suggested.
âWeâll do what the majority wants, Mikey,â Mrs. Draper decided.
Margalo admired the way Mrs. Draper could be authoritative when she needed to be, but democratic when the vote was sure to come out the way she wanted. Everybody said how fair their adviser was, and how she treated them like they were grownup. Everybody except Margalo, who didnât think it was nearly as simple as that, and Mikey, who didnât get what she wanted nearly often enough on Mrs. Draperâs committee.
âAll Iâm going to be doing is baking, anyway, so rats on the rest of it,â Mikey announced.
âAs if we care,â the committee responded.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
Work on the petition went more placidly, probably because it was only Mikey and Margalo doing it. It went without saying that it would be a bad idea for Mikey to try to get signatures, and a disaster for Margalo to try to play basketball. So on Sunday afternoon, while Margalo entered into Mr. Elsingerâs computer the petition they had composed, Mikey practiced by playing one-on-one against her father. She didnât cut him any slack.
Margalo printed out four copies of the petition and considered how to go about collecting signatures.The way she figured it was this: A real drawback to not being popular was people donât want to agree with you. So if youâre not popular and youâre asking people to sign a petition, you have to do it the right way.
Unfortunately, as Margalo knew, one reason a person isnât popular is because for some mysterious reason she doesnât do things the right way. She probably doesnât know what the right way even is, and maybe doesnât even know there is a right way. Margalo wasnât exactly in that position, but she was close enough so that if she went about getting signatures the wrong way, she could easily turn herself from a not-particularly-popular person into a positively un-popular one, and not get any signatures.
Which would about shut down her social life entirely, since Mikey would be furious at her.
So Margalo would have to be smart about how she asked for signatures.
Her most interesting idea, as she thought about this problem, was: People think thereâs only one right way to do anything, a secret right way known only to the special people who belong to the Secret Right Way Knowing Club, but there are a lot of different right waysâand also a lot of different wrong ways.
This was interesting. Margalo was having a good time, no question. She reread the petition:
To the faculty and administration of West Junior High School: We protest your policy of excluding seventh-grade girls from the basketball team. Seventh graders would benefit from the on-court experience of games with eighth graders. Also, practices are held after school hours, and any player who couldnât keep her grades up would be dropped from the squad, so there is no good reason for the policy. We believe it isnât fair to not let us play.
Below that statement were numbered places for signatures, in two columns, fifteen in each column.
Margalo was guessing that only the principal could change policy. He was the one she was really firing her cannon at. She didnât plan to win this battle, but she did plan to do enough damage, so that their next attackâthe tennis attackâwould be against a weakened and wounded enemy, a Mr. Saunders who would probably just as soon have a player as good as Mikey play on the West tennis team anyway.
It could all work out, Margalo thought. She could make it all work out.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
Margalo began Monday morning, in English, with Ronnie Caselli and the preppies. Actually, she began earlier on Monday, when she dressed for school. Her dress style for approaching the preppies was the Old Boyfriend look, which meant she had to wait until her stepbrother left for school so she could raid his closet and take
âWeâll do what the majority wants, Mikey,â Mrs. Draper decided.
Margalo admired the way Mrs. Draper could be authoritative when she needed to be, but democratic when the vote was sure to come out the way she wanted. Everybody said how fair their adviser was, and how she treated them like they were grownup. Everybody except Margalo, who didnât think it was nearly as simple as that, and Mikey, who didnât get what she wanted nearly often enough on Mrs. Draperâs committee.
âAll Iâm going to be doing is baking, anyway, so rats on the rest of it,â Mikey announced.
âAs if we care,â the committee responded.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
Work on the petition went more placidly, probably because it was only Mikey and Margalo doing it. It went without saying that it would be a bad idea for Mikey to try to get signatures, and a disaster for Margalo to try to play basketball. So on Sunday afternoon, while Margalo entered into Mr. Elsingerâs computer the petition they had composed, Mikey practiced by playing one-on-one against her father. She didnât cut him any slack.
Margalo printed out four copies of the petition and considered how to go about collecting signatures.The way she figured it was this: A real drawback to not being popular was people donât want to agree with you. So if youâre not popular and youâre asking people to sign a petition, you have to do it the right way.
Unfortunately, as Margalo knew, one reason a person isnât popular is because for some mysterious reason she doesnât do things the right way. She probably doesnât know what the right way even is, and maybe doesnât even know there is a right way. Margalo wasnât exactly in that position, but she was close enough so that if she went about getting signatures the wrong way, she could easily turn herself from a not-particularly-popular person into a positively un-popular one, and not get any signatures.
Which would about shut down her social life entirely, since Mikey would be furious at her.
So Margalo would have to be smart about how she asked for signatures.
Her most interesting idea, as she thought about this problem, was: People think thereâs only one right way to do anything, a secret right way known only to the special people who belong to the Secret Right Way Knowing Club, but there are a lot of different right waysâand also a lot of different wrong ways.
This was interesting. Margalo was having a good time, no question. She reread the petition:
To the faculty and administration of West Junior High School: We protest your policy of excluding seventh-grade girls from the basketball team. Seventh graders would benefit from the on-court experience of games with eighth graders. Also, practices are held after school hours, and any player who couldnât keep her grades up would be dropped from the squad, so there is no good reason for the policy. We believe it isnât fair to not let us play.
Below that statement were numbered places for signatures, in two columns, fifteen in each column.
Margalo was guessing that only the principal could change policy. He was the one she was really firing her cannon at. She didnât plan to win this battle, but she did plan to do enough damage, so that their next attackâthe tennis attackâwould be against a weakened and wounded enemy, a Mr. Saunders who would probably just as soon have a player as good as Mikey play on the West tennis team anyway.
It could all work out, Margalo thought. She could make it all work out.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
Margalo began Monday morning, in English, with Ronnie Caselli and the preppies. Actually, she began earlier on Monday, when she dressed for school. Her dress style for approaching the preppies was the Old Boyfriend look, which meant she had to wait until her stepbrother left for school so she could raid his closet and take
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