Asking for Trouble: 1 (London Confidential) (5 page)

The week passed quickly, but there was no e-mail from Jack. Most of me was sad—after all, I knew I could do the job. There was a little tiny part of me, though, tucked way deep underneath my rib cage, that was happy. I wouldn’t have to feed the lie.

Friday I arrived at class to see Jack standing outside chatting with Hazelle.

“That’s her,” Hazelle said, pointing at me like she was identifying a person carrying a deadly disease.

“Me?” I said, pointing to myself.

“Savannah Smith?” Jack asked.

I nodded and swallowed drily. “Yes.”

“I’d like to offer you the open slot on the paper,” he said. “Your sample article was extremely well written. It’s an experience-required position, but you did say you have experience, right?”

Time to give the lie a big fat lunch.

I glanced over his shoulder and saw Hazelle standing there primly cradling her books in her arms. She didn’t move, and it was obvious she was eavesdropping on our conversation and waiting for my answer.

“Yes, I have experience with the newspaper back in the U.S.,” I said. Well, I did. Honestly. He didn’t specify what kind of experience was required.

“Brilliant!” He flashed
that smile
at me. “You’ll work out just fine. It will be interesting to get an American point of view. Are you available before school Monday morning? Half seven?”

My eyeballs felt like they were going to pop with the tension. “Yes, yes I am.” Small beads of sweat gathered at my hairline. I hoped he couldn’t see them. “Half seven?”

“Half past seven, of course,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the newspaper office then.” He walked down the hall, toward his next class, I guessed.

Hazelle looked me hard in the face and said, in what I took to be her best journalist voice, “It’s rather easy to verify facts on the Internet, isn’t it? Even halfway around the world.” I think her curly brown hair got even frizzier when she was worked up. Then she headed into our classroom.

How did she know?
The answer, of course, was fairly obvious. She was a journalist. While Jack and I were talking, she’d been observing
me
.

All right. So I’d gone and told the tiniest little lie. Unfortunately, little lies can morph into big trouble. The longer I sat with the knowledge of it, the sicker I felt. I had no idea if Jack would ever find out about the, um, inconsistency, but with the Internet, as Hazelle said, you never know.

Anything
is possible.

That night I shared the “good” news with my family, who rejoiced with me.

“I’m so proud of you,” Dad said.
Don’t be,
I wanted to tell him.

They called all the relatives in Seattle and let them know the great news that I was now a journalist and that London was working out fine for me. I heard Mom promise to send many copies of the paper with my first article in it. Then she passed the phone to me so everyone could congratulate me. They all knew how much I’d hoped to write for the school paper back in Seattle.

Mom made Chinese food to celebrate. I avoided the fortune cookies.

Monday morning I got up early and checked my laptop for messages. Maybe Hazelle had said something to Jack and he’d changed his mind.

A forward from my grandmother on the dangers of heavy backpacks.

Spam for ultraexpensive shampoo that was not in my budget. Nothing else.

I went to a journalism Web site I’d saved to my Favorites and scanned it. One thing caught my eye right off:

Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

I rehearsed all the way to school what I’d say to Jack. I figured I had several options: I could continue to let him believe I had experience. I could let Hazelle tell him the truth, if she ever was able to prove it. Or I could tell him myself.
Do the right thing,
I heard a voice inside say.
It always pays off.

Was that a fortune cookie saying? Sounded more like Scripture to me, but I couldn’t place it.

When I walked into the newspaper office, Jack waved. I lifted my hand and waved back limply. He motioned to a seat, and I sat there waiting, listening to the music of fingers on the keyboard and breathing in the ink-on-newsprint smell. After a minute, I heard Jack call my name.

“Savannah, come on in here.” I stood up and willed my weak knees not to wobble as I made my way to his office.

“Savvy,” I managed to get out.

“Savvy, then. Have a seat.” Jack pointed to a wooden chair across from his scratched-up desk. As the editor, he was the only one who had a personal office. It was a cubby, really, but it made it just a little more private than the open area where everyone else worked. “Everyone’s pushing hard since this week’s edition is going out today,” he said.

I sat down and set my book bag beside my feet. One of my chair legs was shorter than the other three; I dug my feet into the floor so I wouldn’t lose my balance and tip over.

“Tell me about your newspaper experience at your school in the States.” Jack twirled a Wexburg Academy
Times
pen between his thumb and forefinger as he talked.

Even if he hated me and wanted nothing further to do with me after he found out what I was about to say, I hoped he wouldn’t tell anyone else about the lie. Wasn’t keeping confidentiality one of the journalistic codes, after all? “Well, it’s a little bit different than I might have let on,” I started. I saw his jaw set a little.
No turning back now,
I thought.
Out with the whole truth.

“Last year in Seattle, I was in ninth grade, which was junior high at my school. Our junior high didn’t have a paper, only the high school. So my English teacher helped me write some . . . practice articles. She contacted the faculty adviser at the high school and told him that I’d make a really good writer. And that he should hold a space for me at the paper when I got to high school. Only . . . we moved to London instead. So here I am.”

“I see,” Jack said. “So your actual published newspaper writing would amount to . . .”

“Nothing,” I admitted. I looked down at my feet. “I did take pictures of sports events for the yearbook. And I wrote the captions.”

I saw Hazelle striding toward Jack and me. “Jack, I need you for a moment,” she said importantly. “Deadline, you know . . .”

“Excuse me for a second.” He turned toward her. She asked him a question about the article she was working on, and after he answered her, he turned back to me.

“We don’t really take on interns,” he said. “It’s a bit dodgy. Most of our staff has had some experience, and well, to be honest, the paper isn’t as popular as it once was. Our budget has been cut back. We have the smallest, oldest facility in the school. Our staff doesn’t have a lot of time to develop new writers, and I had to plead to add one more person to the staff already.”

“I
can
write though,” I said. “I wouldn’t be trouble at all. I want to help.”

Jack sat there for a moment before sighing. “I like you, Savvy. I just don’t have a place for you or time to develop a new writer. As it is—” his face turned glum—“there may not be a Wexburg Academy
Times
for long. Fewer and fewer students read the paper. Computers and texting and online social networks and all that. This may be our last year.”

“That’s terrible.”

He nodded his agreement and then snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! Do you really want to help?”

“Of course!” I said, my hopes soaring. In my mind’s eye, I could see it now. I’d come on staff and write an article about how the lack of newspapers in schools was causing the reading level to go down and was contributing to the dropout rate and how important it was to keep a newspaper at the school. The school staff would be in complete agreement, and the newspaper would be saved. All because of me!

“Savvy!” Jack’s voice popped the bubble in my imagination. I came back to earth to see him standing a few feet away, next to a big red wagon. I knew all about these kinds of wagons. I’d pulled the screaming baby to the park in one.

“We need someone to deliver the papers across the campus,” Jack said, waving his hand toward the wagon, which still had a few wet, lonely papers desperately clinging to its insides. “We had someone, but he got detention too many times and was disallowed from school activities. Last week’s edition went out late and was poorly distributed.”

I stood up, and as I did, I could see Hazelle smirking a few feet away. She stood next to an older girl who frowned at Hazelle. She, too, seemed to be waiting to talk with Jack.

“Deliver the papers . . . ,” I said. “In the wagon.”

Jack nodded enthusiastically. “You’d still be officially on staff. You could sit with us at the lunch table, you know, listen in on the conversations, pick up on newspaper business around the office.”

“I’d give you the odd tip here and there,” the older girl said to me.

“Thanks, Melissa.” Jack flashed that smile at her and then at me. How could I refuse that smile?

At least it was a foot in the door, right? Melissa seemed nice. And I didn’t want to give Hazelle the satisfaction of seeing me humiliated, though that might not have been the best motivation.

“Can I give you my answer later today?” I said. I wanted time to think, and to pray.

“Sure,” Jack said. “Leave your contact information, and I’ll be in touch by the end of the day. Cheerio.” Then someone called to him from across the room. I heard the first bell ring and knew I needed to get to class within three minutes. I turned to say good-bye, but they were already deep in deadline talk.

I felt crushed. I’d done the right thing—told the truth—but it hadn’t paid off for me. I looked longingly over the newsroom, wishing I could roll up my sleeves and find that fresh angle along with the rest of them. Not deliver the papers. Distracted, I scribbled down my info and left it on Jack’s desk before making my way to maths . . . with Hazelle.