Margot Mertz for the Win

Veronica Mars meets Moxie in the hilarious and thought-provoking sequel to Margot Mertz Takes it Down.

It s senior year. And Margot s on a mission to be a better Margot. Which means saying goodbye to her old cleanup ways and their inherent moral ambiguities.

To fill her time and round out her college application, Margot volunteers on a campaign for local election. It doesn t hurt that the local candidate is Shep Green, Avery s dad. It s nice to see Avery's too perfect face from time to time.

Meanwhile at Roosevelt High, Margot finds herself roped into a second election, this one for school president. But when a mysterious blackmail plot emerges, and a loathsome opponent rises in the class race, Margot might have to return to the cleanup job she thought she d left behind.

She s tried to keep her hands clean. But politics is a dirty job.

Leseprobe:

Chapter 1
Margot Mertz on the Campaign Trail
I
was in a small, nondescript room. The kind used for office storage or interrogating a murderer. I was told it might be a while, and that I should make myself comfortable. But I d only just sat down when the door swung open and a woman in a blazer burst in.
Bah! the blazer woman shouted. I thought this room was empty.
Uh. Sorry, I m interviewing to be an intern, and I was told to wait here for Jim? Jim Bilwort?
No, she said.
No? I asked.
I mean . . . sorry. He s not going to interview you, because he just got fired. She shook my hand. Priya Deshmukh. I m the new communications director, aka the asshole they saddled with Jim s job.
She tried to play it cool, but I could see she was proud of her new title. She couldn t have been more than a couple years older than me. But despite her youth, she radiated authority. She had light brown skin, big brown eyes, and the world s tiniest nose ring. (I thi nk? It could just have been a mole. Hard to tell in that lighting.)
I m Margot Mertz, I said.
Priya squinted. Follow me. She led me out of the room and down a long, narrow hallway. What made you want to volunteer for the campaign? College credit? Sense of duty? Boredom?
All three? Sort of. But mostly Shep has some policies that I really like.
Priya raised her eyebrows. Oh yeah? Are you, like, a policy wonk?
Not really, I told her. But I m interested in his proposed amendment to 245.
Now Priya really looked surprised. That s very specific.
Shep Green, whose ownership of several area car dealerships made him something of a minor celebrity in North Webster, was running to be state senator for the 57th District ofthe State of New York. The district had been held by Republicans for years, but recent demographic shifts made it more of a toss-­up this year. Shep was running mostly on expanding health care coverage, bringing jobs to Western NY, and ple dging to finish construction on the North Webster Transit Center. But his platform also included a host of smaller agenda items like the amendment to State Law § 245, which would make the dissemination of explicit images without consent a felony.That got my attention. A law that would essentially make all forms of revenge porn illegal? That was worth campaigning for. Andyes, Shep Green also happens to be the father of Avery Green, who I may still have feelings for. But Avery isnot the reason I m working on the Green campaign. (Heis the reason I started applying lip gloss between periods three and four. Ugh. I know.)

I m surprised you even know about that. It doesn t poll particularly well, so we won t let Shep talk about it, Priya said as she reached into a mini-­fridge which was, for some reason, sitting in the middle of the hall. She grabbed a cold brew. I told her I d stumbled across an interview Shep did on the local news where he talked about Roosevelt High s reven ge pornography scandal. He said he intended to bring a bill to the New York statehouse on the first day he took office.

He seemed genuinely enthusiastic. Which is more than I can say for the other lawmakers I tried to contact.

Priya smirked. She wasn t sure what to make of me. She took a big swig of her cold brew before almost choking. Ugh. This is sweetened. This was not what I meant to get. All the same, she held her nose and chugged the entire thing before continuing down the hall.

We were in what she and the team call