Stealing Popular (2 page)

“But I—”

“Are you deaf?” Truffle snapped, punching Fawn in the shoulder.

“Whoa!”

Had I said that? I must have, because everyone was staring at me. Clearly, I was no longer mist. I was real. And here. And angry.

“It's her assigned locker,” I said, my fingers tightening around my sketchbook. “Where is she supposed to put her stuff?”

Dijon inspected my jeans, my white T-shirt with its stamped red swirl print, and my red hoodie to confirm my Nobodiness. She leaned toward me. “Anywhere but here.” Her words froze into crystals the moment they hit air. I felt the chill. Dijon slammed the locker door. The sound ricocheted through my head. She calmly spun the dial, then strolled back down the way she had come. As the Royal Court hurried to catch up to her, their heels went
clitter-clap, clitter-clap
against the white-and-green-speckled tiles.

“Do you think she'll put up her beauty board again?” asked Fawn, rubbing her shoulder.

“Yep,” I answered quickly.

Last year Dijon had hung a heart-shaped dry-erase board on the outside of her locker. On it she'd written weekly makeup tips and commands for her royal subjects. She'd scribbled things like, “Wear red on Monday” or “Buy Taffy Joy eye shadow #33.” I confess, like most every girl at Big Mess, I read the board. However, unlike most every girl at Big Mess, I refused to obey it. At that moment I swore an oath to never again so much as glance at Dijon Randle's beauty board.

“Come on,” I said, picking up Fawn's orange backpack by the top loop. “You can share my locker.”

“Don't you have a partner?”

I did. We'd only just met, though her name was familiar. I think we'd had a class together last spring. I didn't know much about her other than she was a Nobody, like me. And she looked like Tinker Bell. Without the gossamer wings and wand, of course.

“Liezel won't mind,” I said.

“Liezel? Liezel Sheppard is your locker partner?”

“Uh-huh.”

Fawn's lips turned up. “No, she wouldn't mind.” The grin faded. “But the rule—”

“Is dumb.”

“If Mrs. Gisborne finds out, you'll get in trouble.”

I lifted my chin. “I live for trouble.”

Fawn groaned, because we both knew that was a humpback whale of a lie. We were Nobodies, and Nobodies always followed the rules—everybody's rules. We hated it. But we did it.

Watching Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court glide away, their grand parade interrupted with a nod to a Sortabody and a faux greeting to a teacher, I began to peel the blue dragonfly sticker off locker 229. Venice and Truffle kept stealing glances at us and trading whispers. Dijon, however, didn't look back. Not once. She merely continued on her way, having all but forgotten our minor intrusion into her glamorous, fabulous world.

I wondered: How had Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court gotten so much power? Had anyone ever defied them? Was it even possible? I didn't have any answers, but wondering, as anybody who's a Nobody will tell you, can lead to all kinds of dangerous thoughts.

With the handing out of class schedules, seasonal joy spread far and wide throughout the kingdom of Big Mess.

Not.

Aunt Iona, my dad's sister, says I can be a little sarcastic.

Nah. I can be
a lot
sarcastic.

I don't know how Fawn and I managed to find Adair in the huge crowd of seventh and eighth graders waiting to get into the gym (sixth graders reported to the cafeteria). But we did. Good thing, too. When the doors opened, the three of us were swept inside along with the wave of bodies. Once in the foyer, I could see through the next set of double doors that the big dividers had been pulled across the center of the gym.

“Seventh grade to the left. Eighth grade to the right!”
shouted Mr. Falkner, our assistant principal. “Parker Silberhagen, what grade are you in?”

“Uh, eighth?”

It was a mystery how he'd gotten that far. The kid had to have help to turn on his phone.

“So where should you be going?”

“Left?”

Mr. Falkner smacked his palm against his forehead. “Try the other left, Parker. Seventh grade to the left, please. Eighth grade to the right. Keep it moving, people.”

Something sharp dug into my spine. “Ouch!” I tried to look back to see what it was, but there were too many people. I was being propelled by the crowd behind me.

“Hold on to me,” said Adair, hooking her elbow through mine.

“Where's your sketchbook?” a worried Fawn shouted from the other side of Adair. I pointed to my backpack.

We found seats in the middle section of the bleachers about halfway up. Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court sat several rows down, close to the main floor. Dijon swung around. Judgmental eyes began scanning the bleachers.

I closed my eyes.
I am mist. I am mist. I am mist.

When I opened them, Dijon was looking at me. So much for magic. Had I forgotten? Or was it gone for good?

I shrank down behind a tall kid in front of me until Dijon turned around.

From the top of the bleachers Parker and his friends, Todd Pishke and Breck Hanover, kept throwing stuff at us.

“Ow.” Fawn reached for the back of her head. “Was that a pebble?”

“Whopper,” I said, kicking the malt ball through the space in the bleachers beneath us.

“Don't look around. It'll only encourage them,” said Adair, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. Adair's long, straight hair was the color of fresh corn on the cob. She looked like she ought to be skipping through a meadow in slow motion for a country music video, but she was so much fun, you forgot to be depressed that she was so gorgeous and you were so . . .

Not.

When the bell finally rang, we had a pep talk from our principal, Dr. Philemina Adams. She said something about this being the best year ever and how proud she was that we were all filled to the brim with St. Bernard
spit. She might have said St. Bernard
spirit
. That makes more sense, doesn't it? Adair, Fawn, and I were too busy whispering to pay attention.

“We'd all better have, at least, two classes together,” hissed Adair.

Fawn and I agreed. Two was our absolute minimum. Last spring I had three classes with Adair and four with Fawn. It was perfect! As Dr. Adams's short pep talk got longer and longer, we began to get restless.

“Do you think she'll finish before lunch?” asked Adair, taking off her denim jacket.

“Not at this rate,” I moaned. I dug out my leather-bound sketchbook from my backpack. I unzipped it, found a fresh page, and started drawing Fawn's profile.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Adair turn the sleeve of her jacket inside out. She smoothed it out on her lap, then popped the cap off a black permanent marker.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Writing my locker combo on the inside of my sleeve,” she said, the cap now between her teeth. “It takes me forever to learn it. This way, I don't have to ever worry about forgetting it.”

“Do you think that's such a good idea?”

“Nobody can see it here. Plus, it's better than looking like a dork digging out my stupid locker card.”

She had a point.

“My lips are so dry, they're about to fall off,” said Fawn. “Does anybody have any lip balm?”

“Nope,” I said. “Hold still. I am doing your nose.”

“Fix the awful dent on the side, please.”

“What do I look like, Photoshop? Besides, it's cute. It makes you
you
.”

“I have plenty of me. I want killer beauty.”

I shook my head. Fawn didn't need my help. She
was
beautiful. Doelike eyes. Pale freckle-free, flawless skin. Delicate nose (with a barely noticeable dimple, not some hideous deformity, as she kept insisting). How could she not see it?

“I might have some lip balm,” said Adair, sliding her arms into her jacket. She reached down for her purse.

“It's not a Rebel kind, is it?” asked Fawn.

“No one in their right mind would buy that goo.”

I grunted. “Oh yeah? My aunt gave me a whole set of Rebel lip gloss for Christmas last year.”

“Ew,” Fawn and Adair said together.

“Did you try all of the flavors?”

“I had to. She kept asking me about them. Movie
Madness was okay. It's a weird, rusty shade of brown, but it tastes good—like caramel corn.”

“Cadence says there's one that tastes like a corn dog,” said Fawn.

“That's Baseball Fever,” I said, using the side of the sharpened pencil to shade Fawn's nose. “The flavor isn't bad, but you look like you have mustard on your lips.”

They squealed.

“That's not the worst one.”

“What could be more horrible than mustard lips?” giggled Fawn.

“Glow-in-the-dark lips,” I shot back. “We're talking neon yellow here. It's called Firefly. It tastes like onions.”

“Ick to the hundredth power.” Adair zipped the top of her purse. “Sorry, Fawn. I must have left it in my PE locker.”

Fawn let out a groan. To get the lip balm, she'd have to get past the office in the locker room shared by Mrs. Notting and Miss Furdy, our PE teachers. They were strict. Not normal strict. Crazy strict. Whenever you made the slightest mistake, Mrs. Notting would put a check mark next to your name on her enormous aluminum clipboard. To the PE teachers, your worth as
a human being was determined by your athletic ability. If you couldn't (or wouldn't) stop a soccer ball with your face, you were swiping perfectly good oxygen from those who could (or would). At my other schools I played basketball and usually got As in PE, but because I wasn't on a Big Mess sports team, I didn't count. It didn't matter that I started at Big Mess
after
basketball season ended.

Dr. Adams was wrapping up her rah-rah speech. Finally! We clapped for her as she left the gym, wondering if we would ever see her the rest of the semester. Principals spend a lot of time in meetings. Or so they tell you. Personally, I think they ditch us to go eat hot wings with the other middle-school principals at Grillin' Gil's BBQ Barn on Route 4. I know that's what
I'd
do.

“Don't forget the plan,” whispered Adair.

Step one: We were to text one another during the break after first period to verify we all had the same lunch. Eating together was nonnegotiable. When you're a Nobody, it's all you've got. Step two: We were to meet in the hall outside the cafeteria as soon as possible after third period (or fourth, depending on which lunch we had), so we could proceed to step three: claiming our lunch table. Choosing a table was critical because
whatever you got on that first day of school, you'd be stuck with for the rest of the year. It was a delicate process. You didn't want to be within Tater-Tots-tossing range of the Somebodies, but you also didn't want to be in the boonies where you'd have to humor Mr. Quigley, our lunchroom monitor. He had a foldout wallet with 187 pictures of his tuxedo cat, Clawed Monet.

“What if we don't have any classes together?” gulped Fawn. “What if we don't even have lunch together?”

“We can't think that way,” I said, closing my sketchbook. “Positive thoughts, everybody.”

“Positive thoughts,” affirmed my two best friends.

What else could we do? We were three Nobodies treading water in the vast, stormy ocean of middle school. The best we could do was hold on to one another, kick like mad, and pray for a miracle. If the sharks got us, well, they got us.

Wearing a prune-colored polyester pantsuit and matching low-heeled pumps, Mrs. Gisborne clomped across the gym floor. Her chubby hands reached to turn on the microphone.

In a voice thinner than a tulip petal, Fawn said, “Here we go.”

“Waffles is crooked again,” said Adair.

Nobody knew for sure why Mrs. Gisborne wore a poofy wiglet on top of her head. She had plenty of hair. Her wiglet looked like something you'd pull out of your shower drain. People were forever gossiping about it. Some kids said it was to cover a stress-related, eighth-grader-induced bald spot. Dewey Parnell said she was using it to smuggle sticky notes and other office supplies home. But I doubted that. Mrs. Gisborne was too nice for that. We named it Waffles. The wiglet, I mean. Adair once said the big tuft of hair reminded her of her grandma's dog, Waffles, and it stuck. Today Waffles was attached to Mrs. Gisborne's scalp with three pastel pink butterfly hair clips. Each butterfly had two long, bouncy, metal antennae.

“Once you receive your schedule, you must immediately exit the gym and report to your first-period class,”
said Mrs. Gisborne, her butterfly antennae waving at us. “No dilly-dallying. No waiting for your friends. No stopping at your locker.”

It looked like Fawn wasn't going to be able to get Adair's lip balm, after all.

While another counselor, Mr. Rottle, stood nearby to hand out the schedule cards, Mrs. Gisborne began reading the names from her alphabetized list. “Abbott, James. Ackerman, Shaelynn. Adler, Kendra . . .”

I felt a bonk on the back of my head. Despite Adair's advice, I had to swing around. At the top of the bleachers Todd and Parker were snickering. A grinning Breck made his eyebrows dance. I pulled my hood over my left shoulder, fished out the Whopper trapped inside, and popped the malt ball into my mouth.

Take that, boys!

Soon Mrs. Gisborne called, “Clarke, Adair.”

Adair squished past us to reach the aisle. “Stay strong. Text you soon.”

Fawn, being an
R
, was the next to go. When her name was called, she gave me a weak smile, tucked her magenta streak behind her ear, and got up. Something fell to the floor. I reached down. It was Fawn's locker
assignment card. I called out to her, but she was already halfway down the steps. I tucked the card inside my backpack to give to her later.