I don’t think I had shouted at him like that since I was much, much younger. And that had been little-kid shouting, not like this.
After a long, long moment, he said, “Fine. Stay right here on that bench. Don’t move.”
He was still treating me like a little kid. Horrified that I had shouted at my dad, and angry that he wouldn’t listen, I walked stiffly to the bench and sat down.
Dad and Sharon approached the house. Although I wasn’t sure, I thought Sharon gave me a sympathetic glance as they walked through the door.
At each of the last two houses, I waited outside. My feet weren’t hurting as badly anymore, but I didn’t want to spend any more time with my father.
Sharon kept up a bright conversation on the trip back to Stoneybrook. Dad and I tried to avoid speaking to each other, even when we stopped to pick up a pizza for an early dinner.
When we got home, I ate one piece of pizza, then went to my room and stayed there.
Late that night as I drifted uneasily toward sleep, dreading another nightmare and feeling awful about the day, I heard the murmur of my dad and Sharon talking in their bedroom.
I turned over, turned again, sat up, thumped my pillow, and stopped as I caught the sound of my name: “… mumble, mumble, Mary Anne …”
I put my ear to the wall. My father’s voice went on. “I don’t know what’s come over her, Sharon. She’s so moody. Everything I say is wrong. I can’t do anything right.”
“She’s a thirteen-year-old girl, Richard. Moodiness is expected. You should have seen me when I was thirteen.”
Good old Sharon, I thought.
My father said, “It’s like I hardly know her. I can’t believe she’s my own little Mary Anne sometimes.”
Little. I’m not little, I thought. I thumped my pillow and lay down again, angry once more. I wasn’t anybody’s little girl.
The new Mary Anne had finally arrived.
I had planned to walk to school with Claudia on Monday morning. As I was leaving, my father said, “You’re walking to school by yourself?”
“With Claudia,” I said. “I’m meeting her outside her house.”
“Oh.”
I had a feeling that he was peering out the window at me until Claudia came running down her front steps to join me.
I didn’t look back, though.
Claudia looked as fabulous as ever. She was wearing wide-legged purple pants cut off at the ankle, flat black shoes, striped socks (purple and white), and a white cropped top over a purple camisole. She’d pulled her hair back with papier-mâché decorated combs that she’d created herself: two little figures were holding on to the combs as if they were being blown backward. It was pretty funny. And very creative.
I felt kind of dull in my jeans and sweater. But I had to admit that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t pull off Claudia’s look. It was unique.
“Definitely Best Artist,” I said, surveying her outfit.
“You think?” she said, slinging her (hand-painted) canvas bag over her shoulder. “It’d be nice. Probably impress my parents. Not as much as good grades, of course, but …”
Claudia was trying to be cool and uninterested about the possibility of being elected Best Artist, but I could tell she was thrilled by the idea.
I wondered how it would feel to be considered an automatic candidate for best anything.
As we walked up the front steps to SMS, heads turned in our direction.
“You see,” I said. “People are saying ‘There’s Claudia Kishi, Best Artist.’ ”
Claudia laughed. More heads turned.
Several pairs of heads drew closer together and I could tell people were talking about us.
Claudia stopped smiling. She looked puzzled. “Somehow,” she said, “I think they’re talking about us. But not in a good way, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” I said as several more heads turned our way and someone giggled and then stopped abruptly, as if she’d had to clap her hand over her mouth.
We walked in the front door and almost collided with Stacey.
“Whoa,” Claudia said. She shook her head. “Running in the hall is a very serious infraction of the rules, young lady….”
Stacey ignored her. “Never mind that. Have you heard what they’re saying? No, I can tell you haven’t.”
“What?” asked Claudia.
Stacey looked at me. “Over here,” she said, and pulled us into a corner that was out of sight of most of the students coming in.
“I heard it from Pete Black,” Stacey said. “He heard it from Austin, who heard it from Grace Blume.”
“What? What?” Claudia practically screamed.
“They’re saying that Mary Anne begged Logan to take her back and he said no. He told her he was in love with someone else. He wouldn’t tell her who it was …”
“No way!” Claudia’s voice rose in outrage.
My mouth had dropped open. I couldn’t seem to force any words out.
Stacey went on. “And when you heard that, Mary Anne, you became totally deranged and wrote Logan dozens of e-mails and left him a gazillion desperate messages…. In fact, it was so bad that his parents are thinking of getting a new, unlisted number.”
I found my voice. But all I could manage to say was, “Who would make up such a stupid story?”
“Well, considering that Grace is Cokie’s puppet, I think the culprit is pretty clear,” Claudia said.
“It’s not true. Not one single word of it,” I said.
“Of course not,” said Stacey. “But the question is, what are you going to do about it?”
The warning bell rang.
We stepped out into the hall. I stayed between Claudia and Stacey, feeling very exposed.
And then I saw Logan.
I stopped. He stopped. My face turned seven shades of embarrassment-red.
Logan had clearly heard the story too. He ducked his head, turned, and walked rapidly away from us.
I sagged against Claudia’s shoulder. I felt beaten. I wanted to cry. Tears stung my eyes.
But I kept them back by thinking about how good Cokie would feel if I started crying in front of everybody.
Kristy barreled up to us. Her face was livid. “She’s a vicious pig, Mary Anne. And that’s the nicest thing I can say about her.”
I kept my lips pressed together and blinked back the tears.
Not noticing, Kristy continued. “Revenge. Revenge is the only solution. You’ve been nice too long. We’ve all been. Being nice to subhuman specimens like Cokie just allows them to be meaner. Someone’s got to stop her.”
“Sounds good,” I managed to say.
Kristy pounded her fist into her hand. “She’s going to be sorry she was ever born.”
“Sounds even better,” Stacey put in.
The second bell rang. We headed for homeroom.
I was so upset, I’d forgotten about the Most and Best election until our teacher started handing out the ballots. I looked down at mine and hoped that Cokie wouldn’t be elected anything. Then I picked up my pen and voted for Claudia as Best Artist, Stacey as Class Style Setter (female), Abby for Best Athlete (female), Logan for Best Athlete (male), Cary Retlin as Most Likely to Travel to the Moon, and Kristy as Most Likely to Be Elected President.
The teacher took our ballots and handed them over to Cokie, who was collecting them with Rick Chow. It was a typical Cokie division of labor. She got to swoop around the halls, smiling and waving and collecting the ballots, while the features staff — namely me, Austin, and Abby — got to stay after school to count them.
Cokie’s eyes met mine as she took the ballot box from our teacher. She smiled a big, evil grin.
I remained calm, even though Cokie’s expression had just told me everything I needed to know.
Cokie had definitely been the one to start the rumor.
I spent my next class making a list of revenge possibilities. Trying to get Cokie kicked out of school seemed a little extreme
, so I left that off. But I did come up with:
Put glue in her locker lock.
Glue her books to her locker floor.
Put glue in her gym shoes.
Put a dead rat in her pack.
Put two dead rats in her pack.
Give her a piece of laxative gum.
Of course, I didn’t know where I would find one dead rat, let alone two, and I knew I’d never touch one if I did. I wasn’t sure how I could get into Cokie’s locker. And if Cokie had any sense, she’d never accept a piece of gum from me.
But glue in her gym shoes had some potential, I thought.
At lunch Kristy flourished a piece of paper at us and said, “Guess what this is.”
Claudia tilted her head, trying to read the page. “Answers to a test?”
“No. A list of ways to get revenge on Cokie.”
“You’re kidding. Kristy, I made a list too!” I pulled out my notebook, flipped it open, and showed her the page.
“Excellent. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Kristy’s read:
Call Cokie, convince her she won the lottery, then tell her the truth after she’s made an even bigger fool of herself.
Drop a snail in her water at lunch when she’s not looking.
Write fake letters to the Love Advice column in the Stoneybrook newspaper and sign her name.
Write fake letters from Logan to her.
Hide her homework.
“Well, you both have good stuff here,” said Stacey. “But I think some of it is too complicated.”
“And some of it is too childish,” I said.
“You’re right,” said Kristy. “But this was a spur-of-the-moment list. With thought and planning, I’m sure we can have Cokie regretting all her evil ways.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“We’ll pursue this further,” Kristy promised. She raised a forkful of salad and inspected it. “Hmmm. Unappetizing, brown at the edges, and soaked in a salad dressing that looks like an oil slick … I’m sure we’ll find inspiration everywhere for getting back at Cokie.”
I lifted a forkful of salad. “Revenge,” I said solemnly.
“Revenge,” Kristy, Claudia, and Stacey repeated.
Now all we needed was a foolproof plan.
Feeling slightly better, maybe even cheered a little by thoughts of revenge (put gum in her hair — no, put glue in her hair) as I walked toward the yearbook office after school, I practically ran into Logan before I saw him.
I stopped. Thoughts of revenge fled. All thoughts fled. I blushed and began to turn away.
“Mary Anne,” Logan said. “Wait.”
Slowly, I turned around to face him. “What?”
“I’m on my way to baseball practice.”
“I know.” I would have known even if he hadn’t had his gear with him. I knew Logan’s schedule.
“Yeah, I guess you do.” He managed a sort of twisted smile. “Listen, could we talk for a minute?”
“Now? I’m on my way to —”
“The yearbook office. I know.” He paused. “This won’t take long.”
I leaned against a locker. “Okay,” I said.
Logan didn’t put a hand on the locker next to my shoulder as he’d done when we were going out. He fiddled with his glove.
“I heard the rumors that are going around,” he began.
“Me too,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know that. But I want you to know that I’m telling everybody what a pack of lies it is. And I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
My throat tightened. Logan, even though he wasn’t my Logan anymore, was just as kind and sweet as ever.
“I’m fine, thanks. Kristy and everyone have been there for me.” The thought of the lists Kristy and I made eased the tightness in my throat somewhat.
“I thought they might have. Good.”
I straightened up. “You’re okay too?”
Logan nodded.
“Well, thanks for asking,” I said, preparing to leave.
“Wait,” he said. “There’s one more thing. That huge lie had one sort of true thing in it….”
I knew what he was going to say before he even said it.
“There is someone else….”
My heart almost stopped. Not Cokie, I prayed.
“It’s Dorianne Wallingford…. Mary Anne, are you sure you’re okay?” A worried crease appeared between Logan’s eyebrows.
I realized I’d sagged against the lockers — in relief at hearing Dorianne’s name. I straightened again. “Dorianne’s nice,” I managed to say.
“I’m not sure if it’s friendship or what,” Logan said. “It’s too soon, I guess. But we’ve been hanging out lately and I just wanted to let you know.”
I felt my heart squeeze. Logan was interested in someone else. Of course, he was free to do whatever he wanted. But it made me feel sad. Somehow I managed to say, “Logan, I’ll always care about you, and I think this is a good thing. I hope it works out.”
“Yeah?” Logan peered at me. “Really?”
“Really,” my voice said without a quiver. My lips smiled. “Thanks for telling me. And I’m glad we talked.”
“Me too,” said Logan.
“Well, I’ve got to go. We have to count those ballots, you know.” My voice sounded a little too peppy to me, but Logan didn’t seem to notice.
“See you around,” he said.
“See you,” I murmured.
I walked toward the office. I listened to his foot-steps retreat down the hall. Just before I turned the corner, I looked over my shoulder and watched until Logan was out of sight.
That’s that, I thought, and zombie-walked the rest of the way to the yearbook office. I took a deep breath, put on a neutral expression, and entered the room.
Austin and Abby were sitting at the table, boxes stacked in front of them. “There you are,” said Austin. “Come on, start counting.”
I dropped my pack on the floor and sat down. I pulled a ballot box toward me — and realized that Cokie was in the room too. She came out from one of the computer stations and said, “You’re late, Mary Anne.”
I felt Abby’s scrutiny. My neutral expression hadn’t been as neutral as I’d thought. Clearly some misery was showing on my face.
Cokie saw it too. I swear I saw her eyes light up. “Are you all right, Mary Anne?” she asked with fake concern.
“I’m fine, thank you.” My hands fluttered uselessly among the slips of paper.
“You certainly don’t look it,” Cokie purred. “You look awful.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt my eyes blaze with rage. I stood up and faced Cokie. “Well, it takes one to know one, doesn’t it, Cokie? And you of all people ought to know about awful, because in my opinion, when they were handing out awful, you were first in line.”
Cokie actually took a step back.
Austin scooted his chair a little away from the table, as if he were afraid we were going to start throwing things.
Abby said, “Mary Anne?”
Without another word, Cokie whirled around and stomped out of the office.
Austin said, “Wow, Mary Anne. You don’t hear someone talking like that to Cokie every day.”
“No,” I said. I was shaking. I’d stood up for myself. Literally. I sat down again.
“Impressive,” said Abby. “I’d say you just won a major battle. Wait till I tell everyone that Mary Anne Spier silenced Cokie Mason!”
“Thank you,” I said.
I’d won the battle. But I wasn’t sure about the war. Cokie would strike back. I was sure of that.
But this time I’d be prepared.
As we counted the Most and Best votes, my hands gradually stopped shaking. I found it soothing to sort the votes into boxes. As soon as we finished sorting all the votes by category, we would begin to count them.
The yearbook office seemed a little busie
r than usual. Staffers drifted in and out. I got some interested glances, and my cheeks burned as I remembered the spiteful rumor Cokie had spread about me. But it soon became apparent that people were, for the moment, more interested in how the vote count was going.
As we’d agreed before we started counting, we just smiled and shook our heads when people asked us who was winning.
“Not yet,” Austin would say.
“It’s not fair to say anything until we’re finished,” Abby would add.
I’d nod, keeping my head down. Cokie didn’t reappear, but I was aware of Grace in hover mode until Abby said, sharply, “Are you trying to look over my shoulder, Grace? Because in a classroom, that would be called cheating.”
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” Grace whined, but she moved away to sit down at one of the computer terminals.
When we were about halfway through the count, a terrible truth began to dawn on me. Cokie’s campaign to be elected everything seemed to be working. Not only that, but her less-than-lovely crowd of friends was racking up the votes too. When we’d finished, Katie Shea, a Cokie puppet who has less talent in her whole body than Claudia has in her little finger, beat Claudia for Best Artist. Cokie, whose fashion sense consists of spending as much money as possible on clothes, edged Stacey out for Class Style Setter. Not only that, she was voted Most Likely to Succeed — over Emily Bernstein — by four votes.
And she swept the Biggest Flirt Category.
We finished the count in stunned silence.
Abby looked across at me. “How can this be?” she demanded.
“We need to recount, of course,” said Austin. “We should all take different categories.”
Grace chose that moment to pop up. “Who won?” she asked.
“Nobody yet,” Abby said grimly. “Go away.”
Grace opened her mouth. Abby shot her a Look. Grace got the message and went back to the computer.
We counted again. Twice. We got the same results each time.
Then I realized something.
“Hey,” I said, “you know what? My ballot isn’t in here.”
“How do you know?” Austin asked.
“Well, I didn’t see anything with my handwriting or with my votes. But more than that, I used my green pen, and not a single ballot I’ve seen is written in green.”