Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? by Cynthia Voigt

stage, on which she had already set up two chairs, facing each other. She seated herself on one of them and set her clipboard on her lap, pen at the ready. The room filled up. Even Shawn Macavity was there, confident that people would overlook his not being a club member for the sake of his star power. He greeted people, although not Margalo, “Some fun, hunh?” They humphed and ignored him.
    Because Sven and the goons had gotten bored with taking Hadrian’s knapsack from him, hiding or destroying his homework papers, sometimes tossing the knapsack into a cafeteria garbage can, sometimes putting it behind a toilet in one of the girls’ bathrooms . . . .
    But who did they get to help them with that? Margalo wondered now. She didn’t like to think of all the possible answers to that question. She was just relieved that they seemed to have stopped pulling that particular trick, so she could be pretty sure that if Hadrian’s green knapsack, with hisinitials stenciled on it in big black letters, wasn’t there by the desk, he hadn’t yet arrived.
    But she wasn’t sure what the tardiness meant. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t lose his nerve, not about acting.
    When the bell rang, and people had fallen silent, Ms. Hendriks looked up from her clipboard and said, “All right, then. Seniors first. Who . . .”
    She stopped speaking. She stared at the doorway. Different expressions crossed over her face so quickly that the people watching could barely identify one expression and figure out how to react to it before another had replaced it. Irritation was replaced by laughter was replaced by pity was replaced by confusion was replaced by decision, and Ms. Hendriks stood up to ask, “What is going on here?”
    By then everybody in the room had turned to look, and seeing, many had shifted themselves around to face the door, and the hallway beyond, so they could really see.
    Margalo looked too, and she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t even think of anything to say.
    Nobody answered Ms. Hendriks’ question, not anyone in Drama Club, nor any of the three juniors standing in the doorway, looking even larger than usual compared to the short, slight figure that stood in their midst, as if they were the military guard and he was their captive, brought in for questioning. He wore belted khakis and a plaid short-sleeved shirt. His hair stood up in thick, short spikes all over his head, making him look like a plastic hedgehog toy for some baby’sbathtub. A knapsack hung beside his knees and his face was bright red. Hadrian Klenk.
    Why that picture struck them as funny, nobody could have said. Maybe it was because the guards were so big, so tall and broad and thick-limbed, and their prisoner so much littler. It was ridiculous to see all of those great big guards for that one little prisoner, like using three German shepherds to herd a Chihuahua.
    Or maybe it was Hadrian’s hair, which looked like some moth-eaten hairbrush. Or a cartoon bomb. Or one of those designer fruits their mothers sometimes brought home from the store and tried to convince them to eat.
    Or maybe it was how bright red Hadrian’s face was, like some teacher about to explode into anger.
    For whatever reason—and Ms. Hendriks could have told them that comedy works in a variety of different ways—almost everybody in the room started to laugh. Not Margalo and not Ms. Hendriks, but they were about the only ones left out. Of course everybody knew they shouldn’t want to laugh, and shouldn’t be laughing, so everybody tried to muffle it, which of course made it even funnier.
    Equally of course, when the three comedians saw how successful they were being, they went further. Sven took his big hand off of Hadrian’s thin shoulder and beat both fists on his chest, making Tarzan noises.
    But when Ms. Hendriks took a step towards the front of the platform and then