Bury the Lead

by Mischa Thrace

  The next student in is Claribel Garcia, and she takes a seat one desk over from me. Claribel has her heart set on writing the next great Mexican-American novel and is one of few people other than Ravi I’m cool doing group work with.

  The rest of the class trickles in, filling the circle of desks and trading stories of summer adventures. Ravi darts in just ahead of the bell and slides into his seat with a clatter. “Made it.” He huffs. “Shit, this is a long way from Art.”

  “You’re here before Monroe though. That’s all that matters.”

  He nods, still catching his breath. “Not making that mistake again.” Last year, when we had Mr. Monroe for Current Events, Ravi had once been late by less than a minute and was forced to spend the period in the hall, writing a ten-page essay on the electoral college.

  The bang of a slamming door silences the chatter around the circle.

  “All right, sports fans,” Mr. Monroe says, deep baritone rumbling in the dying echo of the door. He strides to the center of the circle. “Welcome to Journalism. I’m Mr. Monroe, but you can also call me sir, Your Journalistic Highness, or that hard-ass who assigns too much homework. I answer to all them.”

  A quick glance around the room is all it takes to weed out who’s taken a class with him before and who hasn’t. The latter sits rigid and wide-eyed while the former try—and mostly succeed—to suppress grins. Monroe is a hard-ass, no doubt, but he’s one of the best teachers Maplefield has.

  “If you know you do not belong here in Journalism,” Monroe continues, “then I suggest you remove yourself at once and stop wasting the time of those who are where they belong.”

  No one moves. Even those I recognize from Current Events seem uneasy.

  “Those of you who believe you do belong here, which appears to be all of you, would do well to question that belief. Ask yourselves,” he says with the intensity of television evangelist, “if you have what it takes to challenge yourselves. Do you have what it takes to look at the world around you and really see what’s there? I’m not talking about those little Pokingmen or whatever is on your phone screens; I’m talking about the realities of the world we live in. Do you have what it takes to see the truth not just in the world around you, but in yourself? Ask yourself: are you willing to do the work?”

  He lets the question hang in the air, and I can’t tear my eyes off him. He’s easily past seventy years old, with deep lines etched into his dark face, but he’s electric in a way I can only hope to be. He’s not handsome, but he is charismatic. He can hold an audience in the palm of his hand, and I bet he did the same with his interview subjects—milked them like a cobra-charmer until he got his story. This is what I want to learn from him: presence and control.

  “Because if you are not willing to do the work,” he goes on, “you are wasting my time. Not only that, you’re wasting your own time, and you’re wasting your classmates’ time, and I will not stand for it. If, by now, you have begun to wonder if this is indeed the class for you, leave now, because I expect nothing but your absolute best.”

  No one moves. No one even breathes.

  A toothy grin spreads across the old man’s wrinkled face. “Perfect. I always love it when I get a group that is here to work. Now, for those of you who don’t know me—yes, I am quite literally older than dirt, and yes, I do this job because retirement doesn’t suit me. I did not live this long by being stupid enough to tempt my wife toward murder by staying home and being in her way all day. Gentlemen, that is a lesson you’ll do well to learn now: happy wife, keep your life.”

  Tentative smiles flash around the circle at this and even a few outright laughs.

  “While I’m sure you probably all know each other, at least by sight, alas, I do not. So, indulge me; let’s go around the room and engage in the diabolical torture known as personal introductions. Give me a name and something about yourself that will stick in my addled brain.”

  He points to the kid closest to him, who looks startled as a result. “Hi, I’m, uh, Jackson Tolliver.”

  “There’s nothing memorable about that, son.”

  “I’m Jackson Tolliver, and I’ve broken twelve different bones in twelve different accidents?”

  Monroe claps his hands. “Brilliant! Mr. Tolliver, accident-prone. Next?”

  I sit through three more of these—Corey Roberts, who races dirt bikes; Natalie Franco, who knows ASL; and Isaiah Colon, who ate a spider on a dare—before it’s my turn.

  I turn on my reporter voice and say, “I’m Kennedy Carter, and I’m the creator of the Maplefield Monitor.”

  Mr. Monroe smiles. “Ah, yes. Ms. Carter. I remember you from last year. I’m a big fan of your site.”

  The introductions continue around the circle, ending with a tiny blond girl, clad in an off-the-shoulder romper, who stares straight at me and says, “I’m Emma Morgan, and I’ll be interning at BayStateNews this year, where my aunt is a producer on the evening show.”

  I almost choke on the shock before I can acknowledge it and set it aside. That’s my thing, my superpower. Compartmentalization. A good journalist is nothing if not objective, and had it been anyone else staring at me, I would’ve managed it, no problem. But not Emma, one of the pretty, effortlessly popular girls who seem destined to have the world handed to them on a silver platter. Not Emma, who’s been the absolute bane of my existence since middle school.

  I landed on her radar in sixth grade, when we were partnered to peer-edit each other’s argumentative essays. I realized I might’ve taken the assignment too seriously when I saw she had written about the unfairness of the school’s cell phone policy, while I had lobbied for the importance of death with dignity on the platform that if we can do it for our pets, we can do it for our grandparents. Emma called me a psychopath in front of the whole class and since then has become the gnat in my ear—the voice that points out every real or imagined flaw I have. So no, I can’t just set aside the fact that she got my internship.

  But I try. I force myself to focus on Mr. Monroe, who is saying, “In addition to weekly assignments, I want you all to start thinking about plans for your final project. It will be a yearlong inquiry into a given topic, but there’s no need to panic yet. Each quarter, we will build on it. The topic can be anything you want, but it must be approved by me and no repeats are allowed. Sign-ups will be open until October first, and anyone who doesn’t sign up in a timely manner will be assigned a topic by me, so unless you want to investigate the ins and outs of the newest hemorrhoid treatments, I suggest you start thinking about a topic now.”

  “Are finals projects solo or group?” I ask.

  “Up to you. But group members must clearly prove their individual contributions, and the quality should reflect the additional brains working on it. Rubrics for both individual and group projects are on the back of your syllabus, which we won’t be going over in detail because you are all seniors and thus capable of reading a one-page document.”

  Ravi and I grin at each other, silently claiming each other as partners.

  “Now, a show of hands. How many of you are here because you still need English credits?”

  About half the class puts their hands up with varying degrees of sheepishness and more than a hint of fear.

  “Down. And who is here because they have a genuine interest in pursuing journalism, in any form, as a career?”

  My hand shoots up, along with Ravi, Emma, and a handful of others.

  “Keep them up.” Monroe points to Isaiah, spider connoisseur. “What branch?”

  “Sports.”

  Monroe nods. “ESPN is about an hour from here. You should look into their internship program. You might be too late for this year, but they have a robust college program.”

  “I’ll do that, sir.”

  Monroe points to Ravi. “And you?”

  “Photojournalism.”

  “Any particular area?”

  “Nope, I’m open-minded.” Ravi leans back in his chair.

  “Just
don’t be so open-minded your brain falls out,” Monroe says. “Focus is important. Goals are important. Kennedy, what about you?”

  “I want to tell the stories people would rather ignore. I want to uncover scandals and expose secrets the world needs to know.” Goose bumps spring up along my arms. “I don’t need to be famous like Lauren Wolfe or anything, but I need to be heard.”

  Monroe is silent for a long stretch, and I wonder if I was too earnest, too corny. But it was true, dammit.

  “I am very interested to see where you end up, young lady,” Monroe finally says. “Wherever it is, I expect it will be fascinating.”

  I never mind driving Cassidy to the barn, because it means I get a minimum of three hours to do as I please with the car. Most days, I end up at The Donut Hole, Ravi’s father’s bakery, which just so happens to be located across from a medical marijuana dispensary. When Mr. Burman decided to quit his soul-sucking job as a bank manager to pursue his passion for pastry, he saw a golden opportunity to capitalize on the state’s newly loosened pot laws. We tried to convince him to call the shop Glazed & Infused or Half-Baked, but he said they were too on the nose.

  I adore the little shop, with its gleaming black-and-white tiled floor and retro display cases. There are counters that run along the front window, with a rainbow of brightly painted stools for people who prefer their donuts with a side of people-watching.

  The tangle of bells on the door tinkle as I enter. One of the four tall tables is occupied by a lone girl with a laptop and a stack of textbooks that threaten to topple off the small surface. A cookies-and-cream donut, loaded up with a mound of mini-Oreos, white chocolate chips, and chocolate drizzle, sits atop the books like a conquering nation’s flag.

  Mr. Burman’s head pops into the pass-through window to the kitchen, and he waves me back. “Kennedy, love, you must try the latest creation. Come, come.”

  I duck around the counter and into the tiny kitchen, where everything is stainless steel and packed in so tight it’s a wonder he produces as much as he does.

  Ravi is up to his elbows in soapy water at the oversized sink, his glasses foggy from the steam. “Nice, Dad. Kennedy comes in, and it’s all, ‘Oooh, try my donut, favorite child.’ I come in, and it’s, ‘Go wash the dishes.’” He rolls his eyes. “Really feeling the love.”

  I bite into the donut and moan in delight. It’s like eating the tropics. The coconut flavored dough is studded with pockets of pineapple curd and topped with a thick ring of coconut frosting that’s been dunked in crystallized ginger, lime zest, and shreds of toasted coconut.

  “Good?” Mr. B asks.

  “Amazing.”

  “Not too much coconut?”

  “Only for monsters who hate coconut.”

  He beams and takes the tray out front to feature as the afternoon special.

  My father thinks Mr. B is a hippy and that he set a poor example for his children by walking away from a lucrative career on a whim, but I love him. And his wife. And their kids. When I was in second grade, I even went through a phase of claiming my last name was Burman because I wanted to be part of the family so much. It took a few more years to realize that I actually am—in heart, if not in blood.

  When Ravi concedes defeat to the dishes, we pull two milk crates away from the delivery door at the back of the kitchen and sit down.

  “So, any thoughts on the final project yet?”

  Ravi props his elbows on his spread knees. “Truth?”

  “No, lie to me.”

  He shoots me the V-sign with two fingers—his dad’s UK version of the middle finger. “No idea. We could just use the Monitor. I mean, if we’re already running our own news site, we might as well get credit for it, yeah?”

  I consider this. There’s no way anyone else will be doing anything even close to the site, which is not only well established, but well regarded. There’s an app that makes it easy for students to access it from their phones, and even teachers visit the site.

  The Maplefield Monitor is more than a gossip blog or a mindless rehashing of school events. It features original stories and is updated biweekly, with the idea that the quality of the articles is more important than the quantity. Because it functions as the school’s newspaper and I rely on the school community to provide tips and leads, both the website and the app have a suggestion form where users can offer input on content.

  “I don’t think Monroe is going to approve the Monitor as our final project,” I say. “But whatever our topic is, it should be something that we’d be putting up anyway. We need something big, something we can feature all year.”

  “Like?”

  “No clue.”

  “Hmm.” He steeples his fingers beneath his chin in a parody of thought and after a moment says, “Okay, I know you’re not going to love this because it’s human interest-y, but hear me out. What about an ongoing series of student profiles? Something like I Am Maplefield, where each issue highlights a different kid. Actually, we can do teachers too—maybe even something cute with Henry—and make it as diverse as possible. Like we try to showcase the real Maplefield, not just StuCo and sports and that usual shit. Hit up the detention kids, the overlooked kids.”

  I mull it over. “The secret life of Maplefield High? It’s feel-good, but not terrible. I just wonder if there’s something bigger, something that really matters.”

  He turns those dark eyes on me and quirks a brow. “If you haven’t noticed, the world is kind of a dumpster fire right now. Feel-good does matter.”

  I relent. It’s impossible not to. “Okay, you’re not wrong. But you know what I mean. If it’s going to get us a run at the Emerging Excellence award, it’s gotta be something big.” And nothing big ever happens in Maplefield. Except… “What about the curse? We could combine your profile idea with an overarching story—a mystery.” I’m already planning how to frame it and what arc it would follow. “We could look into the origin of the curse and do a feature on each person who’s disappeared. I mean, we’ve already done Liam, but if the curse is as real as people think, there must be plenty of cases we can research. I mean, if seniors disappear every year, that’s not just some made-up curse; it’s a goddamn epidemic.”

  “The curse.” Ravi stretches his long legs out in front of him. “Yeah, that doesn’t suck. Are you thinking print or video?”

  “I think print, with photography for the profiles. They might just be reproductions of yearbook photos, but maybe the families will have kept mementos or something we could use as props. Maybe culminate with a feature-length article and a video story. I’m assuming you want video?”

  He nods. “I think it could work. Interviews with those left behind and such. The photography will be cake. Stark and poignant. This has potential.”

  I slap his leg. “And just think, if the curse holds, we’ll have someone from our own class to investigate. It won’t just be a historical investigation; it’ll be breaking news.”

  “You look way too excited about one of our classmates disappearing.” He falls silent for a moment, and I can see his thoughts spinning. “I think we should do the I Am Maplefield profiles anyway, as a counterpart. We can have the missing people on one side—tragic—but on the other side, we have the graduating class with their lives still ahead of them.”

  “That’s perfect. You’re a genius. I’m in.”

  Monroe approves our project, as we knew he would. He likes the juxtaposition of the two topics and that it reflects enough work for two people. Possibly more than enough work.

  I want to dive right into the curse, but Ravi suggests banging out some of the I Am Maplefield profiles first.

  “I was thinking about that actually,” I say over lunch. “Maybe I Am Maplefield should be pure photojournalism.”

  “Yeah?” He looks excited.

  “Yeah. We’ll do a short article to introduce it, but I was thinking about those black-and-white ‘Stop the Stigma’ PSAs, where people hold poster boards with facts written on them. It fits
that whole stark-and-poignant thing we were talking about.”

  “Okay, yeah. I can see that…” His whole face lights up. “Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. What if instead of doing select students, we do the entire school?”

  I’m about to protest, but he holds up both hands and shushes me. “No, no, listen. It could be really, really cool. Black-and-white photos against a plain white backdrop. Strip away everything except the person. Everyone would be shot in roughly the same position, with the same lighting and a fill-in-the-blank I Am Maplefield sign. Something like this.”

  He pulls a notebook out of his bag, turns it sideways, and prints I Am across the top, after which he leaves plenty of room to write, then adds I Am Maplefield along the bottom.

  “Right?” He spins the notebook so I can see. “And everyone could complete the sentence however they want. They’d have the same sign, essentially the same photo, but their sentences would be totally different.”

  To prove his point, he takes the notebook back and writes the most brilliant photographer ever in the white space and holds it up to his chest.

  I grab my phone. “Don’t move.”

  I snap a photo and place the phone on the table between us. His hair looks like he has animals living in it, but his grin carries the image.

  “This could definitely be cool.” I make the image his new contact photo. “Let’s do it. What do we need?”

  “Poster boards, markers, a location, lighting equipment.” He ticks items off on his fingers as he goes. He has artist’s fingers, long and elegant.

  “And publicity,” I add. “People need to know we’re doing this. I’ll put a call out on the Monitor and set a push notification so everyone with the app has to open it to clear the badge. We can see about having the office make an announcement in the morning and hang flyers too.” I’m warming to the idea. “This has potential. It would be amazing if we could actually get the entire school.”

  We stay after school to scout locations and startle more than a few teachers in our search. Ravi shoots down all my suggestions, but I know it’s not personal. He has a specific idea for how this needs to look, and I trust him to make it work.