My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan by Seth Rudetsky Read Free Book Online Page A

Becky’s presence. I felt the same way. It was a little like walking with the queen. Everyone smiled and waved as we passed … which was then followed by a double take when they saw Becky holding hands with me.
    “What’s your social studies report gonna be about?” Savannah asked. “I’m doing the Civil War.”
    I waited for Becky to answer. Then I realized they were both staring at me. Savannah was talking to
me
—uninitiated!
    Immobilization overtook me. I wasn’t really sure how to chat with someone who was in a higher social stratum than myself. I’m used to having conversations with those in my own lowly status and being ignored by everyone else. I decided to answer like I normally would.
    “I’m doing a report on McCarthyism in the fifties.”
    “Oh …,” she said, trailing off.
    Silence. UGH! I was so annoyed with myself! I finally had a chance to converse with someone who wasn’t considered a total loser by the whole school and I was blowing it. I felt like I was solidifying my lowly social standing. How could I make her think I had risen in the ranks? In my head, I ran through conversations I had eavesdropped on in the past. Hmm … it seemed the people at the top always had a certain style when they spoke to anyone lower than them. I decided to give it a try. “You’re doing the Civil War?” I asked while adopting a slight sneer. “Why’d you pick something stupid like that?”
    Was I doing it right?
    “I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m an idiot sometimes.”
    That was it! I had to be a little mean to show I was above her. Then she’d wanna keep talking.
    She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I can still switch. What do you think I should write about?”
    Uh-oh. In reality, I thought the Civil War was fascinating, so I didn’t have an immediate follow-up. “Um …” I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “The Nazi Big Lie technique.”
    Becky quickly joined in the conversation. “Oh, just ignore him, Savannah. He thinks everything’s boring if it doesn’t involve biology.”
    “Or Broadway,” I added.
    “Or girls!” Becky added, probably to counteract my lastcomment. I didn’t know how
that
Nazi big lie was gonna fly until Savannah laughed and said, “Typical guy.”
    Typical guy?!
I’d always been the outcast, the loser, the weirdo.
Never
“typical.” My life seemed to be on a completely new path, and I was going to stay on it! God bless Mr. Plotnick’s social studies class. Because if we hadn’t spent that week on World War II, Becky and I wouldn’t have learned the theory that if you state something with full confidence, even a blatant lie,
people will believe you
.
    Wow. I never imagined I would one day say this, but … thank you, Nazis!

COINCIDENTALLY, MY FIRST CLASS WAS social studies and nothing seemed different—aka I was ignored by the cool/​popular/​smart kids and harassed by the Doug Gool group. Today, class started with a lesson about World War II’s Axis of Evil, and not surprisingly, Doug taped a note to the back of my seat that said “Axis of Gayvil.” World War II has been especially ripe for Doug to find harassment material. Besides learning the Nazi Big Lie technique over the last few weeks, we also learned about the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb: the devastatingly named (for me)
Enola Gay
. As soon as class was out that day, Doug and his friends started calling me “Enola.” I, of course, made the mistake of asking them not to call me that, so they offered to be more polite and started calling me Miss Gay. I knew if I protested “Miss Gay,” it would then become “Ms. Gay,” so I quit before I was addressed as a feminist.
    At the beginning of class, I saw Doug put a piece ofchocolate on Mary Ann Cortale’s (the guidance counselor’s daughter) seat, and she sat down without seeing it. We spent the second half of class learning about Hitler’s girlfriend (Eva Braun).