by Beth Vrabel
“I see,” Miss Juliet said. Neither of us said anything for a moment, then her voice dipped low. “It’s kind of funny, how everything—even taste—can change quick as a breath.” She ran a sample spoon through Happy Jalapeño. “Would you like to try it?”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, I’m not here for ice cream today,” I said. “I’m here on official business. Can I hang this flyer in the window?”
“A newspaper club?” Miss Juliet mused. She looked at the spoon, still filled with ice cream, and tossed it in the bin. “I suppose you could.”
I pulled tape from the front pocket of my backpack and got to work posting the flyer in the window.
“You know,” Miss Juliet said, her voice soft, “if you or your mom ever want to talk…”
“Great!” I chirped and threw open the door. “A features writer will be in touch for a profile soon.”
That Saturday morning, I printed a sign-in sheet, slipped it into a clipboard, and placed it near the front of the barn on a hay bale. Stuff tried to eat it, so Thom moved him to the back of the barn.
After Min, Gloria, Gordon, and Charlotte arrived, we waited for a few more minutes in case anyone else showed up. I thought maybe Gordon would leave when Thom showed him his bag of smells, but Gordon just laughed. And Charlotte’s eyes grew enormous when Stuff nibbled on her hair, but she stayed, too.
Soon the five of them were sitting on the barn floor, laughing and talking (everyone except Charlotte, who sat a little to the side but who was smiling). This looked nothing like a newspaper meeting. Actually… my brain thought the word in Dad’s voice. And it was right; most staff meetings did start out this way, until the news editor brought things to order.
“Okay, let’s talk about the first issue,” I said in my grout voice, but everyone kept laughing and talking. “Lots to discuss!” I tried again. No one noticed.
Gloria glanced my way and cleared her throat. Gordon paused, and she tilted her head in my direction. Soon the rest of them stopped chatting and turned toward me, too.
I smoothed my hands on my shorts and started my speech. “Welcome, everyone, to the club. Bear Creek is in desperate need of an independent press. We’re the ones to bring it to the town. I’ve got more than a decade’s experience as a
consultant for a major city newspaper. You’re all bringing talents, too, which I’m sure we’ll discover soon.” A few staff members glanced at each other and Min’s hand shot into the air. I pretended not to see it. “But I’ll direct us as we release each issue of Nellie’s News.”
“That’s not the name,” Min cut in, hand still in the air.
I continued ignoring her. “Let’s aim to publish monthly to start, with a weekly as a short-term goal and maybe even someday a daily issue.”
Min stood up and pulled a giant piece of folded paper from her backpack. “Our newspaper—the one we’re all making together—isn’t Nellie’s News,” she said. I looked at the paper she held up. It was a mockup of the newspaper.
“Wow!” Gordon said as Min passed the paper to him. “This is amazing!”
I sighed. He was right. Min had not only resisted the hearts, but she had designed an awesome masthead. Across the top was printed The Cub Report with a little round symbol of a bear cub. Under it was All the news fit for printer ink in Bear Creek. She even outlined boxes for different articles.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“The Cub Report?” I read aloud.
“Yeah,” Min said. “Remember? You said new reporters are called cubs. I looked at other papers; the words underneath are kind of like the ones on a newspaper in New York.”
“And the bear also is for Bear Creek. It’s perfect!” Gloria added. Soon everyone was murmuring about the newspaper title.
“I suppose it works,” I muttered. “It doesn’t have the same ring as Nellie’s News, but okay.”
“Should we vote?” Min asked. She turned without waiting for my answer. “All in favor of Nellie’s News raise your hand.” Mine was the only one in the air. “The Cub Report?” Everyone else raised their hands. Even Stuff brayed. Min bounced and clapped like the baby she was.
“Fine,” I said. “Okay, so now it’s time to discuss positions. We need a photographer.”
Gordon tipped his hand in the air. I wrote his name on a new piece of paper attached to the clipboard. I’m not sure why. It just seemed like the thing to do.
“Reporters,” I said. “I think each of us could do that, but I’ll be the investigative reporter.”
“Unless I want to investigate,” said Min. “Then I could be the investigative reporter.”
“You’re the designer,” I said.
Gloria stood up. “I think we should figure out who’s reporting on a case-by-case basis. That’s my opinion.”
I tried not to sigh. “Okay, that’ll work. I’m the investigative reporter for the vandalism story at the park.” Gloria, Gordon, and Charlotte all scrunched up their faces, so I quickly filled them in on what was going on at the park. Then everyone, even Min, agreed that I should take the lead on covering the story.
“I’ll go by today and get some shots of the park,”
Gordon said.
“The park’s closed,” Min pointed out.
Gordon grinned. “I have a telescopic lens.”
Thom cleared his throat. “I’ll write about the ice cream lady.” To Gordon, he added, “Can you take Miss Juliet’s
portrait?” Gordon nodded.
“What do you want to write about?” Gloria asked Charlotte, which was a good question, but which also should’ve been my question to ask. I let it slide.
Charlotte’s voice surprised me by being deep. I expected a soft little whisper. “I’d like to be a copy editor,” she said. “I’ve read about newspaper jobs and that’s the one I think I’d like the most. I’d look for mistakes in the writing, like grammar issues.”
“Perfect,” I said. Did I know my staff or what? I totally had pegged her as a copy editor. “I’ll be the news editor,” I said superfast and then moved on before anyone could interrupt me. “And Gloria, you’ll work on a story about the recipe contest.”
“Can I do that?” Gloria asked. “I mean, since it’s my family’s diner? I thought newspapers were supposed to not take sides.”
“Of course The Cub Report will be objective. That’s super important. But maybe we can do something to make sure readers know that your piece is a column?”
Min crossed her arms at the same time as Gloria. “Why would she just get one column of a whole newspaper?”
“Not a column like that.” I sighed. I didn’t mean to; it just slipped out. “A column as in a columnist—a person who works at a newspaper who writes an opinion piece.”
Gloria and Min both nodded. I asked Min if she could look into how other newspapers handle columnists in design and maybe do something similar.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Okay, it looks like our first issue will focus on three articles—alleged vandalism at the park, a profile piece on Miss Juliet, and the recipe contest. Gordon, maybe you could do a feature photo, too—something that could stand on its own in the newspaper?”
Gordon shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
“We’ll keep the first issue to one page. Let’s meet here tomorrow to check on our progress.”
“Tomorrow?” Gloria repeated. “I’m going to need more time than that.”
“Me too,” Gordon and Thom echoed. Even Min said it, though she wasn’t writing anything for the first issue.
A full day was a great deadline. Plenty of times at my dad’s paper, reporters had to turn around copy (meaning unedited stories) in the span of an hour or two. But these guys were new, and maybe it would take more than a day for even me to figure out all of the sources at the park.
“Okay, how about four days?” I said. “We meet here Wednesday, same time?”
“What am I supposed to do until then?” Charlotte asked.
I rooted around
in my bag until I pulled out a book: The AP Stylebook. I handed it to Charlotte. “Newspapers have a style—a way of writing stories.”
“Is it similar to Chicago or MLA style?” Charlotte asked.
I was too overcome to answer immediately. When I did, the wrong words came out. “We’re going to be good friends,” I said instead of a reasonable response.
Charlotte’s cheeks turned pink and she pushed the book into her backpack.
Min leaned forward and whispered, “But I’m her best friend. In the world.”
“One more thing!” I called as the news staff began to trickle out of the barn. Stuff brayed behind me, but I ignored him. “You’re going to need these.” I pulled out three blank reporter’s notebooks from my bag. They were heavy in my hands, even though they were small. I had found them in one of the boxes marked with Dad’s name. I knew he wouldn’t need them anymore, but it was hard to hand them out.
Gloria and Gordon took theirs with a smile and a thanks. Thom stared at his and sort of squeezed it with both hands. He didn’t smile but nodded, and I remembered what he had said about missing his grandpa. “Thanks,” I whispered to him, even though I was the one giving him something.
I watched them leave and for a moment my eyes flooded.
I sat down in the hay. Sure, there were many things to figure out—delivery systems, whether anyone on staff could actually write, taking on total cubs and teaching them newspaper style. But we were officially a club. I had the sign-in sheet to prove it. I took out my phone, again thumbing to Dad’s contact number.
Behind me, Stuff grunted. Then I remembered that Min was still in the barn, too. I whipped around and there they were, standing side by side staring at me. “Is that him?” Min asked. She peered over my shoulder to the little picture of Dad on my phone.
I nodded.
“We both look like our dads.”
I turned back to the picture. Yesterday Min and her
dad had played catch in the backyard for hours. Mr. Kim-
Franklin wasn’t like his polished, ruffly wife; he was quiet and wore all black and gray like me. But when he played ball with Min, he glowed the way she does. He even bounced a little before throwing the ball to her. I guessed playing catch was their thing, sort of the way the swings had been Dad and my thing. (Maybe it sounds like I had been spying again; I hadn’t. It’s just my bedroom window was open and I could hear them laughing together for a long time.)
After a few minutes of Min just sitting next to me, I said, “You did a really good job on the masthead.”
“I know,” Min said.
“You didn’t have to,” I said. My heart squished up. “I mean, I know your mom is making you be my friend.”
Min pushed my shoulder. “I decide who my friends are.”
“But why?” I whispered. “I don’t normally… sometimes people…”
“Even though you’re bossy and hide your best toys, you have good ideas and are really brave.”
“Oh,” I whispered. “So, you want to be my friend?”
“For someone who is supposed to be so smart you can be really not smart sometimes,” Min said. “And I’m not your friend. I’m your very best friend in the whole world.”
“Oh,” I said again. “Right. So… do you want to reenact stuff with my realistic figurines sometime?”
“You mean play with dolls?” Min asked and danced in a circle. But then she gasped. “Wait! What are you still doing here? Don’t you have a cover story to write?”
AFTER THE MEETING, I swung by home to get an extra pen. Dad told me once about a reporter who had been sent out to cover the aftermath of a tornado. All sorts of experts were there from the weather service as well as people affected by the storm. She had the chance to get dozens of interviews and quotes but came back without anything decent all because her pen’s ink ran out a half hour into the day and then her phone battery died, too. Since then, Dad always reminded reporters to bring two pens to every scene or interview.
I noticed a lot of the reporters used a blue and a red pen. The blue was to take down notes and quotes at the scene. The red was for when they were on their way back, to jot down their own thoughts about what they had seen.
But all I could find were black pens in the kitchen junk drawer. Most of the other pens were probably in Mom’s office. I crept up the stairs, avoiding the super-creaky ones. The attic door was mostly closed, but I could peek in the narrow opening. Mom was at her desk, her laptop pushed back. She rocked in her chair. I could see the side of her face, enough to notice her smile. But I would’ve known that she was happy even if I hadn’t been able to see her simply by the sound of her voice. That’s how I knew she was talking to Dad, too. Only he could make her voice go soft like that. “You’d be so proud of her, Mike. She’s venturing out every day, making friends. Everyone’s been so kind. The people here, they’re looking out for us like we’re family, even though we just got here.” She paused, I guess listening to Dad.
“The diner owner in town, he called yesterday to let me know Nellie hung up a flyer in the store. Something about starting a newspaper. I mean, of course she is. She’s our kid.”
I pressed into the door, my ear against it, but careful not to open it further. “I know, and you’re right. I need to be doing the same—getting out there and making friends. And I will. I’m just so… I’ll get there, Mike. Nellie and I, we’re going to be okay here in Bear Creek.”
I swallowed down a sudden ache in my throat.
Mom had reception in her attic.
I went straight to the park after that, hoping that maybe it’d be open again. But the yellow tape draped across the gates clued me in that it was still closed.
Chief Rodgers wasn’t there, but I found a sign reading that due to unusual circumstances, the park was closed until further notice. I jumped when a crow cawed.
“Kind of creepy, huh?”
I turned to see Gordon dropping from a tree beside
the gate.
“Yes,” I said. “Do they teach all of you how to climb trees like that in school here or something? It’s quite strange.”
Gordon looked up from thumbing through the images on his camera. “Huh?”
“Oh!” I said. “You mean the park. Yeah, that’s creepy, too.”
Gordon handed me the camera. It still hung from the strap around his neck, but I could see the small square image he had captured. A cluster of crows perched atop the swing set. Gordon thumbed through other images. Another showed the bare jogging trails. The third showed a dozen black birds bouncing around one of the park benches, beaks open as if talking with each other.
I stared at the images, not saying anything.
Gordon leaned back, but I grabbed the camera with two hands, staring at the park bench.
“Uh,” Gordon said, “I could try again. I mean, if none of these will work…”
“Zoom in!” I ordered. “Here.” I pointed to a corner of the tiny image. I glanced up at Gordon. His forehead was scrunched, but he pushed a couple buttons with his thumbs and soon the image zeroed in where I had pointed.
“There!” I said. “Do you see it?”
“What is that?” Gordon asked, squinting at the black strand of rubber hanging from the crow’s mouth.
“Evidence.” I bounced like Min. “Can you email or text this picture to me?”
Gordon rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Awesome!” I cheered, scribbling into my notebook as I practically skipped toward town. “Great job, Gordon.”
“Where are you going, Nellie?” Gordon called.
“To find a bird expert.” I paused. I had no idea where to find a bird expert. I hated not knowing where to go next. “Do you know any?”
Gordon shrugged. “Mom teaches at the university sometimes. I bet there’s an expert there. She’s going later today if you want a lift. It’s about a half-hour drive from here. I was going to go, too.” He held up the camera. “I sit in on some photogra
phy classes sometimes.” Gordon lowered his voice. “But don’t tell my mom, okay? She thinks I’m there to skateboard.”
An hour later, Dr. Burke picked me up on the way to the university. I researched birds on my phone while she drove. Bird experts were called ornithologists. The college had a whole animal studies department, including a wing for ornithology.
I chuckled a little when I read that on the website. Wing.
Dr. Burke gave me directions to the animal studies department and brought up a campus map on my phone.
“Are you sure you’re okay navigating on your own?” she
asked, her mouth downturned. “Gordon, why don’t you go
with your friend?”
Gordon was circling us on his skateboard. Every time he wheeled by, Dr. Burke’s frown deepened a little.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I mean, Gordon, you can come if you want, but I’m used to running around college campuses. I used to interview professors for fun while my mom taught journalism as an adjunct.”
Dr. Burke’s eyes widened. “Really?” She turned toward Gordon, her mouth hardening as he made the skateboard go in a small circle. “Just think, Gordon, how you could be spending your time more usefully following some passion.”
Now I was the one with the frown. Why didn’t Gordon tell her that he really came here for photography classes? But Gordon ignored the barb. “Yeah, I’ll come along,” he said. “Some cool ramps there.” When Dr. Burke turned away, he held up his backpack, which was unzipped, showing me the camera tucked inside.
Dr. Burke sighed and then went to her class. Gordon slipped the camera around his neck.
We quickly found the ornithology department, which was actually just a large office with cubicles. The walls were covered in migration charts and every surface had bird skeletons or models placed on it. “Excuse me?” I called out as Gordon and I closed the door to the department.
“No late assignments accepted!” came a voice from behind a cubicle partition.
“I’m from…” I cleared my grout voice. “The Cub Report. It’s a real newspaper. I’d like to interview an ornithologist, please.”