Stealing Popular (3 page)

On her way out Dijon did a ballerina twirl to a hearty round of applause. I threw my hoodie over my head and tried not to hurl my oatmeal. It wasn't long before Mrs. Gisborne hit the
S
s.

“Sheppard, Liezelotta.”

“Liezelotta?” screamed Venice, poking Truffle next to her. “No wonder she goes by Liezel.”

Truffle shouted, “Liezelotta has gotta lotta name!”

The bleachers erupted in laughter. I didn't see what was so funny. But with Dijon and Évian now gone, apparently it was left to Venice and Truffle to rip into the Nobodies.

I felt a breeze and glanced up to see my new locker partner trotting down the steps. Knowing it was almost my turn, I stood up, which is how I got a clear view of a gray leather, knee-high boot shooting out into the middle of the aisle. Suddenly Liezel Sheppard was airborne. Her backpack sailed left. Her purse veered right. And Liezel soared straight—for about two seconds. Then gravity won.

Boom!

The crash shook the gym. It was followed by a chorus of “Ooohs!”

Sprawled facedown on the hardwood, Liezel's right arm was flung out to the side, her left arm was bent under her body, and her legs—oh, her legs—were in an awkward wishbone position.

Miss Aquino, a teacher's aide, and Vice Principal Falkner rushed to Liezel's side.

Venice and Truffle were howling.

Go ahead and laugh, girls, 'cause you're about to get in some serious trouble. Have fun with Mrs. Pescatori in the detention room.

Mrs. Pescatori had been a detention lady with the Oak Harbor school district since 1967. Anybody sent to the Big Mess detention room in the basement was forced to knit booties for her bulldogs, Winston Churchill and General MacArthur. If you didn't know how to knit, you learned. Fast.

I folded my arms and waited for the vice principal or one of the counselors to walk over and march the girls down to the office for their punishment. But that wasn't what happened.

What
did
happen?

“Sherman, Kayla. Sherman, Richard. Sherrill, Thomas.”

That's right—nothing.

Not. One. Thing.

Mrs. Gisborne's butterflies were boinging again, and Mr. Rottle was straightening his stack of schedule cards. The girls in the Royal Court were still laughing. Could it be that everybody, including the handful of adults in the gym, thought Liezel's fall was an accident? I couldn't be the
only
person to know the truth, could I? Other kids had to have seen it too. I glanced around quickly, but I was the only one standing up. Nobody was going to say anything. Nobody was going to defy the Royal Court. I should have known. It's how things were done at Big Mess. It was how they would always be done. And honestly? It made me mad.

I raced down the stairs and knelt by a red-faced Liezel. Pale green eyes with specks of gold were fighting back tears. Liezel was trying to wriggle out of Miss Aquino's grasp, desperate to put the disaster behind her.

“Does this hurt?” said Miss Aquino, gently probing Liezel's elbow.

“No,” she croaked. “I'm all right. Really, Miss A.”

“If it starts to hurt—”

“I'll go to the nurse's office right away, I promise,” said Liezel, scrambling for her books. “Coco, could you . . .?”

“I'll get your purse.” I went for the light pink leather hobo bag lying a few feet away. Dropping a silver barrette, a pen, and a tube of clear lip gloss into the purse, I handed it back to her.

“Thanks,” she said, wiping away a tear before it could slip down her cheek.

“I saw what happened,” I said softly.

Glassy, pale green eyes met mine. Liezel lifted her hand, but she was too late to stop a second tear from falling. My heart hurt for her. She didn't deserve what Venice had done to her. She didn't deserve that kind of embarrassment. Nobody did.

“Sherwood, Coco.” Mrs. Gisborne accidentally mispronounced my name as “Caw-coe.” If anybody laughed, I didn't hear it. Was that a drizzle of silver glitter I felt on my forehead? It was good to know I still had a bit of magic left.

There was a clear CD jewel case near my foot. I picked it up. “Is this yours too? There's a crack in the corner, but I think the disc is okay.”

“I don't want to lose that,” said Liezel. “It's my band.”

I read the handwritten label on the disc:
Avalanche
. I'd never heard of it. “This is your favorite band?”

“No, it's
my
band. I play guitar in a rock group.”

“Really?” I could see pixielike Liezel playing in a chamber music quartet, but a rock band?

“It's my cousin's band, actually. He goes to Oak Harbor High.”

“Could I listen to it?”

“Sure. Just leave it in our locker when you're done.”

“Hey, Weasel and Cuckoo, hurry up, will you?” called Truffle. “You're holding everybody up.”

“Weasel and Cuckoo,” cried Venice. “That sounds like a good title for a children's book.
Weasel and Cuckoo Fall on Their Butts!
” She let loose with her ear-splitting cackle.

I nudged my locker mate. “All she needs is a broom and a good tailwind, if you know what I mean.”

Liezel let herself smile.

Once we were safely out of the gym, we stopped in the courtyard to look over our schedules. “What's Lisp?” I asked Liezel. “I have it first period. Is that a speech class?”

“Lisp?” Frowning, she took the card I held out. “Oh, LSP. It stands for ‘leadership.' You're in Mr. Tanori's leadership class.”

No!

Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court were in that class. Like I said, Big Mess was their kingdom. I did my best to stay out of their way, which is why I had not signed up for leadership class, not even as an alternate.

“How could this have happened?” I blew air out of my cheeks.

“I don't know, but if I were you, I'd be more worried about these next three classes.”

I peered over her shoulder. “Why?”

“They're all PE.”

I was drawing.

Sitting on our blue sofa, my knees up to support my sketchbook, I began drawing what I remembered most about her: pale green eyes with flecks of gold. There is no sound quite like a newly sharpened pencil on paper. First, the
wissss
of clean lines stroking from the razor sharp point. Then the rapid
woos-woos
of the angle as you fill and shade, lighter in some places, darker in others. Wherever you want, however you want. Where once there was nothing, now there is everything. Emotion, life, beauty, pain, hope—you.

Poof!

Not that there is really anything magical about it. It is work. Every stroke is hard work.

As I sketched, the crisp scent of melting cheddar cheese tickled my nose. On the first day of school we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches with sliced
tomatoes for dinner. I couldn't say exactly why or how the tradition started, but I knew when. It was the first day of second grade. The third day of September. Three months to the day after my mother left.

Left.

It makes it sound like she went to the grocery store and will be back any minute. Whenever Aunt Iona says it, her face gets all distorted. She has this way of making “left” sound like “murder.” She does it without realizing it. My aunt is a family counselor, so she is very big on expressing your innermost feelings. She thinks if she doesn't constantly remind me that what happened was not my fault, I will be permanently damaged. Aunt Iona can relax. I know nothing was—is—my fault. I know my mother loved—loves—me. It's just she is a restless soul. She can't help it. My mom is a famous travel writer. She gets to fly all over the world and stay in a different hotel every night. It's a glamorous life. How many kids do you know who get Egyptian lotus flower perfume or an aboriginal handmade didgeridoo from Australia for their birthday? Okay, the perfume gave me a rash and the didgeridoo arrived broken, but still . . .

True, it would be nice if my mother stayed in one place for more than a weekend, and it would be even
nicer if that place was Oak Harbor, but I am not holding my breath. It's not like I
never
talk to or see my mother. I get a text from her every couple of months, and we talk, maybe, once every six months, depending on where she is and what she's doing. I wish we talked more. I wish when we
did
talk, it was about stuff that mattered, instead of the weather or school. It's hard, wanting to be with a person more than they want to be with you. Especially when that person is your mom. But you can't force somebody to be who you want them to be. The magic only works on you, and even then, there's only so much it can do.

Aunt Iona said in therapeutic terms I was in denial about my mother, so, of course, I giggled and said, “I deny that I'm in denial.” I tended to laugh off a lot of my aunt's counseling stuff, particularly the things that are true.

My life is divided into two parts. The one Before Mom and the one After Mom. I was starting to like AM the more I lived it. After Mom was when I first started drawing—faces, mostly. But other things too, like animals and angels. Sketching made me feel like there was a purpose for being. I could sit on the playground at recess and draw and forget, for a while, that
nearly every other minute of my life was spent wishing, wishing, wishing my mom would come home. While I drew, I'd steal glances at the other kids on the playground, hoping someone would be brave enough to come over and talk to me. It rarely happened, and when it did, it never led to anything important. Like friendship.

“Who's that?” My dad was hovering over my left shoulder.

“Liezel Sheppard. She's my locker partner.”

“Nice eyes. I hope she's better than the girl you had last spring.”

He meant Stockholm Ingebrittson, one of Dijon's fringe Somebodies. Stockholm had not appreciated getting assigned a locker mate three-quarters of the way through the school year. Stock also believed anything that was yours was hers—your food, your pens, your books, and especially, your money. It took me a while to figure out I was sharing a locker with a shoplifter, or as I liked to refer to her, Stocklifter.

“A billion times better,” I said. “Liezel plays in a rock band.”

“A musician, huh?” He headed back into the kitchen. “How are your classes?”

“Uh . . . good. Mrs. Gisborne is making a few minor adjustments.”

“How's Waffles?

“Crooked.”

He poked his head out of the kitchen. “Everything's okay, though, with your classes?”

“Yeah,” I lied, letting the couch cushions consume me. I didn't want to relive the horror. After I'd picked up my schedule from Mrs. Gisborne, my first day of eighth grade had gone from irritating to excruciating.

See, once you notify the counselor's office there's a problem with your schedule, you're supposed to continue going to your assigned classes and wait to be called down to the counseling office. That meant after leadership class (with Adair, thank God!), I was forced to spend the next three hours with Mrs. Notting and Miss Furdy in the gym.

Mrs. Notting coached cheerleading, along with girls' basketball, softball, and volleyball. Miss Furdy was the assistant cheer coach, and handled the track and cross-country teams. They weren't exactly fashionistas. Coach Notting liked to wear nylon, size “small” tracksuits. Too bad
she
was a size large. The pants never hit past her ankles.

Coach Notting chuckled when she saw my schedule card. “I didn't know you liked PE this much, Sherwood.”

“They said they'd call me down soon to fix it,” I said. “Probably by the end of the day.”

Coach Notting clicked her tongue.

“What?”

“Try Thursday.”

“Three days? I have to wait
three
days?”

“Maybe a week,” added Miss Furdy, shaking her head.

“It can get pretty chaotic trying to sort out all the computer glitches, and yours is a whopper,” said the coach. “But don't worry, we'll keep you busy while you're ours.”

I didn't like the way she said “while you're ours.” Like I was her slave. If I had to clean fungus out of the showers or unravel the Jupiter-sized ball of tangled jump ropes, I was going to drop out of middle school here and now.

“She could be our model,” said Miss Furdy.

I definitely did
not
like the sound of that. “I could go to the library,” I offered.

“Get suited up, Sherwood,” said Coach Notting.
“You'll be our model today as we go over the dress code with each class.”

“Uh . . . well . . .”

“You
do
have your PE clothes.”

I winced. “It's only the first day of school. I thought—”

“It stated very clearly in your ‘Welcome Back to Briar Green' letter that you were to bring your PE clothes on the first day of class so you could place them in your assigned locker.”

“There was a letter? I don't remember any—”

Coach Notting sighed. “Excuses, Sherwood, are like belly buttons. Everyone has one and what are they good for?”

“Sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Apologies, Sherwood, are like traffic lights. If there's no change, there can be no progress. Now go get suited up.”

“But I didn't—”

“I know, I know. You don't have your clothes.” She tossed me a key. “You should be able to find something that fits in the lost-and-found bin in the cabinet behind you.”

For the next three hours I had to stand in front of
the PE classes wearing someone else's shirt (ew!) that wouldn't stay down and someone else's shorts (double ew!) that wouldn't stay up. The shirt was so old, it had teeny lint balls stuck to it. The shorts smelled like spoiled milk. Well, I told myself it was spoiled milk. Denial
can
come in handy, now and then. Following each Modeling Session of Torture, the rest of the period was spent playing basketball. I noticed that Coach Notting and Miss Furdy divided the teams by social level: Somebodies and Sortabodies against Nobodies. Naturally, the Nobodies didn't stand a chance. In third period Dijon, Évian, and Venice led their team to a 38 to 8 victory against a very frustrated team of Nobodies. I know, because I was on the Nobodies' team. I scored all eight points. I would have scored more, but my teammate Renata Zickelfoos had coordination issues. She didn't know how to dribble, pass, or shoot. She also had geography issues. Renata couldn't remember which basket was ours. It was a long morning. When it was over, I had come to the conclusion that Coach Notting was like a pimple. Painful, embarrassing, and probably going to leave a scar. But she was right about one thing. I never did get called down to the counseling office.