It's Not Easy Being Bad by Cynthia Voigt Page B

classes in seventh grade.”
    â€œThey won’t change the policy,” Margalo predicted.
    â€œYou don’t get it. I’m right. They’re wrong. It’s going to be easy.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Margalo said. “Although . . .” She was having the beginning of an idea, herself.
    â€œBesides, it’ll give me something to do,” Mikey argued. “Look at our lives, Margalo. We sit in class, welearn what they tell us to, we go home and do homework. I ask you,” she told Margalo.
    â€œSchool’s not all that simple for me,” Margalo pointed out. She had to figure out which teachers preferred you to repeat back their own opinions and which wanted you to contradict them; which wanted you to ask questions and which preferred sponges for students. She needed to learn to predict the kinds of questions she was going to get on tests and what kinds of answers would get her the best grades. Not to mention tracking the interests and opinions of the other students, itself a full-time job. “I’m not bored at school,” she said.
    â€œYou should be,” Mikey announced. “Besides, you know it’s not fair if I can’t play on the team just because I’m a seventh grader.”
    Even if she agreed, Margalo didn’t want to hear any more about this. In fact, she didn’t care much about it. In fact, if somebody asked her about what was boring, she would probably answer: getting bent out of shape because seventh graders couldn’t play on school teams.
    That, however, she didn’t tell Mikey. Instead, she asked, “What dumb committee do we want to be on for the dumb dance?”
    â€œNone,” Mikey said.
    â€œYeah. But every seventh grader has to.”
    â€œAnd that’s not fair, either,” Mikey said.
    *    *    *
    Sometimes, Margalo thought, Mikey was more trouble than she was worth.
    â€œI’m going to make an appointment with Mr. Saunders,” was how Mikey greeted her the next morning. Not, “Good luck on the math quiz,” but only her own hot news.
    Even if Margalo had been thinking about this team situation, she still wanted a best friend who didn’t think exclusively about herself. So Margalo was grumpy, and Mikey decided, “I guess you’re going to start your period. About time. Do you have extra zits this week?”
    Maybe that was Mikey’s idea of best friendship. Sometimes it wasn’t Margalo’s, so she was glad to spend most of that morning not in Mikey’s company. Although the idea of starting her period—because it was about time—cheered her up.
    On a whim, the cheered-up Margalo stopped by Ronnie Caselli’s desk before English class started and said, “Hey.” She could see that Ronnie was glad she did.
    That told Margalo that Ronnie was sorry for the way she’d treated Mikey, about the dinner party and afterward, too. Ronnie would probably never say it—she was a Caselli, after all, and Mikey was Mikey—but she wouldn’t do it again, either.
    â€œHihowareyou?” Ronnie smiled, a big smile. “You’re looking good—but you always do.”
    Margalo kept the compliments even. “I like those barrettes.” Ronnie held her hair back from her face with three barrettes, two on one side, one on the other, all of them looking like tiny glass daisies in pale tones of pink and blue and purple.
    â€œI got them this weekend, at the mall.”
    â€œExpensive?” Margalo asked, as if she could even think of buying herself fancy hair barrettes.
    â€œNot too bad. I’ve been doing a lot of baby-sitting.”
    â€œI wish I could baby-sit for money.” Margalo meant it, but she also meant to flatter. Who doesn’t like to be told she’s more fortunate than you?
    A few girls entered the class. “Hey, Ronnie,” they said and, seeing Margalo, “Hey,