Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (34 page)

Mikey pointed out, “But we did something about that. What I want to know is, what can I do about Coach Sandy? What if you told her what I came to tell you, so she'd know that you knew about it?”

“I can't accuse a teacher, not without evidence. I wonder, Mikey—You might not know how many times every day a student will come to me, or to one of the other counselors, with a complaint about a teacher. If I told every teacher every
time any student had a complaint . . . I wouldn't have time to do anything else. I wouldn't have time to do any of the important things I need to do, to help people who really need help.”

Mikey nodded. She could see that, and she agreed with the counselor's choice of priorities. “I'm not asking you to do anything for me,” she said. “Just tell me what—”

“Students complaining about teachers, and
vice versa
,” Mrs. Smallwood went on.

Did the whole world know Latin? Mikey was even happier that she was taking Spanish.

“You might be interested in some of the things that have been said about you,” Mrs. Smallwood said, tapping the file folder with the fingers of her left hand, where a wedding band glowed gold.

“Why would I?” Mikey demanded impatiently, and then she realized, “Does that mean Coach Sandy has already talked to you? Is that why you already knew who I am?”

Mrs. Smallwood's mouth smiled gently again. “If she has—and I'm not saying that she has, only
if
she has—it would be a breach of confidentiality for me to tell you. I'm sure you can understand how important that confidentiality is. You wouldn't want me telling everybody what you thought of them, would you?”

“They already know,” Mikey said.

“Yes. You know, Mikey, that may be your problem.”

Mikey repeated it patiently. “Coach Sandy is my problem.”

Mrs. Smallwood studied her again, just for half a minute—but half a minute of being studied can feel like a long time. “I think,” she finally said, and smiled again, a sad, understanding, disappointed-grandmother smile, “you had better go to homeroom now. Come back when you can see beyond your own nose, Mikey. You have a lot of abilities, we all know that. It would be a pity if you never got to realize the fruit of them.”

Mikey considered asking her just what she meant. Was the counselor talking about getting into a good college? Or getting a good job? Or having any friends, or even having a husband and family? Or was she talking about tennis, and if she was, what kind of tennis-fruits was she talking about? It felt like a threat, that compliment about her abilities, or a warning. Maybe Mrs. Smallwood knew something Mikey hadn't thought of—or Margalo, either. But Mrs. Smallwood didn't know much of anything about Mikey, so how could she know enough to either compliment or threaten or warn her? She couldn't.

Neither could she help Mikey. Mikey got up from her seat, turned, and left the little room. This had been a waste of time. She found Margalo at their lockers, reported the conversation, and—there was still a lot left to say—walked beside Margalo to Margalo's homeroom. “I'm tired of talking,” Mikey concluded. “I want to
do
something.”

“What? What can you do?”

“I don't know.”

“Maybe you're going to have to forget about it.”

“And let her get away with it?” They had arrived at the door to Margalo's homeroom and stood facing each other.

“
And
we have to talk to Louis Caselli,” Margalo reminded her.

Luckily, it was raining and they had to have lunch inside, in a crowded cafeteria where nothing happened without somebody noticing. This meant that the meeting Ronnie had set up between Mikey and Margalo and Louis would take place with maximum publicity—exactly the way they wanted it. In fact, Louis Caselli came up to a table where not only Mikey and Margalo sat, but also Casey and Cassie, Tim, Felix and Hadrian, all ready to listen in on whatever got said.

Louis was short and round like a rooster, with a rooster's bright, greedy eyes. He had put two streaks of color into his hair, running backwards from his forehead, one stripe fluorescent green, the other purple. He wore a yellow Phish t-shirt that listed the stops they made on their world tour, blue-and-red plaid shorts, and sneakers without socks. He strutted up and smirked down at them. “Ronnie says you want to talk to me.”

Ronnie had reported to them that Louis was furious that anyone—even if that anyone was someone like Chet Parker, a senior, a football player, and an early-admission acceptee at Duke University, captain of the baseball team and general all-around enviable guy—furious that anyone at all would try to
get away with pulling a trick like that on one of the Casellis. He'd told Ronnie he was willing to give Mikey and Margalo a listen.

“Did you bring your books?” Margalo asked.

“What do I need books for?” Louis strutted even while standing still.

“You better sit down,” Mikey advised.

Louis did, twirling the chair around so he could cross his arms along its back. “So what's the story?”

The rest of the table was watching. Everybody except Hadrian had a little smile of anticipation (this could turn out good) on their face. Hadrian had an attentive expression, like a scientist looking into his microscope or a therapist listening. Louis, who was always checking up on whoever was watching him, noticed this. “What're you staring at, Dorko?”

Mikey got his attention back on them. “Personally, I'm betting you can't possibly pass English and Math.”

“Why would I want to?” asked Louis, maintaining his reputation for cool.

“So you can take Social Studies and Science in summer school,” Margalo answered.

“Why would I want to waste my summer going to school?”

“So you can be in tenth grade next year,” Mikey explained patiently. She was enjoying this. “I don't think you can do it, but Margalo”—she gestured towards Margalo, as if Louis might not be sure who Margalo was—“disagrees. She thinks you can. We have a bet on it.”

Louis hesitated, a little confused. This wasn't what he'd thought they wanted to talk to him about. Then he decided—with everybody there listening in the way they were—to continue playing it cool. “My father says I'm not leaving home until I get my high school diploma. Unless I run away, and if I run away, my father says I don't need to bother coming back. Unless I have a diploma. This upsets my mother,” Louis told them.

Margalo wanted to wonder out loud if Louis's mother was upset because her little boy might run away or because he might end up living at home indefinitely. But she had a show to put on. “Have you realized that if you flunk this year, you'll end up spending a whole extra year in school?”

“When the rest of us graduate, you'll be left behind,” Mikey observed. “
And
I'll have won the bet.”

“You mean if I pass Math and English, you lose?” Louis asked her.

Mikey nodded.

“And I win,” Margalo added.

“And if I flunk them, you win,” Louis said to Mikey.

Mikey nodded.

“And
you
lose,” he explained to Margalo. He thought about this. “Yeah, but
I
can't win either way.”

They had gathered a certain amount of attention in the lunchroom by then. There was some hope that on a rainy Wednesday, still a long way from the end of the school year, something might be happening. Anything to relieve the tedium.

Margalo said, “Tell me what your class read in English this year,” and Mikey said, “Let me see your Math book.”

“With all of them listening in?” Louis asked, indicating the others at the table, Cassie and Casey, Tim, Felix and Hadrian.

There were always empty chairs at Mikey and Margalo's lunch table, so the three of them moved away. Louis put his chair at the end, like the father on Thanksgiving, with Mikey on one side and Margalo on the other. He wasn't sure what expression he wanted on his face, so he kept changing it, from grin to frown to boredom.

Mikey opened the Math book and looked at the index.

“What does this have to do with Ronnie? She said—”

Mikey interrupted him. “We did this in seventh grade.”

“It's Basic Math Operations,” Louis said. “That's the name of the course. It was supposed to be a gut, but it has homework.”

“Never mind that right now,” Margalo said. She took out a piece of paper and a pencil, as if ready to write things down, and spoke in a low voice. “About Ronnie.”

That
topic focused Louis's attention. “Yeah,” he said, leaning forward and lowering his own voice. “I told her me and Sal would work the guy over, but she said you had a better idea. Which is why I'm here,” he reminded them, in case they had forgotten.

“But you have to actually work with us too,” Margalo informed him. “Or Chet'll see through it. Ronnie can't afford to have Chet seeing through it.”

“I
know
that. I'm not a total dunce,” Louis said. He looked at Mikey. “Whatever Mee-shelle here might think. At least I'm still in school, but I don't notice her on the tennis team anymore.” Satisfied, he sat back. “So, what's this great idea of yours? Because if you let Chet weasel out of this—”

Margalo told him. “What if your father and Ronnie's father were talking to a lawyer, who would you tell about that? Talking about bringing a sexual harassment case against Chet, I mean,” she added.

“But they're not. Do you think they should? It's a stupid idea anyway, because Ronnie told me she really doesn't want a lot of gossip. In case you can't figure it out, that means she doesn't want any law cases. Don't you ever watch TV?”

“But what if,” Margalo asked, “even if they weren't going to do that, Chet
believed
they were? What if he thought Mikey's stepfather was a big-time Texas lawyer who was helping her family with the case?”

Louis considered that. “Boy,” he concluded. “I wouldn't like it if some girl said that about me, that I sexually harassed her. Because whether I did or not, people would think I did. Especially if she took me to court.” He considered a little longer. “And Chet's a senior.” In case they didn't see the importance of that, he explained, “It would ruin his whole senior year if Ronnie did that. Is that what you're thinking?”

They left him to realize it for himself.

“And I bet his hotshot college wouldn't want someone who'd been accused of sexually harassing my cousin. In court.
That's a pretty good idea, Margalo. I have to say. I'll tell my dad. I bet he would do it.”

“No, no,” Mikey said. “Louis, wait. Because . . .” At a glance from Margalo she skipped the explanation. “The plan is, the plan Ronnie wants is that Chet
believes
that's what's going to happen. A thing doesn't have to happen just because it
might
happen, right? That's where you come in. That's where Ronnie needs your help. You have to tell Sal, but you absolutely can't let him know what Chet really did. Just say something vague about a lawsuit, like you could ask him if he knows what a lawsuit is? You have to tell it as if you don't know anything specific. All you know is that something is going on.”

Louis objected, “I thought this was Margalo's idea.”

Margalo knew what Mikey was about to say. Mikey was about to say, “How big a jerk are you?” at which question Louis would probably answer, “Not as big as you, Mee-shelle,” and then either he would kick Mikey under the table and she would kick him back under the table, or she would shove his Math book right back at him so hard it would take his breath away—because she would aim for his gut, the obvious target. Then Louis would whomp her on the head with the book, or maybe just on the hand, or maybe Louis would get up and leave the table after he said the most cutting, sarcastic thing he could think of. For sure, the Ronnie plan would be ruined. That was the only truly predictable thing that would happen if Mikey said what she was thinking.

So Margalo intervened. “Making the bet was my idea. I can never resist a challenge.”

The diversion worked. Louis said, “You really think I could pass English? You're supposed to be such an English genius, but I always said you aren't as smart as everyone says.”

“And I always said you aren't as stupid as they say,” Margalo answered. “Because nobody could be. So we're even.”

Mikey stuck to the main point. “So, you'll talk to Sal?”

“You think Sal will tell Chet?” Louis asked. “Sal's not even a blip on Chet's radar.”

“I think Sal will tell a couple of people, and they'll tell a couple of people, and sooner or later—I'm betting sooner,” Margalo said, “Chet'll get told. And then Chet will come to ask you about it.”

“Cool,” Louis said.

“But you won't be able to tell him anything definite because you don't know,” Margalo said. “Because it's a big mystery to you, it's just something going on that you can't figure out.”