reason to lie to Derby. “We were taking pictures of Fletcher Zamora,” I told him. “Anya wanted a different angle.”

  Derby nodded. “Will you use a ladder to take my pictures?”

  And that seemed pretty aggressive to request a ladder, but it also seemed like he was agreeing to let me take his picture. So I agreed to his demands pretty quickly.

  “We could totally do that,” I said.

  “Where did you get the ladder from?” my mom asked. “Do you mean a step stool?”

  My mom needed to stop worrying about the ladder and let me talk to Derby. But before I could think of a reason to make her leave the room, Derby got really excited and jumped up so he could demonstrate how big the ladder had been.

  “It was a giant nine-foot ladder,” Derby said. “You could paint a building with it. And Anya sat on the very top and took Fletcher’s pictures. And he posed on top of a fur coat.”

  He was right about everything except the fur coat part. I wasn’t sure how he knew this.

  “It was a cheap coat,” I explained to everybody. “It wasn’t fur. Venice would never allow that.”

  Because Venice really loved animals. And she thought fur coats were cruel.

  “You could break your neck on a nine-foot ladder,” my mother huffed. “Where did you get it?”

  “They took it from the janitor’s closet,” Derby said.

  I couldn’t believe what a blabbermouth Derby was. He needed to stop talking right away.

  “It’s cool, Mom,” I assured her. “We totally had faculty permission.” And I didn’t even know if that was true, but it sounded good. “Plus, Venice and I held the ladder so Anya wouldn’t fall. And I didn’t climb it. My neck was never in any danger.”

  “But there was this one moment when you let go and the ladder started wobbling,” Derby said. And then Derby imitated a wobbling ladder. “And then you grabbed it again and everything was fine.”

  My mother gasped. Which made sense. Because it was shocking that Derby was spying on me like this.

  “How do you know this?” I asked. Because it felt creepy that Derby knew all these details.

  “Everybody in first-period Idaho History saw you guys out the window,” Derby explained.

  “Huh,” I said. Because I hadn’t thought about people watching us through the windows.

  “It sounds incredibly dangerous,” my mother said. “Promise me you won’t ever do that again.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then there was a little bit of awkward silence in the room. I guess because nobody knew what to say. And also because Derby was awkward.

  “Derby,” Mrs. Esposito said as she dug around in her purse. “I forgot the cardboard in the car. Maybe you and Mrs. Hall could get it. Here are the keys.”

  “Okay,” Derby said, snatching the keys up and leaping for the door.

  “Be right back,” my mom said.

  And this totally felt like a setup. Like my mom had planned to leave me alone with Derby’s mom. Which felt very awful. Because my mom shouldn’t have been setting me up. We should have been on the same team.

  “Perry,” Mrs. Esposito said. “The reason I’m here is I want to understand why the yearbook wants to take Derby’s picture.”

  And it felt really awful lying to somebody else’s mom. So I tried to be as honest as possible.

  “Um,” I said, trying to find the perfect words. “Yearbook has a new section this year. For interesting people. And we want Derby to be in that.”

  I was just so sick of lying and trying to remember my lies that I just said mostly the truth.

  “Interesting?” Mrs. Esposito echoed. She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “Um,” I said. Derby’s mom was sort of intimidating. She had really bright green eyes that seemed to look right through me. And her hair was curly. And that was distracting too. Because basically all my friends and family had straight or wavy hair. Plus, she smelled like mint gum, which I wasn’t used to smelling. Because my dad didn’t let me chew gum, even when it was sugar-free. “We, uh, what are you asking me?”

  Because it felt like Mrs. Esposito was getting at something.

  “I’d like to see any pictures before they’re printed or distributed in any way,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. Because they probably weren’t going to get that far.

  “It’s important that I have your word. I’m still bothered by what happened to Rose last year,” Mrs. Esposito said, leaning forward and sounding a little hostile. “Middle school seems far more vicious than I remember.”

  “Who’s Rose?” I asked. Because last year I was still in elementary school.

  “Derby’s sister. Her yearbook photo was edited so she was missing her front teeth.” She said this in a very bitter way. Which made sense. “She was devastated when she saw that picture.” Mrs. Esposito kept looking at me like I’d done that awful thing.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s terrible. We have a really strict image-edit policy so that never happens again.”

  “Based on what
happened at the snake assembly and Derby’s subsequent panic attack, I’m worried this year’s photographers are as bad as last year’s,” Mrs. Esposito said.

  “Um, I can explain that,” I said. I felt really uncomfortable talking about the python assembly, because I considered that event one of the major failures of my life. But I wanted to make sure Derby’s mom knew I wasn’t an awful person. “I’m not trying to do anything rotten to Derby. I wanted him to stand by the snake’s head because that was the most in-focus part of the picture. I was trying really hard to make that photo turn out. For Derby.”

  Mrs. Esposito kept staring really hard at me. It was almost like she knew I was up to something.

  “Derby has a kind heart. And I don’t want to see anything unkind happen to him,” Mrs. Esposito said.

  And I sort of felt like I should explain to her how middle school worked. And tell her that maybe she should pay more attention to how Derby dressed. Because sometimes he wore T-shirts that stated he was a geek and so it was very likely unkind things would happen to him on a pretty regular basis.

  “Right,” I said, looking out the window to see where everybody had gone. Because it felt really weird to talk to somebody’s mom by myself for this long.

  “Once, somebody told him that for every day he dressed like Harry Potter he’d give Derby a dollar,” she said. “And do you know what happened?”

  And I tried to act like I didn’t know about this story. Because suddenly I felt very guilty for laughing at him when he’d done this.

  “He hid clothes in a backpack and changed into Harry Potter clothes before school every day for two months, trying to earn enough money to buy a bike.”

  When she put it that way, it made the situation sound very tragic.

  “I had no idea he was doing this. And he never got any money. The principal called him into his office and told him he had to dress normally,” she said.

  “He should have gotten the money,” I said. Because knowing the full story, I felt Derby had been totally robbed.