Susie B. Won't Back Down by Margaret Finnegan

Author:Margaret Finnegan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Dear NOT Susan B. Anthony:

An unexpected twist! Fakey-faking is harder than it looks. Watching Chloe, you would think it would be easy. You would think you would just have to brush the knots out of your hair, wear the nice dress you refused to wear on Thanksgiving to school, and tell Chloe that her campaign poster for some lady named Helena Rubinstein was amazing and that it was the best thing you’d ever seen with your perfect-vision eyeballs that have seen a lot, including the Grand Canyon.

True enough, those are the places you start. At least that is where I started the day after Chloe yelled at Dylan and set Operation Out-Fakey-Fake-Old-Fakey-Fake in motion.

We had a little slice of time between language arts and math, so Mr. Springer told us to finish up our posters since we’d start presenting them to the class the next day. I slid next to Chloe and pretended I was searching for a black crayon in Mr. Springer’s bucket of extra crayons. Then I did a very convincing double take at her poster, like I couldn’t help but notice the beauty before me and instantly compliment it.

But it turns out that you can’t out-fakey-fake an expert. As soon as I started talking to her, Chloe squinted at me. Then, in a pleasant voice that did not match her squint, she said, “Ummm, sorry, but I’m not gonna vote for you.”

I mumbled that I had just been trying to say something nice and rushed back to my desk. Luckily, Carson was so focused on making his cubist campaign poster for Pablo Picasso that he didn’t notice how red my face had turned.

But Joselyn noticed! She was staring right at me all the way from her side of the room, and the disappointment on her face proved that she’d seen the whole thing, which made me even more embarrassed.

Guess what she did! She took a deep breath and pushed back her shoulders. Then she marched right over to Old Fakey Fake and said the last words I ever expected to come out of her beautiful mouth. Sounding annoyed, she said, “Is your hero really Helena Rubinstein?”

Here is why that surprised me: Joselyn may be the big brains of our friendship, but I’m the comeback queen. If Chloe throws a word bomb at me, I’m gonna throw out a comeback, and I’m gonna feel good about that comeback. It might not keep the word bomb from messing with me, but at least—I hope—it will keep Chloe from ever knowing. But Joselyn has a totally different way of dealing with things. Her attitude about word bombs is that you should avoid getting them.

If you don’t want a word bomb from Chloe, then stay out of Chloe’s way. That’s what Joselyn says.

But, I think, how is that even possible?! Chloe is right there in our class! No one can avoid her.

And now here Joselyn was, right in Chloe’s face, acting like Chloe had insulted her or something. It didn’t make any sense.

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