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on the invitation, Regrets Only, and my phone number.” She finished the apple and looked into the bag again, pulled out a packet of Oreos, and asked, “You don’t want any of these, do you?”
    Margalo shook her head.
    â€œWell, they’ve had their chance,” Mikey announced. “They’ve had their one and only chance with me. At least, now that’s settled, I can stop trying to be popular. I can just concentrate on getting through the next six years any way I can.”
    â€œYou really think you’ve been trying to get people to like you?”
    Mikey wasn’t listening. “You weren’t invited to Rhonda’s, were you?” she demanded.
    â€œI’m the last person Rhonda would invite.”
    â€œNo, you’re not. I am. You’re second to last. Second best, second to me. I win again.”
    That was when they saw the principal coming down the hall toward them. Mr. Saunders was a big, broad man, part African-American, part Native American, with large hands and no gray in his curly hair. Thestory about him was that he’d been scouted by the Celtics but had gone into the army for the college loan program. He used to be a coach, before he became an administrator, and he always wore a bright blue and white warm-up jacket over his button-down shirt, never a suit jacket. Now, he bore slowly down upon the two girls. Margalo quickly took her lunch bag and jammed it into the locker. Mr. Saunders had told them at the first assembly that nothing got by him and nobody could fool with him, because he’d been a coach. He made a point of telling them that, he said, “So you boys will know where I’m coming from.”
    Margalo slammed the locker door shut just as she was figuring out that by acting guilty she would make Mr. Saunders suspect that she had something to hide, like drugs, or liquor, which she would never be so stupid about, but how would he know that? She thought about opening her locker up again so he could see they’d only been eating lunch illegally, but by then he loomed over them.
    â€œMichelle Elsinger?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
    â€œYes,” they answered together.
    But there was no way Margalo could convinceMr. Saunders that she deserved to go back to the office with him, too. In fact, she only asked once because his refusal was so large and loud a NO that it took all her nerve to look slowly over at Mikey, shrug, and say, “See you later.”
    Mikey went off at Mr. Saunders’s side, glaring up at him with unconcealed fury.

4
Junior High Justice
    â€œY ou don’t think I’ll end up pregnant, do you?” Mikey demanded.
    Margalo had been on a slow boil all afternoon, thinking about those dinner guests, and in homeroom at the end of the day she’d taken the first chance she’d had to ask Mikey what had happened with Mr. Saunders. And this was all Mikey could say? “I think you’ll be lucky to end up married,” Margalo answered.
    â€œYou can get pregnant without getting married,” Mikey reminded Margalo.
    â€œCrikey, Mikey.” Margalo watched Mikey’s eyes narrow at the cute little rhyme and then said, “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.”
    â€œHe thinks I will.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMr. Saunders. He said so,” Mikey said. “After he told me I’d have to apologize to Heather, and I told him he couldn’t make me. But he knew , Margalo. He knew all about my party. So everybody must know, so she must have told everybody. But he figured out pretty quickly that if he tried to make me apologize, he’d end up having to expel me. He’s a smart guy.”
    â€œMr. Saunders thinks you’ll get pregnant and you say he’s smart?”
    â€œIt’s what rebellious girls do. He read it in a book: Antisocial boys get violent; antisocial girls get pregnant.”
    â€œBoys can’t get pregnant. That’s