Stealing Popular by Trudi Trueit Page B

definitely come from the hallway. This time, Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court quickly packed up and headed out the door—but not too quickly. It wasn’t good form for a Somebody to appear too eager to go anywhere.
    I looked for Mr. Quigley, our lunchroom monitor. He was on the far side of the cafeteria showing his cat photos to a couple of captive sixth graders. He didn’t seem concerned about the shrieks coming from the hall.
    â€œAuuuggggh!”
    â€œ What is going on out there?” squealed Adair at the exact moment Évian went by, hurrying to catch up to Dijon.
    Ã‰vian turned our way and said dryly, “Cheer results.”
    A hard jolt went through my body. It felt like lightning, but it was probably Adair, yanking off my right arm. “They posted early!”
    Color draining from her face, Fawn was frozen to her seat. I had to clap my hands in front of her face to bring her back to reality. “Come on, Fawn, we’re going with Adair to check the cheer results.”
    â€œO-okay.”
    I wished she would stop looking so guilty. We had nothing to feel guilty about. Right?
    As the four of us made our way across the cafeteria, Adair, who was still firmly glued to my arm, kept repeating, “I can’t look, I can’t look, I can’t look.”
    â€œIf you don’t look, you’ll never know,” said Liezel.
    â€œOkay, I’ll look.”
    She would, however, have to wait. A traffic jam, several girls deep, blocked the ASB bulletin board. Some of the girls were scanning for their names. Some were scanning for the name of someone they knew. Most, eventually, dropped their arms or heads and silently fell away. When the last of the bodies moved aside, I put my fingers on Adair’s spine and pushed her forward.
    Fawn, Liezel, and I huddled together. I tried to stay calm, but the beans from my soup kept doing tumbling passes in my stomach. Also, the loop of “what ifs” had started in again from the beginning. What if, in my rush to finish, I’d made an error? What if Mrs. Rivkin didn’t follow my instructions? What if she suspected something was up? What if Coach Notting, Miss Furdy, or Mrs. Ignazio had gone to the office after we’d left?
    I wasn’t going to get away with this, was I?
    Nobodies never got away with anything, especially when it involved pulling one over on the Somebodies. Something like what I had done had probably never before been attempted in middle-school history. I wiped my sweaty palms on the front of my jeans. What had I been thinking? No way, no how was this ever going to work.
    Adair was charging at us. “I made it!” She leaped into our arms. Her voice was muffled in my shoulder. “You were there with me every step of the way, Coco.”
    She had no idea.
    I smiled at Fawn, not to hide my worries but for real. Wiping her forehead with an exaggerated motion, she smiled back.
    We had actually done it! A couple of Nobodies had changed the course of Big Mess history. Adair was so excited, she couldn’t stop squealing and hopping and hugging. I, however, was completely exhausted. Manipulating the world takes a lot out of a person.
    â€œI don’t believe it.” Willow Christopher turned from the bulletin board. She looked at us, her expressionless face a chalky pink. “I never thought . . . My mom said I shouldn’t try out. She said I’d get my heart broken. My sister said I wasn’t the right size. . . . I mean, you hopebut never in a million, trillion years do you think it’s possible and then . . . and then . . .”
    â€œYou make it,” I whispered.
    A tear rolled down her left cheek. “You make it.” Trembling hands came to her mouth. “Oh my God, Coco, I made it. I MADE IT!” Willow threw her arms around me and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until I was certain three or four vital organs were going to burst.