Queen of Likes (6 page)

She glances at her watch. We still have a few more minutes before the bell rings. She lowers her voice. “Be careful, okay?” She looks both ways for teachers.

I grab Ella's arm and we hustle away from the constant flow of students. Lots of them are saying hi. Renee Powell waves at me. She's an eighth grader who plays traveling soccer. She's one of the few girls at school who's taller than me.

“Can you help me get more followers?” Renee asks. “Seriously, we need to talk.”

“Um, oh, sure. Maybe later?” I glance down at the time on Ella's cell. I only have a few minutes now and I need to use my time wisely. I want to check out the seventh-grade Snappypic. Renee obviously has no idea that my account was cut off.

Renee salutes me. “Sure, okay.” And she moves off down the hall to class.

Ella stands guard while I look at the seventh-grade Snappypic.

My fingers quickly scroll through everything. “Love the fonts you picked.”

“Thanks.” Ella smiles in her shy way.

“And the emojis.” Ella put them next to a schedule of events for Spirit Week. “The dancing hot dog is the
best
.” She posted a little hot dog guy that she drew in Merton colors, blue and gold. “All right!” I say, jumping up and down. “We're up to one hundred and eight followers!”

“That's great, Karm.”

“Ha. There's no way Auggie can catch up.”

I go into Ella's Snappypic. “Ella, if you want more followers, you really need to comment more on people's stuff,” I say. “And you need to post things that look exciting. Or something cute. Or a photo where it looks like you're having the best time in the world.”

“Okay,” she says, but not very enthusiastically. She's heard all of this from me before. I
LIKE
a couple of super funny collages and I scroll through to Auggie's latest photo. It's not good. It's fuzzy. It's a close-up of his eyebrow. “Really? Everyone
LIKES
this?”

Ella freezes. “Put away my phone. There's a teacher.” She points with her chin. “Coming right toward us.”

I push the phone into my pocket.

“She didn't see. The halls are too crowded,” I say as some girl's backpack practically bonks into my chin.

Ella glances at her watch again. “Karma, the bell's going to ring. You better give me back my phone.”

“'Kay. Just one more thing.”

“It's always one more thing,” snaps Ella as she grabs her phone back. She hurries away.

Wow. Why is she suddenly all cranky?

It's finally lunchtime. I'm standing just inside the cafeteria and I'm hearing a high-pitched squeal. “I-L-Y!”

It's Janel. She's waving over at Bailey to come sit down at the end of the table with her.

ILY stands for “I love you,” and we use it all the time on Snappypic. I mean, most of my followers did. And then I hear “I-L-Y” again over the din of other kids' voices, and it's Bailey. She's nodding right at me, her neat, chin-length hair bobbing. I nod back at her.

I've been ILYed plenty of times online for my photos on Snappypic, but in the middle of the Merton Middle School cafeteria by Bailey Jenners as I stand next to the spork, napkin, and fixins bar?

Nope, never.

“Get over here,” says Bailey. “Remember, you're eating with us.”

“Coming,” I call out, smiling.

“So cool,” Ella whispers under her breath.

The next thing I know, Ella and I are sitting with Bailey and the Bees. We're sitting by the Quik Cart, with its leopard spotty bananas and red apples that taste like Styrofoam. It's officially a lunchtime meeting of the chairs to plan Spirit Week.

Ella keeps bouncing in her chair and I send her a “keep calm” look. But of course I'm squishing my toes and clamping my teeth to keep from whooping out loud. Soon we all settle down and chat about this TV show and how crazy Mr. Derby the gym teacher is and how someone should fix the intercom.

“It's crazy. Not only is Spirit Week coming up, but this year the seventh grade is in charge of the dance,” says Bailey. “But luckily, I have the best chairs ever for that.” She nods at Janel and Megan. “So how's the snack situation for the dance going, people?”

“Excellent.” Megan scoots in her chair as a couple boys squeeze past. “I posted on Google Docs a chart where PTA members can sign up to bring snacks.”

“Fantastic,” says Bailey, crunching on a cracker.

Megan smiles and pats her already-perfect ponytail. “And I've recruited fifteen girls to help put up the decorations in the gym. Yesterday I ordered the black paper to put up on the walls. Decorations are so handled. Except for the art part. That's Ella's job. Making the moons and stars. Stuff like that.”

Ella takes a sip of her chocolate milk and grins at Megan.

“How's publicity going, Karma?” asks Bailey as she opens her salad tray.

I glance over at Ella. “Great. I made a Snappypic seventh-grade account. Ella designed it to look really cool. She put emojis next to everything. You know, like Crazy Hair Day and the hot dog–eating contest.”

“I want to see,” says Bailey. She hides her phone in her lap, hops onto our page, and takes a bite of chicken salad. Megan and Janel lean in too. “Love, love, love the crazy pink hair you put next to Crazy Hair Day,” says Bailey. “I totally want a pink beehive for Crazy Hair Day.”

“I want to have alien hair,” says Janel, “and put little wires in my hair so they look like antennae.”

“Oh my gosh. We already have one hundred and eight followers!” says Bailey, looking at the seventh-grade page. “Karma, you're the best. Seriously.” The girls at the next table turn to glance over at us.

“I still don't completely get how we're going to win and get the Spirit Stick thingy,” says Megan.

Bailey sighs. “It's a numbers thing. We get points for each competition. Like which grade wins the hot dog–eating contest, or which grade has the most students who participate in Twin Day or wear school colors.”

“There is someone seriously counting how many kids dress up with crazy hair and in blue and orange?” asks Ella.

Bailey fingers the scarf around her neck. “Of course. It's not arbitrary. The advisory teachers keep a tally and turn the numbers into Mrs. Grayson, who gives it to the principal.” Bailey tucks her hair behind her ears. “Thanks to Karma, I think we're going to win, people!”

Ella looks down at the table.

“And Ella,” I add, feeling bad that everyone always forgets about her.

As one of the custodians rumbles past, pushing his mop and broom cart to clean up a spill, Milton P. sets his shoe box down next to his sandwich. He's eating at a table with some kids everyone call the Aliens because they are so weird.

“There goes Snollygoster,” says Megan. That was Auggie's nickname for Milton P. back in second grade, and it stuck like gum.

“That's mean, you guys,” says Janel. “Remember, his dad died last spring. It can't be easy.”

“That's so sad.” Megan glances over at Milton P.'s table. “But c'mon, a shoe box?”

I sneak a look at him. “Yeah, that's a little weird.” But as I say this I have this impulse. I'd love to photograph his shoe box and post this caption:
Anything could be inside.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, Megan leans into the group so her long, blond ponytail touches the table. For a moment, I worry for her. She doesn't look like the kind of person who would like crumbs in her hair. “In advisory, Mr. Jones made us go around the room and say stuff about ourselves. And then Milton P. said he's inventing a LEGO spaceship with levers and said it had some hyper something or other so it could transport cargo into the tenth dimension.”

“Whoa, freaky,” says Bailey.

“I think it's kind of cool,” says Ella.

“Seriously?” Bailey nods over at Milton P., with his bangs plastered against his forehead, his semidarkened glasses, and his apple-red cheeks.

“No,” Ella quickly says. “I was joking.” But I have a feeling she isn't telling the truth.

Later, during fifth period, when Ella and I sit together in French, I want to ask her about Milton P.

“
S'il vous plaît, la classe,
conjugate the verb of
being
,” says Madame Pessereau, pointing to the whiteboard where it says
Être
, which means “to be.” She's wearing one of her many French pins, an Eiffel Tower, and beaming at us as if we can't wait to conjugate the verb of
being
. I bet Madame does it just for fun on the weekends.

I pull out my notebook and look at Ella. “So were you serious about Milton P. being cool?” I whisper.

“No,” she says, but her face is pinkish. “Snollygoster? No way.”

“Oh my gosh, you were serious, weren't you?”

She whispers into my ear. “He's not cool. He's extremely weird.”

“Like he was programmed somewhere by an evil genius who wanted to play a joke?”

“Exactly. But he's, you know . . . still kinda, sorta cute.”

“Because of his outer space eyes? And lashes a girl would kill for?”

“Yeah, but it's not just that. He's intriguing in a spylike way,” she says, her voice even lower. “But don't you dare tell anyone I said that.” She flicks her gaze over at Bailey, who sits in the front row, conjugating away. “She and Janel and the rest of them would think that was
so
weird.” The tips of Ella's ears blush.

“Wow, if only Milton P. knew.”

Her eyes grow big. “Don't you dare, Karma Cooper!”

Madame Pessereau gives me a stern look, so I start copying what's on the board.

“No worries,” I say out of the side of my mouth. “Because I don't think that Milton P. knows what girls are yet, even if he does know the secrets of the universe.” Then I wink at her.

Sun streams in from the window and sort of winks too. Like the sun agrees.

Ella smiles and lets out a little sigh, and I think about what it feels like when you don't want people to know something about you. I'm glad that Ella feels as if she can trust me with secrets right here, in the middle of French class, conjugating
being
.

Hurrying to math, I ask Ella, “Can I see your phone?”

She bites her lip. “We're in the middle of the hall.”

“I just want to check the seventh-grade Snappypic.”

“Okay, be quick.” She hands me her phone as we thread through the crowded hallway and pass by the seventh-grade science classrooms. The smell of formaldehyde and alcohol pierces the air. I hate asking Ella's permission every time. I know it makes her nervous.

I check the hall for any signs of a teacher. The hallway is full of kids, a few of them even checking their phones. And now I'm doing the same. “So cool, Ella. The background you used looks like rainbow confetti.”

Fidgeting with the buttons on her top, Ella steps aside for a teacher in a rush to get by. I quickly hide the phone out of sight.

“Maybe I could blow up some of the drawings and put them up at the dance,” says Ella. “For decorations. Megan wanted me to help. ”

I pause and try to figure out how to say this. Ella's drawings are always a little, well, quirky. Some people might even say weird. She might give someone blue hair, or someone else might have cat ears. A table could have feet with running shoes. I lean in toward Ella and huff, “Megan wants the decorations to go with the theme, stars and moons. You know her, picky. Just make them plain.”

Ella blushes. “Well, I kind of already made the stars and moons during fifth period with an app I have on my phone. I even put them on Google Drive. I guess I got excited.”

“Let me see.”

She shows me. And I try not to frown. The moons have sunglasses and the stars have oddly shaped noses, ears, and lips. “Wow. Those are really creative. But I think Megan wanted regular-looking stars and moons. That's what everyone likes.”

“Really?” Ella looks disappointed.

I nod.

“Okay. I can make regular ones too.”

“Great. Perfect.” I breathe out a sigh of relief.

A bunch of girls with flute cases hurry past us in the opposite direction. I feel a little bad, but I'd hate for Ella to get shot down in front of the Bees. I try to make my voice sound light. “You know I love your sketches. Whatever you do will be awesome. Megan already ordered black paper to line the walls, so the decorations will pop at the dance.”

A slight smile grows on Ella's face as we turn down the hallway. A walkie-talkie crackles down the hall in back of us and students snap their phones shut.

A kid whispers, “It's the principal.”

I immediately push Ella's phone into my pocket. The principal, Mrs. Wallace, heads toward me. She's walking with an older woman with short black hair.

She's staring right at me. Did she see the phone? Ella shoots me an extra-worried look. Kids nearby all gape at us. I can't get one more detention, or else it's Club Suspension for me.

My heart hammers in my chest as Mrs. Wallace nods at me. My insides chill.

“Nice to see you, Miss Cooper,” she says. “I understand you and Ella are doing wonderful things for your Spirit committee.”

“Thanks,” I say, feeling a huge relief she didn't see the rogue phone.

When I get home from school, there's a note from Mom taped to the fridge. She'll be home early-ish today. But first she's picking Toby up from aftercare at school, and she wants me to take out the chicken. She writes:

Please remember this time