Free Mission (Un)Popular by Anna Humphrey Page B

my backpack. “Great. An English teacher who can’t even spell my name.”
    â€œMargot Button.” I heard Mrs. Collins’s voice, and by the time I looked up, she was standing in the aisle in front of me. “In this classroom we don’t tolerate disrespect. Why don’t you join me at lunch recess, hmmm?” I clenched my hands into fists underneath the desk, but managed to keep myself from saying anything else stupid. The second she started back up the aisle, I grabbed my name tag and furiously added a T to my name. I scratched so hard that the pen tore right through the label. Fantastic. Not only had I managed to get a lunchtime detention within the first two minutes of being in the classroom, I was also going to look like an idiot wearing a name tag with a hole in it all day.
    But just then, like a single ray of sunshine bursting through the suckiness that was my morning, Gorgeous George walked up the aisle and sank down into the seat in front of me! Into the permanent, assigned seat in front of me. He was so close I could smell the laundry detergent his mom used. But before I could even fully appreciate the gorgeousness of his shiny brown hair, his friend Ken followed behind and threw a car magazine onto his desk.
    â€œButton,” Ken said, winking at me and my stupid name tag. “Don’t feel bad. The letter T is a hard one. I didn’t learn it until like, second grade.” He flashed me a big fake smile.
    â€œI remember you,” I heard someone say. I looked to my left and saw that the girl from the self-esteem workshop had been assigned the seat beside me. She couldn’t have sat down at a better time.
    â€œHi!” I said, way too enthusiastically. “Em, right?”
    â€œAnd you’re Margot,” she said. For a second I was flattered that she still knew my name, then I remembered I was wearing the stupid name tag. “Are you still dying a little bit on the inside?” she asked, rolling her eyes.
    â€œDepends. Are you still trying to live a healthy life in a world obsessed with consumerism?” I’d had to work so hard to hold in my laughter during Mrs. Carlyle’s description of Em’s fruit, nail polish, and sports car collage that I’d nearly started crying.
    â€œThat workshop was beyond lame,” Em said.
    I just smiled. Mrs. Collins had stepped into the hallway to talk to another teacher, and Sarah J. had taken the opportunity to get out her cell phone. She was standing one row over at Maggie’s desk, reading a text off the display.
    â€œMatt’s coming to pick me up at lunch today,” she announced loudly. “He says he misses me too much to be apart for the whole day. Isn’t that the sweetest?”
    â€œThat’s so adorable,” Maggie agreed.
    â€œI know. Ninth grade guys are so much more mature and sensitive than guys our age.”
    Sarah had a boyfriend who was in high school? Wasn’t that illegal or something?
    â€œI went to that mall you were telling me about,” Em said as she took a black binder and red canvas pencil case out of her bag. I was so absorbed in Sarah’s conversation that it took me a second to remember what she was talking about. “At Southvale? Is that really the best one in this town? It was so empty.”
    All of a sudden, Sarah J.’s super-senses seemed to kick in. Maybe she’d sniffed out the fact that somebody in the room wasn’t secretly paying attention to her, or maybe it was because she’d heard the word “mall.” Whatever the reason, she suddenly flipped her phone shut and spun around.
    â€œOh, hi. You must be a new person,” she said to Em. “I’m Sarah Jamieson.” She smiled ever so sweetly.
    â€œHi,” Em said. “Nice to meet you.” Then she gave Sarah a strange look when she kept standing there looking at us. “So, about that mall?” Em prompted.
    â€œYou mean