The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions) Part 7

CHAPTER NINE.

"You look tired," Sadie says as she sits down next to me in women's history on Friday morning. "Also, hi."

It's not the greatest way to be greeted by your best friend, but she's not wrong. "I was up too late last night," I say.

"Ooh!"

"We were just texting," I say, which is true but also only a tiny glimpse of what that actually means. When it's nighttime and you're in your bedroom and you're manually tapping out messages, even about unromantic topics like Topics in Economics and rescue dogs and cafeteria nachos, you can feel really close to a person.

Before Sadie can ask another question or Ms. Cannon can take roll call, the TV in the cla.s.sroom turns on automatically. Because the cla.s.sroom door is open, I can tell that this is happening throughout the school. It's programmed to be possible in case of emergencies or other major news, but no one panics because it's apparently pretty easy to hack. Last year the TVs turned on throughout the school during finals week, and it was just someone's b.u.t.t. The mystery was never solved, because school administration couldn't just ask students to show their b.u.t.ts to prove it wasn't them.

But this time it isn't a b.u.t.t. It's a face. Specifically, it's Natalie's face.

"Welcome to TALON," Natalie says, and then the eagle logo and TALON appear on the screen. This doesn't look like the videos Sadie and I used to film at her house with her mom's iPhone. The logo and word look much sharper and better designed on-screen than they did on the flyers. Natalie's wearing a navy pin-striped blazer and a crisp white shirt, and she looks like a real newscaster.

"It's 2016," Natalie continues, as if that fact is news, "and it's time to get all the news that matters to you and your Eagle Vista cla.s.smates in a way that fits your life. Go to WeAreTalon.com or the WeAreTalon channel on VidLook to find out more."

"What?" I say aloud, and everyone else is paying such close attention to Natalie that it's like I spoke out of turn in a library. Meg Hartzman even literally shushes me. I look to Sadie for support, but her eyes are on the screen.

I know that back in the eighties someone donated some camera equipment to the school and they tried to make a news program, but according to old issues of the Crest, it lasted only a few weeks before imploding. I thought Eagle Vista Academy had learned a lesson from the eighties. Eagle Vista Academy supposedly honored tradition. We honor tradition, it reads on the front page of the official website.

Natalie recaps the first week of school details, like the names of new teachers, the changes made to the school lunch menus, and the upcoming dates of the first events of the year. These are the details we'll be listing in the issue of the Crest that comes out next week.

And now, do we even need to? We've been scooped.

"Now I'm going to throw it over to Kevin Fanning for AroundTown, where we'll cover news about not just the school but the larger Eagle Rock community. I'll let Kevin tell you more."

The video seamlessly cuts to Kevin, who was also conspicuously absent from the Crest meeting this week. I flip to a blank page in my notebook and jot down the names of all of last year's staff members who are missing from this year's crew. Jesse Walters shows up after Kevin, and then Joramae Reyes. I check them off my list as they appear. They're all wearing professional attire that looks good on camera-even Jesse, whose normal uniform is a ragged band T-shirt and beyond-faded jeans.

The camera finally cuts back to Natalie, and I exhale a teensy bit of relief that not every single person on my list has appeared.

"Last on our program, a new segment from a new student."

It's another perfectly edited cut, and then another face is on the screen.

Alex.

"What?" I say, again, aloud, and louder. This time, Sadie turns to me with her eyes wide. Her expression matches my emotions.

"Shhhh!" Meg says, again.

"Hi, I'm Alex Powell, and this is"-a logo appears on-screen as he says it-"Alex 4 All."

I realize he's wearing the same shirt as he was the day we met. His first day in school, the second day of the school year. I wonder if TALON meets when the Crest does, because that would have been the same day as well. I think of Alex's sugar-coated lips as he confided all about his past to me. And I realize that by then he'd already filmed this. He'd told Natalie and company way before he'd told me. At least a full twenty-four hours. Alex knew all about this airing today when I was curled up in my bed sending him messages last night.

As Alex throws it back to Natalie, Sadie whispers, Sadie-style, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I say just a little too loudly. It's for everyone else's benefit, but it must have sounded believable because Sadie turns away from me, and then I'm just stuck with my own thoughts in my own brain as Natalie says that she'll see us in a week. The credits roll, and every person I hadn't yet checked off the list is there in some behind-the-scenes capacity.

Those people all chose to work with Natalie at the helm, not me.

"Now that that's over, let's try to get some work accomplished today, shall we?" Ms. Cannon's tone is just annoyed enough for me to briefly feel love toward her. But then she takes roll and moves onto women in ancient Egypt and she sounds just as annoyed, so the love in my heart is gone as quickly as it arrived.

The sound of everyone's pens flying across papers jolts me out of whatever state I didn't know I was in. I know everyone else hasn't had their entire world splintered into... world shards, but I wish I could yell at them for just going on with their lives. With Egypt.

I raise my hand, even though it seems like Ms. Cannon is in the middle of something at least fairly important. I'm dealing with something that's unfairly important.

"Miss McAllister-Morgan, if this isn't an emergency, I suggest you hold all your questions until I'm through this section."

"This is an emergency," I say, even though anytime a girl throws around the word emergency, people will a.s.sume it's something to do with your period. "May I please be excused?"

Ms. Cannon sighs loudly but dismisses me. I grab all my things and run out the door, down the hall, and up the stairs to Mr. Wheeler's room. He's in the midst of what looks like freshman English-everyone's super young and staring at him like all his words are important.

"Hi, Jules," he says. "This is a surprise. Is everything all right?"

"No. Obviously everything isn't all right," I say, and his eyes go huge and round behind his gla.s.ses. "TALON?"

"Oh, that." He chuckles. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"NO," I say, again.

"Jules." He sighs and gestures to the hallway. We walk out of the cla.s.sroom, and he shuts the door behind him. I want to say he probably shouldn't trust a whole cla.s.s of freshmen in an enclosed room, but that is far from my priority right now.

"They scooped us!" I say. "Every single thing we'd cover in the paper next week, they've already done it."

"Not everything," he says. "We can go much more in depth in an issue of the Crest than they can in ten minutes once a week."

"No one will read us now," I say. "They're destroying a hundred-and-four-year-old tradition."

"Do you have a cla.s.s right now?" he asks.

"Of course I have a cla.s.s right now. This is much more important."

"Jules, get back to your cla.s.s. We can talk later."

"Mr. Wheeler-"

"I'll see you in fourth period, Jules," he says, and walks back into the cla.s.sroom, shutting the door behind him. I stare at the closed door with my mouth open for probably much longer than is even borderline acceptable, and turn around to head back to women's history. But if I couldn't sit still in there before talking to Mr. Wheeler, how can I manage now? I thought of all people, someone with old-man sweaters and an antique wrist.w.a.tch would care about legacy and tradition. I was never exactly thrilled that it felt like Mr. Wheeler and I might have a lot of things in common, but it's actually worse to realize that, except our semi-shared backyard, we don't.

I've never skipped a cla.s.s before. But I walk to the library and find out that no one even challenges me as I slip in and take a seat at one of the private-study desks. Could I have been a truant this whole time? I guess real truants don't hang out at the school library. Probably also they don't refer to themselves as truants.

Maybe I was just so excited about all the good stuff with Alex that I missed this. I get out my phone and scroll through all my texts. For someone I've only known for less than two weeks, there are a lot to go back through. But Alex didn't mention TALON, Natalie, or extracurriculars at all.

I wonder if I'm nave to think once someone's tongue has been inside your mouth, they owe you at least that much information? Yes, all right, fine, that much I know is nave. On TV, people sleep with each other just to get secrets or betray someone else or, even, just because they want to. Kissing is nothing.

Sadie's at my locker when I arrive after first period. "Are you okay? For real?"

"For real, no."

She gives me a hug and kisses my cheek. In the flash of that moment she's just like her mom, but since I don't want to turn a sweet moment into what Sadie might interpret as a mean one, I keep that to myself.

"He lied to me, Sadie."

"Okay, he didn't tell you about their stupid show, big deal." But even as she says it, I can tell from her eyes that she knows as well as I do that it is a big deal. "Aaaand here he comes right now."

"Noooo." I jam my women's history books into my locker and attempt to extract my Latin textbook. "Why can't I do this faster?"

"Hey," Alex says. "What did you think?"

"She's in a hurry," Sadie says in a chilly voice. "Come on, Jules."

I yank the book as hard as I can, and whatever it was caught on gives way and the book shoots across the hallway.

"Ow!" someone yells, and I see that it was Justin making his way over to Sadie.

"I'm so sorry," I tell him as he brings my book back to me.

"I didn't know Latin was so dangerous," Alex says.

Sadie shoots him a warning look before tending to Justin's injury. I tuck the book under my arm and take off down the hallway.

"Jules, wait up." Alex strides up next to me. "What's going on?"

"What do you think?"

"Uh, I seriously have no idea."

I reach the doorway of Latin and decide to walk right in. I'm not expecting Alex to follow me. Everyone already seated stares at him like a celebrity. Okay, technically, I guess he kind of is a celebrity.

"Can you just talk to me?" he asks. "I'm really confused."

"I'm in cla.s.s," I say. "And I don't want to talk to you."

He sighs but doesn't move for a few moments. "Fine."

And then he's gone.

In fourth period, I a.s.sume that even with Mr. Wheeler's complete lack of understanding of the gravity of the TALON situation, the rest of the staff will be in my corner.

And it's true that everyone is talking about TALON.

"Natalie looked really pretty," one soph.o.m.ore says.

"I think it's so cool Alex Powell can make fun of himself!" says a junior.

"The graphics looked crazy professional," Thatcher says, and then, when I glare at him, "What?"

"I know that TALON looked very impressive, but we need what we're doing to still matter," I say. If I were in a TV show, the music would swell and I'd rise to my feet and deliver a moving monologue about tradition and journalism and our founding staff back in 1912. People would feel so much they'd cry.

I know better than to try it, though.

"Hey, guys, what we're doing still matters," Mr. Wheeler says. "Maybe print media is dying out, maybe it isn't. Let's just keep doing a good job. The Crest is funded through at least this year, so if we're going out, we'll go out with a bang."

"'If'?" I realize I'm yelling, again, so I take a deep breath. "Don't you care that something that's mattered for so long could just disappear? We're an endangered species. Think of how much people do to protect the South China tiger."

"I have literally never heard of the South China tiger," Mr. Wheeler says. "But I know you and your family are big animal lovers, Jules. Let's get moving on the next issue. Has everyone turned in their pieces?"

The room springs into action, which is a moment that, no matter how many hundreds of times I experience it, feels beautiful and perfect. The motion and buzz give me energy, and I'm sure I can figure out a way to have this for the rest of my life. The Crest is really only my beginning and I know it.

But that doesn't mean I want the Crest to go away once I've graduated and literally moved on. And I can't believe that it feels like no one else would even notice.

At lunch I head straight to our table because I have no appet.i.te. Justin is sitting with his jeans pushed up to his knee, showing off the bruise from the book attack this morning. I guess in case I wanted to feel worse about myself, now I can.

"I'm really sorry," I say. Sadie's been dating Justin since late into last school year, but even though we sit near each other and occasionally go to the same things with Sadie, I don't really know him. We're definitely not friends.

"It's all good," he says. "It's bada.s.s, right?"

"I guess," I say, though bada.s.sery isn't one of my expert topics.

"It's super bada.s.s." Sadie sits down with two trays and slides one over to Justin. If he couldn't stand in line because of his injury, I'll feel, somehow, even more horrible, so I'll just a.s.sume she's being a really, really nice girlfriend today.

"I was struck down by the Latin language," Justin says. "What's Latin for legs?"

"Crura," Em and I chorus.

Sadie gives me a very direct look. "Are you doing okay?"

I start to say I'm fine, and then I start to say that I'm not, but I have no idea what I actually am. So I just shrug.

"I don't think it's a big deal," Thatcher says as he takes his lunch out of a perfectly folded brown paper bag. "They did that thing back in the eighties. It failed. Maybe this one will too. Or it won't. It's fine."

"Don't be so Zen," I say, and I guess it comes out rudely because everyone stares wide-eyed at me. Even Thatcher the Zen Master. "I'm sorry."

Great. Now I've injured one friend's boyfriend's leg and another's boyfriend's feelings. I am a danger to all boyfriends.

"Taco Day!" Alex appears with his lunch tray piled high with tacos and sides. I don't like to stereotype by gender, but boys eat so much. "You guys didn't even spoil the surprise."

"Every other Friday," Justin says with a nod, and then he and Alex do a fist b.u.mp. Over tacos? When things are going on?

Boys make no sense.

"Why are you here?" I ask.

"Yeah, Alex," Sadie says. "Why are you here?"