What If... All the Rumors Were True (17 page)

TALKING TRASH

Once an insult's been hurled, you can't ever take it back.

H
aley left Whitney's house with her head so packed with gossip she felt physically dizzy. So many juicy rumors! She was full to bursting with them. The next day at school, when she bumped into Annie Armstrong and Annie asked her if she'd been to Whitney's new house yet, what was Haley supposed to do? Not tell her that Sasha's dad was getting ready to propose to Whitney's mom, turning the two former friends/now enemies into stepsisters? Haley couldn't deprive Annie of news like that. And the dish about Mia's potential hookup video? Icing on the cake, which Annie lapped up and immediately spread all over Hillsdale.

By the next morning, Haley sensed the buzzing of chatter all over town. She heard her mother mention the rumors on the phone with Annie's mom before breakfast. She heard the kids on the bus whispering. And when she got to school, the first thing she saw was Whitney running out of the girls' bathroom in tears, her mascara raccooning her eyes.

“I can't take it!” Whitney wailed as she pushed against the stream of kids flooding the hallways. “If one more person asks me about my messed-up family, I'm transferring to Ridgewood!”

“Whitney!” Haley called out. She started to go after her to try to undo some of the damage, but the look Whitney gave her was so angry it clearly was a lost cause. She let Whitney go and find someone else's shoulder to cry on.

The buzzing continued, the whispers in the halls and classrooms growing to a roar. On the way to gym, someone called Haley's name. “Haley Miller!” the girl yelled in a Spanish accent. “I want to talk to you!”

Mia Delgado strode down the hall like a leopard, easily catching up with Haley. Haley stopped, but when she saw the look in Mia's eyes, she knew running would have been the safer option.

“You!” Mia shouted, shoving Haley against a wall of lockers. “Why? Why you telling everybody lies about me? Huh? You jealous? Why?”

“They're not lies,” Haley said, peeling herself off the lockers and charging at Mia. “They're true!”

“What do
you
know?” Mia cried. “You know nothing about me.” She shoved Haley again. Haley shoved back, and Mia pushed her until she tumbled to the ground. The two of them rolled around on the hall floor, wrestling, pulling each other's hair and screaming.

“Go Mia! Go Mia!” some of the kids chanted.

“Take her top off!” a boy shouted.

“What's going on here?” a gym teacher demanded, prying the two girls apart. Haley leaned against the wall, panting and spitting hair out of her mouth.

“
Ho-la,
Mia,” Haley said, purposely mispronouncing the Spanish word. “Emphasis on the
ho.
”

“What happened?” the gym teacher asked.

“Why don't you ask her?” Haley said, getting to her feet. “She started it.”

Both girls were sent directly to Principal Crum's office, and by the time he heard the eyewitness accounts and saw Mia's cuts and scrapes for himself, Haley was suspended from school. No one who knew the circumstances was surprised.

What was Haley thinking, talking trash? Since when does she stoop to the level of catfights and gossip? She should have known better than to spread rumors—especially Coco-fueled ones. Mia was badly bruised from the spat, but the only person Haley permanently hurt was herself. With a suspension on her record, Haley's impeccable transcript was tarnished. Forever.

Hang your head and go back to Chapter 1.

HIGH ROAD

Spreading rumors is almost never a good idea.

T
he following day, Haley decided to go home straight after school. With all the trash talk floating around, she thought it best to steer clear and tune out. Haley was never one to spread rumors, so why should she start now?

“Hey Mom, I'll be up in my room,” Haley called into the kitchen as she arrived home, then immediately darted upstairs. She definitely didn't want to talk to anyone this afternoon, and that included her mother, who, thanks to Annie Armstrong's mom, now seemed to know a little too much about the comings and goings of Hillsdale residents.

As Haley closed the bedroom door behind her, she sighed with relief. It was good to finally be alone, safe from idle chatter. She logged on to her computer and started to write a blog entry, which she entitled “The High Road Less Taken.”

Sometimes girls annoy me. You don't hear boys talking behind each other's backs and saying rude things about each other. How lame would it be if Spencer Eton was telling everyone at school that Drew Napolitano had gotten a little chubby this football season and was now purging in the bathroom to get rid of the extra weight?

What is it with rumors? Who starts them anyway? And why do we feel the need to pass them along? For the sake of other people's entertainment? My Gram Polly would say “any friend who talks behind your back isn't your friend in the first place,” and I have to admit, I think she's right.

Satisfied that she had successfully removed herself from Coco's vicious gossip cycle, at least for one day, Haley hit Post. She wasn't changing the world, but at least she wasn't making it any worse.

Good for Haley. Her refusal to be a pawn in Coco's gossip game probably saved her a heap of trouble. The question is, what should Haley do next? If you think she's strong enough to handle any temptations Coco and her crowd can dish out and still have a good time, send her to
"CASINO NIGHT"
. If you think she should keep her distance from Coco's campaigning, forget about the rumor mill and focus on leading the Hillsdale soccer team to victory, go to
"SHOW SOME MERCY"
.

When you're feeling tempted, making the right choice takes serious discipline. Like turning-down-hot-chocolate-chip-cookies-right-out-of-the-oven discipline.

PRINCIPAL CRUM'S LITANY

If you don't want your house robbed, don't go handing out keys.

“I
hear whispers in these hallowed halls about deviant initiation rituals on our sports teams,” Principal Crum barked as Haley slipped into the auditorium. “There's talk of unmentionable behavior being recorded and broadcast on the World Wide Inter-web. And no, I'm not talking about the ‘Inside Hillsdale' videocast.” Haley took a seat in the back and looked around for familiar faces. The entire school was there, or mostly there.

She spotted Irene, Shaun and Devon across the aisle. They all three were covered in paint—Haley assumed they'd been working on the sets for
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Shaun was taking his role as Bottom quite seriously, and had taken to wearing his costume to school. Today, mercifully, he had set his donkey head on the seat next to him. Shaun still whispered
hee-haw
every time Principal Crum said something funny, however, causing Devon and Irene to burst into muffled giggles.

Spencer was apparently cutting the assembly, but Coco, Whitney, Cecily and Mia sat together in a middle row, with Sebastian just behind them whispering into Mia's ear. A few rows to the left, Annie and Hannah sat looking dazed and trying hard to focus on the speech. Dave was with them—his head lolling on his neck as if he couldn't quite hold it up. His foot kept nervously
tap-tap-tap
ping on the floor. The college-prep pressure seemed to be getting to all three of them, which was a shame, Haley thought. If anyone had a great shot at getting into a good school, it should have been the brain-trust trio of Annie, Dave and Hannah.

The kids sitting around them were all watching Dave intently, as if expecting him to do or say something funny. He didn't disappoint. Every once in a while he quietly barked, or pointed at the ceiling with a terrified expression, as if he'd just spotted a team of ninjas attacking from the roof.

Poor Dave,
Haley thought. He'd taken his podcast, “Inside Hillsdale,” to video, where the whole world could see how beyond-stressed-out he was. The camera recorded—and sent out into cyberspace—his every nutty utterance. The students of Hillsdale thought the show was a riot and passed clips of the video to all their friends. Dave Metzger had only enhanced his cult following, even if he was now a laughingstock.

“I'm taking these rumors seriously,” Principal Crum said, “and because of this threat we are now on Burnt Sienna Alert.”

A scattering of kids snickered at this.

“I am warning you all now,” Principal Crum said. “The sports team captains will be held personally responsible for any mistreatment of their fellow students. If I hear a breath of a word about hazing or injuries, I will come after you and you will be sorry.”

Haley heard rowdy thumps and rumbles overhead and craned her neck to look up into the balcony, which had been taken over by jocks of both sexes. Sasha and most of her soccer teammates were up there, along with Reese and the boys' team, and Drew and the football players. No sign of Johnny Lane. Haley hadn't seen him with Sasha much lately, but even if he deigned to attend an assembly like this, he probably wouldn't be up in the jock section, even though he was an ace basketball player.

Haley was surprised Reese had time to spare for an assembly. He'd been so busy studying the past few weeks Haley had hardly seen him, even though he lived right next door.

“We have had problems like this in the past,” Principal Crum continued. “And rest assured, those who perpetrated the incidents were severely punished. Only a few years ago the tennis team set a flock of ducks loose in the cafeteria.” There was scattered giggling from the students. “It was no laughing matter,” Principal Crum said sternly. “Not only was it a serious health-code violation, but do you know I found duck feathers in my lunch for weeks afterward?”

Shaun yelled out a loud “quack!” to the amusement of everyone but Principal Crum.

“Even worse than that, ten years ago the football team locked a cow in my office overnight,” he said. “You can imagine the kind of mess I found when I came in to work the next morning.”

There was a collective
“Mooooo,”
from the stands. Everyone laughed.

“It's not funny, people!” Principal Crum shouted. “That year the entire football team was suspended. The captain lost his scholarship to Rutgers. And when the volleyball team filled the pool with red dye and a slashed-up dummy floating on its stomach, trust me, they too paid the price.”

The jock crowd began stomping their feet, and Haley realized the principal's speech was backfiring. Instead of discouraging initiation rituals, he was actually inspiring teams to try to outdo the pranks of their predecessors. Crum was giving them ideas.

How clueless can Principal Crum get? Now the jocks are raging to initiate their newbies, and in their minds, thanks to the principal's harangue, it's a school tradition—practically their duty to uphold.

What does Haley think of all this? Does she want to become part of Hillsdale's illustrious history of hazing? Or is she more interested in other activities? Which group does Haley identify with these days? If you want to send Haley to hang with the jocks, go to
"NEW JERSEY WATER TORTURE"
. If you think she'd like to see what Coco, Whitney and Mia have been up to, and how Mrs. Eton's gubernatorial campaign is going, place your bets on
"CASINO NIGHT"
. If you think Haley is more into the drama scene these days, go to
"COME ON, IRENE"
. Finally, if you want to give Haley's love life a jolt, go to
"FIGHTING WORDS"
.

With colleges looking closely at junior year transcripts, Haley's decisions are becoming ever more important—from the friends she chooses to the extracurricular activities she participates in and the time she spends studying. Will she blow her chances and have a little fun? Or will she chicken out and play it safe?