It's Not Easy Being Bad by Cynthia Voigt

was easy steps from dumpless to dumpling, from dumpling to the Miss Dumpling Award, and from that to the Little Miss Muffin Award.
    *    *    *
    Margalo only included Mikey in the planning of this final revenge because she had to, but she had to admit that with the two of them working on it, it improved. Mikey had her dad’s computer graphics program, and a color printer, so the award certificates looked pretty professional. “They’re terrific,” Mikey informed Margalo.
    â€œYou always think that what you do is terrific.”
    â€œUsually it is.”
    â€œYou’re pretty cheerful these days,” Margalo remarked.
    â€œIt’s a load off my mind not trying to be popular. And what’s so funny now, Margalo Epps?”
    â€œYou. You are.” She changed the subject. “These certificates are going to look great.”
    â€œAll we have to do now is find out which lockers—”Mikey started to say, but Margalo was way ahead of her on that. “I already did. It wasn’t exactly high espionage, Mikey. You just watch people.”
    â€œI’ve got better things to do.”
    â€œOh, yeah? Like what?”
    â€œLike right now, trying this on a yellow background. Yellow or orange, what do you think?”
    Margalo thought yellow, against which the image they had made contrasted well, the plump, white, bubble-headed muffin wearing a jolly red-lipstick smile and happy half-moon eyes with long, stiff eyelashes, with its stick-figure legs under the pink ruffled skirt of its muffin cup. The certificate was pretty simple, like all good advertising graphics. It had a blue ribbon border ending at the bottom of the page in a blue first prize rosette. The merry muffin on its long dancing legs appeared at the middle of the page, slightly below center. Below her was a slogan Mikey and Margalo had argued over until they both liked it: THERE’S NOTHING MORE SWEET AND SMILEY THAN MY MORNING MUFFIN . And along the top ran the title: THE LITTLE MISS MUFFIN AWARD.
    Against the bright yellow background, the bright red title in 24-point Old Gothic font would be readable from yards away, as their awards greeted Heather,Annie, Stacey and Lacey and Tracey, and Linny, especially, because Linny had changed from being a not-stuck-up queen of their sixth-grade class to being someone who wouldn’t even say hi to you if you weren’t in some in-group. Margalo’s job that morning was getting those six award certificates taped up on the six lockers, and herself to gym not suspiciously late. She was in such a hurry, she didn’t even stand back to admire their work.
    Later, Margalo didn’t have a chance to stand back and admire, because there were groups of people crowding the hall, reading and laughing; either that, or watching the papers being ripped off and ripped up, and laughing.
    Mikey and Margalo arrived from different directions, so they had to watch the scene separately. “I think the real winner is Linny,” some boy said. Another argued that Heather was the roundest, most muffin-like, and another that Tracey had the most stick-like legs. “But Linny’s the one who dances like that,” insisted the first boy.
    This turned into a chanting, cheering contest—“Miss Muf-fin, Miss Muf-fin, Miss Muf-fin”—with rhythmic clapping, and each candidate with her own group of supporters, both boys and girls. “Sta-cey,Stacey,” battled with, “La-cey, La-cey,” for airspace, while one group maintained, “Annie’s eyes, Annie’s eyes.”
    The six contestants were bunched together in the center of all this, trying to look like good sports, looking to one another for reassurance, trying not to be caught getting angry, or weepy, or embarrassed. “Ha, ha-aha, ha, ha,” they pretended to laugh.
    â€œWho—?” they muttered to one another, and, “Where’s—?”
    Heather