“No more than usual,” she said, smiling.

  “Now you’re being obnoxious,” I said back, annoyed. This wasn’t time for joking anymore. I was suddenly afraid I had really upset Michael when I was just trying to be funny. I felt awful.

  “Chillax, girl” Hailey said. “I was just joking with you!”

  “I know,” I said, hanging my head. “I’m just worried.”

  Hailey put her arm around me. “Michael does not think you’re obnoxious. Maybe he just had something else on his mind. I think you’re way overreacting.”

  I looked up and shrugged. “I hope you’re right.”

  All morning I was counting the minutes to lunch, but I was also really nervous to see Michael again. I got to the cafeteria early because I thought it was better if he saw me first than if I saw him first. If he came up to me, I’d know things were okay, and if he ignored me, then I’d just sit tight and let Hailey console me.

  There weren’t that many people in the cafeteria. I got a tray and chose a chicken, avocado, and cheddar melt on whole-grain bread from the organic-option table. At least I’d have a good lunch. I was starving.

  I walked to the tables with my tray and saw Jessica Kelly sitting at a table by herself with a stack of paper in front of her, gripping a pencil. I didn’t want to deal with her right now, so I started to turn away.

  “Sam,” she called. I stopped midturn and glanced at her.

  “Oh, hi, Jessica,” I said a little too sweetly, acting as if I were surprised to see her.

  “Hi, um, want to sit here?” She pointed to a chair near her with her pencil, seeming unusually friendly.

  I looked around for a second. This wasn’t what I’d had planned for my lunch hour. What if Michael walked in and sat down before I could even see if he noticed me? What if Jessica started giving me a list of pointers on my article that I never asked for?

  “I mean, if you were planning to sit somewhere else, that’s okay. I just wanted to ask you a question,” she said in a small voice. I studied her face for a second. She looked a little pale and tired.

  “Oh no. I can sit here,” I said. She was being so nice, I now felt a little bad that I had planned to ditch her.

  I put my tray on the table and sat down. “What’s up?” I asked cheerfully, trying to keep the mood light, but inside my stomach was churning. Between being on the lookout for Michael and now wondering what Jessica was going to ask me, it was a little more than I could take.

  She put her head in her hands and made a little moaning sound.

  “Jessica? You okay?” I asked, now worrying that everyone I knew had been replaced by imposters.

  “No,” she said, lifting her head. “I had no idea that the paper was going to take over my life like this. I have to make sure everything is perfect for the first issue, and I only have three more days to do it. I’ve been trying to keep up with everything, but now I’m afraid I’m going to overlook a million things and the paper will be the laughingstock of the school.” The words tumbled out, her face growing redder and redder, as if she might even cry.

  Wait, what? Tough Editor in Chief Has a Weak Spot. I had no idea Jessica felt like this! She seemed so organized and sure of herself, annoyingly so. I thought I was the stress monster, making sure everything was perfect, doing draft after draft. But I knew that if I were editor in chief, I wouldn’t have the time to go over every single word. That’s what the section editors were for, and Mr. Trigg was great at looking at the paper as a whole. Also, most reporters were pretty seasoned, like me and Michael. We took fact checking and proofreading seriously, and Susannah had always relied on us for that. She never proofread the whole paper.

  “I think you might be trying to do too much,” I said as nicely as I could.

  “Like I have a choice!” Jessica said, stiffening.

  I wanted to back down, but I also wanted to help her. I definitely did not want to argue with her, though. That was the last thing I needed right now, issues with the editor in chief. I already had enough drama going on.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want my advice, but I just want to see if I can help you. Honestly, I do,” I said softly.

  She relaxed her shoulders, sat back in her chair, and crossed her arms. “Okay. Give me what you’ve got.”

  I sat up a little taller. “Well, as a former reporter, you’re probably used to focusing really hard on your article. But when you’re editor in chief, you can’t have that kind of focus on each article. Leave that to the reporters and the section editors. Your job is just to make sure everything flows and gets in on time. And you’re doing a great job,” I forced myself to say. She was, in some ways. She obviously really needed to hear it. I took it a step further and hoped I wouldn’t regret it. “Don’t tell her I said this, and I love Susannah, but you’re more organized than she was.”

  “Really?” Jessica said, finally a smile spreading over her face.

  “Totally. The paper’s going to be fine.”

  She frowned. “Just fine?”

  Good grief. I had no idea Jessica Kelly was so insecure. She wasn’t who I thought she was at all. “It’ll be fantastic!” I said, and patted her on the shoulder. She brightened.

  “Thanks, Sam. I needed to hear that. And I really liked your new lead on the texting article.”

  “Oh, good. Glad you liked it,” I said, and returned the smile. She must have felt really alone. I probably would have, too, on my first issue as editor in chief. For the first time, I was glad that it wasn’t me. I liked being able to roll my sleeves up and really get into a story. It was lonely at the top. Hopefully, now she’d be a little more easygoing in the Voice office.

  Oh no! I thought, looking around. I had been so wrapped up with giving Jessica a pep talk I hadn’t even noticed if Michael had walked in the cafeteria or not.

  “Something wrong?” Jessica asked.

  “What? No, no, it’s nothing. Just, um, wondering if Hailey was here,” I said distractedly. I scanned the room. There he was! I saw him sitting at a table with a bunch of guys on the football team, though kind of off to the side. He didn’t really look like he was participating in the conversation. I guess he was still in a mood. If he’d seen me, he probably hadn’t wanted to come anywhere near me since I was sitting with Jessica.

  “Do you mind if I keep working?” Jessica said, her editor in chief persona returning.

  “Go ahead. Want me to look at anything?”

  “Sure, if you’re up for it! Could you just check this for errors?” she said, beaming, and handed me the sports section. I started reading through it, but my mind was racing. Well, I wasn’t about to go over and plop myself in the middle of that group anyway. I think I just needed to let this one breathe. Everyone had insecurities. But I’d been obsessing over mine so much lately, between the Photoshopped picture of me, Michael saying he thought Allie would look good with short hair, and now my joking with him. Michael and I always joked around with each other. This was no different. I was tired of feeling insecure and worrying about every little thing. If he was upset by it, then he was responsible for dealing with his own feelings. So there. I had work to do.

  Chapter 10

  BOY MYSTERIOUSLY KEEPS TERRIBLE SECRET

  “Where were you all day?” Hailey asked me, a little out of breath while I was loading up my bag with books to take home that afternoon. I had so much homework, I could scream. Thank goodness, at least the paper was almost put to bed, as they say in the journalism world.

  “Where were you? I didn’t even see you at lunch,” I replied.

  “Sorry. I hid in the library, cramming for a science quiz,” Hailey said.

  Normally I might be hurt that she hadn’t asked for my help, but secure Sam took a moment. Maybe she just thought she could focus better alone. I certainly knew how that felt.

  “But,” she said, her eyes practically popping out of her head, “did you hear what happened to Michael’s brother Tommy?”

  My heart started to beat really fast. “No. What happened?”

  “He was in a car accident. I saw Frank in the library and he told me,” Hailey said quickly.

  “Oh my gosh. Was he hurt?”

  “Not really, but I guess he could have been. And guess what?” she said, still wide-eyed and breathless.

  “What?” I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know. I felt a little shaky all over. Poor Michael. That’s probably why he was upset today. It had nothing to do with me.

  “The reason he got into the accident was because he was”—she paused for a moment—“texting.”

  Her words hit me like a rock. Boy Mysteriously Keeps Terrible Secret. I couldn’t say anything. I really wanted to talk to Michael. My joke must have seemed so awful to him, but how could I have known? Why hadn’t he told me?

  “Sam?” Hailey asked, worried.

  “Yeah, I’m just in a little bit of shock. What a terrible thing to have happened now. I need to talk to Michael,” I said. He must be feeling pretty bad right now, since he was the one who had dismissed the seriousness of the article in the first place.

  “I saw him by his locker earlier,” Hailey said.

  “Okay. I’ll call you later.” I picked up my bag. Hailey nodded.

  I walked as fast as I could down one hallway and down another to get to Michael’s locker, but he was nowhere to be seen. I did see Frank up ahead.

  “Frank,” I called out. “Have you seen Michael? Hailey told me what happened.”

  “Yeah, I think he’s on his way home,” he said.

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just shaken up. But Tommy’s fine,” Frank replied.

  “Okay, I’m going to try and catch up with him.” I hurried toward the main school doors.

  I ran out the doors and squinted into the late-afternoon sun. Way up ahead, I saw Michael heading off toward his house. I took a deep breath. “Michael!” I yelled. A few kids turned around, but I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. I just wanted to make things right with Michael. He didn’t turn around. This time I yelled his name even louder. He stopped and turned around, scanning the crowd of students and buses. I ran toward him, waving my hand. He caught my eye and smiled. That was a good sign.

  “Hey, Sam. Are you okay?” he called out to me, looking concerned.

  I stopped to catch my breath. “I”—I took another breath—“heard”—breath—“about what happened to Tommy,” I finally managed to get out.

  “Is that why you came running after me? I thought all the Voice office computers exploded or something!” he said, grinning.

  “No, I was worried about you. And I felt really stupid about joking with you this morning,” I said, looking down at my feet.

  “Hey.” Michael put his hand on my shoulder. I felt its warmth and wanted to just melt right there on the sidewalk. “You didn’t know. I was just really distracted. I didn’t mean to act so upset. I mean, I was, but not about your joke,” he explained.

  “Oh, good,” I said, feeling incredibly relieved. “So what happened, exactly? I heard about it from Hailey who heard about it from Frank, but I didn’t get the whole story.”

  This time Michael took a deep breath. His face went from happy to serious. “Well, Tommy had just pulled out of the driveway and at the same time got a text from his girlfriend. He took his eyes off the road for a second and swerved, hitting a parked car on the street.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I said.

  “And . . . the parked car happened to be my dad’s. I’ve never seen my dad so mad. They took away his driving privileges, like, indefinitely.”

  “They should have!” I exclaimed. “It could have been so much worse.”

  “I know,” he said, nodding. “Tommy was really shaken up too. It’s amazing that one split second can change things. We’re really lucky he wasn’t hurt and he didn’t hurt anyone else.”

  “I’m sorry it happened at all. It’s kind of strange that it happened now,” I said, hoping that was okay to point out.

  “Yeah. I can’t stop thinking about it. All along, I was thinking that getting distracted by texting was no big deal. I feel like I need to write about it.”

  “You mean for the paper?” I asked.

  “Yeah, like a sidebar to the main article. I’m planning to talk to Mr. Trigg tomorrow.”

  “You absolutely should,” I agreed.

  At the Voice office the next day, I went with Michael to talk to Mr. Trigg about the sidebar.

  “I think that sounds brilliant,” Mr. Trigg said. “But we’ll need it by Thursday. The paper goes up Friday. Can you write it that fast?”

  Michael nodded. “I know exactly what I want to write.”

  “Give it a go, then. It sounds like you’ve got something important to say.”

  While Michael started drafting his piece, I went over to Jeff’s computer and checked out what he was working on.

  “Wow,” I said, also taking a look at some of the photos he was uploading into our article.

  “You like?” he said, turning around to face me, a big smile on his face.

  “Don’t get me wrong. It looks great. But I can barely recognize anyone. This is not a fashion magazine. And even then, I think those magazines go way overboard,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t hurt Jeff’s feelings. Still, I had to say it.

  “So looking like an upscale magazine is a bad thing?” Jeff scoffed, immediately getting defensive.

  “Well, yeah, since that’s not what we are,” I said back at him, hands on my hips.

  “I’ll bet if you brought any of these people in here, they’d all rather look a little better than a little worse,” Jeff replied.

  “Jeff, that’s not the point. I was just—,” I started to say, but Mr. Trigg interrupted.

  “What’s all the hullabaloo?” he asked, throwing his scarf over his shoulder.

  Jeff and I glared at each other.

  “Jeff has Photoshopped all the pictures in our texting article! He’s literally changed the way people look. I thought we were supposed to be covering reality here.” My emotions were starting to get the better of me.

  “I’m just doing what people do. We have the technology. I don’t get why you don’t want people to look better,” he said, turning to me.

  “That’s just your opinion. I think people look fine the way they really are,” I shot back, my voice becoming louder and shrill.

  “Okay, okay. Take a breather, folks,” Mr. Trigg said, putting his hands on our shoulders like a referee in a boxing match. “Jeff,” he went on, looking at him square in the eye. “I admire your Photoshop talents, but I must admit that I agree with Ms. Martone on this one. We’re a newspaper. We let people make up their own minds and opinions. That’s the difference. We are not a beauty magazine pushing a certain image here. We’re just running photos of the kids in the story. Now, I don’t believe in running purposefully unflattering pictures—that’s another kind of journalism. But we need to run photos that are an accurate representation of the students.”

  “Okay, but what about this guy?” Jeff showed us a picture of a student with a big smear of what looked like pizza sauce on his mouth. “Are you saying I shouldn’t touch up anything?”

  “No,” I said, a little calmer now. “I think that falls into what Mr. Trigg said about purposefully publishing unflattering pictures. I think it’s okay to fix something like that and just make him look like he normally does.”

  “You’re on the money, Martone,” Mr. Trigg said. “Let’s try to stick with those principles.”

  Jeff sighed and nodded. “Okay. I guess I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

  I was thankful that Mr. Trigg had been there to take my side before Jeff turned the Voice into Vogue. Before I left, I stopped over at Michael’s computer. He was totally lost in thought, writing his piece, typing away. I didn’t want to disturb him, but I wanted to say good-bye. I leaned over and said in a low voice, “Catch you later, Mikey.”

  He jumped when he heard me, and his notebook, which was on his lap, fell to the floor. Out slipped a photo . . . of me. Not just any old photo either—the Photoshopped version that Jeff had taken in the ice-cream shop! I stared at it, my mouth dropping open. Michael stared at it too for a second before grabbing it.

  “That’s weird,” he said, nervously looking at the photo like he’d never seen it before. I noticed his cheeks were growing a little red. “I don’t know how that ended up in my notebook. It must have gotten mixed up with my things when I was working with Jeff.” He still kept his eyes on the photo instead of me.

  “Huh,” I said. “Weird.”

  “I’ll give it back to him after I’m done with this article,” he continued. Then he slipped the photo back into his notebook and turned his attention to the computer screen.

  “Okay, I’ll let you work,” I responded in a perky way, trying to pretend what just happened hadn’t totally freaked me out. Boy Likes Photo Better Than Actual Girl is what came to mind.

  As I left, I saw Jessica sitting with Mr. Trigg, going over the paper on-screen. She was smiling and looked much more relaxed than I had ever seen her. She caught my eye as I left and gave me a thumbs-up. I gave her one back. I was glad I had told her what I really thought. If I hadn’t felt confident enough to do it, she might not have heard what she needed to hear and would still be stressing out over every little word and driving us all crazy. One major thing being Dear Know-It-All has taught me is not to be afraid to say what I think. Most of the time, even with my sometimes frizzy hair and less-than-perfect skin, I thought being me, the real me, as in the un-Photoshopped version of me, was pretty cool. I just hoped Michael thought that, too.

  Chapter 11

  TO CRUSH OR NOT TO CRUSH?

  “He had it in his notebook!” Hailey cried, her eyes bugging out while we both shared a bowl of popcorn at my house after school.

 

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