Mission (Un)Popular by Anna Humphrey

Southvale?” Sarah cut in. “It sucks. You want to go to Connor-Leaside. It’s not as white trash…Hey.” She squinted at Em like she was trying to measure her with her eyes to decide which level of loserdom she belonged in. “Do you girls already know each other from somewhere?” Sarah thinks everything is her business.
    â€œKind of. We met at this lame workshop—” Em started, then thankfully stopped. I think because she noticed the look of terror on my face. If she expanded on that sentence, we might as well make big hats that said “superloser” and wear them all year long, because Sarah J. would never forget, and she’d tell everyone.
    â€œA workshop?” said Sarah, sounding all interested.
    â€œIt wasn’t a workshop.” My mind was racing, trying to think of a way out.
    â€œYeah,” Em said matter-of-factly. “It was more of a convention.” She bent down and took another binder out of her bag, like there was nothing more to say.
    â€œWhat kind of convention?” Sarah J. pressed.
    I was on the verge of telling her to mind her own big, fat, hairy business when Em looked up and said with a completely straight face: “It was a junior modeling convention.” She paused, giving Sarah a bored look. “In New York.” You could practically see Sarah J.’s eyes pop out of her head with disbelief. “I won’t get into the details,” Em continued. “It was a really boring one, wasn’t it?” She turned to me.
    â€œYeah. Well. Not the greatest,” I answered awkwardly.
    Sarah J. grinned wickedly. “Wait, Margot models ?”
    â€œWhat?” Em faked surprise. “Is that hard to believe?”
    Apparently it was, because Sarah started laughing. Gorgeous George had turned around in his chair to look at me by now. Then things got worse. Ken, the biggest jerk on earth, who was still standing at George’s desk, grabbed the car magazine they’d been flipping through. “Hey, Hamburglar. Is this you?” He held up a picture of a red car with a brown-skinned model draped across the hood. She had huge pouty lips and heliumballoonlike cleavage. Sarah laughed even harder, covering her mouth. I literally wanted to melt into a puddle and seep into the carpet. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    Em just shrugged. “Don’t be. You’ve obviously never seen Margot’s portfolio. She’s totally photogenic, and all the casting agents say she has real potential. I mean, she’s so thin.” She had that part right. I’m a boobless twig. That hardly made the lie more believable, though.
    Mrs. Collins came back into the room then, and called for everyone’s attention.
    â€œHere,” Sarah said softly, slipping her cell phone into George’s palm. “It’s got the pictures from the pool party last week. There’s one of that girl named Shawna my cousin invited, wearing a bikini. Now, she should be a model,” Sarah said, giving me a look. “No offense, Margot. Don’t get that confiscated,” she said to George, then she walked back to her desk. While Mrs. Collins waited for the class to settle down and George scrolled through Sarah’s pictures underneath his desk, I opened my planner and started counting the days until Christmas vacation.
    â€œIt’s lovely to see you this morning,” Mrs. Collins began. “I hope you all had a pleasant summer. Most of you know one another from Colonel Darling, but we have one international student joining us.” Mrs. Collins paused. “I’d like you all to welcome Emily Warner.” Everyone turned in their seats. “Emily just moved to Darling from New York !” Mrs. Collins said the New York part like it was some kind of unbelievable thing. Honestly, her tone of voice would have been the exact same if she’d said “Emily just moved to Darling from the moon