by Beth Vrabel
I swallowed. “Well, I guess I get paid my allowance tomorrow. I mean, that’s when Mom is supposed to give me my allowance. If you guys want to meet here again…”
“Yes!” Min cheered. Thom smiled and nodded.
“But right now,” I said, flipping shut the notebook with a satisfying clap, “we’ve got to get to the newspaper.”
The newsroom of the Bear Creek Gazette was four blocks away from the creamery. As we walked, we passed old men sitting on lawn chairs outside of Bear Creek Hardware. Then we walked by a woman and her tiny black and white dog heading into Bear Creek Pet Supply. (Min made us follow them inside so we could whistle at the birds, and Thom added a sprig of catnip from the plants inside the store to his mysterious baggie.) Next, we went by Bear Creek Barber, where giant storefront windows showed stylists washing or snipping at people’s hair. It even had an old red, white, and blue striped pole. Thom made us laugh by sharing that when he was in kindergarten, he told the class he wanted to grow up to be a barber pole. I told him about my cousin who had wanted to grow up to be bacon.
“Is everything in Bear Creek named after Bear Creek?” I asked. It was like the whole town was on a mission to remind me that I wasn’t in the city anymore.
“Not everything.” Min pointed across the street to a big red-brick building. The whole bottom floor seemed to be floor-to-ceiling windows, giving us a peek inside to a huge array of mismatched tables and chairs. Along the window was a painted-on sign: Welcome to Wells Diner! Formerly Bear Creek Diner. I sighed.
“The Wells are kind of new to Bear Creek,” Thom said. “They moved here three years ago.”
“Three years ago is new?” I asked as we turned the corner toward the newspaper office.
Thom shrugged. “Not much happens around here.”
A man walking by us with a big cardboard box in his hands laughed, but in a way that sounded the opposite of happy. “You can say that again, kid.” I noticed the box was filled with notebooks and newspaper clippings.
“Here we are,” Min sing-songed. Everything she said came out like a sing-song.
In front of us was a squat, dark building with Bear Creek Gazette displayed on the front in the same type as the newspaper’s masthead (that’s the part that goes along the top of a newspaper). In front of the building were three newspaper stands and a flagpole with the American flag flying. A real newsroom was behind those doors.
“Let’s go in!” I caught myself bouncing like Min and immediately stopped.
THE SMELL OF THE newsprint and chatter of reporters and editors rushed over me as I opened the door and walked into the building.
Know how houses have a certain smell? Thom’s house smelled like pie and lavender. Min’s house like lemons.
Grandma’s house like licorice and mint. I’m not sure what my new house smelled like—probably cardboard boxes because
we still hadn’t unpacked most of our stuff.
To me, newsrooms smelled like home. Old coffee, newsprint, stale pizza. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a perfume someone would want to bottle up and spritz around, but I breathed it in so deeply that I went up on my tiptoes.
I glanced around, looking for the news desk. At the front of it would be my dad. Or rather, the person who had the same job that my dad used to have—news editor. That’s the person who’s in charge of staying on top of everything that’s going on in the next day’s newspaper. The news editor also puts the right reporters on the breaking news; whoever it was would know who I should talk to about the mischief at the park.
But this newsroom was different from my newsroom. First of all, it was much smaller. That was to be expected, I guessed. Around the newsroom signs hung from the drop ceiling. News, Features, Editorial, Photo, and Sports. Under each were a cluster of cubicles arranged in little pods.
A couple of things were the same. Attached to poles around the room were televisions, each tuned to a different channel. Police scanners buzzed from the pod under the News sign.
Just behind the newsroom was another room full of people in suits and ties. That had to be the advertising section, where salespeople sold ad space for the newspaper. Most people think newspapers are funded through subscriptions for delivery to people’s homes, but Dad told me the ads were “a necessary evil” because advertising was actually “the bread and butter” of the paper. Mom had whispered that the advertising department probably thought the news stories were a “necessary evil” to their lists of ads.
“May I help you?” An elderly woman with puffy white hair and bright pink lipstick stood behind a counter at the entrance. Min and Thom both turned toward me. I straightened my spine. “Yes,” I said. “I’m here to give a scoop to the news editor.”
The woman’s blue eyes rounded the way older people’s do when a kid says something the way an adult would. Her mouth twitched. I hate mouth twitches like that. Next, she was probably going to say something like “oh, you’re so adorable!” and maybe try to pinch my cheeks. I stiffened my face, making it as unpinchable as possible.
She must’ve gotten the message because she picked up the phone receiver and punched in a few digits. I heard a phone ringing in the distance. “Andy, you got time to take a tip from some neighborhood sources?”
Soon she ushered us through a little half door and we were officially in the newsroom. I looked around. The smell was just right, but what I saw and heard didn’t measure up.
For one thing, the reporters were mostly young, like just a year or two out of college. No old reporters in wrinkled suits sitting with their ankles crossed on their desks, staring into space with a pencil in their mouths before suddenly bursting into motion, pulling the computer keyboard closer and hunching over it as they typed.
“Wait here,” the older woman said. “Andy will be right with you.” She strode back to the front desk, where a delivery person was tapping a little bell.
I looked around again, puzzling out what else was off about this newsroom. It was the boxes. Just like the grouchy man who passed us on the sidewalk, about a half dozen people were either holding boxes or filling them up with the stuff on their desks. At the cubicle closest to us, the phone on the desk rang. The woman filling up a box picked it up, paused before greeting the caller, and finally said, “This is the Bear Creek Gazette.” She listened for a few seconds and then said, “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t help you with that. This is my last day. I’ll transfer you to someone who can.” Across the newsroom, a phone rang again and again, unanswered.
The noise was off, too. Yes, it had the police scanner and the televisions. But the buzz of a newsroom was missing. My dad’s newsroom was filled with reporters volleying ideas, photographers dashing on the way to their next assignment, editors shouting across the room to each other. This
newsroom sounded like Miss Juliet looked—too sad for its surroundings.
“Excuse me,” I said to the woman who had just transferred the call. “What’s going on?” I pointed to the box.
The woman sighed and pushed her hand through her bangs. When she smiled it didn’t reach her eyes. “Layoffs. Andy just told most of the copy editors and reporters that we’re out of a job, me included. I was the municipal beat.”
My stomach clenched. That’s what happened to Dad’s newsroom, too. Not enough sales and subscriptions, so the paper started eliminating jobs one by one.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I didn’t realize I was rubbing my chest with my knuckles until the reporter squeezed my arm.
The woman sighed, then dropped her hand to hoist the box onto her hip. “That’s the way it goes in this industry.”
As she walked away, Min nudged my side. “Copy editor?” she whispered.
“Someone who reads over copy—articles—and points out mistakes,” I whispered back.
“You’d be great at that,” she said.
Shows what you know, Min. I’m a reporter.
“She said something else. Municipal beat? What’s that mean?” Thom asked. He leaned
forward, sniffed a wrapped throat lozenge the reporter had left on her desk, and slipped it into the baggie in his pocket.
“A beat is a topic or area that a reporter covers. So, like, crime beat would be in charge of staying in touch with police, you know? And municipal beat is in charge of covering town meetings and stuff like that.”
How was a newspaper going to do its job without a reporter covering the town news?
A man using a white cane headed our way. His tie was mostly undone. “Can I help you kids?” he asked once he was in front of us.
Min nudged me. I cleared my voice. “I’d like to speak with the news editor.”
“That’s me,” the man said. His eyes drifted from me to Thom to Min. “I’m Andy Walters. Is this some kind of field trip? It’s not a real good day for tours, I’m afraid.”
I pulled the reporter notebook out of my back pocket and flipped it open to the page about the park. “It’s about what’s going on at Bear Creek Park,” I said. “A man says he was attacked, and some pranks were pulled on drivers’ cars parked in the lot. The police chief seems to think it’s vandals. I’d like to know what the paper found out about it. Who’s covering it?”
Andy rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. “This is about Hank, right?”
“Yes,” I said. Min nudged me again, this time to give me a thumbs-up. I shook my head at her. Be serious, Min!
“We’re not covering that story,” Andy said.
“What? But I can’t go to the park until it’s figured out!”
Andy sighed. “Listen, it’s a nonstory. Maybe if I had an extra reporter, I’d have someone hang around and scout something out, but if you haven’t noticed, reporters are on short supply here.”
“But how are people going to know if the park’s safe?” I asked. “That’s your job.”
Andy sighed. “We just don’t have the resources. Most of our stories are national now, picked up through the wire. I’m writing what I can, but we’re not what we used to be.”
Thom, who had been searching through his bag of smells, looked up. “What about the ice cream maker?”
“Miss Juliet?” Andy asked, his forehead wrinkling. “What about her?”
“She’s sad,” Thom finished.
I cringed. Suddenly it sounded like such a boring story idea.
Andy blinked. “Okay.”
Min nudged me again. “Nellie says there’s a story there. And she knows because her dad was a newspaper man.”
Thom sidestepped away from me. Something flashed over Andy’s face. “You’re the Murrow kid, right? I heard about your dad, heard you and your mom were moving here.”
“Yes.” I straightened my spine. Dad’s newspaper had won a big prize a couple years earlier for a profile on a teacher who became a breakout opera star in her fifties. I wasn’t surprised he had heard of Dad.
“And how is—”
“Fine,” I snapped. “He’s in Asia.” Thom took another sidestep, but Min pressed against me. I elbowed her away.
“Oh,” Andy said, his forehead wrinkled again.
“Anyway, I need to get to the park. And I can’t until this story is out and everyone knows it’s safe to go there. The newspaper can fix that. The newspaper is supposed to fix it.”
The telephone rang. And then another phone at an empty cubicle started blaring, too. Andy sighed again. “Sorry,” he said and turned around to head back to his desk.
“But what about the park?” I asked again. My heart squished up, thinking about not being allowed back on
the swings. It was the only place I really could talk to Dad.
I had to tell him how much this newsroom needed him.
Fact: A newsroom wasn’t supposed to be sad and full of boxes and news editors who told sources to go away. This isn’t right!
I must’ve said that last sentence aloud without even thinking, because Andy paused. He half turned back. “I know it isn’t right, kid. Believe me.”
“But someone has to write these stories. Bear Creek needs to know.”
Andy shrugged. “I can’t help you. Things are just different here now.” The phone trilled again and Andy half turned away from us.
“But how are people supposed to find out about the park?”
Andy threw his hand not holding the cane up in the air. “Write it yourself!”
I stayed in place, watching him retreat, until I felt another nudge at my side. I was ready to yell at Min to leave me alone, but it was Thom.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered again.
“Maybe,” Thom said. We stood there for a long while.
By the time I was ready to leave, Min was back at the counter waiting for us while she talked with the older lady. “So then my mom said it was raining, and I said it was barely sprinkling, and I totally beat Nellie down the slide even though she pretended she didn’t care, and then the man said, ‘I was attacked!’ and then Nellie told him he wasn’t before the
police officer could even say that, no, he wasn’t, and then
the drivers of cars were like, ‘Oh no! My wipers!’ and now Nellie
says there’s a story there, but she says that a lot and I don’t know what it means except we can’t go back to the park and—”
“Well, not much you can do at the park,” the old woman said, beginning to speak right over Min. “I’ve been saying for years that we need surveillance cameras there. Bound to get hoodlums sooner or later. Always happens.”
Min continued as if the woman hadn’t talked. “Mom says she’s going to keep an eye on us, but I snuck out this morning and we used my allowance for ice cream, and that’s another story—”
The old woman continued, too. “But if anything really had happened, I’d hear about it from Arlene Austin; she’s always on that bench like it’s her job or something. Meanwhile, here I am, eighty-two years old, still filing papers and answering phones at the newspaper, earning my keep while she just feeds those darned birds—”
“—I don’t know how being sad is a story when I’m always happy and no one’s ever said, ‘Oh, there’s a story with Min being so happy’—”
“—Gonna end up with bird flu. That’s what’s going to happen. I done told her, too. ‘Arlene, you’ve got to talk to people once in a while. People. Not just spend days sitting there on a bench breathing in bird germs. Be useful. Come in here, why don’t ya. Answer some phones. Like I do.’ Even though I’m eighty-two years old. I still can be productive, you know.”
“—I could write a story about being happy. Fill it up with hearts, and unicorns, and rainbows, and sparkles, and—”
I couldn’t handle this. Friend or not, I could not handle discussions of unicorns and sparkles in a newsroom. I pushed by them and out onto the boring old sidewalks of Bear Creek.
THOM SAT BESIDE ME on the sidewalk while we waited for Min outside of the so-called newsroom. None of this was right. Nothing. There were supposed to be reporters there, ones who could get to the bottom of this story so I could get back to the park, sit on the swings, and feel normal, even if it was just for a little bit. And the journalists were supposed to have welcomed me into the newsroom, maybe thought it was cool that a kid was so interested in their work. Maybe let me hang out there, opening mail or something. Maybe give me a chair with wheels and my own space at the corner of someone’s desk. A place for me.
This was supposed to be a place for me.
But there wasn’t a single spot for me in Bear Creek.
I bowed my head, but Thom didn’t seem to notice the wetness on my cheeks. He just sat there, leaning in a little so his body brushed mine, reminding me that he was there. I took a big, wobbly breath.
“I miss my granddad,” Thom said when I finally stopped blubbering. I rubbed at my eyes. His granddad? Why was he telling me this? “He lived with us when he got sick. In the dining room. Ma turned it into a bedroom for him. For a long time after he… you know… I would sit in the corner of the room and take deep breaths.” Thom put his ha
nd inside his pocket where I knew he kept that baggie. “He smelled like mints. But the room doesn’t. Not anymore. It is just a dining room again.”
I pushed up to standing. “My dad smells like coffee.”
The door behind us swung open and Min stepped through, still talking over her shoulder to the receptionist. “So, I’ll drop off some stickers for you later, Miss Marcia, and you pass them on to the club, okay? Okay. Bye! Bye!”
“What was that about?” I said. Min’s smile wobbled a little because my voice was sharper than maybe it should’ve been. She and Thom exchanged a long look with each other. I rubbed at my pathetic eyes and straightened up.
“Oh,” Min said at last. “Miss Marcia, she has to do everything for her Scrabble club, even though she’s the oldest member and the only one still working a full-time job at the paper—though they’re going to make her take early retirement if things keep going the way they are. Not that it’d be early really since—”
“Yeah, I know—she’s old!” This time I meant to snap. “What I mean is, what was the point of blabbering like that with her?”
But Min’s smile only stretched. “Silly Nellie! Didn’t you hear what Miss Marcia said?”
I growled. I didn’t mean to, but that happens sometimes when words won’t suffice for someone so aggravating.
Min’s eyes widened. “Arlene Austin,” she said in a small voice. “Miss Marcia told us who your source should be. Arlene Austin, the old lady who’s always sitting on the bench in the park to feed the birds. She’d be able to tell you what really happened, I bet.”
I gasped. “Min, you’re a genius!”
“So, are we doing this?” Thom asked as Min bounced in front of us. “Are we writing the article since the paper won’t?”
I got out my notebook from my back pocket and, just like Dad, flipped it one-handed to a blank page. “Oh, we’re doing this!”