How to Break a Heart

by Kiera Stewart

  Mrs. N.—

  I’ve made some changes to Mabry’s article, which you’ll see in this draft.

  —Sirina

  THE VINDICATOR

  The Official News Blog of Hubert C. Frost Middle School

  * * *

  Band Blows Hard Gears Up for Spring Concert

  If you 1) own earplugs; and 2) have absolutely nothing better to do next Tuesday night, then please be informed that Bandemonium, the Hubert C. Frost Middle School Band, will be performing a collection of ridiculous choices favorites such as the godforsaken “Hero’s March” and “Warrior’s Dance” for the annual spring concert next Tuesday night, in the cafetorium at 7 p.m.

  Math teacher and band leader Mr. Greer promises free earplugs to first fifty attendants. that members of the audience will be in for “a real treat.”

  The concert will include several soloists, including Kailey Kinnell on dying whale saxophone and award-winning clarinetist Kipper Garrett on clarinet (see profile below). Who is actually pretty good. Seriously, you should take your earplugs out for him. He is magical.

  The concert is free and open to the pubic. public.

  * * *

  Eighth-Grade Clarinetest Better Than You Would Think Is an Award-Winning Musician

  You may not know it to look at him, but Kipper Garrett is practically a celebrity. Since third grade, Kipper Garrett has racked up an amazing assortment of trophies. awards, the latest being the County High Notes Winning Woodwind. He will probably be extremely famous one day, because he practices at least an hour every day, and on top of that, he’s a really nice guy. credits his success to his mother, a clarinetist herself who studied with the famed German soloist Sabine Meyer.

  [click for more]

  IN OTHER NEWS…

  * * *

  Study Finds There Is No Real Point to Being First in Line

  A groundbreaking study out of the Hiram Macomb Center for Education shows that, despite popular belief, “line leaders” are no more likely to be successful than mid-liners. [click for more]

  yo quiero

  tú quieres

  ella quiere

  nosotros queremos

  ellos quieren

  Walking into school the next morning, I see Abe Mahal in the center of a crowd. He’s gesturing wildly and telling a story that I can’t hear. I spot the back of Jordan’s head and reach through the mob to tap her on the shoulder. She glances back at me and nods, holding a finger up to mean one minute. But Officer Dirk, the school security guard, doesn’t give her that minute.

  “DISPERSE, PEOPLE!” Officer Dirk says in his all-caps voice. For once, I am on his side. I only wish for some sort of human Drano. The crowd starts to shift and break apart, and Officer Dirk swats us all away like we are houseflies. Jordan adheres to my hand, and I pull her down the hall toward my locker, where Sirina is unloading her backpack.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Jordan.

  “Oh my god. Somebody broke out a window downstairs yesterday after school. Abe was there when it happened.”

  “Who did it?”

  “They don’t know yet,” Jordan says, her eyes wide. “They heard this crash and the guy just tore off through an emergency exit. But Abe said he heard there was a prison escape in Mount Claire yesterday, so”—she lowers her voice—“it’s possible that a murderer was here. On. School. Grounds.”

  “So there’s a crime scene? An actual scene?” I have a fleeting but thrilling fantasy that the producers of La Vida Rica have been asked to take charge of our school. There will be flower deliveries during algebra, ceviche for lunch, fitted P.E. uniforms! The health center will be staffed by stunning and elegant doctors, and nurses with white hats, and balconies will be installed on all second-floor classrooms, for both mad kissing scenes and the occasional brush with murder. And it will all be set near a beach.

  Sirina looks at me, her eyes getting a rare sparkle of excitement. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  It’s probably not salsa lessons for P.E., I realize.

  “The YoJo!” She grabs my hand and squeezes it.

  The YoJo—the National Youth Journalism award—is something that Sirina has pined for since we started writing for The Vindicator last year. It’s a biannual contest, and each December and June she sends in our entry. But with articles like “Hands Down, Single Mittens Most Common Items in Lost and Found” and “Ding Dongs Banned from Cafetorium After Fourth Microwave Explosion,” we haven’t had much of a chance.

  Sirina continues. “This is the first newsworthy thing that’s happened since we started school here. We could write an investigative series of articles! This could be our big break! Just think!”

  And I do think. I think about Sirina and me onstage. The two of us smiling beatifically and waving to an adoring audience. Our long hair cascading down our backs. Our dresses, glittery. Our two hands together, accepting the Golden Plume.

  “Should we talk to Abe?” I ask her.

  “Mabry, Abe is the chief of the rumor mill. He’s already talking about escaped murderers. No, remember what Mrs. Neidelman says. Facts first. Always start with the official sources.”

  I look over her shoulder. With only his loud voice, Officer Dirk is breaking apart the small clusters of people who are, undoubtedly, talking about the window-breaking incident. Or the murderer on school grounds. “Well, there’s our official source now,” I say.

  We both move swiftly in his direction, dodging the crowds. “Officer Dirk,” she says, “can you tell us what happened? It’s for The Vindicator.”

  But the warning bell rings, so he just glares at us, as if the bell’s spoken for him.

  “I take it that was a no,” I say as we turn and walk in the other direction.

  “Well, okay, definitely bad timing, but this is so exciting!” she says before she dashes down the hall toward her first-period class.

  “I heard it was Ms. Roach’s pen pal from prison,” Jordan says at lunch. “He got out of jail and decided to come surprise her at school. He asked her to marry him but she said no, so he broke the window and ran.”

  Sirina snorts. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Madison told me,” she says. “I think she heard it from Allie.”

  Sirina shakes her head, “Never mind. These are just crazy rumors.”

  “How do you know?” Jordan asks. “Maybe it’s true. Hey, I should ask my neighbor. Her uncle works at the prison.”

  Amelia jumps in. “I heard that the guy might have been part of the Russian mafia—”

  “No way!”

  Jordan and Amelia continue to compare details, and Sirina turns to me. “So I went down to the part of the hall where it happened…”

  She keeps talking, but my eyes bounce around the cafetorium, desperately seeking Nick. He’s nowhere in sight. In his usual spot, about five tables over, Abe and Patrick are facing each other, crouching slightly, their hands held at sharp karate angles.

  “BOYS!” Mrs. Hurst yells at them. “You will sit down and enjoy your lunch! No fighting in the cafetorium!”

  “Hey, Mabry,” Sirina says, tapping at my hand. “Would you please stop staring at your kung fu fighter and start listening to me?”

  “I’m not staring at him. He’s not even over there. I don’t know where he is, which is crazy. When is he ever not with Abe and Patrick?”

  “God, I hope that Thad can cure you of him,” she says. “But right now, I’m your best friend, and I’m right next to you, and I need you to focus. We’ve got to get to the real story to even be in the running for the YoJo.”

  “Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I was telling you the hall was closed—the hall where the window incident happened. It’s all coned off. Mr. Jenkins said it was a safety issue, but this is so crazy.”

  Then our conversation is interrupted by “Oh. My. Darling. Clementine.” It’s Amelia. She’s been trying to make that expression a thing since sixth grade, but despite the fact that s
he uses it—and abbreviations of it—a million times a day, it hasn’t really caught on.

  We both turn. Amelia is staring up at Madison Buckner, who has stopped by our table to deliver some news.

  “Are you serious?” Jordan says to Madison.

  “What?” I ask.

  Amelia answers. “Madison just said that she heard that the person who broke the window was that sub who always wears the man-clogs—remember him? Mr. Frick? Yeah, guess where he’s been for the last three months. An asylum! O.M.D.C.”

  At that, Sirina and I exchange a look that says There she goes again.

  The girls make squealing noises, and I can’t help but feel a little adrenaline rush.

  “I have an idea,” I say to Sirina, just above a whisper.

  “What?”

  “Finish your corn dog.”

  “That’s your idea?”

  “No, dummy.” And then I lean in closer and say quietly, “Let’s go check out the crime scene.”

  “But I told you—it’s closed.”

  “Yeah, officially.”

  She glances around the room. “Like, sneak down there?”

  I lift my eyebrows.

  She smiles. “Very telenovela. I like it.”

  She takes the last bite of her corn dog and we get up from the table and carefully make our way toward the door. But our plan is almost scuttled at the cafetorium exit. “Hey! Where are you girls going?” Mrs. Hurst asks when we’ve almost escaped.

  “Bathroom?” I say, but it sounds like a question.

  “One at a time,” she says.

  “But—” I say.

  “You.” She points to Sirina. “You can go now. The other one will have to wait until the first gets back.”

  “Mrs. Hurst?” Sirina says. “She needs, uh, something that I have? In my purse? A girl thing?”

  “You girls need to be prepared!” she says, and looks right at me. “Have a seat.”

  “Well, how am I supposed to be prepared when I’ve never had it before?” I ask.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Hurst says. Her stern look vanishes. “Your first?”

  I nod.

  She looks at Sirina and back at me. “Okay, just this once. And, honey?”

  “Yes?”

  Now she whispers, “Welcome to womanhood.”

  When we’re free and into the hall, we can’t help but laugh. I say, “I kind of feel bad about lying.”

  “I know,” Sirina says. “Me too. But we won’t be feeling bad when we win the YoJo.”

  We pick up our pace and run across the hall, down the stairs, and through the language corridor. We’re almost to the crime scene when we turn the corner and I plow into a ribbon of yellow caution tape, pulling down an orange cone with it.

  I am on the way to the ground when something pulls me back to standing. It is the mammothy hand of Officer Dirk.

  “WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING,” Officer Dirk asks, in his commanding way.

  “Was that the window?” Sirina asks, pointing to a large space now covered in plywood.

  “THIS HALLWAY’S CLOSED.”

  “But we’re here for The Vindicator. Can we take a quick look? We’ll be careful,” Sirina assures him.

  I feel the need to add to her plea. “Please. We won’t touch anything. Cross our hearts,” I say, drawing an X directly above what’s left of my own.

  “NO CAN DO.”

  Sirina keeps trying. “Well, if we can’t go look at it, then can we please just ask you a few questions about the incident?”

  His arms cross over his chest. “ONE. TWO. If I get to five and you’re still here—DETENTION,” he declares, and rudely skips ahead. “FOUR.”

  So we turn and run. Back around the corner. Back through the language corridor. Back up the stairs.

  “Well, that was useless,” I say as we reach the main floor. “We could talk to Abe, you know.”

  “Yeah, like that’s reliable,” she says. “That’s like taking the low road.”

  Which may be right. But so far, it doesn’t feel like the high road is getting us anywhere.

  After school, Sirina and I are about to head to my house for some much-needed LVR when I see Nicolás down the stretch of the hall in front of me. But Jason Murray does, too. “Hey, Nick,” his voice booms. “Your mom’s outside. She’s got a clean diaper for you.”

  And I have a sinking, weighted feeling. Word about his mom and our breakup has clearly gotten out.

  I look at Sirina. “Did you hear that?”

  But she seems to be focused on the YoJo roadblocks, and is in no mood for any kind of sympathy. “Yeah,” she says.

  “Jason’s such a bully!”

  “He is, but it’s like my sister warned me. She said three-quarters of the population of any given middle school, at any given time, is trying to get in touch with their inner jackass.” She looks at me. “And, Mabry, before you go feeling all sorry for Nick, remember that only a couple of days ago, that statistic included him.”

  “But they’re basically calling him a baby! Nick’s not a baby, he’s just confused. He doesn’t deserve that.”

  She just rolls her eyes and says, “God, like I said, I sure hope Thad can cure you. I’m counting on it.”

  yo vago

  tú vagas

  ella vaga

  nosotros vagamos

  ellos vagan

  Aurelio is in the desert. He has been for five days—the words Día Cinco flash up on the screen. He’s wandering and wandering, with no food or water. There’s really no story line here, besides that. Each day, he gets a little more scruffy and rumpled, and a little more naked.

  “How long are they going to drag this out?” Sirina asks.

  I don’t even try to answer. She’s still grumpy about the YoJo obstacles, despite the gummy worms I’ve given her, and despite the fact that Hunter has chosen her as his favorite person again. He is curled up at her feet, and she strokes him with her fuzzy sock.

  Aurelio is panting and fall-walking, a few steps in this direction, a few steps in that. Every now and then the camera flashes to a lake full of alligators, so I have a distinct feeling that’s what awaits Aurelio.

  Then the scene changes. We’re watching Mariela again. Earlier in this episode, she visited her mother, who is being held in prison. Now Mariela’s at the police chief’s office. His feet are up on his desk, and he’s smoking his cigar, making commands on the phone, but when the door opens and she saunters in, he looks up at her, holds his cigar in midair, and becomes immediately mute. The episode ends with the camera zooming in on her gorgeous face, which is doing all it can to look perfectly innocent.

  My phone buzzes. Sirina picks it up and looks at it. “Who’s ‘Nacho Face’?”

  I take it from her. “Hi, Thad,” I say, putting the phone on speaker. “Sirina’s here with me.”

  “So I don’t get it—who’s the old lady?” he asks.

  It takes me a minute to realize that we’re hearing the theme song from La Vida Rica in stereo. “You’re watching it?”

  Sirina’s jaw drops.

  “It just happened to be on,” Thad says. “Plus, I wanted to see this Mariela chick.”

  “Okay,” I say. He’s watching my show! Maybe he’s not so bad after all. “So, the old lady’s her mom, Señora Trujillo. They locked her up because they think she stole a pig.”

  “A pig?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “But the thief was really this poor kid from the village. She was covering for him. She’s a really nice lady, but she scandalized the town a long time ago, when she fell in love with a cartel guy and had Mariela. She was totally shunned. But now Mariela will do anything for her mom, and—”

  “Yeah, yeah, all right, I get it,” he says. “Anyway, ready to be a heartbreaker? I have your first assignment.”

  When I don’t answer right away, Sirina chimes in, “Yeah. What is it?”

  “I want to hear it from her.”

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” I say, but it
sounds wobbly and weak.

  “Crap. You still think you love that wad, don’t you?”

  Madly. Deeply. But I can’t say those words anymore. Even though I remain quiet, Thad seems to know what I’m thinking.

  “All right, then. Pardon me while I projectile vomit,” Thad adds. He makes some violent gagging sounds and says, “Okay. We’re done here.”

  “Don’t hang up,” I say quickly. I remind myself that I need to do whatever it takes to get Nick to ask me to the Cotillion, even if it involves convincing Thad that I want revenge. “I’m listening.”

  Now Thad pauses. Then he says, “Sirina? Is this going to be a waste of my time?”

  “No, no,” she tells him, but looks at me, giving me quiet commands with her sideways nods. “She’ll do it. She’s in. Just be patient with her. It’s just that she really believes in the L-word. That doesn’t just change overnight.”

  “Collins? Are you in?”

  They can’t see the image in my mind. Nick and me dancing. Slow dancing. Close dancing. He dips me, then he spins me around and around and around and—

  I take a breath and say it. “I’m in.”

  Sirina smiles at me.

  “All right, good,” Thad says. “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. First, I think Sirina was right. Mariela’s got this thing down. She knows the difference between the real stuff and the quote-unquote love.”

  He makes love sounds so trivial. Foolish. “‘Quote-unquote love’?” I hear myself saying quietly.

  “You know, the thing that passes for love in your world,” he says.

  Brutal.

  “Glad you agree with me about Mariela,” Sirina says. “Mabry needs to start channeling her.”

  “Yeah, Mariela’s a good start. Collins, you have to get him to notice you in some new way—stop being so sappy and needy. No wonder the guy ran in the opposite direction.”

  “So I’m sappy and needy. Thanks,” I say. “Thad, I have an idea. Why don’t we just forget the plan? Why don’t you just go ahead and give me a list of everything that’s wrong with me. You’d probably enjoy that.”