How to Be Popular (13 page)

STILL DAY FOUR OF POPULARITY
THURSDAY
,
AUGUST
31, 8
P
.
M
.

It’s started.

And I don’t think I’d be flattering myself to say that it’s going GREAT.

And okay, we didn’t get the seven thousand people who usually manage to drag themselves into the gym for basketball games.

But we’ve got a good three thousand, I bet. That’s a heck of a lot more than we’d get for a car wash.

And people are spending money! Gordon Wu and his three hours of computer lessons went for thirty-five dollars. The guy with the stump grinder? Fifty-eight dollars. Some girl who claims she can teach anyone to make a perfect strawberry and rhubarb pie? Twenty-two bucks.

But by far the best-selling talent of the night so far has been Darlene’s makeup lessons. Todd and those guys
were all bidding against one another—ostensibly for their mothers. Todd won—for a whopping sixty-seven dollars.

I really hope his mom is worth it.

And so far, the one thing I was really worried about happening—someone standing down there on the little dais they’ve erected next to the podium and having NO ONE bid on them—hasn’t happened. Even Courtney Pierce, our class suck-up, managed to get bids on her Spanish tutoring.

So I wasn’t really worried when Mr. Schneck read off the name of the next person whose talent was to be auctioned off, and it was Becca Taylor. I mean, scrapbooking is a popular hobby in our town. There’s a whole store devoted to it—Get Scrappin’—out by the mall. Becca’s not popular, or anything—people still remember her sleeping-in-school days.

But
somebody
would bid on her.

“And here we have eleventh grader Becca Taylor,” Mr. Schneck began in his auctioneer patter. He even had donned a bow tie and suspenders for the occasion. No one could ever accuse Mr. Schneck of not being devoted to his art. “Becca’s offering up three hours of scrapbooking tips for any beginner scrapbookers out there. Any of you interested in scrapbooking, but need a little push to get started? Well, Miss Becca Taylor is your girl, then. She will come to your house, bringing with her her own scissors, adhesive, and journal pens, as well as layout ideas and plenty of refill pages to get you going on your album. Let’s start the bidding for this very special service at ten dollars.”

I looked around from my seat on the very bottom bleacher. The very bottom bleachers—the ones closest to the gym floor—are the ones the A-crowd always sit on, because they’re the people who are usually being called over to the middle of the gym floor to receive awards or dance with the Fishnets or whatever.

And tonight, I was sitting with them. Not just with them…I was actually sitting
next to
Mark Finley.

And okay, Lauren Moffat was on his other side.

But he’d chosen to sit next to me—he’d walked into the gym, seen me on the first bleacher, where I’d been busy handing out Day Mortuary hand-fans, and he’d sat down beside me.

And the entire rest of the A-crowd—with the exception of Alyssa Krueger, who’d slunk up to the nosebleed seats where Jason and I usually sat, on the few occasions when we’d been forced to attend an event in the gym—had sat down with him.

And I was one of them. I was an A-crowder, one of the beautiful, popular people. I had made it.

And everyone knew it. I could feel their gazes on me—Courtney Pierce and Tiffany Cushing and all those other girls who, B-crowders at best, had still taken every opportunity to say, “Don’t pull a Steph Landry” within my hearing. They were jealous. I
knew
they were jealous.

But they shouldn’t have been. I’d worked to get to my position there on the bottom bleacher. I’d worked my butt off.

Almost literally.

The gym was crowded with familiar faces, not all of whom belonged to students at Bloomville High. I could see Becca’s parents looking down on her fondly. They were excited their daughter was finally taking part in a school-related activity. They’d asked me at the door, when they’d come in, if my own parents were going to be here, thinking they could sit together. They looked kind of disappointed when I said my parents were too tired—Mom on account of the baby, and Dad on account of the younger kids—to come.

I didn’t exactly mention that they didn’t even know about it. Well, that they did—the whole town knew about it—but they didn’t know I was the one running it.

And there was Dr. Greer, sitting with his wife and a guy who looked like the mayor—the MAYOR had shown up…alone, since he and his wife were in the middle of a nasty divorce we sometimes got to read about in the
Gazette
. Swampy Wampler was sitting with them, looking barely recognizable in jeans and a cotton sweater, as opposed to her usual gray or black suits. She kept looking over at Mayor Waicukowski and flipping her mouse-brown hair around. It was kind of obvious she was flirting with him.

And it was also kind of obvious he didn’t mind.

At the last minute—just before Mr. Schneck had led us all in a ritual fish slap—I saw the last person I would have ever expected to see at a school-related event sneaking into the gym through a side door: Jason.

He had his friend Stuckey—a lumbering guy who tra
ditionally wears nothing but excessively baggy Indiana University T-shirts and man-pris—with him. The two of them climbed the bleachers—not quite to the nosebleed seats, but close—and sat down, looking around. I saw Jason’s gaze land on me. I lifted a hand to wave at him. After all,
he’s
the one who apparently has a problem with me. I don’t have a problem with
him
. Well, except for the whole calling me Crazytop thing.

Jason didn’t wave back. And I
know
he saw me.

I hate to say it, but that sort of stung. I mean, that he’d ignore me like that. What did I ever do to him?

Except accept a ride in Lauren Moffat’s 645Ci.

Which isn’t exactly what I’d call very nice BMW Courtesy. His snubbing me like that, I mean, on account of being in someone else’s 645Ci.

But fine. If he wants to be mad at me for that, he can be mad. What do I care?

It’s just…well, it’s going to be a little awkward when he has to escort me down the aisle at Grandpa’s wedding on Saturday and we aren’t speaking.

But whatever.

I looked at Becca, standing on the dais, looking pretty in khaki capris and a pink flowered shirt. She is on the big side…a lot like Stuckey, actually. Only she actually dresses in clothes that fit her. She was holding one of her scrapbooks and smiling at the crowd in the bleachers.

Except…except there was something sort of wrong with the way Becca was smiling. Her lips were curled up at the edges, and all. But the smile didn’t seem to go all
the way to her blue eyes. It sort of stopped at her gums.

That’s when I noticed that the edges of her lips were trembling.

And that Mr. Schneck, the auctioneer, was saying, “Come on, folks. This is a service you can’t get anywhere else. I know how popular scrapbooking is in this community, because there are nights when I can’t get into the Sizzler because the Rather B Scrappin’ Scrapbook Club is meeting there, and every table is filled up. So do I hear ten dollars for this little lady’s valuable scrapbooking insights? Anyone?”

And suddenly it hit me, like a lightning bolt from the blue:

No one was bidding on Becca.

It was like a nightmare come true. Becca was standing there, trying to smile bravely and not burst into tears, while the knuckles on the hands that were clutching the scrapbook went whiter and whiter….

“We have a bid of ten dollars,” Mr. Schneck cried, to my intense relief. “Do I hear fifteen? Fifteen dollars anyone?”

I spun around in my seat to see who had raised their Day Mortuary hand-fan….

And my heart sank. It was Mr. Taylor. Becca’s DAD was bidding on her.

This was actually worse than if no one had bid on her at all.

“Something wrong, Steph?” a deep voice at my side asked.

I spun around the other way—

And practically bumped heads with Mark Finley, whose clear hazel eyes were gazing down at me with concern.

“You look upset,” Mark said. “Is everything all right?”

Sputtering, I pointed at Becca.

“S-someone needs to bid on her,” I said. “Someone who isn’t her dad!”

And before I could say another word, up went Mark’s Day Mortuary hand-fan.

“Fifteen dollars!” Mr. Schneck shouted, pointing at Mark. “We have fifteen dollars for the young lady’s scrapbooking genius from the school quarterback. Do I hear twenty?”

The entire gym had fallen silent the moment Mark raised his paddle. It was as if no one could quite believe what they were seeing—the most popular boy in school bidding on the scrapbooking services of a girl who used to have to be shaken awake when it was time for recess. You could tell a lot of people thought he’d lost his mind—Lauren among them, since I heard her go, “Babe, are you
kidding
me?” under her breath.

But Mark didn’t care. He held his Day Mortuary hand-fan high.

And the corners of Becca’s mouth stopped shaking.

“Twenty dollars, folks,” Mr. Schneck said. “Anyone care to bid twenty dollars? No? Becca Taylor’s scrapbooking tutelage going for fifteen dollars, everyone. Fifteen dollars. Going once. Going twice. Sol—”

But before he could pronounce the
d
in
sold
, a voice rang out through the gym.

“A hundred and sixty-two dollars and fifty-eight cents!”

Every neck in the building cracked as people whipped their heads around to see who was willing to plunk down such an exorbitant sum on Becca.

I don’t think I was the only one who was totally astonished to see Jason, standing with his paddle raised in one hand, and his wallet—whose contents he’d clearly just scanned—in the other.

“SOLD!” Mr. Schneck yelled. “To—to—that guy up there, for one hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty-eight cents!”

And his gavel came slamming down.

STILL DAY FOUR OF POPULARITY
THURSDAY
,
AUGUST
31, 10
P
.
M
.

I was happy for Becca. I really was. I mean, I think it’s great Jason bought her. I really do.

I just don’t think he had to make quite THAT big a production out of it. I mean, he basically wasted a hundred and forty-eight dollars, since he could have had her for twenty.

But whatever. I think it’s sweet. I do.

But not as sweet as what happened next.

And that’s that Mr. Schneck—after Becca had left the dais, looking all flushed and happy (and I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know why: She was thinking that if Jason was willing to spend that much money on her, she MUST be the girl Stuckey suspected Jason secretly liked. She was going to be IMPOSSIBLE to deal with after this. I don’t know what Jason was thinking. I really don’t)—
cleared his throat into the microphone and said, “And now, all you Bloomville Fishes, the moment I know you’ve been waiting for—next up for auctioning off, the spokesperson talents of senior class president, team captain and quarterback, last year’s Most Valuable Player, and all-around great guy, MARK FINLEY!”

The screams and applause followed by this statement nearly brought the steel roof beams crashing down. Mark stood up, grinning bashfully, and turned to wave to the crowd as he made his way to the dais. Perhaps the loudest shrieking of all was coming from his girlfriend, Lauren, who could barely seem to keep her butt on her seat, she was bouncing up and down so excitedly.

When Mark reached the dais, he waved to the other side of the gym as well. Then he turned to face Mr. Schneck, who was saying, “All right, folks, simmer down, simmer down. We know you all love Mark. Now it’s time to see how much you REALLY love him. Mark has generously volunteered his time for use as an endorser of some lucky business…so let’s find out who that lucky business owner is. We’ll start the bidding at—”

Lauren’s paddle flew up.

And hers was not the only one.

Mr. Schneck paused and said, “Um, folks, I haven’t even—”

“A hundred dollars!” Lauren shrieked.

She was, I knew, just trying to imitate the sensation Jason had caused, offering such an outlandish sum he figured no one was going to outbid.

Too bad for her about ten other people had the same idea.

“A hundred and twenty!” a man I recognized as the owner of the Penguin cried.

“A hundred and forty!” shouted Stan, the manager of Courthouse Square Diner.

“One hundred and sixty,” Lauren shot back.

“One eighty,” Mayor Waicukowski, who owns an accounting firm in town—Waicukowksi and Associates:
We’re more. More than just an accounting firm
(although no one seems to know what that means)—shouted, waving his Day Mortuary fan.

“Two hundred,” Lauren shrieked.

Mark, on the dais, continued to look abashed—although he seemed to be enjoying himself, at the same time.

“Two twenty,” Mayor Waicukowski called down from his seat by Dr. Greer.

Lauren, clearly tired of this, stood up, opened her purse, took out her checkbook, and read off the total amount in the account:

“Five hundred thirty-two dollars and seventeen cents.”

Then she sat back down, looking satisfied by all the gasps the number had caused…and by the pleased grin on Mark’s face.

I was sorry to have to ruin this touching moment for them. But, after all, I’ve got a business to run as well.

“A thousand dollars,” I said, standing up.

The number of gasps for the number I’d just given,
versus the number of gasps for Lauren’s number, rose exponentially.

“I beg your pardon, Stephanie?” Even Mr. Schneck looked shocked. “Did you just say a thousand dollars?”

“That’s right,” I said calmly. “Courthouse Square Books bids a thousand dollars on Mark Finley.”

Now all eyes were on me, instead of on Mark…including Mark’s. His expression was a combination of confusion and happiness mixed together—happiness over the fact that someone was paying so much for his services, I suppose, and confusion over the fact that it was me, and not his girlfriend, who was doing the buying.

“The little lady in the front bids a thousand dollars,” Mr. Schneck said, picking up his gavel. “Do I hear a thousand twenty? Anyone? Going for a thousand, then.”

Lauren was on her cell phone, desperately trying to reach her father. She was, I couldn’t help noticing, given that I was standing right next to her, practically crying.

“But, Daddy,” she said. “You don’t understand—”

“Going once,” Mr. Schneck said.

“—it’s for a really good cause, and I’ll—”

“Going twice,” Mr. Schneck said.

“—never ask you for anything ever again, I swear, if you’ll just—”

“SOLD to Stephanie Landry of Courthouse Square Books,” Mr. Schneck cried.

And Lauren threw her cell phone across the gym so hard that when it hit the wall next to the exit, it exploded into a thousand little pieces.