Queen of Likes (3 page)

I shake my head and try to pat down my flyaway hair.

“You stepped on your retainer?”

“Nope.”

“Toby was snooping around your room again?” Ella leans in, examining me, and her long, almost-black hair tickles my shoulder. “You look all pale. Do you feel okay?”

“Not really,” I say, my voice shaking. I tell Ella everything. She listens attentively, her soft brown eyes growing bigger with each horrible detail. She gives me a long, long hug. “So it's all because of going to the bathroom?”

I start to laugh even though I feel like crying. We pull apart and a knot of kids brushes past, all of them glancing down at their phones. I hope they know how lucky they are to have them.

“I'm so sorry,” says Ella. “What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.” I wince thinking about Floyd smothered in some sock drawer, sending out an SOS. “And even worse than that, no Snappypic.” I take out the lame flip phone my dad got me on Sunday afternoon. “This is all I have. Flippie.” I pull it open and stare at it. “No camera. No phone. No Internet.”

“Harsh.”

“It doesn't even get texts.” A group of sixth-grade boys mills past us. They look all wide-eyed, like they still can't believe they're in middle school, even though it's already March.

“Why would your parents actually cut off your Snappypic? That's evil. All for what? It's not like you got a suspension or something.”

Some kids turn their heads. A couple of band girls flick their chins over at me and whisper. I bet everyone is wondering what I've done wrong. My old nickname, Bad Karma, is about to come back any moment, I'm sure.

I can thank Auggie Elson for that. He started calling me Bad Karma after a series of unfortunate incidents. I used peanut butter to get gum out of Bailey Jenners's hair. The gum kept on sticking.

And then the peanut butter got stuck too.

And horrifyingly, so did my nickname: Bad Karma.

It didn't help that I stepped on Lia Clark's contact lens. And last year I told my social studies teacher I knew Ukrainian when I could only say hello, and she asked me to give a tour to a visiting teacher from Kiev. Let's just say that I did a lot of sign language.

I get all steamed up just thinking about Auggie and the possible return of my horrible nickname. What if everything I've worked for will be wiped away and forgotten?

Ella looks at me in concern and quietly says, “Let's go sit by the tables.”

I nod, wondering how my best friend can always read my mind. I don't know what I'd do without her. The picnic area is in the center of the courtyard, and it's the perfect place to chill before school starts. As we skirt around the crowd and head to the quad, Ella dabs her lips with watermelon lip gloss and coats her lashes with mascara—two things her mother would never approve of. She's really strict. With her skinny jeans, cool top, and now-thick lashes, Ella could pass for someone a lot older.

“Do I look all right?” she asks hesitantly as we pass by a table of PTA moms selling reusable lunch totes with our school logo.

“Are you crazy? You look awesome.” I can't help but feel proud that she's my best friend. It's weird, but Bailey and her entourage, who we call the Bees—Janel Bryant and Megan Bogdanoff—aren't nearly as pretty as Ella, but they're way more confident. Ella isn't always so sure of herself, but she should be.

As we get closer to the picnic tables in the quad, we pass by none other than Milton P. Daniels. “Hi, Milton,” I say. “You did a really good job on Saturday.”

“My name is Milton P.,” he corrects. Not “Thanks.” Not “Thanks for coming to my bar mitzvah.”

Ella shrugs and I shrug back. Nobody knows what the
P
stands for. He marches rigidly forward as he holds his mysterious shoe box in front of him. Since the beginning of sixth grade he has carried it around. His glasses get dark in the sun so you can't exactly see his eyes. Which is too bad, because they are green with yellow rings. They look like planets.

Ella nudges me with her elbow. “Do you think he could be, like, an alien spy?”

“Uh-huh. He's investigating what's in our school meat loaf for some secret space guy documentary.”

“I'm serious.” Ella laughs and lowers her voice. “What do you think he keeps in that box?”

“Something gross, probably. Snake skin?”

“Or a real snake.”

“A baby alligator.” And we're both giggling, and I'm feeling normal-ish. Ella glances at her cell. “We still have a few minutes before the first bell rings.”

I glance up at a banner being put over the front entrance by a maintenance guy, and I get excited.

SPIRIT WEEK COMING SOON!

A bunch of kids point up to it, chatting. A few even clap.

“Do you think seventh grade will win this year?” I ask.

“Doubtful,” says Ella. “Eighth grade always wins.”

Each class gets points for participating in Spirit Week events such as the canned food drive, Crazy Hair Day, and the hot dog–eating contest. The Spirit Rally is on a Friday, and that's when the Spirit Stick is presented to the winning grade. If you win the Spirit Stick, then everyone in your grade gets a free pizza and ice cream sundae party during lunch.

Stretching, I set my backpack down on the bench and sigh loudly.

“What is it?” asks Ella.

I gaze down at the crisscross patterns of the yellow metal table. “Did you text me at, like, seven o'clock this morning? My phone is buried somewhere in my parents' room. But this morning when I went in there, I heard a text come in. Which was really weird since my parents had turned my phone off.”

Ella unzips a case of colored pencils. She's an artist, so she always has them with her. “I texted you. But earlier. Like six thirty. I wanted to know what you thought about this.” She taps her dragonfly earrings, which look great, of course.

I shiver and glance behind me. A few kids are on their phones. Ella sketches a girl with long, flowing green hair in her notebook.

“I need to borrow your phone,” I say.

She glances behind her as if there are federal agents ready to snatch her phone out of her hands. “Just don't get caught.” I have been caught with a phone during class three times and in the halls twice. So far I've gotten two warnings and three detentions for it. If I get caught again, I will automatically get an in-school suspension, which is the last thing I need right now.

I go into Ella's account and check to see what's going on. We share some of the same followers. Except she only has 587 followers. And I helped her get most of them. I scroll through. Not too much new stuff. But there's a bunch of weekend photos she hasn't
LIKED
yet, so I do it for her.

Ella scoops out a pink pencil and sketches a mermaid with a swanlike neck and shark fins.

I lean over and admire her drawing. “Love all the details, like the sea-star barrette. Awesomeness.”

She smiles. “Really? I don't know. I'd really love to be in charge of the Spirit Week posters and stuff this year. But I don't know if people would like my stuff or how to get on the committee.”

“Of course people would love your stuff,” I say. Not too many people know how good she is at drawing. Ella is in band, not art, because her mother makes her play the flute. She's insecure about her art for no reason, though.

When the first bell rings, we get up to go to advisory, Merton's version of homeroom. I have Mr. Chase, who is six foot six and scares me because I think he's part giant and part psychic. Most of the boys think he's crazy and therefore love him.

A trio of girls brushes past us in the hallway. “Put your phones away,” one hisses. The girls whip their phones back into their pockets. “Mr. Morley is down there.” Our heads turn to glance down the hall, where the feared in-school suspension teacher stands outside of his classroom. He looks like a bouncer for a club, but it's not a club anyone wants to go to. Black paper covers the inside of the glass window in his door, because it's not so much a classroom but a jail.

Another girl, Selma Landers, who's in my gym class, high-fives me. “It's Awesome Karma!” she shrieks. It's been like this all year. My popularity online has moved offscreen and jumped into real life. I'm still getting used to it.

And now, soon enough, I'm going to have to get un-used to it.

“How many followers are you up to today, missy?” asks Selma.

I bite my lip. “Haven't been keeping count.” That is no lie because there is nothing to count!

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a cute boy who struts toward us in the hall. My stomach gets that butterfly-ish twinge-y feeling. He's got an athletic build and a lopsided grin. Quickly, I try to smooth down my hair.

Twenty feet away, he gazes at me and the butterflies are escaping and going wild now.

He gets closer. I look up at him and he looks at me . . .

And wait a minute. Hold up!

That boy is Auggie Elson. Okay, he might be cute, but cute doesn't cut out the fact that he's annoyed me for years.

And then Auggie smirks and says, “Hola, Bad Karma.” Like my name is a song.

A warning bell rings. And I singsong back, “Hola, Ugh-ie,” because it's all I can think of, and it's what I always say to him. Suddenly I'm extra annoyed by his twinkly sky-blue eyes, the confident grin on his face, and his strut.

Auggie Elson has no reason to strut. He should slink. He shouldn't try to be seen. His orange ukulele is strapped to his back like it's a weapon and not the silliest-looking instrument on the planet because he's plastered it with stickers. And he's a Snappypic phony. He has five thousand something followers, but he also follows that many. He'll follow anyone to get followers. I, for one, am very careful to keep the ratio of people I'm following to the number that are following me very low. That way it doesn't look as if I forced people to follow me. Well, that's what I used to do, anyway. Back when I had my Snappypic.

But that's not Auggie's way.

He doesn't care that people know he wants attention. Last year he wore a rainbow-colored beanie with earflaps to school every day because he thought it made him look cool. Believe me, it made him look weird, especially on days when it was warm.

The only good thing about Auggie is that he's in eighth grade, which means he's not in any of my classes.

This morning Auggie is beanieless and walking next to his buddy Justin Crews, who's square and bulky like a football player, and his friend Graeme Lafoot.

“Bye, Karma!” Auggie moans as if I'm embarking on the
Titanic
. I march over to him and decide to step on the back of his shoe and give him a flat tire.

Only he sidesteps and I stumble back, banging against the wall.

Justin and Graeme laugh and snort.

Auggie calls out, “Are you okay?” But I know he doesn't mean it. His sky-blue eyes are laughing.

My Stats:

0 followers, at least last time I checked, which now feels like centuries ago

0 people I'm following, which is cool since it looks better to keep that number low-ish. And it's low, all right!

0 likes. At least it's not a negative number

0 texts that I know of

1 hallway crash by Auggie, who has no right to exist

1 awesome BFF who sketches sea stars and mermaids that fly in the sea

Mood: Annoyed anytime Auggie is nearby

After first period Bailey and the Bees catch up with Ella and me by our lockers. Bailey's got her chin-length brown hair neatly tucked behind her delicate ears. She wears her signature scarf, a pair of skinny jeans with a simple white scoop-neck tee, and glittery flats. She's so tidy and small that she makes me feel large and rumpled. Immediately I'm patting down my hair and trying to shrink myself. I should explain to her why I didn't answer her back on Saturday. I should. But I don't want to.

“Look what's hot off the press,” says Bailey, nodding at the stack of fliers under her arm. Like always, she enunciates every word so that they stand out. Both Megan and Janel smile knowingly. Megan holds a stack of fliers under her arm against her hoodie. Janel carries a smaller stack in a glittery folder the same color as her caramel-colored skin.

Bailey hands papers to both of us. “Read this, girls.”

SPIRIT WEEK ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY!

Merton Middle School's largest and most fun Student Council event is called SPIRIT WEEK! The Student Council is responsible for choosing a theme for the week, designing grade-level competitions, and advertising and working events. Spirit Week includes themed dress-up days, a canned food competition among the grades, a poster contest, the spirit assembly, and a school dance.

The festivities start Monday, March 19, and end on Friday, March 23.