Read Online Mission (Un)Popular by Anna Humphrey - Free Book Online Page A

I don’t know the answers. Mike’s nice too, but really quiet. His family moved here from Korea, and he only started at our school in fifth grade. When I first met him I wasn’t even sure if he could speak English, because he barely said anything.
    â€œDid you have a good summer?” Amir asked. He was dressed in his usual khaki pants along with a new collared polo shirt.
    â€œOkay, I guess.” I shrugged. “I babysat a lot. What about you?”
    â€œOh, you know,” he answered, catching the ball Mike threw back to him. “Same as always.”
    I nodded. That was about the extent of our usual conversations when Andrew wasn’t around.
    â€œYou want to play?” Amir asked, holding up the ball.
    â€œNo thanks,” I said. Even though the idea of having nobody to talk to was terrifying, the thought of attempting to play basketball was much, much worse. I could just picture it now: me, walking into Manning on the very first day with a bloody nose. “I have to go look at something before the bell rings. See you.”
    â€œLater, Margot.” He dribbled the ball and tossed it to Mike, who sunk a basket.
    I wandered over to a lamppost near the sidewalk and pretended to be interested in one of the posters stapled to it: HEE-HAW HOEDOWN: A LINE DANCE FOR SENIORS! —only noticing too late that I’d placed myself dangerously close to Sarah J. and The Group girls. They’d already staked out a concrete ledge, a few feet from where I was standing. It ran all the way along the fence. Nobody who wasn’t part of their group—not even the eighth graders—seemed to be brave enough to approach it. Sarah J. was sitting sideways on the ledge with her feet up, while her best friends, Maggie and Joyce, stood beside her. They all looked perfect in their fitted fall jackets with their long shiny hair.
    â€œI’m so starving right now,” I could hear Maggie complaining. “I ate like, half a piece of toast this morning so I could fit into these jeans.”
    â€œWell,” Joyce soothed, “it was totally worth it. They look great.”
    â€œThanks.” Maggie’s cell started buzzing, and she took it out of her pocket, walking away as she answered the call.
    Sarah J. watched Maggie’s back for a second too long, then turned and whispered something to Joyce. Joyce nodded and whispered something back. I could tell by the stupid fake-pity on their faces that they were probably saying mean things about Maggie’s weight.
    I stepped a little closer to the poster and leaned in like I was studying the fine print. I was just starting to wonder how long I’d be able to keep pretending I was interested in the biography of Rosie Bartlett, an experienced dance instructor who was “crazy for country,” when I felt someone grab me around the waist from behind. I screeched and jumped twelve and a half feet in the air.
    â€œSo that’s why you never wrote back to my last e-mail? You were too busy line dancing with seniors?”
    â€œAndrew!” I practically sang his name. I was so thankful to see somebody who liked me. “How was Barbados?”
    â€œAbout as much fun as hanging out with eighty-year-old people is.” He shifted his backpack strap on his shoulder, revealing a sweat stain in the armpit of his shirt, which I pretended not to notice. Andrew spends every summer in the Caribbean, visiting his grandparents. He’d written me a few e-mails, but they were mostly just about how bored he was, and about how his grandma kept making him wear slippers when it was a million degrees out. And I mostly just wrote back about how sick I was of babysitting.
    But then, about two weeks earlier he’d written one last e-mail where he’d said he missed me, and he’d signed his name with two X’s and an O. That kind of freaked me out. I mean, how was I supposed to know what he meant? Were they regular X’s or