Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (47 page)

“The Hobart,” Margalo answered in an offhand display of knowledge as irritating as Latin quotes. “Isn't the hook beautiful?”

“Beautiful?” Mikey took a few seconds to study it, considering the question. “No.”

“You two—out!” Angie had come in behind them. “Now!” he specified, crowding past them to pull down a wide stainless steel bowl.

They waited for Angie in the alley, standing away from the garbage cans, leaning against an older-model Subaru wagon, from which position they could look back into the busy kitchen. It was a mild May evening, the kind of evening that made you feel you should slow down and just enjoy being where you were, wherever that was.

“Monday's usually pretty quiet,” Margalo said. “Anyway, that's what they tell me.”

“Coach Sandy will be a terrible track coach,” Mikey said. “At least she knows how to play tennis.”

“Maybe knowing she knew so much is what got her into trouble. Maybe thinking she was superior was her problem.”

“Yeah, but she
was
superior. I never said she wasn't a good tennis coach, because she was. And Mr. Elliot doesn't know anything. It'll be like not having any coach at all.”

“You got your wish about Coach Sandy. Almost.”

“It doesn't feel like I won.”

“Neither of us won,” Margalo agreed.

They were silent for a minute, watching the three aproned figures move in and out of their line of sight, thinking. Then they looked at each other, having almost the exact same thought at almost the exact same time. “Yeah, but we came close.”

“What're you two beauties cooking up?” Angie asked as he stepped out the kitchen door. He lit a cigarette.

“You smoke?” Mikey demanded. “In a kitchen?”

“I'm not in a kitchen,” he said, staring at her, exhaling. “You're not one of those crusader do-gooder types, are you?”

Mikey wanted to deny it, on principle, and she wanted to claim it, in the spirit of perversity. So she kept quiet.

This was the response he seemed to want, maybe because it made him think he'd shut her up and won an argument. “So, you want to wash dishes.”

“I want a job,” Mikey corrected.

“You vouching for her?” he asked Margalo.

“No, I just brought her here to waste your time.”

“There speaks the queen of sarcasm,” Angie commented to Mikey. “Are you sarcastic too?”

Mikey thought about that. Then, “No,” she said.

“Okay, then, you're hired,” he said.

This Angie was definitely not like a teacher or a parent. He was a whole new kind of grown-up. “Margalo will train you Saturday. You can cover for her when she's off doing her Steven Spielberg imitation. That's in a couple of weekends, right? After that it'll be summer and we'll be busy, no time off. Do you have a Social Security number? You have to get yourself a Social Security number.”

“Of course I have one, what do you think?”

“I think you told me you aren't sarcastic,” and he grinned at her,
One point for me.
“Did your friend tell you about August?”

Mikey looked at Margalo, who, as far as she could see, didn't know anything about August.

“August is your one-month vacation. Vacation without pay,” Angie told them. “Any problem with that?”

The opposite, Mikey thought, but did not say. She was scheduled for her three-week Texas visit with her mother and Jackson in August, and she wanted to have Margalo with her again, so August off suited her perfectly. But there was no reason to tell Angie this.

Margalo could see that Angie wanted to explain himself, so, “Do you close in August?” she asked.

Angie grinned, another point for him when she asked. “You kidding? That's our best month.” Then, as if he couldn't stop himself, he told them, “I've got a couple of nephews, they fly in from Milan to get the American experience, language. They work here Augusts, where I can keep an eye on them, keep them out of trouble. You know how kids are. Teenagers. Magnets for trouble. Keep 'em busy, keep 'em working, that's my technique with teenagers.”

Mikey and Margalo waited, saying nothing.

“So get out of here, the both of you,” Angie said. “See you Friday at the usual?” he said to Margalo, then, “And you come in with her Saturday afternoon. What's your name?”

“Mikey. Elsinger.”

“Mikey. Be here by noon, Mikey. The rule in my kitchen is, on time or early if you want to still have a job when you get here.” He lit another cigarette, and they left.

Back out on the sidewalk, they passed the restaurant window on their way to meet Steven at his office. A few more tables had been occupied while they were out back. Two waiters were visible, taking orders, serving water and wine. Everybody at the three original tables was eating. Mikey and Margalo did not linger to watch all this. They walked quickly along, their shadows stretched out on the sidewalk ahead of them.

“Do you think we could wait tables?” Mikey asked. “Eventually, I mean.”

“Waiters make good money, although I thought you'd
rather be a sous chef. That was my idea,” Margalo said. “That I'd wait tables and you'd cook.”

“You've got it all worked out,” Mikey observed. “Do you think it'll turn out the way you plan?”

Margalo shrugged. “It
could.
And why not try?”

“Absolutely,” Mikey agreed. “You know . . . ,” she said hesitantly. Then stopped speaking.

Margalo waited for a few steps, until, “Know what?” she asked, irritated—and curious, too, about whatever it was that could make Mikey hesitate.

“He's not like a teacher. Angie.”

“Of course not. He's a boss.”

“This could be fun,” Mikey said.

Margalo thought about that. “This could be work.”

“Work can be fun,” Mikey said, going for the last word.

“
Non sequitur
.”

“Latin.”

That closed the subject.

Mikey opened a new one. “I should have asked you to Katherine's birthday. Next year I will. Do you want to be asked to the little boys' parties too?”

“You know,” Margalo said, “you could take Latin, too. Next year.”

“I'm happy with Spanish. You could take Spanish.”

“Maybe I will,” Margalo decided. “Maybe I'll take two languages.”

“First we have to finish getting through this year,” Mikey reminded her.

“We practically already have. I think we're going to be all right in high school, don't you?”

“Why shouldn't we?” Mikey asked, and answered herself, “No reason. I'm sort of looking forward to college.”

“And after that our whole lives,” Margalo agreed. “Do you think we'll stay friends our whole lives?”

“It would be smart of us if we do.”

“They could put it on our tombstones, ‘Friends From Fifth Grade to Death.' ”

“You're having a tombstone? You're not being cremated?”

“Actually, I was thinking of never dying.” Margalo had never admitted that to anyone before, not even Mikey, so she added, “Is that weird, or what?”

“It's normal,” Mikey declared. “Absolutely normal, just like us.”

They walked on together.

Also by Cynthia Voigt

The Bad Girls Series

Bad Girls

Bad, Badder, Baddest

It's Not Easy Being Bad

Bad Girls In Love

The Tillerman Series

Homecoming

Dicey's Song

The Runner

Come a Stranger

Songs from Afar

Seventeen Against the Dealer

The Kingdom Series

Jackaroo

On Fortune's Wheel

The Wings of a Falcon

Elske

Other Books

Building Blocks

The Callender Papers

David and Jonathan

Izzy Willy-Nilly

Orfe

Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

Tree by Leaf

The Vandemark Mummy

When She Hollers

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by Cynthia Voigt

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Book design by Ann Zeak

The text for this book is set in Janson Text.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Voigt, Cynthia.

Bad girls, bad girls, whatcha gonna do? / Cynthia Voigt.—1st ed.

p.  cm.

Summary: As new ninth graders eager only to survive high school, Mikey and Margalo must deal creatively with stolen money and cheating on the tennis courts.

ISBN 978-0-689-82474-6

ISBN 978-1-4424-8922-6 (eBook)

[1. High schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Bullies-Fiction. 4. Tennis—Fiction. 5. Sports—Corrupt practices—Fiction.] I. Titles.

PZ7.V874Wgm 2006

[Fic]—dc22  2005005547