How Not To Be Popular (24 page)

“Tenisha is one of our all-state gymnasts,” Dr. Wohman says. Now he really is reading off a paper.

“She’s also a member of the French Club and the Austin Belles.”

“That girl thinks she’s so hot,” Shanna says in a side whisper. “I heard she once did a movie. You know, one of
those
movies.”

I clap politely, hoping no surprise registered on my face.

After Tenisha takes her chair, Dr. Wohman calls out, “Hannah Hirsh.” This time a tall, willowy girl struts up the stage and stands next to Dr. Wohman.

“Hannah represented Lakewood at the regional show-choir competition last year,” Dr. Wohman goes on. “She’s also a member of the drill team, Mu Alpha Theta, and the Austin Belles.”

“Such a snob,” Shanna mutters. “Her parents are, like, the richest of everyone in the school.”

“Caitlyn Ward,” Dr. Wohman announces after Hannah sits down.

Caitlyn sashays to the front to lukewarm applause. A couple of people even boo. It’s such an obvious display of hostility that I feel really bad for her.

“Let’s have none of that.” Dr. Wohman shakes a pudgy finger at the audience. “Now, as you know, Caitlyn has been a cheerleader for four years here at Lakewood. She’s also a member of the French Club, the Booster Club, and the Austin Belles.”

More lackluster applause, and Caitlyn practically runs back to her seat. I look over at Shanna, waiting
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

for her to make another snarky comment, but she doesn’t. She’s just sitting there with that wide-eyed blank look she always wore in her days as Caitlyn’s silent accomplice.

“Shanna Applewhite,” Dr. Wohman calls out.

Shanna rises somewhat shakily and walks downstage. As she nears Dr. Wohman, her foot hits the microphone cord and she stumbles a bit. A few people chuckle. Sharla practically hyperventilates with laughter. A deep strawberry pink seeps up Shanna’s neck as Dr. Wohman rattles off her various clubs.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.
I’m next!

Time seems to go all warpy as Shanna takes her seat. I see Dr. Wohman turn toward me and see him mouth my name. I’m sure he says it out loud, but I can’t hear it with all the blood rushing into my head.

I get to my feet and do a wobbly walk to the front. My heart is beating so hard it’s amazing I’m not ricocheting around the stage. Finally I take my place beside Dr. Wohman.

It’s different up here. You can see everyone’s eyes. Sharla is expending every ounce of energy to make the world’s biggest frowny face at me. Off to the left, Miles is grinning and whispering with his buddies. I see Drip sulking in a seat near the middle. The twins are in the back, apparently studying their shoes.

Carter is all jittery in his chair—staring at the ceiling, the floor, the people around him…anything but me. I don’t see Jack anymore, but Mrs. Pratt is standing along the wall, watching me with a weighed-down expression.

And then I see Penny. She’s near the front, not far from Sharla. My eyes must have passed over her a couple of times before I finally saw her. She’s staring at me with her usual poker face, mouth partly open, eyes big and glistening. It hits me how pretty she is. Her perfect skin. The way wisps of hair curl around her cheeks and chin. How come people never notice it?

“Sugar Magnolia is a relatively new student in our school community,” Dr. Wohman says. “She’s a member of the Helping Hands Club.”

“More dances!” someone yells.

I turn to Dr. Wohman, overcome with sudden inspiration. “Can I say a few words?” I ask.

Dr. Wohman looks taken aback. “Ah…well, I don’t see why not.” He moves away from the microphone and lets me step up to it.

“Hi,” I say, a little too loudly. My voice echoes all over the auditorium. People sit forward in their chairs.

“I just want to say that you shouldn’t vote for me.”

The audience laughs and claps, loving the joke. Only it isn’t a joke.

“I’m serious,” I go on. “Don’t vote for me because you think I’m brave or cool or real. I’m not any of those things. I’m…I’m…” My voice cracks. “I’m a big loser.” More chuckles, but they sound nervous. People are exchanging baffled glances.

“I’ve been dressing weird and acting strange on purpose so that everyone would leave me alone…because I was scared. I thought if people stayed away, then no one could hurt me.” I take a
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

shuddery breath. The place is totally silent now. “If you really want to honor someone real, don’t think of me. Think of my friend Penny, who makes casseroles for sick people and mows people’s lawns for no reason but to help them out. Think of Mrs. Pratt, who treats every student fairly and even spends her free time helping less fortunate students. Think of…Drip.” I pause, trying to think of her real name, but I can’t.

“She always tells it like it is and never takes crap off anyone—no matter who they are.” As soon as he hears the word “crap,” Dr. Wohman snaps back into principal mode.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he says, trying to lead me away from the microphone. “Thank you for—”

“No! Let me finish!” I whine, shrugging off his hand. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. I turn back to the audience and wag my finger at them the way Dr. Wohman did earlier. “You guys boo Caitlyn because you think she’s so phony. Well, I’m an even bigger phony. I hurt all my friends on purpose.” I’m really bawling now. My voice is high and rattly and my cheeks are a wet, sticky mess. “I was so sure they wouldn’t stand by me, I blew them off first. I didn’t even give them a chance.” My voice disintegrates into a series of squeaks. At this point my words are all globbing together, so nobody can even tell what I’m saying. I stare into the crowd. My vision is too blurred to make out individual faces, but it looks like all the students are shifting around and turning their heads so they don’t have to look at me.

I glance over at Dr. Wohman. The anger has left his face; now he’s just gazing at me in pity. I want to tell him “That’s all,” and maybe apologize, but all I can do is give him a helpless stare. The heavy, high-pressurized feeling has spread throughout my body, choking off any further speech.

Not that it matters. I’m done.

Slowly, I back away from the microphone and the restless, murmuring crowd. Instead of returning to my chair, I race down the side steps of the stage and out one of the doors into the empty, eerie corridor outside.

So that’s it. I might be friendless and unpopular, but at least I told the truth.

And I’ve never been more real.

By lunchtime I’m pretty much back to normal. I’ve stopped crying and my ribs no longer feel like they’re going to crack from the inside. A bizarre sense of peace has settled over me. I don’t care what people think anymore—not really. It’s like I’ve somehow moved beyond it all. High school just isn’t the real world.

Strangely enough, I’ve finally gotten what I wanted. Everyone is avoiding me. A few people shoot me sympathetic gazes. Some openly point and mock, but most people won’t even look at me. I passed Caitlyn in the hall and she didn’t even sneer. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then seemed to change her mind and took off.

I have no idea how the homecoming vote went in first period—although I’m pretty positive I’m not going to win. Instead of circling one of the nominees, I wrote down Penny’s name.

Yes, it was therapeutic to admit everything in front of the entire school, and yes, I’m mostly beyond
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

caring. But as I pause at the entrance of the cafeteria, I can’t help getting a little trembly. Now it’s no longer my choice: I
have
to eat alone.

Snap, snap, snap.
Heads look away as I weave around the tables, searching for an empty seat. As I stand there, turning this way and that, Miles walks up to me on his way out of the snack bar line.

“Man!” he says, pausing beside me so that we’re shoulder to shoulder. “You really
are
a loser.” He shakes his head and continues on to the Bippy table.

I feel a weird, twisty sort of relief. It can only be a good thing that Miles wants nothing more to do with me.

Finally I spot a place and sit down, eager to dig in to Les’s black bean salad after such a draining few hours. Two or three bites later, I feel the table shimmy. I look up and see Penny sit down across from me.

“They had hot dogs, but I got the chef salad instead,” she says. “Do you know there are chemicals in hot dogs that make your cells mutate? Plus, the government allows a certain amount of rodent hairs.” A big happiness bubble is rising inside me, lifting my posture and making my eyes water. “Yeah,” I say with a grin. “I think I heard something like that.”

We eat in easy silence for a while.

“Penny?” I say, again noticing her pretty, Madame Alexander–doll face.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you sit down with me at lunch on my first day?” Penny chews thoughtfully for a second. “Because…I thought you looked sad.”

“Oh.”

“But you don’t look sad anymore.”

I smile at her. “You’re right. I’m not.”

Published by Delacorte Press an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Ziegler

All rights reserved.

Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web!www.randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us atwww.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ziegler, Jennifer.

How not to be popular / by Jennifer Ziegler.

p. cm.

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Sugar Magnolia Dempsey is tired of leaving friends behind every time her hippie parents decide to move, but her plan to be unpopular at her new Austin, Texas, school backfires when other students join her on the path to “supreme dorkdom.” eISBN: 978-0-375-84648-9

[1. Popularity—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Moving, Household—Fiction.5. Family life—Texas—Fiction. 6. Hippies—Fiction. 7. Austin (Tex.)—Fiction.] I.

Title.

PZ7.Z4945How 2008

[Fic]—dc22

2007027603

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v1.0

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

For Christy

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….

—Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities

Fair is foul and foul is fair….

—William Shakespeare,
Macbeth

Prologue: Constant Change

Oh crap. What did I just do?
My right hand hovers over my phone, fingertips tingling like the sparking ends of live wires.

Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn’t have sent that text message calling Trevor a faithless, crap-smeared ape. I’d been reading a lot of Jane Goodall lately and hit Send without really thinking it through.

Should I text him again? Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. But…what do I say?

“Tra-la-la-la…keep your smile on!” goes the song on the car stereo. The singer sounds like he’s on helium. “Tra-la-la-la!”

I can’t take it anymore.

“Rosie, Les, can you turn that music down,
please
?” I yell from the back of the car.

Les turns around in the passenger seat. “Really?” he says, his eyebrows arched in surprise. “It’s not that loud.”

“No. But it’s not that good either,” I mutter.

He and Rosie exchange one of their many mind-melding smiles. It’s the one that silently communicates
Ah, our daughter. We love her. But she
so
needs to get in touch with the Universe.

Rosie lets out a little giggle and turns her attention back to the road. “Such negative energy,” she says, shaking her head. She continues driving along the interstate at fifty miles per hour while humming with the music, oblivious to the traffic zooming past us at twice the speed.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

My heart gives a little guilty thump. I know she’s trying to come up with reasons why I’ve been weirding out today. She has no idea my world imploded an hour ago, when I opened Trevor’s message. First I pretended to be sleeping, so that I could blame my puffy, postcry face on the nap. Then, after I “woke up,” they started playing their Joan Baez tape. I grumbled and pleaded with them to stop, telling them it was putting me back to sleep, when in fact it was just way too depressing. Now they’re listening to some New Age band with lots of high, breathy vocals and tinkly background sounds. For the last five miles, I’ve been picturing fairies frolicking on lily pads and unicorns sliding down rainbows. And hanging out in an animated Smurfiverse is not what I want to be doing right now.

Les lowers the volume; then he turns around and studies me, stroking his wiry reddish brown goatee.

“Why so glum? Come on. Let me see you smile, Sugar.”

It’s not a term of endearment. It’s my actual name. Sugar Magnolia Dempsey. Yes, I’m named after a Grateful Dead song. Yes, it’s weird. No, I don’t particularly love it, but I just go by Maggie and bribe or threaten teachers never to read my full name aloud.

“I don’t feel like smiling,” I say from my flat-on-my-back position. From this altitude I can see up his nostrils. Even his nose hairs are wavy. No wonder my hair is the way it is.

“Well, what do you want to listen to?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Can we just…be quiet?” I ask, holding back a sob. If they sense how fragile I feel, it’ll be all group hugs and chamomile tea.