It's Not Easy Being Bad (18 page)

“Okay, then, what else are you thinking of?” Mikey asked. She had no trouble letting Margalo be boss of this. “For your revenge.”

“What revenge?” Margalo asked.

At that point, Cassie interrupted. “You aren't going to let Heather get away with this, are you?” She stepped right in between them, said, “You're Mikey. You make those cookies. I'm Cassie,” then turned back to Margalo, her dark eyes dramatic. “We can protest, with signs, with slogans.
Poor and proud of it. Paupers are people, too.
You can count on me,” Cassie said, and dashed off.

“Who
are
these people?” Mikey demanded. “You're making too many friends,” she accused Margalo, but Margalo was accepting a copy of a paperback book from one of the preppies, a thick book with its pages
fanned out the way paperbacks get when they've been read over and over.
The Fellowship of the Ring.

“I thought you'd like to borrow this. It's my own copy,” the girl said, her short brown hair in loose curls, probably natural. Then she was called away and ran down the hall, the sweater she wore tied around her neck swaying on her back.

Mikey reclaimed Margalo's attention by asking, “What are you going to do about Heather?” but Frannie Arenberg stepped up before Margalo could answer.

“I never think it means anything how much money someone has,” Frannie told Margalo and Mikey. “Do you? I don't think money's anything more than another difference, like your religion, or race.”

“We're not the ones who don't know that,” Margalo answered.

Nobody even noticed Mikey. Except Cassie had. Cassie might be okay, Mikey thought.

“I already told Heather,” Frannie said.

“You
did?”

“Of course, why shouldn't I? See you at lunch?” and she ran off.

“I guess you've got some plan all worked out,” Mikey said. “So what is it?”

“I plan to ignore it. Pretend it never happened.”

“Right,” Mikey said. “Sure. I guess that's why you're wearing the sweater again. And probably all the rest of the school year, too, every day. To ignore it.”

Margalo smiled. “Otherwise, how will Heather know I don't care? Besides, what else can I do, Mikey? I mean, she's right. I bought this sweater at the New-to-You. It's something her mother threw out. Those things are true, and I can't think of any useful lie to tell about them, not any lie that anyone would begin to believe.”

“But—” Mikey said, but Margalo shook her head.

“You're not going to do anything?” Mikey asked.

Margalo nodded her head, then admitted, “I felt so—bad—yesterday.”

“Nobody could tell,” Mikey assured her.

“With people talking about feeling sorry for me, I felt like—”

“Not me,” Mikey said.

“Like I was all shriveled up. I wanted to blow away on some wind, and never have to see anybody I knew ever again.” Margalo stopped speaking. Thought. Added, “Except you. You don't feel sorry for me.”

“Nope,” Mikey agreed. Then, to be honest, she added, “Except about being so tall, and bad at math. And caring about what people think,” she added.

“That's better than never listening to anybody,” Margalo snapped back.

Mikey was so glad to have Margalo back snapping back at her, she couldn't keep up the quarrel. She tried to explain. “I
know
you want to be popular. In fact, I
want
you to be. The more popular you are, the better I look, because I'm your friend. You know that's true, Margalo. And what's so funny?”

Margalo shook her head, trying not to laugh.

Mikey got back to the point. “So you're just going to let Heather get away with it?”

Now Margalo smiled, practically the Mona Lisa. “Do you think she's getting away with it?” Then she got serious. “I thought about it, and all I can do to her is—you know what they say? Living well is the best revenge.”

Mikey stuck her tongue out at Margalo. She'd been looking forward to hearing some great plan of Margalo's, for one thing, and for another, whether Margalo wanted to do anything about it or not, Heather
had
tried to humiliate her. So it looked like Mikey was just going to have to take care of Heather on her own.

“Don't you do anything, either,” Margalo told Mikey.

As it happened, Heather McGinty, in the midst of her clique, was coming down the hallway in their
direction, giggling and talking, her pleated skirt swishing around just above her knees. She made a point of not staring at Mikey and Margalo, although she pointed her face in their direction so they'd be afraid she
might
be staring.

“Okay,” Mikey said, soft, out of the side of her mouth. She was looking right at Heather McGinty. “Okay, I won't
do
anything,” she said, giving Margalo her word, giving Heather McGinty the kind of look an
If-looks-could-kill
look was named after.

Heather McGinty walked a little faster and found her path down the hallway veering away from the two girls standing by their lockers, one of them short and round and dressed in dumpy cargo jeans, with a baggy gray T-shirt and staring in a not-at-all-nice way; the other tall and skinny, and wearing that same thrift shop sweater.

(Wearing the same sweater? How could she dare to do that?

Maybe she hadn't heard the story, yet.

But then why was Mikey staring like that, like some Doberman pincher about to attack?)

Heather McGinty did not look back over her shoulder as she hustled down the hall.

By lunchtime, Heather was convinced that Mikey
was
going to attack her, and maybe beat her up. Although Mikey hadn't done anything. Just smiled.

Mikey didn't need to do anything but smile.

So that when Heather approached her table, lunch tray in her hands, and saw Mikey standing nearby, smiling at her, she put the tray down quickly.

Mikey didn't move. True to her word, she didn't do anything. But Heather found she had to go to the bathroom, and when she came back, Mikey must have finished her lunch because there she was, standing by the doorway. It looked like Mikey was waiting for someone, probably Margalo, because the two of them were practically inseparable. Mikey looked at Heather McGinty, and smiled, and Heather decided maybe she wasn't hungry. Since she wasn't hungry, Heather decided to skip lunch. Since she was skipping lunch, she didn't need to go into the cafeteria after all.

Too often, that Thursday, where Heather wanted to go, Mikey blocked her way. “She's not doing anything,” Heather's friends pointed out, but nobody had ever looked at Heather like that. “And sometimes she smiles,” Heather said.

“Just stay away from her,” they advised. Privately, they thought Heather deserved what she was getting.

“She's stalking me!” Heather cried.

Friday morning, Mikey and Margalo brought in six shoe boxes of chocolate chip cookies in two shopping bags. They followed the same marketing plan, leaving one bag with Mrs. Chambers, setting two boxes under the bake sale table, and leaving one out on top. There was no reason to make changes in a successful strategy, Mikey said. Margalo wore her La Scala sweater again, this time over her long, black skirt.

On her way to the cafeteria for lunch, Margalo lifted the cloth that covered the bake sale table and took a peek underneath, to see that even the third
ME
shoe box was gone. “Margalo. Hihowareyou?” Annie Piers called to her, from her seat behind the table. Annie leaned around a couple of customers to ask, “Can you help out here? Heather never showed, if you can believe it.” So Margalo guessed she knew where Mikey was. She took a seat behind the table and told people, no, there weren't any more of Mikey's chocolate chips, and asked them why didn't they try one of the brownies instead. “Will there be more of Mikey's cookies later? Like last week?” they asked, and she smiled, not saying yes and not saying no.

The anti-Heather campaign continued the next week, through Monday and into Tuesday. Margalo
continued to wear the La Scala sweater, and Mikey kept on doing nothing to Heather. On Tuesday, Heather had actually entered the cafeteria, and joined the line, not noticing Mikey crouched beside the table where the jockettes ate. Then Mikey rose up.

Mikey didn't say anything, and she didn't rush, either. In fact, she moved so slowly, one foot in front of the other, that Heather had plenty of time to wonder what was going to happen, and start getting dancey feet where she was standing in line, crowded in by people.

Mikey approached.

Heather backed away, just a little.

Mikey kept coming.

Heather knew that if she fled, people would laugh at her. So she tried to stay where she was, standing in line.

But Mikey was moving steadily closer, like some glacier, silent and unstoppable. Her eyes never left Heather's face. Her grim smile never faltered.

Heather backed up against the utensil rack. “C'mon, Mikey,” she said. “Cut it out,” she said.

Mikey didn't say one word. Her hands were in her pockets, but there was something about her shoulders . . . She wasn't doing anything, but she might,
any minute, start doing something. Something that made her smile to think about, an
If-you-think-it's-bad-now-wait-till-you-see-what's-next
smile.

Heather's hands were in front of her, and her backside was jammed up against the metal rack that held silverware. There was nowhere else for her to go, and Mikey was still getting closer.

Until a large, coppery brown hand fell down on Mikey's shoulder. But even that didn't stop Mikey—who was concentrating harder than she did for anything, except tennis—until a matching large hand fell on the back of her neck, ready to squeeze, and Mr. Saunders said, “Come with me, Mikey.”

“H
e's not worried about me getting pregnant anymore,” Mikey announced with satisfaction.

They were bouncing along homeward on the activities bus. Margalo had had to wait through three afternoon classes and a basketball practice to hear what the principal had said to Mikey. And even now she was having trouble keeping Mikey's attention focused. Mikey kept wanting to talk about basketball. “But I think I know what you have to do on free throws.”

“What did he
say?
” Margalo asked, for about the hundredth time. “You were in there for over an hour.”

“Most of the time I was waiting outside his office. It's a matter of attitude,” Mikey said.

“That's what he said?”

“No, for free throws, mental attitude. Oh, all right,” Mikey said as Margalo groaned her frustration. “Since you can't seem to think about anything else. I got called in—
finally
—and I can tell you, I was tired of Mrs. Chambers giving me the fish eye. It turns out, Mrs. McGinty called up to complain. That's one of the things Mr. Saunders said.”

“Why do parents do that?”

“If Heather was your daughter, wouldn't you want to call up somebody—anybody?—and complain?”

“And she's a snitch, too.”

“Crikey, Margalo. Who did you think she was?” But Mikey couldn't think of any girl or woman courageous, quick-witted, and loyal enough to be the shining example of what Heather McGinty wasn't. She started to grouse at Margalo about that. “Do you realize that there's no girl—”

Margalo couldn't be diverted from this one subject. “What's your punishment?” she asked. “Because I'll help with it. Since it's sort of my fault.”

“No punishment.”

That shut Margalo up, but only temporarily. Mikey had barely begun telling Margalo her new technique for free throws, when Margalo turned away from the window to interrupt, again. “If he's
not worried about your teen pregnancy anymore, what
is
he worried about?

“He's worried I'm a terrorist.”

“Not really.”

“Not really, and not right now, but—that maybe I might turn into one.”

“Well, I can see why he'd think of that, but I don't agree. What did you say?”

“I told him”—Mikey smiled a
You're-going-to-love-this
smile—“I'm not a terrorist, I'm an entrepreneur.' ”

Margalo waited a few seconds before asking, “And what did he say to that?” This was like pulling teeth, getting information. “C'mon, Mikey, what's with you? Just
tell.”

“He said, I was a wise guy. I said, I was just telling the truth. He said, sarcastic, how did I define entrepreneur, and I said—I was very polite, a lot more polite than he was—I defined entrepreneur as someone who tried to create new businesses, and make a lot of money.”

Mikey stopped.

Margalo waited, then asked again, “And he said?”

Mikey sighed, but Margalo didn't believe that sigh for one second. “He said, he didn't see much
opportunity for new businesses in the seventh grade. And I said”—Mikey beat Margalo to the question—“that was because he wasn't an entrepreneur.”

She allowed herself a
Game-set-match
smile.

Margalo grinned right back at her. “So you're not in trouble?”

“Oh, that. Not exactly. He said, ‘This has to cease and desist. Is that understood?' ” Mikey reported this last in a deep, mock-principal voice. “If I don't, he said, he'll have me pinned to the mat before I know what the name of the game is. I think he forgot he was dealing with a girl,” Mikey announced. “So I said, just as nice as Frannie, ‘Okay, I will.' And he waited a couple of minutes, sort of looking stem at me across his desk, before he told me I could go. End of story.”

“Are you going to cease and desist?” Margalo asked.

“This was already going to be the last day,” Mikey told her. “I figured, in four days I would have done all the damage I could.”