Project (Un)Popular Book #1

by Kristen Tracy

Voice mail #3: Leo left. I’m worried about tomorrow. Where are you? If you don’t call me back I’m going to have my mom call your mom. That’s right. I’m going to mom-call you.

  Oh, that was such a sweet message. Venice and I never mom-called each other. She must’ve been super worried about me.

  Friday 12:01 p.m.

  Voice mail #4: It’s lunch. WHERE ARE YOU? Principal Hunt came to Yearbook and changed everything! Leo is suspended. Anya isn’t the boss anymore. Also, Derby borrowed another pair of Leo’s pants. His butt looked cute again. I mean, he just seems much more normal than before. Did you tell him to act that way? Because suddenly he’s a much cooler version of Derby.

  Wow, Venice needed to quit looking at Derby’s butt ASAP.

  Friday 3:06 p.m.

  Voice mail #5: Anya found me. She told me tons of crazy stuff about you and showed me a bunch of your texts. What happened to you? We’re supposed to be best friends. Quit being a jerk and call me when you remember how to tell the truth. And why aren’t you calling me back? It’s starting to feel like we’re dunzo.

  Anya had shown Venice my text messages! She was so evil. It was like she wanted Venice to hate me. And dunzo? Those words sent a chill through me. How could Venice think we were that? She was such a sweet person. I couldn’t even imagine her thinking it. I really needed to call her. But before I did that, I decided to deal with my text messages.

  I was hoping that maybe she’d texted me an apology about suggesting we were dunzo when we were clearly still best friends. I only had to read five texts. I figured I could do that in no time. It wasn’t like five text messages were going to kill me.

  Thursday 12:02 p.m.

  Venice

  You vanished. Come back.

  Thursday 4:01 p.m.

  Venice

  You suck.

  Thursday 9:01 p.m.

  Venice

  Text me back before I die.

  Friday 3:07 p.m.

  Venice

  Should I believe Anya?

  Are you a backstabber?

  Friday 3:09 p.m.

  Anya

  Load up the spaceship with the rocket fuel.

  Wait. All of Venice’s messages made sense. But Anya’s was super weird. Was it a threat? It sounded really threatening. Or did it? I decided to look it up on the Internet. Because I felt like it was a quote from something. I typed the phrase into my search bar.

  “Load up the spaceship with the rocket fuel” was a terrible quote made by the Ultimate Warrior, who was a crazy-looking wrestler with freakishly tanned muscles and tons of frightening face paint. But what Anya sent was only part of the quote. The Ultimate Warrior went on to say, “Dig your claws into my organs. Stretch into my tendons. Bury your anchors into my bones for the power of the Warrior will always prevail.”

  That definitely was a threat. But why did Anya only send me part of it? It only took me a couple of seconds to figure it out. Anya knew she’d get in trouble for sending me a threatening text. So instead she sent me a weird text that she knew I would research on the Internet. How did I know for sure that was what was happening? Because I knew how Anya’s terrible brain worked. And she thought the Internet was my “thing,” because I’d told her that during our first photo critique. So she’d set up a trap. She was so sneaky. I decided to keep researching the Ultimate Warrior to see what else I could find.

  It was awful! He had four signature moves: atomic drop, gorilla press drop, leaping shoulder block, and multiple clotheslines. Plus, he had a brutal finishing move called the ultimate splash. I needed to see what that looked like.

  My poor eyes! I watched as one giant wrestler dove on top of another giant wrestler and pinned him to the ground. And there was a bunch of yelling. And slapping. And struggling. And shirtlessness. And sweating. I watched it three more times. I knew what Anya was doing. She was sending me a terrible message. In her eyes, this wasn’t over. In her eyes, I’d started a war. I guess this was what happened in middle school when you confessed everything to the principal and you got the meanest photographer you’d ever met demoted in Yearbook. What was I supposed to do now? How did you move forward after you started a war with a brutal eighth grader and you still had to build a yearbook together?

  I decided to solve this problem later and text Venice. Because I wanted to make things normal again with her.

  Me:

  We are not dunzo! Do you think your mom will let you come over?

  Then I stared at my phone forever and waited for a reply. I jumped a little when my mom opened my door, because I wasn’t expecting to see her for a while.

  “I’ve got bad news,” she said.

  And that seemed like a really unfair thing to tell me. Because my whole life had become bad news.

  “Mrs. Garcia called,” she said. “She’s grounded Venice from her phone for a week. So you should stop texting her.”

  I looked down at my own phone.

  “And I’m going to need to take that too,” she said.

  But that didn’t seem right. Just because Venice was grounded from her phone shouldn’t mean that I was grounded from mine.

  “Mom,” I tried to argue.

  But she held her hand out like a crossing guard asking me to stop.

  “You’ve put your dad and me on quite a roller coaster,” she said. “I mean, we’ve gone from the emergency room to detention in no time flat.”

  When my mom summarized everything that had happened, she made my life sound awful. And she didn’t even know about most of it.

  “But I need to fix some things,” I said.

  My mom shook her head. And then I saw my dad enter my room too.

  “Me too,” he said. “Let’s take a bag of gravel and go fix the bare spots in the driveway.”

  It was like my parents weren’t thinking about what I needed. They were only thinking about our yard area.

  “Move it,” my dad said in a serious voice. “We’re burning daylight.”

  I stood up, surrendered my phone, and marched out of my bedroom. My life had become a countdown to detention. I had no idea what to expect when I got to school tomorrow.

  The New Crew

  On the morning I had to go back to school, I felt lucky and unlucky at the same time. Lucky: Glue patch on my cheek was 95 percent gone. Unlucky: Topographic map was getting turned in late. Lucky: My cute winter snowflake sweater was clean and ready to wear. Unlucky: Mitten Man had thrown up on the ankle boots I wore with that sweater. Lucky: I no longer cared about what I wore because my life felt totally ruined, so I decided to wear whatever I touched next. Unlucky: I was holding my orange Hamburg Hoodie.

  When I saw my mom’s phone out at the kitchen table, I really freaked.

  “That thing is way too close to our breakfast!” I said. Because it was basically six inches away from a stack of steaming pancakes.

  And my dad agreed with me. “Considering that phone’s recent plunge, it probably shouldn’t be at the breakfast table.”

  “Exactly,” I said, poking at my pancakes.

  “Are you worried about detention?” my dad asked. “I think you’re the first person in our family to get detention.”

  And that felt like a horrible thing to say to me. Because it meant I was the worst member of our family.

  “I’m worried about everything,” I explained. “I don’t even know if Mr. Falconer will accept my map.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I wrote a note that I want you to give to your Idaho History teacher,” he said. “It outlines our visit to the emergency room and formally requests that he accept your map with no penalty to your grade. I wrote it on my official dental office letterhead.”

  “This is a long letter,” I said, glancing through all five paragraphs.

  “On TRAC your teacher’s late policy states that you must turn in a signed letter on official letterhead from the doctor in order to receive credit for an assignment the day you return to school.”

  I barely remembered reading that. I t
hought that presenting him with my hospital ID wristband would be enough, so after my mom cut it off me, I’d stashed it in my backpack. “Thanks,” I said, carefully folding the letter into a crisp square.

  “If that man gives you any grief about turning in that map late, I want him to call me,” my mom said really energetically. “I’ll tell him what’s what.”

  I did not want my mom talking to any of my teachers and telling them what was what. “I think Dad’s note will work,” I said. Then I pulled myself away from the table and put on my backpack.

  As I walked to school that morning I developed certain expectations about what I would find once I got there. I expected Anya to hate me. And I expected Sabrina and Sailor to feel similarly. I expected Venice to be upset with me, but to possibly still like me. I expected Leo to be suspended. I expected Derby to feel betrayed, but I also expected him to bounce back pretty quickly. He didn’t strike me as the kind of person who held a grudge. And I guess I expected everybody else to be in the dark about things. Because was some weird thing that happened in Yearbook really a big enough deal to upset the entire workings of my middle school?

  It turned out that it was. I knew things were bigger and worse than I’d expected as soon as I got close enough to the school to see the posters. They were everywhere.

  And the weirdest poster of all was one that said:

  As I walked through the school’s front doors I saw signs everywhere. They were all plastered with campaigns for hot stuff. Hot songs. Hot movies. Hot pizza places. And hot students. What was happening? There weren’t too many signs for eighth and seventh graders. I mean, I saw a couple of big ones for Reece and Fletcher. And the one out front for Rocky DeBoom. It was the competition for sixth graders that seemed to be overflowing with candidates.

  It felt a little unreal walking to my locker. Because I couldn’t believe that these signs were approved. But each and every one of them had a red triangle at the bottom that said OFFICE APPROVED. It was so unbelievable.

  I went to my locker and opened it, and about a dozen pieces of paper tumbled out. It took me a second to realize they were notes. I opened up the first one and was stunned by what I saw.

  YOU SUCK! (bare butt + fart cloud)

  Was that a fart cloud?

  I thought maybe that note was left in my locker by mistake. But then I saw on the outside it said:

  For Perry Hall.

  I felt really terrible, standing by my locker, holding a bunch of notes that I was pretty sure all told me I sucked and had obscene drawings on them. I mean, it suddenly felt like the whole school hated me and thought I was a terrible person. How was that possible? Then something really horrible happened. I mean, it was so bad I almost peed myself out of sadness right there in the hallway before the warning bell rang. I recognized Venice’s handwriting on one of the notes. She’d written it with her purple pen. I sniffed the ink to make sure it was hers. And what I smelled broke my heart. Because I’d given her that pen, so I knew exactly what it was supposed to smell like. Fresh wild huckleberries. And it did.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with all the hate notes. As much as I didn’t want to read them, I thought they might contain useful information, so I shoved a few in my pockets and put a couple more inside my Yearbook notebook. Then I carefully removed my map from my backpack before cramming everything else into my locker and slamming the door. I swear I could feel people looking at me. But I didn’t know why they were doing that. It didn’t feel like they were looking at me because I was popular. It felt like they were looking at me because I was a freak. And it felt rotten. I kept my head down and tried to walk as fast as I could toward Yearbook. But I felt somebody bump me and I looked up. It was Rocky DeBoom. He had knocked into me on purpose. He wanted to hand me something.

  “Be a lifesaver. Vote Rocky,” he said, handing me a piece of candy wrapped in plastic.

  And before I could even answer, he was walking down the hallway saying that to somebody else. He sounded like a robot. “Be a lifesaver. Vote Rocky. Be a lifesaver. Vote Rocky.” I shoved the candy into my pocket and kept going. And somebody else came up to me. Sabrina!

  “Are you headed to detention?” she asked, really casually.

  “What?” I said. Because how did she even know about my punishment? “That doesn’t start until lunch.”

  “I can’t believe you guys got a week,” Sabrina said, looking as surprised as I felt.

  And when she said the word guys I worried that Derby was in there too.

  “How many of us got detention?” I asked. Because it seemed like good information to have before I showed up.

  Sabrina’s eyes got big with surprise. “You don’t know?” she asked. “Venice didn’t tell you?”

  And I was tempted to tell Sabrina about Venice being grounded. And me being grounded. But it just didn’t feel like her business. I mean, instead of me telling Sabrina stuff, I felt like she should be telling me stuff.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I was surprised by the sound of my own voice. I mean, it sounded pretty desperate. “Why all these posters? Are we voting as a school for What’s Hot?”

  Sabrina glanced over her shoulder. “Anya will kill me if she sees me talking to you.” She frowned at me really sympathetically and then applied some lip balm. “You should ask Venice. I mean, if she’s still talking to you.”

  And then Sabrina took off very, very fast.

  I decided that instead of looking for Venice, who possibly hated me, I should probably turn in my topographic map. I flipped around and headed to Mr. Falconer’s room.

  As soon as I got there, I saw something surprising, amazing, and disturbing. Derby Esposito. It made me incredibly happy to see that he was sitting exactly where he belonged, right by the windows in his Idaho History classroom. He saw me walk in and he waved. And that wasn’t even the disturbing thing. Derby was dressed in a weird green outfit. It looked like he was trying to be a dragon or something. It was like he’d decided to ignore all the great advice Leo and Venice and I had given him. He looked like a super dweeb in a super-dweeb costume. Also, he was wearing a cardboard sign that said VOTE DERBY. It was crushing. I mean, what happened to Leo’s borrowed jeans? Why wasn’t he emphasizing his cute butt?

  I waved back to him, and felt super deflated. Because if there had been a small chance that somebody would vote for Derby for What’s Hot, it was over now. Because why vote for somebody for the What’s Hot section who wants to be unpopular? I mean, there was nothing hot about dressing like a lizard.

  I saw Mr. Falconer adjusting his Idaho flag at the back of the classroom, and I sheepishly approached him with my map.

  “Sorry this is late,” I said. “I was in the hospital.”

  And then I gathered all my medical evidence, including my hospital bracelet, and tried to hand it to him.

  “I don’t need any of that, Perry,” he said. “Just your map.”

  And that worried me. Because I felt certain that meant I was going to get a huge markdown for turning it in late.

  “Um,” I said. “I have an excused absence. I was in the emergency room.”

  I considered telling him that the map had been glued to my face and had been removed by a doctor, but then I worried he’d inspect it closer for leftover bacitracin and possibly lower my grade. He was that tough.

  “I heard you, Perry,” Mr. Falconer said. “It’s not a problem.”

  But I worried that he meant it wasn’t a problem for him, but getting a lower grade was a problem for me. “But I want full credit.”

  Mr. Falconer quit fiddling with his flag fringe and looked at me. “I’m not going to penalize you if you have a medical reason for not being in class.”

  And that sounded pretty refreshing. Because that was exactly what I had been worried about.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Your map looks great. I’ll need to check it for all the rivers, but based on what I see, it looks like you’re headed toward an A.”

  That was fanta
stic news. It was like Mr. Falconer wasn’t the beast of a grader I thought he was. He was just normal.

  “You’d better get to class,” he said. “You don’t want to be late.”

  But I wasn’t sure he was right.

  I left his room and aimed myself toward Yearbook. I really hoped Venice would be happy to see me.

  Venice was sitting next to Anya and it just looked so weird. I mean, didn’t we all hate one another?

  Ms. Kenny waved for me to come to her desk. I was prepared for the worst.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  And instead of saying something polite I just said the truth. “Stressed.”

  She smiled when I said that and then tilted her head. “Last week was a doozy. For everyone.” And then she touched my arm in a very kind way and said, “Don’t be stressed. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I hadn’t realized Ms. Kenny was such a nice person.

  “There’s been a little bit of a shake-up,” she said. “I feel that the photography team has gotten behind.”

  And I felt like I should defend my team, even though Anya was a part of it. “We’ve met all our goals on the main calendar.”

  Ms. Kenny glanced over at the main calendar. There was a lot more red marker on it than I remembered.

  “We edited it,” she explained. “I think adding a member to your team could amp things up and get you back on track.”

  But what I heard when she said that was that she thought we were failures.

  “Javier is going to join you,” she said.

  “Javier?” I asked. “But he’s on the business side.”

  “Don’t sell Javier short. He’s going to be a tremendous asset.”

  I looked over at Javier. I didn’t like the idea of growing the photography team. I preferred to shrink it. And kick out Anya.