It's Not Easy Being Bad Read Online Free PDF Page B

“So, how did the party go?” Or she could try an indirect inquiry—“Y’wanna hear about my Halloween?”—which would naturally lead into an exchange of Halloween reports.
    Margalo stood behind Mikey in the cafeteria line, watching her tray fill up with a wide bowl of vegetable soup, and a sandwich of grilled cheese so skinny, it resembled some cartoon coyote a ten-tonweight had fallen on, a container of milk, and a little bowl of quivering red Jell-O. All around them people were talking, but Mikey just glared down at her lunch as if she planned to torture it first, and then kill it. Following Mikey to their usual table at the for end of the cafeteria, Margalo decided that she was just going to have to ask point-blank, like firing a gun: “What went wrong with your party?”
    But it turned out she didn’t have to. They were about to climb over the bench to sit in their usual seats, facing out, backs to the wall, when Heather McGinty, head preppie, her little short skirt swishing—swish, swish—her loyal followers close behind her, walked in front of their table. And stopped.
    The followers mostly wore little short skirts like Heather’s, or loose trousers that tied at the waist; they all wore little short T-shirts under little short misty gray or misty blue or misty green cardigan sweaters. They liked socks with designs on them and clunky shoes, although none of them went as far as Doc Martens. All of them had shiny clean hair and pinky-brown lipstick, and they waited, bright-eyed and eager as a herd of chipmunks, waiting for Heather to exercise leadership.
    Heather looked at Mikey with an Oh! it’s you! What a surprise! expression on her face. A big, fake Oh! it’s you! What a surprise! expression.
    Mikey had one foot on the bench and held her tray out in front of her. Her expression was furious.
    Nobody even noticed Margalo, who was sort of impressed that Heather hadn’t backed off when Mikey first glared an If-you-knew-how-much-you-wouldn’t-be-standing-there-you’d-be-running smile.
    â€œHey,” Heather said, drawing it out. “Mikey,” she said, the way you say the name of someone you’ve just been thinking—or talking—about.
    Mikey didn’t say a word.
    Heather had pulled her hair back with a band, so that when she turned her head to look back at her preppies-in-waiting, you could admire her profile, with the little straight nose and the little round chin. Her preppettes answered with excited giggles or smirks, each according to her own character and taste.
    They knew something was coming, Margalo could see that. They knew something was coming and they knew what it was. This was the way people worked in cliques; everybody knew, so that they could look forward to it, beforehand, and really enjoy it, during, and talk it over, after.
    â€œYou probably don’t know Mikey Elsinger,” Heathersaid to her friends. The friends watched Heather, not Mikey. “Mikey’s the one I was telling you about, who sent out those really funny invitations, as if she was giving a formal dinner party, as if she was really inviting me—me and Heather James, and you, too, Annie, you got one, didn’t you? and—oh, you know, everyone. That was a cool joke, Mikey.”
    Beside Margalo, her foot balanced on the bench, her tray balanced in her hands, Mikey waited. Without saying a thing.
    A fake concerned expression floated over Heather McGinty’s face and settled there, a hen settling down on its eggs. “It was a joke, wasn’t it?” she asked, so sincere that everybody had to know she was faking.
    There was half a minute or so of silence. Then the girls around Heather started to laugh, and people at nearby tables turned around to see what was going on.
    Even though she didn’t want to, Margalo couldn’t help feeling embarrassed, and ashamed to be Mikey’s friend. And that made her angry, too, and