Stop the Presses!

by Rachel Wise

  “Ha-ha, you’re funny,” I snapped back. “Seriously, everything’s fine.”

  “Great, then why don’t you come over and we’ll work on the article,” Michael said. “I don’t have time to make cinnamon buns, but I did call my mom and she said she can dig up some snacks for us. I told her you’re always hungry,” he said with a laugh.

  “Now?” I asked. “I just told my mom I was coming home.”

  “Okay, I can walk you home and wait outside while you ask her,” he said. “Then we can walk to my house together.”

  This was not the way I had imagined my afternoon would turn out. It was soooo much better! I was pretty sure Mom would say okay. She was so busy with work it wasn’t like we would be spending much time together anyway.

  I rushed into the house and knocked on Mom’s office door.

  “Finally, you’re home,” Mom said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Better than okay, Mom,” I said. “Do you think I could go over to Michael’s house for a while? We’re working on a big story for the Voice.”

  “Are his parents around?” Mom asked.

  “Yes, his mother is home,” I said. “You can call her if you have to.”

  “I trust you, Sam,” Mom said. “Just make sure you’re home for dinner.”

  I raced upstairs, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and then shook it out so it wouldn’t look like I had just combed it. Then I ran back downstairs and walked outside, trying to look casual.

  “That was fast,” Michael noted. “Is it okay with your mom?”

  “It’s fine with her,” I said. “She just wanted to make sure there would be ‘adult supervision.’ ”

  Michael laughed. “I know. My parents are the same way.”

  Michael and I spent the afternoon at his kitchen table. I tried not to roll my eyes when he took out the pile of printouts and pamphlets from Hailey.

  “We need to be open to everyone’s side,” he said.

  “I’ve been reminded of that before.” I laughed. “A few times.”

  “I had an idea for how we might work on the story,” Michael said. “I’ll do the research about the benefits of digital publishing. You can handle the poll results and get some quotes from students who prefer paper. Next time we meet, we’ll figure out how to put it all together.”

  “You’re on a roll, Michael Lawrence,” I noted.

  “Actually, I taste better on rye bread,” Michael joked. “With a little mustard.”

  His joke was so dumb I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You should stick with journalism—or sports,” I told him. “Because comedy is obviously not your thing.”

  “I’ve been told that before.” He laughed. “A few times.”

  We started to come up with some poll questions, and then we cut the list to four questions because we knew students wouldn’t spend a lot of time answering them. The four questions were:

  Do you read the Cherry Valley Voice weekly?

  yes/no

  Do you read any newspapers online?

  yes/no

  Would you read the Cherry Valley Voice online?

  yes/no

  Would you prefer to read the Voice printed or online?

  printed/online

  We debated whether we should post the poll on Buddybook, but I thought that the results might be biased toward students who use the computer a lot. We decided to do a combination Buddybook poll along with a printed poll that students could fill out in the cafeteria at lunchtime.

  I left Michael’s feeling happier and more relaxed than I had all week. The proverb “Every cloud has a silver lining” seemed to be true for me. My Hailey cloud had turned into more time with Michael, and that was better than a silver lining—it was golden.

  Chapter 7

  MARTONE GETS THE BLAME . . . AGAIN

  Mom and Allie were sitting at the kitchen table when I got home.

  I was still smiling goofily when I joined them at the table.

  “Productive meeting?” Mom asked.

  “Very,” I replied. “We wrote a poll that we’re going to use for part of our article, and we’re going to use the results as part of the article.”

  “Didn’t you do that before?” Allie asked.

  “We did, and it worked really well,” I said. “So why mess with a good thing?”

  “Speaking about messing with a good thing,” Mom segued, “what is going on with Hailey?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, pretending to be oblivious.

  “I ran into her mom when I went out to the supermarket to pick up a chicken for dinner,” Mom said. “She said Hailey’s been just devastated by your fight and the hurtful things that you said.”

  “The hurtful things I said?” I snorted. “She keeps forgetting about the hurtful things she said. She just wants me to look like the bad guy.”

  “That happens a lot when good friends fight,” Mom said. “It can be worse than a fight with a stranger, because friends know what’s important to you, so they really know how to hurt you.”

  “Well, if that’s what Hailey was going for, she definitely succeeded,” I said. “She knows how important the Voice is to me, and she doesn’t even care. Her Green Team is more important to her now than her best friend.”

  “Yes, her mother filled me in about her plan to try to put the paper online. Are you sure you aren’t being overly sensitive, Sam?” Mom asked. “You and Hailey have been so close for so long. Do you really think it’s worth giving up over something that’s happening at school?”

  “It’s not just something that’s happening at school,” I said. “Hailey could have chosen a different Green Team topic. She didn’t have to choose the newspaper. And she didn’t even tell me first! She ignored me for a week and then announced it at the meeting! I don’t know why she wanted to hurt me. I didn’t do anything to her.”

  “I don’t know the answer either, Sam,” Mom said. “And I’m sorry I’ve been too busy to notice how you’ve been feeling. I just want you to know that I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

  “I’d rather not right now,” I admitted. “I was kind of happy for a moment. You know the feeling, right, Mom? Like when you’d get a note from John.”

  “WHO’S JOHN?” Allie squealed.

  My diversionary tactic worked. We spent the rest of dinner talking about Mom’s love life and the letters I had found. Allie made Mom pull out the hatbox again, and we had a fun time teasing her about the romantic things her sweetheart John had written to her. I almost forgot about Hailey for the moment.

  That’s when I made my decision. I would purposefully forget about Hailey. I would forget that we were ever best friends. I would put the Voice and my commitment to unbiased reporting first. Hailey was just the vice president of the student government who had an idea for turning the paper into a digital edition.

  It’s easy enough to make those kinds of decisions when you’re sitting alone in your room. It’s a little harder when you’re face-to-face with your “never-was-your-best-friend.”

  I was hoping that Michael would be waiting by my locker the next morning, but he wasn’t. Hailey was. I was so surprised I honestly didn’t know how to act.

  “Sam,” Hailey said in way she had never said my name before.

  It sounded so cold and detached it hurt my heart.

  “I heard Mrs. Brennan called you to her office,” she continued stonily. “I just want you to know that I didn’t rat on you. I heard that you thought I had. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Okay, thanks for letting me know,” I said, trying to stop my voice from shaking. “And just so you know, I wouldn’t tell anyone about your dyslexia, or make fun of it.”

  “So we’re all good?” Hailey asked.

  “All good,” I agreed.

  Hardly, I thought.

  The rest of the day was just as tortuous as our brief conversation. I walked to classes with a group of other girls that I’m friends with, but every time I turned around, I’
d see Hailey surrounded by her flock of Green Team admirers. The group seemed to be growing every minute. I was pretty sure that if they crowned a prom queen at this moment, Hailey would win by a landslide. She was superpopular. Everyone was talking about how great her ideas were and how lucky we were to have her on the student government. All hail Queen Hailey!

  At lunchtime, I handed out some polls to random tables of students. I was in the middle of handing one to Michael Shea when Hailey tapped me on the shoulder.

  “I thought we were all good,” she said.

  “That’s what we said,” I replied.

  “So why are you trying to sabotage my subcommittee?” Hailey asked.

  “What are you even talking about?” I asked.

  “This!” Hailey said as she held up a poll paper in my face. “Why are you trying to make it seem like there are two choices here?”

  “Um, maybe because there are?” I huffed. “You said I don’t know how to see other people’s point of view. Maybe you don’t.”

  “Except that I do,” Hailey snapped. “There are two choices when both of the choices are equal. There aren’t two equal choices here. One is clearly the right thing to do. The other isn’t.”

  “Says you,” I said, sounding like I was five years old and fighting over crayons again.

  “That is what I say,” Hailey replied. “And as student government vice president, I’m not even sure it’s within the rules to be handing out a poll in the cafeteria during school hours. I’m going to have to check into that.”

  “Please do,” I said. “And I’ll check with Mr. Trigg to make sure it’s within the rules for the student government to interfere with Cherry Valley Voice reporting.”

  Hailey tossed the poll on the floor and stormed off, her flock rushing behind her. She was definitely on a power trip. She thought she could stop me from handing out polls by intimidating me? Hardly.

  Of course, who was witness to it all? Michael Lawrence. He was trying not to show his obvious amusement when he walked over to me.

  “What’s so funny now?” I said, still fuming.

  “I just never realized how competitive you were,” he said. “I mean, I know how competitive Hailey is because I’ve seen her on the soccer field. She’s fierce. I just didn’t know you were too.”

  “Me, fierce?” I snickered. “I thought I told you to give up the comedy act.”

  “Relax, Pasty,” Michael said. “It was just an observation. I liked the way you stood up for the Voice. And I think a good article might help everyone see that there are more sides to this story—maybe even Hailey.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

  “I know you’re putting up a good front,” Michael said. “But I also know how much you must miss her. I know how close you two are.”

  “Were,” I corrected him.

  “Are,” he answered back. “If you didn’t care about each other so much, you wouldn’t be so mad right now.”

  I didn’t have a snappy answer to that. He was right. It would be easy to just cut Hailey out of my life right now. I wish I didn’t care. There was one big problem. I did care. Every time I looked at her, I wished things were the way they used to be. But every day it seemed like that ship was sailing farther away.

  “Sam?” Michael said quietly. “I don’t want you to be sad. I wish I could help fix this problem with Hailey.”

  “Thanks. I wish you could fix it too,” I admitted.

  “Well, I can’t, but I did get a chance to do some research,” Michael said. “Are you free Saturday afternoon? I have an early game, but I should be done by noon.”

  “Sure. Do you want to meet at the library?” I asked. “I’d invite you to my house, but my mom’s really busy with work, and we’re renovating and stuff.”

  “The library’s perfect,” Michael said. “One o’clock?”

  “It’s a date,” I said. “Wait. I mean, you know, not a date, a meeting . . .”

  Michael just ignored me and walked away. I’m pretty sure he was smiling.

  Chapter 8

  LOCAL LIBRARY SHOCKINGLY FILLED WITH PAPER!

  On Saturday, I headed to the library. I was dressed a little nicer than if I were meeting just any friend at the library, but not so nice that it looked like I had taken the whole “date” thing seriously. Allie had helped with that. She had the casual but stylish look down cold, and she was really turning into quite the helpful sister these days. I’m guessing she must need something, or want me to hide something from Mom.

  I had a stack of at least two hundred polls that I had collected at lunchtime the past couple of days, and I had a pile of research and opinion pieces on the benefits of reading the newspaper in print. I had even written down most of Mr. Trigg’s soliloquy on the beauty of the printed page. We’d had a staff meeting for the Voice on Friday, and Mr. Trigg just went off on how much he loved paper. It was actually very cool but very unlike him. . . . It seemed like Trigg had thrown his reporter’s tool kit out the window as he filled our newsroom with booming, poetic language—an ode to ink, and presses, and the long history of the newspaper, from the Acta Diurna, the first newspaper published in Rome, to the Brooklyn Freeman newspaper, published by the poet Walt Whitman, to the Daily Mirror, the first tabloid-style newspaper. I knew I wasn’t alone in my passion for keeping the Voice in print, and Mr. Trigg let his true feelings spill out. We were all impressed and energized. There were a bunch of staffers who didn’t think it was a bad idea to have the paper online, but everyone agreed we also wanted a print edition as well. I was curious to see what the polls would tell us.

  I was organizing my notes when I noticed that it was already one fifteen. Michael wasn’t usually late, so I sent him a text just to make sure I had gotten the time and place right. He texted back: brt.

  Five minutes later, Michael stumbled into the library. He was still dressed in his baseball uniform, which was covered in dirt, and his hair looked damp with sweat. Not exactly your clean-cut “date” look, but I didn’t mind—at all.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late, Sam,” he said, panting. “The game before us went into extra innings, so our game got pushed back, and then we went into extra innings, too, and then, well, here I am,” he said as he tried to wipe some dirt off his cheek, but only smeared it around even more.

  “And I thought I’d get to take a shower before our meeting,” he apologized.

  “As long as the librarian doesn’t mind, it’s okay by me,” I said, pointing to the librarian, who was giving him the “SHHH!” sign.

  The thing about Michael Lawrence’s cuteness is that it is so powerful, it shines right through the dirt. In fact, he looked especially cute with his hair all tousled. The only problem was the smudge of mud on the tip of his nose—it was a little distracting. I kind of wanted to reach over and wipe it off myself, but I didn’t know how he would feel about that. So I just swiped at my own nose a bit, and he got the hint.

  “Well, did you at least win the game?” I laughed.

  “Oh yeah, it was AWESOME!” Michael said, too loudly for the librarian, who was giving him the stink-eye again.

  “Sorry,” Michael whispered. “It was awesome. I was pitching a shutout, and so was the other team’s pitcher. I was afraid that Coach would take me out when we went to extra innings, but we don’t have another game until next Saturday, so he let me stay in. When I got up to bat at the bottom of the eleventh inning, we had a man on second. I hit a little blooper to right field, but their fielder couldn’t get there in time and it was just enough for us to win the game.”

  “Congratulations!” I whispered back. “It sounds like it was exciting.”

  “It really was,” Michael said. “Oh, and speaking of exciting, you should come to next week’s game. I’m sure you’ll find it thrilling.”

  “Why, are you planning to pitch another shutout?” I asked.

  “Always.” Michael laughed. “But that’s not what I meant. We’re playing against West Hills. Your buddy Dann
y will be there. I’m sure he’d be happy to see you there.”

  “Then I’ll definitely have to come,” I replied. “Just to see you strike him out.”

  Michael put his hand on my head, rubbed my hair, looked right into my eyes, and smiled at me. If you didn’t know any better, you might think it looked like the way you’d pet your dog, but it was so much better than that. It was like getting a note that said, “I’m glad that we’re friends. I like talking to you; you’re great,” but with a gesture instead of words. Which was fine, because I knew I’d be able to replay that smile over and over in my mind later.

  “I think we better to get to work,” Michael said as he glanced at the librarian. “She does not look happy.”

  “I already started,” I said, showing Michael my piles. “I have some research about why reading a printed page is better. Did you know studies show that people read faster and strain their eyes less when they read paper? Also, it’s not completely environmentally friendly to go digital. You have to use energy to read digital media, and that often comes from nonrenewable resources like coal, which are also contributing to global climate change.”

  “That’s true, but you’re still stopping the destruction of forests, and paper mills release waste material into the environment too,” Michael countered. “I did some research too.”

  “You did research, or you just looked at the stuff Hailey gave you?” I asked.

  “Whoa, why so defensive, Pasty?” Michael said. He looked a little surprised at me. “Of course I did some research of my own. We’re supposed to be impartial, remember?”

  He was right. We started to make a chart that listed the positive and negative features of both approaches. Surprisingly, it was pretty even in all columns. There wasn’t a clear-cut “right way” like Hailey thought. But there wasn’t a reason to not go digital either—unless you count a love of paper like Mr. Trigg and I would.

  “We have some good stuff here,” Michael noted. “It’s definitely a strong foundation for our unbiased article. Let’s look through the polls and see what everyone else thinks.”