by Rachel Wise
“Everything okay?” Michael asked, breaking the silence, a worried look on his face. It was sweet that he seemed to care so much about me and Hailey.
I gave him a double thumbs-up. Hailey nodded.
“So,” I said, “why do you think they called this parents’ meeting? And who called it, the administration? The PTA?”
“A group of students wrote a letter of protest about taking the test over, signed not only by them, but by their parents. It’s becoming a bigger issue than anyone thought. So I think the school administration called it.”
“Well, it’s good for the article at least,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll get a lot of great quotes at the meeting.”
“Yeah, and maybe when it’s all said and done, we won’t have to take the stupid math test over,” Michael said. I nodded emphatically.
“I kind of don’t mind,” Hailey said. “It’ll be good to have another chance at . . .” She stopped midsentence as my mouth dropped open. “Don’t look at me like that, Sam!” she exclaimed. “If I could take every test two times I probably would. It’s easier once I’ve already been through it.”
“I’m sorry. I was just surprised.” I felt bad that I’d reacted so strongly. I was so in my own head, I’d never considered Hailey, of all people, would have a different opinion than I did. When I thought about it for a second, I understood why Hailey felt that way. Tests had always been hard for her. “Do you mind if we quote you for the article? We want a good balance of opinions,” I said, whipping out my notebook.
Hailey’s shoulders straightened up and she beamed at me. “Sure!”
After school Hailey had soccer practice and Michael had baseball. It was a perfect time for me to show Trigger my response to Rock Star before I officially e-mailed it. I marched down to his office, my response clutched tightly in my hand. I glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. I knocked the secret knock—two quick knocks and then a third. Mr. Trigg and I had made it up so he would always know it was just me with a Know-It-All question or a draft I wanted him to look at. I heard Mr. Trigg chuckle upon hearing our secret knock.
“Enter at your own risk, Ms. Martone,” he called out.
I walked in and he was squinting at his computer, his glasses slipped down on his nose.
“Is that the new paper template?” I asked after seeing the screen. It had the Cherry Valley Voice at the top and looked just like the printed version, except it was blank, just filled with empty boxes where the articles were supposed to go.
“Yes. Isn’t it splendid?” he asked, but he didn’t sound like he thought it was so splendid.
“Yeah, it looks very cool.” I sat down next to him, gazing at the screen. A ripple of excitement ran through me. The paper was going to look amazing and all we had to do was drop our text into the boxes. “It’s going to make things so much easier.”
“That’s the idea, except I can’t figure out how to get any text in here,” he said, pointing to one of the empty boxes. “They showed me several times. I guess it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.”
“Can I try?” I asked, putting the letter back in my jeans pocket. I was dying to check out the new online site.
“Absolutely. I need all the help I can get!” he moved his chair over.
I wasn’t a computer whiz like the kids in the IT club, but I knew my way around. I opened a couple of drop-down menus to find what I was looking for.
“See, you have to go into ‘cells’ first and then ‘insert text,’ I said. “Then, if you click here, it will let you type in or drop in whatever you want.” I typed in, Hi, Mr. Trigg, as an example and showed him.
“You’re a brilliant genius!” he said.
“Glad I could be of service.” I smiled. Then I reached into my pocket and pulled out my letter. “So, um, here’s my latest Know-It-All letter. Can you take a look? I think it’s pretty good.”
“Well, if you think so, I’m sure it is,” said Mr. Trigg, pushing his reading glasses up on his nose. He took the letter and started reading.
“Hmmmm,” he said after a minute.
“What?” I asked. My heart started beating a little faster. Maybe it wasn’t as good as I thought it was.
Mr. Trigg lightly drummed his fingers on the desktop. He sat back. “I think you’re being a little harsh here. Too opinionated. You need to be a bit friendlier.”
My heart dropped to my stomach. Wow. How could I have misjudged things like that?
“But isn’t that what I’m supposed to be as Know-It-All?” I asked. “Opinionated?”
“There’s a difference between sharing an opinion and being opinionated,” Mr. Trigg said, holding up my letter. “I agree with everything you said, but just tone it down a bit.”
I took the letter back from Mr. Trigg. “It’s hard for me to tone it down. The letter makes me angry. It’s one thing to make your own mistakes, but to not even care how it affects other people? I just don’t get it. It’s the same way I feel about the person who hacked into the math exam. What are people thinking?” I said, my voice getting higher, my hands waving around.
“Whoa! Slow down, Ms. Martone. I see this has tapped into something for you,” Mr. Trigg said. “Maybe you need a little distance. Put it down for a while; then give it another whirl.”
“I just work hard to do well and be honest. Aren’t you upset by it?” I asked. He was a teacher, for crying out loud.
“Of course. But since Dear Know-It-All is anonymous, there’s nothing I can do about it. These kinds of decisions catch up with you. If Rock Star isn’t caught now, he or she will have to suffer the consequences at some point. That I’m sure of. But your job is to offer some sound, levelheaded advice, and I know you can do that.”
“I hope so,” I said, folding up the letter and putting it in my pocket. But I was worried that it might not be possible for me to be “friendly” to Rock Star.
Chapter 7
Workaholic Middle Schooler Turns to Nail Polish for Comfort
At home after dinner I went straight to my room to write another version of the letter. I tore the first draft up into little pieces, wrapped it in a tissue, and threw it out in the bathroom garbage can. I couldn’t be too careful. I’ve caught Allie before snooping around in my room. At times I’ve really thought she was on to me, but then again, Allie just likes snooping, so it’s hard to tell.
I opened up my password-protected file and started again.
Dear Rock Star,
I understand that you may think writing isn’t a useful skill because of your interests, but didn’t you need to know something about writing to write this letter? Do you think this is the last letter you’ll ever have to write? And what if you don’t become a rock star? Then where will you be?
I stopped typing and read it back. Ugh. I knew it sounded too opinionated. Delete. Start over.
Dear Rock Star,
I took a deep breath and stretched my arms up in the air before continuing.
It’s one thing to cheat. It’s another thing to ask your friend to cheat for you. I’m surprised she or he agreed.
I read it back. Ahhhhh! This just wasn’t working. What I really wanted to say was Dear Rock Star, what are you thinking???? Everything else felt like a lie. I needed a break or at least another perspective. I heard the thumping of Allie’s music in her room, and usually the louder the music was, the worse a mood she was in. I decided to take my chances and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. I knocked harder.
“What?” she yelled back. Hmmm, maybe it wasn’t the best time to bug her.
“It’s me,” I called over the music.
“Come in!” she yelled.
I opened the door. She was sitting
on her bed painting her toenails a sparkly blue color. She had one foot propped up on top of a newspaper. I sat down.
“Careful. You’re shaking the bed,” she said, holding up her nail polish brush.
“Sorry.” I gingerly lay down on my stomach, my chin on my hands, and watched her paint her pinkie toe. She was really good at doing her own nails. They always looked professionally done. Whenever I tried, I went through a bag of cotton balls and lots of nail polish remover, correcting the mistakes. Then the smell made me sick and I wondered why I even bothered. Luckily, nothing made Allie happier than doing people’s nails.
“Can you do mine?” I asked, cheerfully wiggling my fingers at her.
“Is that why you came in here? What’s up, really?” she said, focused intently on her toes.
“Can’t I just come and say hi to my sister?” I asked in a dramatic tone.
“Hi. Now what’s going on?” She looked up. “You seem kind of mopey and confused about something. Boy trouble?”
Allie knew me so well. I usually came into her room for three things: friend advice, boy advice, or fashion advice. This reason, though, didn’t quite fit into any of those categories, but I couldn’t actually tell her why I was asking. “Not boy trouble. Actually I was just working on my article about the test scandal. Wanted your opinion.” It was kind of true.
“Yeah, did they catch the guy?”
An image of Will Hutchins popped into my head. “How do you know it’s a guy?” I asked.
“I don’t, but I just can’t imagine a girl doing that,” she said.
“You never know,” I said. “What if you knew the person who did it? Or if you knew that they had asked a friend to help them actually, and they asked you if they should do it all over again. What would you tell them?” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t give anything away.
“Whoa,” Allie said, and sat straight up and lowered her voice. “Holy cow! You know who did it?”
“Oh no! Definitely not.” Darn. I should have known that was what my question would sound like. Now I was going to get myself in another mess.
“Are you telling me the truth? Swear on our mother’s life?” She gave me one of her super-intense stares.
“Chill out, Allie. Of course I don’t know who it is. I wouldn’t keep that to myself. I’m just asking because I think I know someone who might know who did it, but I’m not even sure about that. It’s all very hypothetical,” I said, but I was starting to confuse myself. I was trying to re-create the situation with Rock Star and apply it to the hacker incident since that was public knowledge. Now I wasn’t sure if I was asking about Rock Star or Will Hutchins.
“Well,” Allie said, then paused to blow on her toes. “I’d tell them that they were a royal idiot. Nice friend, too,” she said, and blinked at me. “I mean seriously, who would be so stupid?”
I laughed. I should have known that the only person who was going to be more opinionated about this issue than me would be Allie.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing. I just like your answer. Have you ever cheated on anything?” I asked her. Even though Allie was opinionated, I had always wondered this about her. She was a pretty good student, but hated math and science and was usually more into her friends and dance classes than her schoolwork. Could she ever have been tempted?
She was quiet for a moment. “Why do you want to know?” she asked, very interested in her toenails again. She had finished one foot and was starting on the next.
“No particular reason. I’ve just been thinking about the subject a lot since all this happened.” I tried to sound casual, but I could tell Allie had something on her mind.
She stopped painting and put the brush back in its bottle, screwing the cap on slowly. Then she looked at me and sighed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I cheated once, in eighth grade. It was algebra. I wrote some stuff on my hand for the test and my teacher caught me. I got an automatic F for the test. It was awful. He called Mom and watched me like a hawk for the rest of the year. It was so embarrassing, and the most ridiculous part about it was I would have gotten a much better grade if I had never cheated. Lesson learned!” She lowered her eyes at me. “Don’t ever do it.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“Mom promised to keep it between me and her. I think she didn’t want to put any bad ideas in your head. As if,” she said, and started blowing on her feet again.
I sat up, shocked that I’d never known Allie had actually done something like that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’re so into school, you know? It seems so easy for you. I just got really overwhelmed and felt like I had to do really well all the time. Now I can handle things better and ask for help when I need it.”
I stared at Allie. She thought school was easy for me? Ha! I felt like I never stopped working. In fact, sometimes I felt like I was way too stressed for someone in middle school. I thought of Hailey saying how we hadn’t had a sleepover in a while. It’s true that doing well in school and with the paper was important to me, but had it become too important?
“School is anything but easy to me,” I said. “I just get really wrapped up in whatever I’m doing and don’t do anything else. But I’m always stressed. That’s my problem.”
Allie finished her toes and started clearing up the newspaper. “I guess things are never exactly what you think they are.”
I nodded. That was true. “Okay, so I’m going to try to have more fun. Can you paint my nails?” Workaholic Middle Schooler Turns to Nail Polish for Comfort.
“I think a little Aqua Fantasy is in order,” she said, taking out a bottle of a bright greenish blue and shaking it. “You won’t be able to not have a good time with these nails!” Maybe she’d be right.
After my nails dried, I wrote another draft of the Know-It-All letter and e-mailed it to Mr. Trigg. He’d had a secret e-mail account set up just for me. Sometimes I liked to e-mail him and sometimes I went by, like I had the other day, just to get an immediate reaction. As I was writing, I kept staring down at my nails for inspiration and pretended I felt as friendly and fancy-free as my nails looked. It had to work this time.
Chapter 8
Writing Partners Flirt Through Entire Meeting. Miss Everything.
Finally Tuesday evening came around. Michael and I sat in the auditorium waiting for the meeting about the test scandal to begin. We had both gotten there early and sat in the front row in order to hear and see everything. I’d wondered if we would go together, but Michael had to meet me there after his baseball game and dinner with his team. My mother drove me, but she sat with some of the other mothers she knew and let me have my own space with Michael. I didn’t even have to ask her. She’s just a cool mom like that. Hailey was there as well, but she sat with her mom. She told me to work hard so we’d have extra fun this weekend. I looked over at Michael, who was tapping his pencil on his notebook. I couldn’t help admiring his strong hands for a moment. The old me would think that I was distracting myself from my work, but the Aqua-Fantasy-nail-polished me thought it was just fine. I might be working, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t crush on him a little bit.
We still hadn’t heard anything definitive about who might have done it, but I knew the article wasn’t about cracking the case; it was about reporting the events that had happened and the effects it was having on our community. I was also anxious to get the meeting over with, finish the article, and have the same amount of fun my nails seemed to be having. Lots of people had been coming up to me asking me what kind the polish was so they could try it too. I smiled thinking that Allie was a pretty cool trendsetter. And I h
ave to admit, just talking about nail polish made me feel like the kind of girl who wasn’t always bogged down by her responsibilities and has, well, fun. Why couldn’t I be both?
“Cool color, Paste,” Michael said, pointing to my nails with his pencil. Wow. Now even a boy was noticing. This stuff was magic. “Maybe I should call you Nailsy,” he said, and nudged me with his shoulder.
“Now, that’s just weird.” I gave him my best flirty smile and nudged him back. I was wearing a green blousy shirt that looked great with my nails and my lucky little silver hoops. Once again, just because I was here for an article didn’t mean I shouldn’t look my best.
“Yeah, guess you’re right,” Michael said. “Pasty fits you better.”
“You’re hilarious,” I responded, still grinning. This meeting was turning out to be much more fun than I had thought. Writing Partners Flirt Through Entire Meeting. Miss Everything. I had better get into pay-attention mode or else.
I looked around. The place was packed and more people were piling in. Then Mr. Pfeiffer came up to the podium. He tapped on the mike for a few seconds and cleared his throat. A hush fell over the room. Michael and I had our pencils at the ready, all set to take note-taking.
“Good evening, parents and students of Cherry Valley Middle School. An unfortunate incident has led us here, but hopefully we can come together as a community to strengthen our communication. As you know, the administration and the faculty have decided to reschedule the third-quarter math assessments for next Tuesday,” he said. Some students booed in the back. He paused for a second and continued a little louder. “Many parents and students are upset and confused about why the current test results can’t be used. We’re here to explain this to you. This is an open forum where voices are meant to be heard, but remember one thing.” Mr. Pfeiffer took off his glasses. He cleaned them on the corner of his jacket and then started speaking again. “Look. We all want the same thing—the best educational environment for our children. Let’s not attack one another, folks.” With that, he stepped away from the podium and sat down in one of the seats reserved for administrators.