Stealing Popular Read online

  For once I was grateful for his big mouth. It gave me a minute to fill my lungs. But soon there was silence again, and all eyes were on me. Hundreds of eyes. On me.

  I cleared my throat. Steadied my hands. Locked my knees. And gave myself a little pep talk.

  This is your moment to show them you are so much more than they think you are. Start, Coco. Just start.

  So I did.

  “People are always telling us that we aren’t supposed to judge others,” I said into the microphone. “But let’s face it, that’s what we do. Right or wrong, we judge people.” I tilted my head to look at the board members. I looked into Mrs. Randle’s eyes. “Is she beautiful?” I shifted to look at Miss Furdy. “Does she look good in a cheerleading uniform?” This last one was for Coach Notting. Clutching the podium, I took a breath—the deepest, longest breath of my life—and said, strongly and purely, “Is she popular?”

  Coach Notting’s head snapped around. I felt her gaze burn into me, but I was determined to keep going.

  “My mural design is a collage of twenty-two intertwining faces—one face for each year of our school. I hope my artwork will be a reminder—we don’t have to be pretty, petite, or popular. We just have to be ourselves.” I pushed myself away from the podium. “Some of my faces are content. Some are miserable. Some are thoughtful. Some are thoughtless. Some are hopeful—”

  “Yes, we get it, dear,” Mrs. Randle’s stern voice filled the room. “Let’s see the design.”

  “Well, I . . . I mean, I had meant to . . .” I crumpled the page. I could not show them this. It was a rough outline of a few faces and some winding vines. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking helplessly at Mr. Tanori. “I don’t have it. I don’t have the drawing.”

  As if feeling my own agony, the microphone screamed. Everyone covered their ears until the feedback died away.

  “This is ridiculous,” boomed Mrs. Randle. “We can’t vote on a design we haven’t seen.”

  Mr. Tanori was bounding up the steps. “Coco, what happened?”

  “I left my sketchbook in my aunt’s car,” I blubbered. “I didn’t realize it until it was too late. I thought I could do a new drawing while everybody was talking, but”—I opened my fist—“there wasn’t time.”

  He rubbed his temple. “Okay, let’s see if we can postpone the vote until—”

  “Mr. Tanori,” clipped Mrs. Randle, “do you have an alternate design?”

  My teacher adjusted his tie. “Well, no. We hadn’t planned on—”

  “I believe my daughter’s artwork came in second place, did it not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Why don’t we take a look at the alternate mural design.” She snapped her fingers. “Dijon, darling!”

  All heads swung to the middle of the room. Funny how everyone, even the adults, knew exactly where Dijon was. With her arm curled around the big cardboard tube, Dijon made her way to the stage. Now I understood. Dijon’s alien dog poster was inside the tube. Mrs. Randle had planned to shoot down my idea so Dijon could present hers to the PTA—not that she’d needed to. I had done it for her. Beautifully. Perfectly. I had walked right into this trap all by myself.

  Flipping her hair back, Dijon pranced up the steps, as if she had all the time in the world. And didn’t she? This was her kingdom, after all.

  It was over.

  A Nobody now and forever, I surrendered.

  I moved back, giving her a path to the podium. What choice did I have?

  Her Fabulousness gently set the tube on the floor. Instead of turning toward the audience, however, Dijon faced me. She held out her arm. What was she doing? Was she making fun of us? She had won. Wasn’t that enough? No, of course it wasn’t. Winning wasn’t enough for a Somebody. They needed you to publicly admit you’d lost. They had to make sure everybody heard you confess it. Only then would their victory be complete.

  Fingers pressing into my spine made me stumble forward, and I saw something I never thought I’d see. Not here. And certainly not from her. In misty blues and greens, peering out from between winding tendrils and leaves, were Liezel’s eyes and Fawn’s profile and Adair’s dimples. They were smaller than I remembered, but they were there—all of my faces—staring out at me from, of all places, Dijon’s phone.

  I couldn’t believe it. Her Fabulousness was going to steal my idea and pretend it was her own!

  Twenty-Four

  Flames tore through my rib cage. I swallowed bitter liquid. I was going to throw up.

  I put a hand over my mouth and turned to run. My eyes found Renata’s, and, in that instant, I knew I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t let it happen.

  I couldn’t let Her Fabulousness take one more thing away from us. Not again. Not this. If I wanted my wall, I was going to have to stay. And fight every Somebody who got in my way. Even if it meant hurling fish sticks and fruit salad all over the stage.

  Ignoring my gurgling stomach, I swung back around. “No,” I said, dropping my hand. “No. No. NO!” With each word I grew less afraid. And more visible.

  “Why not?” Dijon looked confused. “Don’t you want everybody to see your design?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then take it,” she said, wiggling her cell phone. “Take it and show them, Coco.”

  I couldn’t move.

  So Adair—brave Adair—reached for the phone.

  “You okay?” Renata was beside me.

  “Give me a sec,” I heard myself say, because I needed time to process what had just occurred. So Dijon Randle, Her Fabulousness of the Supreme Royal Court at Big Mess, had come up onstage not to humiliate me, but to help me?

  She wasn’t going to steal my idea, after all?

  As I stood motionless, Adair, Renata, Dijon, Mr. Tanori, and Miss Grace buzzed around me. In less than a minute the photograph of my artwork went from Dijon’s phone to Mr. Tanori’s laptop to the document camera to the big screen.

  Poof!

  When the design came up on the screen, the audience began to nod and clap.

  “How lovely,” said Mrs. Gisborne. Waffles tipped slightly as our head counselor looked up at the screen.

  “It’s quite ethereal, Coco,” said Mr. Wasserman.

  “Acceptable work, Sherwood,” said Coach Notting.

  What? No insult? No check mark? Not even a simile?

  She must have seen the look on my face, because Coach Notting said quietly, “I’m hardest on those I think have the most potential, Coco.”

  “Then you must think I could be president.”

  Tossing her head back, Coach Notting roared with laughter. It wasn’t that funny.

  And did she just call me by my first name?

  “I don’t mind that you’re hard,” I said. “Okay, well, sometimes I mind. I just think a teacher should treat everyone equally.”

  Coach Notting sucked in her lips, and for a moment I thought she might yell at me. Instead, she said, “True.”

  I saw Dijon heading for the stairs. “Dijon, wait!”

  On the third step she turned.

  “You forgot your tube,” I said.

  “Oh yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes and coming back for it.

  I put my hand on her arm. I didn’t know why. “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I shifted.

  So did she.

  I felt I should say something else, but I couldn’t think what.

  “Look, Coco . . .” Turquoise fingernails dug into the cardboard tube. “I . . . uh . . . I know I said some things to your friends . . . and to you . . .” Dijon’s head dropped. She looked at her new white cheer tennis shoes with green-and-silver pom-poms attached to the laces. “It’s just hard sometimes, you know? You do certain things, and nobody calls you on them, so you push it a little further and a little further, and before you know it . . .”

  You’ve crossed a line.

  Neither of us had to say it out loud.

  I was beginning to
understand. I had been wrong about Big Mess. The Somebodies hadn’t taken control of the school. The Nobodies had freely given it to them. And they could take their power back any time they chose. The thing was, with every flippant comment and parade down the hall and beauty board command, Dijon was daring the Nobodies to stand up for themselves. Maybe she was tired of being queen of the kingdom. Maybe it was more pressure than I, or any of us, knew.

  “Hey, guys,” Renata said. “Mr. Tanori says the board is ready to vote, and he wants us to take our seats.” She rubbed the goose bumps from her arms.

  “You cold?” asked Adair, already slipping off her denim jacket. “You can borrow my coat. I’m fine.”

  “Oh, thanks, Adair,” said Renata, starting to put her arm in the sleeve. “It’s freezing in here—”

  “That’s it!” I cried so loudly, Renata dropped the coat.

  Dijon, Adair, and Renata were staring at me, like I had asked for a second helping of chicken noodle soup.

  “What’s it?” asked Renata, her eyes enormous. “Did you see a spider?”

  “Something much, much better,” I said, my heart leaping up into my throat.

  I had solved the mystery! I knew how Dijon’s crown had ended up in Adair’s locker. It was quite simple, really. Grabbing Adair’s jacket off the floor, I yanked the left sleeve inside out to show them three numbers written in permanent black marker. “Ta-da!” I yelled.

  Adair frowned. “My locker combination?”

  “Why is it on your sleeve?” asked Dijon.

  “I wrote it there on the first day of school so I wouldn’t have to memorize it.”

  “Oh,” said Dijon.

  “Oh,” said Renata.

  Three pairs of eyes blankly stared at it. Then me. Clearly, I was going to have to connect the dots.

  “And what happened . . .?” I prompted, rotating my free hand to get her to keep thinking. “Remember? A week ago you loaned your jacket to . . .”

  Adair’s brow furrowed. “Truffle.”

  I could see she was starting to catch on. “What if when Truffle got kicked out of Dijon’s locker, she decided to get even by stealing her tiara?” I asked. “And because she had your jacket, she also had your—”

  “Locker combination,” finished Renata.

  Satisfied, I folded my arms.

  We all took a beat to let it sink in.

  Then, as if on cue, the four of us screamed, “TRUFFLE!”

  Twenty-Five

  “When I say ‘briar,’ you say ‘green.’” Adair shook two silver-and-green metallic pom-poms at our section of the bleachers. “Briar!”

  “Green!” We stomped our feet, the rolling roar shaking the gym. Liezel stomped a little too hard, and her shoe went flying. Fawn grabbed it a second before Parker, who was sitting behind us, got to it.

  “Briar!”

  “Green!”

  “BRIAR!”

  “GREEN!”

  Adair and Dijon did side-by-side split jumps, touching their pom-poms to their toes. I got a cramp in my leg just watching them.

  Pep rallies. You had to love ’em, if for no other reason than they got you out of sixth period. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you got a bonus, like teachers tossing raw eggs at one another or Dr. Adams getting a chocolate pie in the face. We watched as Adair and the other cheerleaders threw little bags of green-and-white jelly beans into the crowd. Oh yeah, and there were free snacks, too, though you had to really battle for them.

  “Don’t forget to tell your dad, my mom’s going to pick us up after the dance,” said Fawn. Adair, Liezel, Renata, and I were spending the night at Fawn’s house.

  “He knows,” I said. “I am supposed to call him when I get to your house, though, so don’t let me forget.”

  Liezel was madly waving at Adair. “I can’t believe she’s not even aiming for us.”

  “She’s not?” I took off my hoodie and got in proper jelly bean–catching stance, which is basically on your tiptoes, with your arms as high as you can get them.

  Adair had only one bag of jelly beans left to chuck.

  “Over here!” I shouted.

  Adair cocked her arm and pitched the bag in our direction. It had a decent arc to it, exactly what it needed to make it over the rows of kids in front of me. Using my knees as springs, I burst into the air at the exact moment the bag sailed past. My timing was good. The plastic hit my fingers, but as I closed my hand, the bag tumbled past my fingertips. I was certain I had lost it when, suddenly, another hand reached up from behind me to support mine. We caught the bag. Together.

  “Nice catch,” said Breck, dropping his hand.

  “You too,” I said, my cheeks getting warm. I held up the bag of candy. “You want to split them?”

  Breck jumped down a row and scooted in between Liezel and me.

  Don’t think I didn’t see the look that passed between Liezel and Fawn when I poured a few jelly beans into Breck’s hands, which, by the way, weren’t at all what I’d expected. They weren’t dirty or crusty or covered with warts. They looked normal. Nice.

  “When do you get to start painting the mural?” Breck asked me.

  “In a couple of weeks. We have to wait for the scaffolding. Do you want to help?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve never done anything so big before, but Mrs. Wyndham says she’ll help me figure out the scale.” I popped a jelly bean in my mouth. “I hope when we’re all done, everybody likes it.”

  Looking at his feet, Breck said, in a voice so low I almost missed it, “What’s not to like?”

  I was glad I didn’t miss it.

  The cheerleaders had finished catapulting candy into the crowd. Mrs. Gisborne was walking to the microphone at the far end of the gym, where six empty chairs had been placed in a row.

  “What’s holding Waffles on?” I asked, squinting.

  Liezel leaned forward. “Are those yellow daisies?”

  “They look like pieces of Swiss cheese?” said Fawn.

  “Or mini waffles,” said Breck.

  That made us laugh.

  It seemed only logical that Waffles the wiglet was being held on by waffles, the barrettes.

  “Good afternoon, students,” said Mrs. Gisborne, trying to juggle her notes and the microphone in the same hand. “I am pleased to announce your nominees for this year’s fall court. In alphabetical order, let’s welcome Évian James, Stockholm Ingebrittson, Dijon Randle, Venice Wasserman, and Renata Zickelfoos.”

  Truffle had been nominated for fall court too; however, she’d been disqualified as part of her punishment for stealing Dijon’s crown. Fortunately, Truffle had immediately confessed when she’d been confronted with the evidence. She’d also said she hadn’t meant to get Adair into trouble. She’d acted out of anger. Needing a quick place to stash the tiara, she’d found Adair’s locker, well, handy. Still, you couldn’t overlook the fact that Truffle didn’t admit anything until she’d gotten caught, which was pretty slimy. I guess she was afraid of being kicked off the cheer squad. She should have been kicked off too, in my opinion. However, her parents made a big stink over it, and even brought in their attorney, so Truffle got to remain a Big Mess cheerleader. Didn’t it just figure?

  Everybody clapped as the girls came out in a line and stood next to their chairs. Wearing identical cheer outfits, Évian, Stocklifter, Dijon, and Venice looked like quadruplets. But it was Renata who stole the spotlight. She had on a cherry-red T-shirt dress with three-quarter-inch lace sleeves, black sandals, and a chunky, red bracelet. Her reddish-brown hair was pulled back into a sleek, straight ponytail. Renata looked like a high-fashion model!

  I nudged Fawn to tell her “good job.”

  “It was her idea,” she said, shrugging. “She wanted to stand out.”

  Parker let out a whistle. “Go, Renata!”

  Renata waved sheepishly to the crowd.

  “It’s my privilege to announce your princesses and queen,” said Mrs. Gisborne. Behind her, Adair and the cheerleade
rs stood next to a table with three crowns and three bouquets of white roses. Alan Dwyer was kneeling off to one side, taking photos for the newspaper and yearbook.

  I crossed all my fingers and all my toes. Closing my eyes, I prayed with every corpuscle of my being.

  Oh please, oh please, oh please, let her win something! She doesn’t have to be queen, but let her be a princess.

  I opened one eye to discover Liezel and Fawn were doing the same thing.

  Mrs. Gisborne opened the envelope. “Your first princess is . . .”

  Oh please, oh please, oh please . . .

  “Évian James.”

  My heart slipped. There was only one princess spot left. We applauded as Adair put a crown on Évian’s head—a fake crown. Cadence handed her a bouquet. Évian seemed surprised—glad, but surprised.

  Mrs. Gisborne ripped open the second envelope. “And your other fall princess is . . .”

  I rocked back and forth.

  Oh please, oh please, oh please . . .

  “Renata Zickelfoos.”

  We leaped into the air, screaming and hugging and stomping and screaming some more! Renata looked like Mrs. Gisborne had just zapped her with a stun gun, but she managed to remain upright long enough for Adair to pin the crown to her head. Renata was crushing her roses to her chest, as if she feared someone might try to take them away.

  Don’t worry, Renata. They’re all yours.

  When we’d finished cheering, I had lost most of my hearing and all of my voice. I also noticed that, somehow, my hand was in Breck’s hand. I wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. But he didn’t let go. And so I didn’t either. It could work out, a relationship between a Somebody and a Nobody, right?

  A few minutes later Dijon was crowned fall queen. Naturally. Some things never change.

  But some things do.

  I have the evidence to prove it.

  There’s a photograph hanging in my locker of Dijon, Évian, and Renata standing shoulder to shoulder in the gym, proudly wearing their crowns and holding their white roses. The headline above them reads “Fall Court Reigns Supreme.” Next to that photo is a picture of Liezel, singing and playing her guitar at the fall dance. It’s a little out of focus and a little dark, but the look of joy on her face is unmistakable. She was, as Liezel herself is fond of saying, a girl in the clouds. Beneath Liezel is a close-up of Adair at the first football game of the year. She is waving her pom-poms and, if I’m not mistaken, doing that hideous barking cheer that still haunts me in my sleep. That’s not the only thing that haunts me. One day I’ll tell Adair how she got on cheer staff in the first place. After she’s been a cheerleader for a long, long time and I know she’ll forgive me, I’ll tell her. Someday.