The Last Reporter (10 page)

“Well, most of the money the Ameches raised so far they had to give back,” said Adam. He was dying to change the subject, but they would not let him. This was the problem with trying to manage news people — they wanted every single question answered right down to the bone.

“In terms of how much,” said Jennifer. “Five hundred dollars.”

“Yipes,” said Phoebe, “How much do we —”

“A little over sixty-eight dollars,” said Jennifer. “But I think it’s going to go a lot better now.”

They were quiet. It had better go a lot better. They needed to get from sixty-eight dollars to one thousand dollars in four weeks if there was going to be a June issue of the
Slash.

They discussed the progress of several articles. Adam told them about the test-scores story. He said it sounded from his meeting with Mrs. Quigley as though something fishy was up, but he couldn’t tell what yet and he had set up a meeting with one of the deputy super-dooper-pooperintendents of the Tremble schools.

Sammy summarized what he’d found so far on chocolate milk. “I’m about half done,” he told them. “And without going into it too much, it’s worse than I thought.”

They’d heard about Adam’s bike being stolen, which started them all talking about stolen bikes. They knew three other kids who’d had theirs stolen, too, so they added a bike-theft article to the story list.

With the end of the year coming, some of the old teachers were retiring, so Jennifer assigned a story on that.

Jennifer and Adam had decided not to tell everyone about Stub Keenan giving out free iPod downloads in exchange for votes — if it was true. They didn’t want anything leaking out until they had a plan. They’d gone through Jennifer’s top-secret list and there was no one from the
Slash
getting free downloads, but they didn’t want to take a chance. Stub was a popular kid. There was a good chance some of the
Slash
staff members were friendly with him.

Jennifer asked in a casual way if anyone had heard anything interesting on the student-council race, and they’d heard the same thing she had — that Stub would win, easy.

“Anyone know his campaign manager, Billy Cutty?” asked Adam.

“Good kid,” said a girl. “Funny.”

Then why’s he working for Stub? Adam thought, but didn’t say anything.

It was time to go. This was the last week for most of the kids on spring sports teams. As they reached for their backpacks, Ask Phoebe called out, “Attention, everyone. Attention. This will just take a minute. I want to read one letter.” The staff ignored her; most of them were middle-school kids, and even if Phoebe was the world’s greatest third-grade reporter, at the end of the day, she was still a measly third grader.

“It’s very lovey-dovey!” shouted Ask Phoebe.

“Nasty?” said a boy.

“Is it sexy, sexy?” asked a girl.

Adam was thinking this might be funny. He wanted to know who wrote it.

“No name,” said Ask Phoebe. “It’s signed ‘Confused Middle Schooler.’”

“Ooooh,”
a bunch of them hooted.

“OK, Phoebe,” said Adam. “Don’t say I never did anything for you. Read it quick.”

“No!” Jennifer blurted out, and they all looked at her. “I mean, we really don’t have time for this. I’ve got tennis.”

“Jennifer, relax,” said Adam. “We’ve got a few minutes. It’ll only take a second.” Usually he was the one being driven insane by Phoebe; usually Jennifer was angry at him for not being more understanding about Phoebe. It was fun watching Jennifer not being more understanding about Phoebe.

“We don’t even know if we’re going to have an Ask Phoebe column,” said Jennifer. “You’re the one who wanted to kill the whole thing.”

Adam shrugged. “You’re the one who loves Dear Abby.”

“Until we know,” said Jennifer, “we shouldn’t —”

“‘Dear Ask Phoebe,’” began Phoebe, who was standing on a chair now. “‘There’s this boy in my grade; I think I might like him. He’s cute and smart, he’s good in sports, and we spend a lot of time together —’”

“Oooooh.”

“Sexy, sexy,” repeated the girl.

“‘We mostly have fun,’” read Phoebe. “‘We laugh a lot, and I think he might like me. Sometimes he even says I look good —’”

“Oooooh.”

“Please stop,” said Jennifer.

“Hang on, folks!” shouted Phoebe, who was relishing her moment of fame. “Here comes the heartbreak: ‘But we just spend time together for school stuff, and the rest of the time, he treats me like I’m no one. He never gives me nice little gifts. He never asks me if I want to take a walk or go to a movie or get an ice cream. And if I get upset, he’s so spacey that unless I come out and tell him, he doesn’t even notice that I’m upset. I think he’s the spaciest middle-school boy on the planet. Is there some way I can get him to be more mature? Or should I just give up? Signed, Confused Middle Schooler.’”

The room was in mayhem. Everyone grabbed their backpacks and as they filed out, they chanted, “Give up, give up, give up.”

The door slammed shut.

Just Adam and Jennifer were left.

Adam shook his head. “We’re going to have to give her a column now,” he said. “I hate to admit it, but that was funny.”

Jennifer didn’t say anything.

“Can you imagine writing a letter like that to someone like Phoebe?” Adam said. “What kind of middle-school girl would be that hard up? And why would she want to spend time with a jerk like that? He sounds like a total loser.”

“I think he is,” Jennifer whispered, and, grabbing her backpack, hurried out.

Adam spotted Jennifer in the cafeteria at the end of lunch period and waved, but he just got a blank stare back. He chased her down the hall and grabbed her by the sleeve, but she said she was sorry, she was late, and pulled her arm away. “I’ll have to get back to you,” she said.

She’d have to get back to him? Jennifer? Since when did Jennifer talk like that?

That night, at home, he checked his buddy list and Jennifer’s screen name was lit up, so he instant-messaged her, very polite, no “wuz up” kind of trashy jive mooch. “Can we get together and talk?” he wrote. But all three times, her screen name suddenly disappeared and he got an auto-reply: “Jennifer is away from her computer.”

Right.

Every time Adam had tried to get Jennifer’s attention these last few days, it seemed like she looked the other way or hurried off in the opposite direction or started talking to someone else.

Adam was no idiot. She must be upset about something, but what in the world could it possibly be? Certainly nothing to do with him. He had racked his brain. He’d squeezed his mind until his brain juices were practically leaking out, and he had to give himself credit; he could not think of one single thing he’d done wrong lately.

As he reviewed the past few days, he realized that Jennifer’s annoying attitude seemed to have started after the last
Slash
meeting. In fact, after the Ask Phoebe stuff. It made sense. Sad to say, but Jennifer must be jealous of him. She was so into controlling everything. She had to run the
Slash
meetings so perfectly, right down to her magic, silencing glare — which Adam had to admit was pretty nifty. But then she’d completely lost it when he gave Phoebe the green light to read the Ask Phoebe question. Come on, he was coeditor. Didn’t he have rights, too? Jennifer was the one who loved that Dear Blabby stuff so much. Hadn’t the
Slash
staff gone wild? Everyone loved it. Jennifer needed to learn how to handle cub reporters like Phoebe. Sure, you have to put them in their place and drive them into the dirt most of the time. But once in a great while you have to give them a chance to shine, so they’ll keep coming back for more abuse. It was a fine-tuning thing that Jennifer hadn’t mastered yet.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He was sick of people blaming him for their mistakes. Jennifer really needed to grow up.

Their last Geography Challenge meet of the school year was coming up, the final round of the yearlong Countdown to Total Dominance. The team sponsor, Mr. Landmass, had called a practice session after school to review.

“We’re in pretty good shape,” he said. “I’ve been to the official certified national website, and all we need is 173,218.7 points in this meet to clinch being one of the top hundred middle-school teams in the country. If we can do that, that’s pretty much the zenith —”

“Point in the sky directly above the observer,” said a boy.

“Exactly right!” said Mr. Landmass. “We are cooking with gas —”

“Natural gas: the gaseous element of petroleum extracted from oil wells,” said another boy.

“Smokin’ Joe!” said Mr. Landmass, “And if — I should say
when
we make the top one hundred, Georgraphy Challenge, Inc. sends a sales rep to our school. They have a big ceremony, and they give us all this free Geography Challenge software and a topographic map —”

“Large-scale contour map showing human and physical features,” said a girl.

“Spectacular!” said Mr. Landmass. “Would someone please tell me, who let the dogs out? You guys are good to go. Hold on, there’s more.” He was reading over a sheet now. “It says we get a framed certificate . . .
Newsweek
will include us on its list of Top Geography Schools in America. . . . a plaque . . . an official scholastic achievement medal — OK, nothing to retire on, but you know, good stuff. Plus, being a top one hundred school in anything is great for property values, so that makes your moms and dads jolly, which is all good.”

Mr. Landmass asked a boy to hand out a set of work sheets with terms and definitions. “Let’s break up into teams of two and review —”

“I’ll work with Jennifer,” Adam said.

“No,” said Jennifer. “I mean, Tracy and I —”

“That’s fine,” said Mr. Landmass. “Adam and Jennifer are a team. You can move the desks together for more privacy.”

Adam grabbed two desks and dragged them to the far corner of the room, away from everyone else.

“So what’s up with you?” asked Adam.

“Where does the Empire State Building rank in tallest buildings in the world?” asked Jennifer, eyes glued to Mr. Landmass’s handout.

“Jennifer,” Adam said, “what’s bothering you? You’re acting insane.”

“Nothing,” said Jennifer. “Come on. Answer the question. You heard Mr. Landmass. . . .”

“Oh, right,” said Adam, “I forgot. It would be a major tragedy if we didn’t get one of those official Geography Challenge certificates.” He paused, looking for a smile, even a teeny upturn at the corners maybe, a slight lift in the eyebrow, but Jennifer’s face was locked up tight.

“Ninth biggest,” she said. “What do France and Burkina Faso have in common?”

“Girls in bikinis?” said Adam.

“Two of the eight countries located on the Prime Meridian,” said Jennifer. “Define
mesa.
”

“A mesa is nothing but a big butt,” said Adam.

“That’s
butte,
as in you’re a real
beaut,
” said Jennifer. “Have you studied these at all? This is for Countdown to Total Dominance.”

“Oh, come on, Jennifer. I’ll look it over the night before. You know I always come through. . . .”

“Oh, right,” said Jennifer. “Mr. Dependable. The farthest western islands in United States territory?”

“Hawaiian Islands,” said Adam. “See, I know stuff.”

“Aleutian Islands,” said Jennifer. “It’s unbelievable the stuff you don’t know.”

Adam grabbed the paper from Jennifer, which made her at least look at him. “Jennifer, please tell me why you’re mad,” he said. “Ever since the
Slash
meeting, it’s like you’re on the warpath. You keep avoiding me at every turn. What’s wrong? What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

“Are you mad because of Ask Phoebe?”

She looked at him. For the first time, she actually looked at him, and maybe it was just his imagination, but her big brown eyes seemed a tiny bit softer.

“I know I was against Ask Phoebe,” said Adam. “And I know it’s absolutely crazy that a third grader would have an advice column, but I was surprised, OK? I mean, that question she read — I didn’t know the questions would be such goofs —”

“Goofs?” said Jennifer. “Goofs? . . . That’s what you think? You . . . you? . . . You! Just forget it, will you?”

“Jennifer, you’ve got to be more flexible, kind of go with the flow, you know what I mean?” Adam said. “If people are going to write in such dumb questions, it almost doesn’t matter what Phoebe writes back; it’s a good laugh, and that will help us get readers for the serious stories in the
Slash.
I mean, we can’t help it if people are stupid.”

“They really are stupid,” said Jennifer.

Finally, Jennifer was agreeing with him, although, for some reason, it didn’t feel like the really good kind of agreeing. Still, Adam figured he’d at last found a theme to build on. People’s infinite stupidity — he and Jennifer could agree on that — and so he went with it. “I mean, I don’t know who was more stupid,” said Adam. “The girl who wrote the question or that clueless idiot boy she was all lovey-dovey for.
He doesn’t send me gifts. He doesn’t take me to the movies. Give up, give up, give up.
”

Jennifer looked ashen. “Stop talking,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Just stop. Please. Go away.”