The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions) Part 10

I know Carlos will be the first to break under any pressure-I can just feel it-so I lock eyes with him. Thatcher's doing the same thing.

"Guys, let's head out. The paper will be fine this year. Next year you'll all be away at college, and you won't care about it anymore, trust me."

"I'm actually planning on staying local," Carlos says. "UCLA has a really good program in-"

"Guys, get out of here."

The three of us head into the hallway, where Mr. Wheeler rushes by us a moment later. I've never seen him in such a hurry; there should be cartoon motion lines blinking from behind him.

"Maybe he has a date," Carlos says.

"Ew," I say. "I hope not."

"Mr. Wheeler lives in her backyard," Thatcher tells Carlos.

"Not my backyard, my neighbor's backyard," I say. "And in a guesthouse; he's not out in a tent. But it's bad enough. Once I thought he was out of town and I went outside in my pajamas, but he'd gotten home early. Your teacher should never see you in your pajamas."

"They weren't, like, s.e.xy pajamas, were they?" Carlos asks with fear in his eyes.

"Dude, you can't ask her that," Thatcher says.

"I'm gay, I can ask!" he says. "Eh, I guess it's still a creepy question?"

"It's still a creepy question," I say. "But to clarify, no. They were not. They're regular pajamas with little b.u.mblebees printed on them."

Thatcher raises an eyebrow. "b.u.mblebees?"

"They're whimsical!" I walk down the hallway to my locker. The guys continue to trail me. "I hate that Mr. Wheeler isn't taking any of this seriously."

"He's right that next year I probably won't care about this," Thatcher says. "But I do care now about crushing those pretentious idiots."

Thatcher says this while wearing bright orange gla.s.ses, a Xeno & Oaklander T-shirt, skinny jeans rolled up just above his ankles, and oxfords without socks.

I a.s.sume we'll separate, like we did last week after our meeting ended, but instead we walk down the street to Swork. Since I a.s.sume we might get loud with our righteous anger, we take a seat with our drinks at an outside table.

"Wheeler's a problem," Carlos says. "If we really want to bring TALON down, we need him out of the picture."

"Oh my G.o.d," I say. "Are you going to have him killed?"

Carlos and Thatcher laugh at me for what feels like twenty minutes while I figure out that of course that wasn't what Carlos meant.

"We need meetings somewhere off-campus," Carlos says.

"Non-Wheeler meetings," Thatcher says, sounding very ready to engage in this battle for someone with more of a Zen reputation. I like this side of Thatcher. Or at least I relate to it more. "That means your house is out, Jules."

"My house is fine," Carlos says. "Email everyone this weekend. It'll be best coming from you, as our leader."

to: [email protected] from: subject: Operation TALON h.e.l.lo team, Obviously, our entire staff would like to ensure that the Crest not only remains relevant but thrives, with its future at Eagle Vista Academy a.s.sured.

Mr. Wheeler, while a qualified and involved faculty advisor, doesn't approve of the rivalry with TALON and therefore is now not necessarily invested in best practices for keeping the Crest going beyond our time at E.V.A.

If your availability allows it, on Tuesdays after our standard staff meeting, we will reconvene at Carlos Esquivel's house* for planning and strategy to eliminate TALON from E.V.A.**

Please reply and let me know if you'll be able to attend secondary meetings.***

Yours, JBM-M.

On Monday, the freshmen should be handing out new issues of the Crest at lunch, but this isn't time to mess around. It's no longer acceptable to entrust the distribution of our century-old paper to fourteen-year-olds.

I haven't handed out the paper in three years, but I've handed out flyers at Stray Rescue's annual dog fair, and I've learned some lessons in optimizing this process. Friendly eye contact is key. It's important to be confident, but not pushy. And it's important to make whatever you're handing out appear to be a benefit, not something you're trying to dispose of.

I'm not worried about my confidence level, especially since I did well at this weekend's J.Crew sale and am wearing a new striped shirt over new gray pants. Darcy even let me borrow one of her nicest pairs of flats. Em stops me on my way to Mr. Wheeler's cla.s.sroom to get the papers and hands me a bottle in a paper bag.

"Is this alcohol?" I whisper, and Em laughs.

"Of course not. It's caffeine. Give out those papers, girl."

I chug the Mexican c.o.ke on my way and grab the biggest stack off the table in Mr. Wheeler's room. The pure cane sugar soda courses through my system, and I feel taller and brighter than usual.

"Would you like a copy of the Crest?" I ask students as I make my way down the corridor. My eyes are crinkled with my smile, and I offer plenty of reasons people should take the paper. "It has next week's lunch menu!" "It has next month's athletic schedule!" "You can learn a lot about the history of the brickwork in the courtyard!"

A couple of people take copies, but it turns out that if people completely avoid looking at you, making eye contact is impossible. I find myself pushing issues closer and closer to people's faces, which perhaps isn't entirely the opposite of pushy. The caffeine felt so good mere minutes ago, and now it's like my body is humming at the wrong frequency. Eating would help, but I'm not allowing myself the pizza awaiting us in Mr. Wheeler's room until I've handed out every copy.

Closer to the cafeteria I am desperately staring around, hoping to make someone look at me. It works, but unfortunately the person is Natalie. She smiles and takes a copy of the Crest from my outstretched hand.

"I thought distribution was freshman work," she says while flipping through it. "Did you get demoted from editor?"

"Handing out our hard work shouldn't be a low-ranking job," I say. "And, no. Of course I didn't."

"Hmm," she says, still flipping. "Looks like, literally, last week's news. Good luck with that."

"Good luck with short-form journalism that can't report beyond superficialities," I say.

Natalie tosses the paper into the trash can at the entrance to the cafeteria. I walk in, because it's where the largest crowd of people are, and because maybe I'll feel less like this isn't working if my friends are in my sight line.

"Oh my G.o.d," says a girl, rushing up to me. "Are those free? Are you giving them out?"

"They are, and I am!" I hand her one, and she shakes her head.

"I need a bunch for my table." She grabs a big chunk of papers and dashes off. My caffeine hum sounds good again, and I think about continuing tradition and- The girl walks to her lunch table, which turns out to be incredibly wobbly, to the point where beverages look dangerously close to spilling.

But once one of the table legs has a stack of the Crest under it, everything's fine.

I carry the remaining papers back to Mr. Wheeler's room and eat the biggest slice of pizza in the box.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

By evening I can think of little else but tomorrow's first off-campus meeting of the Crest, but I don't think that's why suspicion falls over me as I walk into the kitchen before dinner. Darcy's already home, and she and Mom seem to be preparing a large amount of food for three people.

"Is someone coming over?" I ask.

"Just Joe," Darcy says.

There is no just Joe! Joe is Mr. Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler should not be in our house less than twenty-four hours before I fully subvert his authority. Mr. Wheeler shouldn't be in our house anyway!

"Ugh," I accidentally say aloud.

"Jules," my mothers say together in identical exasperated tones.

"Why can't you guys socialize with him on nights I'm not home?" I ask. "Or wait until after I go to college? It's so awkward."

"He's our neighbor and our friend," Mom says. "And his family's so far away."

"That doesn't mean we have to be his family."

Mr. Wheeler is here before long. He brings a bottle of wine, and my parents coo over it as if he's presenting them with his heir. In return, he acts like the salmon, brown rice, and asparagus have all been personally harvested for him.

The talk is standard for a while: the neighborhood, how everyone's jobs are going, how our rice cooker makes the best rice. And then, as they always do, things take a turn for the horrifying.

"So how's dating, Joe?" Mom leans forward in her chair, as if this is a moment just between them. "Anyone new these days?"

One would think her English-teacher-slash-newspaper-advisor would think about his student in the room and elect to answer the question once she's been excused to her room to complete homework. But, no, never Mr. Wheeler.

"Ha! You guys see me leaving and coming home! Wouldn't you notice if I was somewhere else or someone was here?"

Oh, of course, Mr. Wheeler, we're watching for evidence of your s.e.x life. Gross.

"We have someone new at the firm," Darcy says. "I'm going to do some reconnaissance."

"Don't make me any promises, Darcy," Mr. Wheeler says with a chuckle. "So, Jules, are you feeling better about the Crest?"

"What's wrong with the Crest?" Darcy asks.

"If this is about how you were chosen as editor, honey, you have nothing to feel ashamed about," Mom says. "I know you've put in so much work."

"It's not that big of a deal," I say. "There's now a weekly news series, on the cla.s.sroom TVs and online."

"That sounds cool," Mom says.

"It is!" Mr. Wheeler says, and I narrow my eyes at him. I don't mean to; they just do it of their own free will. "Jules, you have to admit it's a great program. Natalie came up with the idea and pitched it to Ms. Baugher, who cleared it with administration. It's great seeing a student with so much drive."

Natalie has more drive than I do?

I guess if Natalie invented TALON, convinced a teacher to let her produce it as well as be the host, she has a lot of drive. She potentially out-drives me.

"Like you, Jules," he says, though I'm afraid he's just overcompensating because of my expression. "It's why Jules is one of the best in the cla.s.s," he tells my parents, and they fall in love with him again. Back to the topic of how such a great guy could be single, but luckily it now feels late enough to excuse myself from the table.

I'm mostly through my homework when Darcy, Mom, and the dogs burst into my room. "What? Is he gone?"

"Be polite, kiddo," Darcy says.

Mom sits down on the bed, between the two dogs. "Do you want to talk about the paper?"

"What's to talk about? The Crest was founded the same year the school was, and now on my watch it's going to die."

"Jules..." Darcy crowds in next to me and hugs her arms around me. "This isn't about you. Print media's dying all over."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"It should. It's not because you're doing anything wrong." She picks up the latest issue that's resting on my nightstand. "Look how great this looks."

"The layout's all Carlos, and the cover photos are always by Thatcher."

"You know what she means," Mom says. "We're so proud of you, and if your school news changes, it won't be because of anything you've done wrong."

I pretend to agree with them, but as soon as they leave my room, I get out my red notebook to write down more ideas for our after-after-school meeting.

The entire staff behaves for our official staff meeting Tuesday afternoon. No one utters the words TALON, destruction, the enemy, or wartime.

I only say dying tradition once.

We drive over to Carlos's afterward. Anyone with a car chauffeurs anyone without, which means my car is full of freshmen. High school is a crazy time to age us so much. I guess I can believe I once looked so young and tiny, though I don't think I would have asked a senior, the editor of the school paper I'd just joined, if she could change the radio from NPR to KIIS FM.

(I do, though. After all, until I was at least fifteen I still occasionally listened to the pop station and therefore heard "Want 2 B Ur Boy" constantly.) Carlos hasn't let us down on the provided snacks. There are bowls of fruit and a box of pastries from Porto's. I select a bright red apple and eat calmly while everyone crowds around the snacks selection. I want to seem like a true leader, and not someone clawing through a crowd for guava and goat cheese pastries.

"I know we all care about the Crest," I say, and even though I thought this was going to be my time, Thatcher stands up next to me. I'm not about to squash his newly revealed compet.i.tive streak.

"We all care about killing TALON, at least," he says.

"And it's not worth involving Wheeler," Carlos adds.

"For someone who doesn't seem very with-it," I say, "he's been really fast to shut down important conversations."

Almost everyone laughs at that, and I feel a slight twinge of guilt. Mr. Wheeler might occasionally be smeared with pizza grease, thinks that a frumpy cardigan is professional menswear, and talks in front of me about his love life, but-no. If he doesn't care about legacy, he doesn't matter.

"The truth is that people don't seem very interested in the paper anymore," I say. "We printed less this week, and we still had too many left over." I picture the papers tossed into the recycle bins behind the school and shudder.

"So let's get them interested." I take out a portable whiteboard I bought this weekend and set it up. "What are some ideas?"

In my head, this was the moment when everyone's voice would ring out loudly, and I'd frantically scribble every excellent thought until the board was full. By now I really should have learned to stop a.s.suming things would go how they did in my head.