Plastic Polly (6 page)

Many years ago Groove It Up began as a fun, friendly competition between Winston Academy and American River Middle School. But as the years passed, both schools began to complain of cheating and unfair advantages, so several rules were drafted to guide the competition,
resulting in
The PlanMaster's PlanMaster
. It's sort of like a bill of rights, an interschool treaty, and a how-to manual all rolled into one.

Props, costumes, tryout schedules, AV requirements (whatever that means), dress rehearsals—as I turn page after page in the binder, my vision starts to blur. There is
so
much more to being the PlanMaster than I thought. I mean, yeah, on some level I knew it was a lot of work, but I guess when I told Mom and Principal Allen that I wanted the job, I was sort of skipping over the actual, you know,
work
part, and cutting straight to the end, where the PlanMaster of the winning school (namely, me) holds the golden trophy over her head. Now as I flip pages, I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into.

I toss the binder aside, deciding I'll come back to it later tonight. Then I turn on the Food Network and start zoning out to my favorite show—
Chef Sherry
.

I started cooking after Jenna Huff made fun of the muffins I brought to the fifth-grade bake sale. As soon as I plunked them down on the table, she asked, nose wrinkled, where I got them.

“My mom bought them from the grocery store,” I said.

“What did you say, Squeaky?” Jenna cocked her ear. After I repeated myself, being sure to deepen my voice,
Jenna said, “You brought store-bought muffins to a bake sale?” She turned around to her little clique and snickered. She didn't even wait until after I left to toss them into the trash. That night I started watching
Chef Sherry
—determined to learn how to bake my own muffins—and discovered I really like to cook. Mom and Dad work late anyway, so now I usually make dinner for everyone. I don't mind, and I know Dad is glad someone actually uses the kitchen they just remodeled.

After
Chef Sherry
is over, I decide to make spaghetti. Sometimes when I'm cooking pasta for myself I just boil the noodles and pour soy sauce over them. I call it soy sauce spaghetti.

Tonight, though, I chop up onions and mushrooms and sauté them in butter and garlic. A few more minutes and I've added in ripe tomatoes, black olives, and fresh basil and oregano. Then I boil water for spaghetti and grate parmesan cheese. Once everything's done, I dish up a plate for me and Dad and light the candles in our dining room. And then I wait.

When the candles are burning low, I call Dad's cell.

“Dad?”

“Polly, how's my girl?” Dad's voice sounds tired, and in the background I hear a scratching noise.

I imagine him in his office—kind eyes, graying hair, suit rumpled. He's the executive director of a group home for foster kids, so he deals with some crazy situations. Dad is pretty laid-back and feels like as long as I'm getting good grades and staying out of trouble, everything's fine.

“Are you still at work? I made you dinner.”

“Oh, Polly, I'm so sorry . . .”

Dad breaks off, and in the silence that follows I hear the scratching noise again. Only now I realize it's not scratching at all. It's the sound of someone crying. A girl, I think. I imagine she's in Dad's office. Maybe she's just received bad news. Maybe she thought she'd get to go home with a foster family today, and can't. And maybe my dad is the only one she can talk to about it.

“Polly,” Dad says, “I really am sorry. I'll finish right up and—”

“You know what, Dad? It's cool. Really. I'll just leave some in the fridge for you.”

After I hang up the phone, I turn the TV back on and flip channels until I come to a football game. I imagine Mr. Fish watching the game with his wife and four daughters. Then I look around at my empty house, and the plate of cold spaghetti sitting on the dining room table. Right now football doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

True Confession: Being popular feels like I'm always walking on a tightrope. One false move, and it's a long, long way down.

I
MAY BE THE ONLY EIGHTH GRADER WHO REGULARLY
gives herself pep talks. I guess some people try to psych themselves up before a test or something, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean I stand in front of a mirror—whether it's the one on my closet door, in a bathroom, or the mirror I stuck on the inside of my locker door—and talk to myself. (When I do this at school, I whisper so no one hears.) And I say things like:

You are confident.

You are in control.

You. Are. Awesome.

And if you act like you think you're awesome, other people will think so too.

I got the idea to do this when Mom was listening to a podcast of her favorite motivational speaker. Hey, it might sound lame, but believe me, to survive life at the Court, you need all the pep talks you can get. Being popular looks like a lot of fun—and I'm not going to lie, sometimes it really is—but sometimes it's stressful, too.

After school ended, I dashed over to Chip's and picked up some cheesecakes for the planning committee meeting. Now I'm standing in front of my locker mirror hoping no one hears me talk to myself.

“You've got this meeting in the bag. It'll be no problem. You—”

“Hey, Pretty Polly!”

I jump and turn around. Derek Tanner is standing behind me, dressed in his football uniform. His hair is slicked into a crown of spikes. Even with the gallon of hair gel he must've used, he still smells like cardboard.

“Oh, hey, Derek. What's up?”

Derek holds up his helmet. “On my way to practice. What about you?”

“I'm going to the planning committee meeting. I was just . . . I just got back from picking up snacks.” I gesture to the bags from Chip's on the floor.

Derek picks up the bag with the cheesecakes, but leaves the bag of paper plates and forks. “Want me to carry this for you?”

“Um . . . sure. That would be super great.” I grab the other bag, and we start down the hall.

We walk in silence for a minute, and it occurs to me maybe I've been too hard on Derek. Maybe he's been hanging around because he really likes me, not just because he wants a slot on the Talent Team.

“You're in Mr. Fish's English class, right?” I ask. “We have book reports due in a couple weeks. What are you doing yours on?”

“Um . . .” Derek thinks for a minute. A long minute. Finally he shrugs. “I guess I haven't thought about it yet. What about you?”

After I tell him the title of my book, he says, “
Little Women
? What, are they midgets or something?”

“No, Derek. And you're supposed to say ‘little people,' not ‘midgets.' It's rude.”

We arrive outside of Mr. Fish's classroom, and Derek hands me the bag. Then he leans forward, and I get a big
blast of pickle breath. “I can't wait for tryouts. I have a great surprise in store for you. I think you'll really like it.”

Before I can answer, I hear Melinda shout, “Polly! You're late!”

Derek pokes his head into the classroom. “Hey, Coach!” he says to Mr. Fish, who, true to his word, is sitting at his desk flipping through
Sports Illustrated
. “We'll miss you at practice today.”

Mr. Fish grumbles that Derek and the rest of the team had better not take it easy just because he's not there.

“Wouldn't dream of it, Coach,” Derek says. Then he turns back to me and waves. “Catch you later.”

“You're late,” Melinda repeats as I struggle through the door into the classroom.

“I was picking up cheesecakes from Chip's.” Looking around, I see that Kristy, Lindsey, and a couple other seventh graders we allowed on the committee are already here. They've pushed their desks into a small circle.

“That's nice,” Melinda says. “Maybe we should just call you the SnackMaster, too.”

“Or maybe not,” I say. Both of us are singsonging our words, but from the way Lindsey and everyone else is looking at us, I can tell they feel the tension between Melinda and me. I heard a couple people call Melinda “Sushi Lips”
in the hallway today. And she barely spoke to me at lunch.

Just then there's a knock at the door. “Is this the Groove It Up meeting?”

I turn around. Standing behind me is Jenna Huff.

Jenna Huff has fluffy brown hair—that has always reminded me of a stuck-up poodle—and a small ski jump nose, which is currently turned upward as she stares at me.

“What are
you
doing here?” I ask rudely before I can help myself.

“I invited her,” Melinda says. “We need another person now that Kelsey's out.”

Jenna looks at Melinda. “You didn't tell me Plast—” She stops, and then says, “You didn't tell me
Polly
was the PlanMaster.” There's disgust in Jenna's voice, and she turns slightly toward the door. As if the fact that I'm the PlanMaster changes everything and Jenna may just walk away.

Which would be A-okay with me. And besides, by now everyone in school knows I'm the PlanMaster, so I think Jenna's just saying it to be mean.

“Principal Allen made Polly the PlanMaster.” Melinda's voice sounds sour.

“All right.” Jenna gives a gigantic sigh, like she's doing everyone a great big favor, and sits down at an empty desk.

Okay, here's another reason why I don't like Jenna
Huff: When we were in fifth grade, she wanted to do a mother-daughter book club. I thought it was a great idea, even though Kelsey, Alyssa, and I never hung out with Jenna and her friends. When I told Jenna I wanted to join, but that sometimes my mom couldn't make it because she was working, Jenna just smirked and said, “Duh. You have to have a mother to go to a mother-daughter book club.”

Jenna smirks at me now as I pass out plates of cheesecake to the committee. Out of the corner of my eye I see Melinda glance at Jenna, then at me, and then roll her eyes. There's something about her look, like she sought Jenna out and discovered who I was before I became a member of the Court. The bookworm with the squeaky voice.

“Here.” I hold a plate out to Mr. Fish.

He looks over the top of his magazine. “Is that pumpkin cheesecake?” I nod, and he takes the plate. “Pumpkin cheesecake is my favorite,” he says, almost grudgingly.

I tell everyone we'll start after we've eaten, and I take my time while I read through the speech I wrote last night. The truth is I've never led a meeting before. It's not that I haven't ever been on a school committee. I was on the decorating committee for the back-to-school dance we had last month, but I mostly just took notes and ran errands while Kelsey led the meetings.

I'm stalling for another reason too. Last night I meant to read
The PlanMaster's PlanMaster
, but it took me a while to write the speech. Then I had to pick out my outfit for today, something that usually takes me about an hour. After that I had a ton of homework to do. So, yeah, it didn't happen.

But I figure today I'll give my speech, call it a day, and we'll just get more done at the next meeting. When everyone has finished eating, I take out a notebook and a pen and call for everyone's attention. “Look, Jenna,” I say, “we don't have a lot of time, but before we start I want to catch you up about the planning committee—”

“Both of my older sisters were PlanMasters for Groove It Up,” Jenna interrupts. “So I already know what the planning committee does—probably more than you do.”

“Fine. Have it your way,” I say through gritted teeth.

I'm about to launch into my speech when Kristy says, “I have a question. How come every time my girls and I want to practice our routine in the auditorium, the drama club is using it?”

“Um,” I begin, “I'm not—”

“That's probably because Polly never booked the auditorium,” Jenna interrupts again. Then she turns to me. “You need to talk to Mrs. Marsden, the drama teacher, and
book the auditorium and the practice rooms so people can rehearse for Groove It Up.”

“Okay, I can do that.” I decide not to mention that Kelsey probably should've done that last week. “But anyway, I wanted to say—”

“I have a question too,” says Naomi Stillwell, a seventh grader. “We only need three judges for tryouts on Friday. So do we all have to be there? Because—”

“Yes,” Jenna answers. “Everyone needs to be there. The rest of the committee needs to keep the peace in the auditorium while the judges watch auditions in the practice room. Polly can order pizza for us.” Jenna turns to me. “You need to order pizza. It'll be a long night, trust me.”

“Good point,” Melinda says, and flashes me an evil grin. “It's nice to have someone around here who actually knows what they're doing.”