It's Not Easy Being Bad by Cynthia Voigt Read Free Book Online Page A

Mikey happened to be going by in the opposite direction, and happened to swing her arm to show Margalo how John Travolta danced in his old movie. Heather’s tray flew up into the air and covered her arms and chest in slices of hot turkey, and the gravy the sandwich wassmothered with, and the dark red cranberry sauce that was served on the side; then it clattered onto the floor.
    â€œWe have to stop meeting this way!” Mikey cried.
    A few disloyal giggles could be heard.
    After the first attacks, Heather McGinty could never be sure what might happen. She took to keeping a clean shirt and sweater in her locker. She took to hovering in the center of a circle of friends whenever she was in the cafeteria, like the nucleus of an atom.
    Meanwhile, Mikey had also gone up to Tan and Ronnie, to tell them to their faces, “You stink, both of you.”
    â€œHeather told us it was a joke, didn’t she, Tan?”
    â€œYou know I don’t have any sense of humor.”
    â€œWe thought you’d changed, didn’t we, Ronnie?”
    â€œWhy would I change?” Mikey demanded.
    â€œBecause it’s junior high,” they explained.
    Margalo, who was watching this, almost laughed out loud.
    â€œYou’re lying,” Mikey told the two girls. “You don’t expect me to believe that you believed Heather McGinty, do you?” she asked.
    Tanisha, in jeans and a sweatshirt, studied the toesof her Nikes, but Ronnie stuck to her guns. “And why shouldn’t we?”
    Mikey didn’t bother arguing the point. “You’ve turned into total wimps, doing whatever Heather tells you.” For a long time she stared right into Ronnie’s face; then she aimed her hostile glance right at Tanisha.
    â€œThis is really stupid,” Ronnie said, but Tan admitted, “Maybe we wanted what she was saying to be true.”
    â€œBecause you wanted to go to Rhonda Ransom’s party,” Mikey told them. “You total toadstools.”
    â€œYou just want to boss everybody!” Ronnie said.
    â€œRats on that, Ronnie. I just want people to call up and say they aren’t coming to my party, when I’ve invited them Regrets Only, and they aren’t going to come.”
    â€œAll right,” Tan said. “We will.”
    â€œAs if I’d ever ask you again,” Mikey said.
    After Tanisha and Ronnie walked off, Mikey turned to Margalo and mimed twirling a pair of six-guns around her fingers, then returning them to imaginary holsters. “Not too shabby, was I?” she remarked, with a smile that asked its own question: Aren’t I something? Then she said, “What are you going to do about Rhonda, Margalo?”
    Margalo could surprise people, too. “I’m already doing it. You mean you haven’t noticed?”
    *    *    *
    Margalo’s revenge on Rhonda was subtle, but it didn’t take Rhonda long to figure it out. When Margalo slipped in among the big-haired girls, and sidled up to greet her—“Hey, Barbie, how’s it going?”—Rhonda was immediately alarmed, just a flash of fear, like a rabbit startling at the sound of a dog’s bark. Then she sniffed and turned away, as if she hadn’t even heard Margalo, and couldn’t see her, anyway.
    Margalo repeated the greeting two or three times that first day. On the next day, she called across the gym to Rhonda, “Yo, Barbie! What’s happening?”
    People turned to see who this Barbie was, since there was no Barbie in the gym class. They began to make the connection. “Why does she call you Barbie?” Rhonda’s friends asked her. “Did you change your name for seventh grade?”
    â€œNo, I didn’t,” Rhonda said, “and I don’t know why. She’s just some dork from my old school. Nobody liked her; she’s not normal.”
    When Margalo saw Rhonda talking to an eighth-grade boy in the cafeteria,