Queen of Likes Read online

  Contact Student Council Advisor Mrs. Grayson with questions.

  “Cool.” Ella stares eagerly at the flier as if it’s coated in chocolate.

  “I know. I can’t wait.” Bailey opens her mouth and out comes her high-pitched musical laugh. “This year, for the first time ever, seventh grade is going to win the Spirit Stick. I’m so excited. It’s all I could think about all weekend.” Her hazel eyes are bright and expectant. “We’re so going win. Did you guys have a good weekend?”

  “Uh-huh,” says Ella in her quietest, sweetest voice. She glances at me significantly. “But not everyone did.”

  Suddenly I want to kill my best friend. If people don’t know about my Snappypic yet, I’d rather not go there. I busy myself licking my fingers and patting down my hair. But now everyone is looking at me like they know something is up.

  Bailey studies me curiously. “What’s going on, Karma?”

  “My parents closed my Snappypic,” I say as fast as I can. “They also took my phone. And gave me this.” I show them my flip phone, Flippie.

  Bailey clamps her small, delicate hand to her small, delicate mouth. “No way. You of all people. Wow. On Sunday, I tried to LIKE something of yours. But I couldn’t find it. I thought it was some kind of error or something. That’s crazy.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I’d die,” says Megan in her sweet baby voice. “I mean it. They could just put a gravestone up right now. Because not having my phone would be like”—she pauses—“not existing at all.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Janel says loudly over the chattering crowd in the hallway.

  “That’s awful.” Bailey gives me a hug and so does Megan. The hugs feel good. Bailey must really like me and has forgotten about the peanut-butter-in-hair incident. “It’s too bad your parents did that. Because we were going to ask you to be publicity chair of Spirit Week for the seventh grade.”

  What?! I can’t believe this. That’s probably why Bailey had been messaging me on Saturday. My stomach drops. Why would this awesome offer have to happen the exact time that my phone gets taken away? And my Snappypic gets shuts down? Coincidence? Bad Karma?

  At the very least, there are definitely antipopularity forces conspiring against me.

  Bailey sighs. “Oh, well. We’ll have to ask someone else.” She neatens the rest of her stack, which I didn’t think was possible since it already looked perfectly tidy. “We need someone who can get the word out with social media in all kinds of creative ways. Basically to get the seventh grade all geared up to win.”

  I lock eyes with Ella. “Ella could do it,” I say.

  My best friend looks at me gratefully. Her cheeks glow pink. Her eyes widen. A bunch of kids swirl around our little cluster in the hall. They’re trying to overhear what we’re saying as we head to class.

  Ella clears her throat. Her eyes dart nervously around the group. “It’s a big job,” she says in a whispery voice, “but I could probably get the word out on Snappypic.” She shrugs. “And do posters. I’m okay with drawing and hand lettering and stuff.”

  “More than okay,” I say. “She’s amazing. She can do script so it looks like a wedding invitation, and she can draw anything.”

  “Well, maybe,” says Bailey.

  But Bailey is still not looking at Ella, who is standing there so cutely and artistically and sweetly. Ella, who looks like a cover girl. No, Bailey—the center of everything seventh grade—is looking forlornly, regretfully, at me.

  The Break

  After second period, there’s a ten-minute break and I go to the bathroom. I’m in the stall when I hear familiar voices enter the washroom. Voices who say “super” a lot. Bailey, Megan, and Janel, of course.

  “So what do you think of Ella?” somebody says as a toilet flushes. It sounds like Janel. My ears perk up and I quiet my breathing.

  “People, there’s no way that Ella can chair publicity,” says Bailey.

  “Well, for one thing, you can’t hear her speak,” says Janel. “She’s so quiet.”

  “Exactly,” says Bailey, speaking in her supercrisp way.

  “Hello, I’m Ella Fuentes and I speak just like”—Megan lowers her voice even more—“a mouse.”

  It’s true that Ella has a soft voice, but it still makes me mad to hear them making fun of her like that. I want to burst out of the stall. I want to scream at them to shut up.

  But my pants are kind of down, plus I don’t want to make a huge scene.

  “Hey, you guys, Ella’s an awesome artist,” says Janel. “I’m serious. We’re going to be hearing from her someday. She’s like Picasso.”

  Okay, maybe they aren’t all so vile.

  Bailey laughs. “I’m sorry, girls, but there’s no way Ella could handle chair. Karma would have been great. It was sick how many followers she had. With her, I’m sure we could have won the Spirit Stick.”

  Even though my stomach is twisting, I can’t help feeling a little bit happy.

  “Karma’s like a super Snappypic genius. We really, really needed her. Too bad she can’t do it. Auggie Elson is in charge of publicity for the eighth grade.”

  I almost choke because if Auggie does something, he does it big. Annoyingly big.

  “Really?” says Megan. “That’s so not good.” The faucet spurts out water as someone washes her hands.

  “I know,” says Bailey. “And he has as many followers as Karma. Or had.”

  “That. Is. So. Not. True!” I scream. “I had over six thousand, three hundred and forty-three more followers! Not that I’m counting.”

  “Karma?” asks Bailey, knocking on my stall. “Is that you?”

  Whoops. Didn’t really mean to say that out loud. I get myself presentable and fling open the stall door. “In person.”

  UH-OH!

  “So you heard . . . everything,” Bailey says. Her cheeks blush a pale pink. Bailey, Megan, and Janel crowd up by the mirror and a sixth grader with pigtails stands by the faucet. Pigtail Girl darts a quick nervous glance at Bailey and rushes out the door.

  “Yeah, I heard everything. I have way more followers than Auggie. Well, had. Anyway, he cheats to get his.

  “If I were publicity chair,” I continue, “it’d be an all-out war between two people: Karma Cooper versus Auggie Elson.”

  “And don’t forget the sixth grade,” says Janel, waving a lip gloss in the air.

  “Rookies don’t count,” says Megan in her babyish voice, which makes even mean things sound nice.

  “True,” I say. “They’re still working on memorizing their locker combinations.” Everyone laughs. I raise my arm over my head and pump my fist into the air.

  Suddenly an idea hits me.

  I look straight at Bailey. “I think I can be publicity chair, even without my phone.”

  “But what about not having a real phone?” asks Megan, popping a piece of gum into her mouth.

  “Or your Snappypic,” says Janel.

  I clear my throat. “Well, Ella has Snappypic. Just make her my cochair.” I fold my arms in front of my chest.

  “We’ve never had cochairs before,” says Megan, who raises her very plucked eyebrows. She glances significantly at Bailey. “Am I right?”

  Bailey presses her hands together to make a little steeple. She purses her lips. “We’ve never done it before.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll really be the chair. I can use Ella’s phone. And Ella can do some art.”

  Bailey winces as if the thought of doing something different might be painful. Suddenly her long, dark eyelashes flutter. Her eyes are shining. “I think that”—she straightens her scarf—“I think that it’s a solid idea.”

  “Awesome,” I say, my heart skipping a beat.

  “I know.” Bailey high-fives me. “It’ll be super. Right, girls?”

  “Right,” echo both Megan and Janel.

  Bailey stares at me intently. “So you’ll both need to go to all of the meetings.”

  “Sure. No problem,” I promise.<
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  “We can meet during lunch and Thursday afternoons at my house after school,” says Bailey.

  “Cool,” I say.

  Bailey high-fives me. “Super!” Her musical laugh echoes in the bathroom.

  “Super! Super!” Janel and Megan echo as one twirls in front of the mirror and the other high-fives me.

  We walk into the hall together, and Bailey is gazing at me like I’m her personal hero, and so is Megan and so is Janel, and everyone in the seventh grade is passing by watching Bailey and the Bees staring at me like I’m the smartest person ever. Well, Snappypic smart. And you know what? I’m feeling kind of super!

  My Snappypic Fame

  It all started last year at the end of sixth grade, when I posted a photo of this gopher popping out of a hole in our yard right between our Douglas fir tree and the blackberry bush. Lucky, my dog, was licking the gopher’s head. Since Lucky looks like a giant four-legged Wookie, the gopher was too terrified to move. If you didn’t know that, it looked as if Lucky and the gopher were BFFs. I posted to Snappypic with the caption, Everyone needs a friend.

  And I was famous!

  Soon I had a ton of followers, mostly kids from my middle school, synagogue youth group, and summer camp. Of course some of those followers weren’t even real since I had opened up fifteen different accounts under different names so I could LIKE my own posts.

  But my real followers loved that gopher photo. It landed on the popular page on Snappypic. Soon everyone started following me. I got 492 LIKES. And I kept on posting photos with inspiring quotes. By August I had more than 10,000 followers. And when I started school a month ago, the whole seventh grade was noticing me and talking about how I had so many followers and asking my opinion on everything from the best photo-editing apps to what I thought of our math teacher’s hair.

  Me, Karma Cooper, the girl who all throughout fourth, fifth, and most of sixth grade was officially known as Bad Karma because I was too tall and awkward to even be a teensy bit popular. But all of that has changed. Big time.

  Really Super

  A moment later Ella strolls down the hallway. “Hey,” she says softly. She stops and stares at all of us. My arms are linked to Bailey’s and Bailey’s arms are linked to the rest of the Bees and we’re crazily skipping down the hall to third period.

  “What’s going on?” asks Ella. Her eyebrows squish together. After all, it’s not every day that you see me, Megan, Bailey, and Janel skip arm-in-arm down the hall like we’re about to belt out “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” Like there’s a spotlight shining in a bright circle around us, announcing we’re all superclose friends.

  “Well, for one thing, we’re going to win the Spirit Stick. Aren’t we, girls?” says Bailey. She nudges me with her elbow.

  I’m feeling light and airy, as if I might lift off the ground. Ella will be so happy when she hears the news about getting to cochair publicity.

  I am a supergenius.

  I, supergenius, gaze at my best friend and realize she still looks confused. “You and I have been picked to be the publicity chairs,” I squeal.

  “Really?” Her eyes grow emoji-big and her skin practically sparkles.

  Everyone nods. Janel gives a big thumbs-up.

  Ella jumps up and down and claps her hands and then hugs me. I’m feeling like an awesome best friend right now because I have made her dreams come true.

  And mine, too.

  My Stats:

  2 cochairs of the publicity committee

  1 real chair, but I won’t tell Ella

  3 Bees who think I’m a goddess, even though I don’t have my Snappypic

  6,343 more followers than Auggie

  1 seventh-grade class that will love me when we win the Spirit Stick

  Mood: Superexcited!

  6

  MONDAY, MARCH 5: DAY 2 WITHOUT LIKES

  You What?

  As soon as Bailey and the Bees swish around the corner to their class, Ella clutches my arm. “I’m so excited that they picked us,” she says.

  “Me too,” I say, biting my lip. She would feel awful if she knew how much they didn’t want her. “It’ll be fun. We can do everything together. I mean, that’s what best friends are for, right?”

  “Definitely,” she says. We probably have three minutes until the bell rings and we have to be in social studies.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I ask. “We need to begin our Spirit Week plan.”

  Ella’s eyes nervously dart around the hall. “Quickly.” She hands me the phone.

  “I’m going to start the seventh-grade Spirit account on Snappypic. Just think of me as your”—I pause for the right word—“your assistant.” I navigate over to the place where you can put up new pages and get to work.

  “The bell’s about to ring,” says Ella.

  “It’s okay. Half the class rushes in as the bell rings anyway.”

  “Hurry.” Ella glances over her shoulder through the doorway into the classroom. Most of the kids are sitting down at their desks and getting textbooks out of their backpacks. Bailey gives me a significant look as my social studies teacher, Mrs. Kirkland, sits at her desk talking to two students.

  “The seventh-grade page is done,” I say. “Why don’t you change the banner? Make it more artsy or something?”

  “Sure. I can do that,” says Ella.

  “I know you can.” I smile and we both duck into class just as the bell rings.

  The Meeting After School

  Mrs. Grayson stands by the door directing kids into her classroom. Even though her name is Mrs. Grayson, she is not gray. She has bright eyes and reddish brown hair, and she’s almost young, probably in her late twenties. She points to seats as Ella and I stroll through the open doorway. Around twenty students have already arrived, and they stand around in clusters, talking.

  “Okay, sixth graders off to the left,” Mrs. Grayson says. “Seventh graders in the middle and eighth graders over here. Council members sit in front.” The desks have been pushed into a U formation.

  “Hey, Karma. Hey, Ella!” Bailey waves at us as if we’ve been friends forever.

  Ella grins and I wave back. The Bees point to seats behind them and we sit down. Mrs. Grayson glances at the clock. It’s 3:40. School’s been out for ten minutes.

  “We’re starting in five minutes,” explains Mrs. Grayson as more students arrive. “That should give everyone enough time to get here.” She confers with an eighth grader with a trendy haircut as tons of popular-looking kids filter in from the hallway to attend the Spirit Week meeting.

  I glance behind me. Auggie, Graeme, and Justin swagger into the classroom. There are probably close to forty kids now, and more are trickling in. They fling their backpacks onto the ground and sit at desks or stand, gabbing with friends. Some sit on the back counter.

  Mrs. Grayson leans over her desk to talk with a student but glances up. “There are a couple seats toward the front,” she calls. “Don’t sit on the desk. Sit on the seat.” A boy with a Portland Trailblazers T-shirt trips over a backpack in an aisle. “I know it’s getting crowded. Put your belongings under your desks.”

  A group of eighth-grade girls break into laughter as Graeme smooshes onto Auggie’s lap. And then Auggie starts going “Ho ho ho” like he’s Santa Claus. It’s hard not to laugh at him.

  Mrs. Grayson grabs a coffee mug and takes a sip. “Thanks for waiting a few minutes. I wanted to make sure everyone got here.” She points to the schedule on the whiteboard:

  March 5–9: Meet with your grade-level Spirit Week team

  March 12-16: Your Spirit Week team publicity blitz

  March 19-March 23: Spirit Week!!!!

  March 23: Spirit Week dance from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Seventh grade sponsors!

  “Spirit Week starts two weeks from today,” says Mrs. Grayson. “So you all are going to be very busy. It’s up to you to get the maximum participation.” She goes on to explain how each grade gets points for the percentage of students participating in e
vents like the hot dog–eating contest or Crazy Hair Day.

  “Hey!” A girl with pigtails in the sixth-grade section beside us springs up from her chair. “Instead of Crazy Hair, can we dress up like cartoon characters?” A bunch of eighth graders laugh and shake their heads. Kids are whispering and nudging their friends. The Bees roll their eyes, and Ella and I give each other a look.

  “I don’t think that’s in the plans. But maybe another year,” says Mrs. Grayson. “For each grade level, there will be a team with various chairs overseeing Spirit Week and one leader.”

  Mrs. Grayson leans on the edge of her desk. “The Spirit team leaders will coordinate everything. Could my leaders please stand up as I call out your names?” She gestures to the same eighth-grade girl with the trendy haircut she had talked to earlier. “This is Lily Pommard, leader of the eighth-grade Spirit Week team.”

  Hopping up, Lily waves her clipboard. I notice she has some kind of spreadsheet.

  As Lily sits back down, Mrs. Grayson says, “Let’s hear it for Bailey Jenners, leader of the seventh-grade Spirit Week team.” We all clap. Bailey gives a big smile and smoothes her scarf.

  “Next we have Gina Refrio, the sixth-grade leader,” announces Mrs. Grayson. The short girl with pigtails who just asked about whether we could dress up as cartoon characters bounces up and down, waving and throwing kisses as if she’s on a float at a parade. Her fellow sixth graders cheer, a few jumping up. I realize that Gina is the same pigtailed girl who I had seen in the bathroom earlier in the day. She hardly looks old enough to be in middle school, let alone the boss of something.

  “Each grade will have chairs with various tasks like publicity and decoration,” continues Mrs. Grayson. “After this orientation, your team leaders will tell you when and where they’ll meet.” She points to grade-level sections in the classroom. “We’re going to break into groups in a minute, so you can let your team leader know what you’re interested in signing up for. The team leaders will take it from there. Any questions?” She leans back against her desk and smiles. “Okay, so what’s happening in fourteen days?”