It's Not Easy Being Bad

PFont size=+1BWhat happened to the bad girls?PSeventh grade, that's what./B/FontPIn her regulation cargo pants and gray T-shirt, Mikey Elsinger is loud, aggressive, uncompromising, and uncooperative. Margalo Epps, tall and stylish, seems more mild-mannered -- but looks can be deceiving. And even if they don't have anyone else, Mikey and Margalo have each other.PThe bad news is: Typical, normal kids are what work in junior high. The worse news is: Friends aren't people you like, they're people you're seen with. Armed with these insights, Margalo and Mikey set out to enter the world of seventh grade and conquer it -- or at least make it do what they want.PIn this third book in the Bad Girls series, Newbery Medalist Cynthia Voigt gives us a refreshingly wry view of the good, the bad, and the unpopular -- and a glimpse into the hearts of a remarkable pair of friends.PPFont size=+1BChapter 1: Miss Very Unpopular and Miss Almost As/B/FontPWhat's so bad about me? Mikey Elsinger demanded.PTwo weeks after the start of seventh grade, she and Margalo Epps were wandering around outside West Junior High School, with maybe five minutes, maybe seven -- or maybe only four minutes left until the bell rang to summon them to homeroom and the start of another day's uneasy boredom.PMargalo reminded her, You don'tIwant/Ito be friends with any of these people.PMikey just repeated her question. Do you know what it is about me?PMargalo did have a few ideas on the subject. They'd been best friends since the first day of fifth grade, and she'd seen the effect Mikey had on other people -- sort of like the effect Godzilla had on Tokyo. But Margalo also knew human nature and she had figured out by now that when somebody asks you what's wrong with them, the thing they really don't want to hear about is: what's wrong with them.PBesides, she didn't think the things other kids didn't like about Mikey wereIwrong/Ithings. They were just Mikey