@nervesofsteel

By Lyn Fairchild Hawks

Minerva, first ninth-grader on her school paper, is ready to be the next Christiane Amanpour. It's 2013 and Twitter's a Wild West full of misogynist trolls, bullies Minerva would love to see banned. The biggest troll of all? The hottest guy in school—Chaz, basketball phenom—and he's doing a full-court press to get with Minerva's best friend, Diana.

 

Diana wants to fit in, and the whole school seems all in with Chaz and his Hot or Not tournament. When Minerva investigates hazing allegations and tracks tweets to the scene of a kegger, she finds Diana on the fast track to his despicable "Final Four"—a game of no consent.

 

Should @nervesofsteel fight back with reporting like the NYT or like TMZ?

 

Maybe Minerva needs to serve up vigilante justice for a girl who's feeling like a lot more than a friend.

 

High school in the digital age is harder than Hades, but Minerva's got nerve to do what it takes so #truthwillout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyn Fairchild Hawks
• Release date: Mar 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780988883789

Book preview

CHAPTER 1:

I SEEK SOLACE FROM DI

It’s August in the hamlet of Jamesborough. Therefore sickening heat huffs its evil breath upon all creatures, such that no sane person should venture outdoors. Except for Diana Lucy Woods, part mermaid and my best friend. When I call her from my sauna of an attic room, I can tell she’s poolside from the shouts, whistles, and massive splashes behind her.

Wish me luck, I say. I’m headed into school to face the beast.

You mean Dr. Redden? she says. Don’t worry. He has to let you on.

Apparently he has his doubts, because I must face some sort of interrogation.

You’ll be fine! You’re, like, totally obsessed with news. He’s got to see that.

I glance at the hoarder’s pile of The New York Times near my bed. Maybe too obsessed.

"Well, Coach says I better get obsessed," Di says.

Behind her, a deep male voice yells through a megaphone, ONE MORE MINUTE, WASTOIDS! That would be Gus Gustafson, whom I affectionately call Captain Killjoy, and for whom Di keeps ridiculous hours with an elite crew of club swimmers recruited by Division I schools. When she didn’t place in the zone championship this summer, Killjoy said she’d failed the great state of North Carolina.

Maybe that’s why she’s harder to reach lately—and I’m the one always reaching out.

Rumor has it Dr. Redden is a terror. I pace my little room, what I like to call my writer’s garret. Maybe he must verify I’m not a toddler before he lets me on staff.

Well, you look sixteen.

But in an awkward sort of way.

Nerve, you’ll be fine!

Though I am highly resistant to nicknames, I allow Di this one. I, Minerva Mae Christopoulos, would like to think I possess some sort of nerve, even though I’m only thirteen going on fourteen and can’t take the stairs without gasping for air.

Di adds, You’re, like, the smartest person I know.

Another ear-shattering whistle. BREAK’S OVER! booms the Voice of the Patriarchy. AND I’M GONNA BREAK YOUR SPIRIT!

Tell that guy to go to Hades, I say.

He doesn’t know what Hades is.

Tell your parents he’s a fascist.

You know they love that. Di giggles. Then she whispers, Ben’s right outside the fence here, watching my every move.

I’m pacing again, ducking the slanted roof of my seven by ten space while dodging New York Time Magazines hoary with dust. What will they do this year—make him follow you to class?

He can’t! Di sounds gleeful. "I’m in a different wing every period. And there’s only three minutes between classes!"

Her big brother has forever been a round-the-clock bodyguard. Now that they’ll be sharing the same school building, this should get interesting—in a Homeland Security kind of way.

That is good news. Even Ben’s not that speedy.

I know, right? Di giggles again. There’s a preponderance of giggling today. But Carli says I should still wear a wig or something!

I trip over a pile of Washington Posts. You’re taking advice from the Head Bitch?

Don’t say that, Nerve.

It’s precise diction for her specific evil! I crouch and start maniacally restacking the 2012 issues, getting corners just so, all pointing true north. Still that name—Carli Carli Carli—rips at my ears. Di’s getting chatty with Carli Caswell Kennedy.

On the other end, a sigh. Maybe, Di says, she’s different now.

Really? A summer changed her and her gang?

She’s way nicer than she used to be. And Madison and them aren’t—

"Aren’t what?" My jackhammer heart might crack some ribs.

Never mind!

"Have you seen Carli’s summer of selfies?"

Ye-e-es?

I clap my hand over my mouth to stop from yelling the ticker surging through my head: I CAN’T TAKE ANOTHER YEAR OF THE BITCHES’ REIGN! I count to five while the splashes and shouts on the other end keep an odd sort of time.

And? I say when I achieve some sort of calm. "You’re not—disgusted?"

A pause. Then Di says, Maybe just don’t look.

SWIMMERS! LET’S GO!

It’s not just Killjoy’s voice making me cringe; it’s her distant tone.

Don’t look, I say dully. Don’t look, you say, when everyone’s on it. I can’t forego social media! I could miss the next Arab Spring! I want to stop, but I can’t. It’s all about stats! Likes, thumbs, favorites—a game that keeps The Bitches on Behalf of Carli ruling our roost!

An eerie silence. Finally Di says, Are you done?

For now.

Good. Because Killjoy looks ready to bite.

By all means, I say, do his bidding.

I always do, she says with a groan. And that’s how I know we’re okay. Anyway, there’s a million new people in high school. I can’t wait! That silly giggle again. Though Ben says senior dudes are dogs, so watch out.

Something tells me I’ll be just fine.

Nerve, stop!

I’m serious. I march to my diamond-pane window. Across the street, the neighbor girls sweat it out under a hoop in the hellish sun. These ten-year-olds have sick jump shots, never mind killer passes. Dudes don’t even know I exist. But that doesn’t mean The Bitches should hog the buffet.

Di laughs. When did you ever give a dude a chance?

DIANA WOODS, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE.

I yell over Killjoy, I don’t have time for dudes! I grab a copy of The Oracle, the Jamesborough High paper, off my bed. I’ve got exposés to write!

What’s there to expose? I can hear a grin. Don’t get cray-cray now—

You have to get cray-cray to fight the Antichrist! I jump on my bed, waving the paper like a banner, and conk my head on the slanted ceiling.

Whatevs, Nerve. Bye!

As she hangs up, I can see her turning her tall, tan body toward the pool, hair slicked back like wet gold, smiling at Killjoy. He will melt like everyone else. Di is a cool drink of water to my hot summer’s day.

I descend from my bed—nay, lumber—rubbing my head. She didn’t let me finish my rant about how The Bitches are the One Percent and how we can’t be an apathetic electorate. But Di might not get that allusion; she pays little attention to news and the last presidential election.

I drop my phone and head to my closet. All my long-sleeve shirts—the only thing I own dressy enough for this interview—and not one of them says, Save the world with words. I’ll admit, I was being a bit dramatic just now. Thank all gods, goddesses, and demigoddesses, Di is used to my intensities. Few have the patience.

Though I find her way too patient with Carli’s foibles.

Di used to agree wholeheartedly: Carli Caswell Kennedy, my nemesis since fifth grade, was horrific. When Di arrived spring of sixth, I’d long been the daily target of Carli and her minions. The torture ended when Di became my best friend. Like a sudden, magical forcefield silencing all their evil, she mystified The Bitches: why would someone as sweet and gorgeous as Di, with all the qualifications of celebrity, endorse me? So they left me alone.

But these past few weeks, there’s been a shift. With every passing day that I track Carli’s social media—I relish it not, but a reporter must watch her back—I see Carli’s increased her circling of Di. Case in point: a total of five Facebook posts on Di’s page in the past forty-eight hours.

First of all, posting that many messages? It’s like marching into someone’s yard and planting a bunch of signs. Rude, if not invasive. Whyever would you?

I know I should be changing clothes, I know I should be leaving this house, yet I am turning back to my phone, helpless in its field. I must know why Di would even consider drinking at Carli’s slimy fountain. Maybe the answer’s on Instagram.

I go there, and I am avalanched with cuter-than-you selfies.

Here, Carli slides cat-eye sunglasses down her nose to reveal big dark eyes, her skin luminous with the Rise filter.

There, Carli shares shadowy cleavage with the help of the Sutro filter, maybe because her décolletage was feeling a bit goth that day.

Everywhere, everywhere, she gives us bikini shots of sleek bronze curves posed by a backyard pool, driving all eyes to those smooth, slender legs that, unlike mine, need not a single filter to fool the world.

Carli tans herself like a White person who resents only her ancestry during summer seasons. Di’s tan, meanwhile, is the logical outcome of an active woman who happens to love a whole bunch of sports.

And Di has liked every single one of these pics. She’s first in line for fandom.

Last year? Di thought selfies were arrogant. I drop my phone, ice in my veins.

I pick it up again. Must verify. Yes, it’s definitely Di doing the liking. The profile picture is a pink kitten; the handle is @dlwkitty. Di’s obsessed with owning a cat someday, a dream that will only be realized when she escapes her parents’ realm.

The fact she’s accepted, nay, endorsed this Carli conceit—the idea that all of us are breaking news? That she’d follow so closely The Bitch who almost broke me? I am stunned.

I start to pocket my phone but stop. I can’t take this cyber anvil with me. Must focus. Must head to school and learn my fate. No pain, no distractions now. I sling it back on the bed.

I peel off Mom’s holey—though to her, it was truly holy—R.E.M. T-shirt. I don a long-sleeve, light-blue button-down, which seems more appropriate when facing off with Authority. There is a red stain, however, on one of the cuffs, plus wrinkles galore. Oh well. It’s the only clean shirt, and it’s not like there’s anyone around here who could offer me fashion tips.

I grab my backpack and leave, my heart somewhere around my knees. What if I fail in my quest? What if Dr. Redden bars me from my lifelong dream? Though the journalism and English teacher, Mr. Fairlane, is squarely in my court. And Diana has faith in me.

But I feel forty-seven percent unsure. Dr. Redden has a rep for being the hardest of hard asses. And I’m already sweaty. Very sweaty.

I get a sudden vision of the massive campus of Jamesborough High, stony tall buildings looming, cold metal detectors barring my escape. Three thousand of us hormonal fools, many taller and thicker than me, stuffed into one building starting next Monday. I feel a little dizzy.

The house rattles as the air conditioning kicks in; my room finally fills with gusts of air. Outside my window, I can hear little girls collide and shriek in search of a rebound. Note to self: These girls can kick each other’s asses over a basketball. Meanwhile, all I’ve done these last four years is talk, talk, talk about revenge.

For once I wish with all my heart I had the athletic gene—that like Diana, I could leap like a deer and dive like a dolphin. That like these ten-year-olds, I had the guts to knock back anyone trying to box me out.

CHAPTER 2:

I MAKE MY CASE TO THE MAN

I grab three shaky breaths as I pass through the portal of Jamesborough High, its pocked stone pillars here since segregation. Through soaring, creaky doors, I enter my brand-new school. Inside this vasty, empty hall, the air blasts me with blessed frigidity while my footsteps shout their entrance. I tell myself to keep moving toward news that could change my life.

Today, this day in history, August 23, 2013, I shall learn whether I join the staff of The Oracle. Whether I, Minerva Mae Christopoulos, will become the next Christiane Amanpour.

Someday, like her, I’ll do something bold and grand. I’ll bring the world coverage from the epicenters of earthquakes; I’ll be that fool on the beach with waves lashing her legs when the hurricane makes landfall. I’ll deliver breaking news that cracks the spine of The Man, The Boss, and every Fox News bully out there. @nervesofsteel is on it, and nothing gets past her pen.

Minerva.

It’s Mr. Fairlane, waiting for me near the main office door. He’s a no-drama dude with a square jaw and pleasant, ink-black eyes. His head, shaved to a gleaming pool-ball brown, catches the fluorescents. We seem to be wearing the same brand of button-down, though his is clean and crisper than cardboard. He smiles. Ready?

I nod, though I am not, and follow him inside. I remind myself that Carli may seek fame based in bodies, but I seek fame based in facts.

A granite-faced female secretary of indeterminable age waves us into the inner sanctum: a huge office with way too much wood paneling. Dr. Redden leans back in his chair behind a huge desk, fearsomely tall even when sitting. He smirks from beneath a daunting mustache, the shaggy likes of which haven’t been seen since the twentieth century.

Mr. Fairlane and I stand before this man who doesn’t invite us to sit down.

So, Journalism I isn’t good enough? Redden taps a key on his computer. Minerva Mae—Chrissy—pull—oos?

Chris-TOP-pool-uss, I say. It’s Greek.

While he scrolls in silence, my heart flutters. At times like these, I pretend I’m the inimitable Christiane confronting a Middle Eastern despot, though certainly her pits would not be soaked with sweat.

Dr. Redden glances up and scans my five feet ten inches like I’m a waste of height. My stomach sinks. I already know everything in the Journalism I textbook. Sir.

He snorts. "You’re not even fourteen. You’ve already skipped a grade. You want another exception?"

I refrain from informing him Ida B. Wells was teaching school at my age and Nellie Bly, testifying against an abusive stepfather in court.

Minerva’s work on her middle-school paper was exceptional, Fairlane says quietly. He hands Dr. Redden The Wolf’s Den. Not only was she editor, but you’ll see: her writing is beyond her years.

Redden drops The Wolf’s Den without a glance. He shakes his head. You’ll irritate the older kids. They did their time.

Now my heart hammers so hard, it might airlift out of my chest. Let them haze me, sir. I’ve seen worse.

Redden’s eyes widen like I’m an alien. Fairlane says quickly, Minerva would start as correspondent and work her way up to staff reporter.

It’d be an honor, I blurt. I hate kissing up, but now seems like a pretty good time. I’ll always check facts and defer to senior staff.

Redden looks at me like I’m a persistent housefly. "You’ll defer to me."

Fairlane watches Redden evenly. Minerva earned an almost-perfect score on the Journalism I exam. Essentially, she’s placed out. He holds out my labor from earlier this week.

Redden’s face flushes at the sight of the big red ninety-eight. My only miss? Confusing prior review and prior restraint.

Fine! Redden gives me an icy stare one might associate with tyrants. Make the switch. We’ll see if she can handle it.

Oh my gods, I’m in! I’m dizzy. Wait till I tell Di!

Minerva, shall we? Fairlane says.

Thank you, I tell The Mustache.

The Handlebar Führer points at The Wolf’s Den as if to say, Take it. I do his bidding and exit fast.

Outside the office, Fairlane smiles. "Welcome to The Oracle. I’m impressed you brought me your case."

You are?

He nods. By the way, there’s no ‘hazing.’ Our editors will help you acclimate.

His eyes crinkle around the edges when he smiles. His teeth are very straight; he possesses very long lashes. I do believe Fairlane is what girls my age would call a hot oldster. I make a note to tell both my unbelieving friend Gabe and Di that, yes, sometimes, I do find certain males attractive, thank you very much. Gabe will scoff teachers don’t count, while Di will wonder how old Mr. Fairlane is. Meanwhile, what’s most important to me is this man seems kind and believable, and I get him for two classes. One can definitely use an ally twice a day.

But I don’t believe there won’t be hazing.

In fact, he’s saying, why don’t you come with me? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.

May I use the restroom first?

Meet you at B13 then, he says, and heads off.

In a bathroom blissfully empty of bodies, I gather myself for the next social interaction. I blot that shiny, square forehead. I pat down those frizzing curls. I see my pits aren’t deeply soaked, just bleeding a bit into the button-down. I suppose I’m ready. Di was right. I’ll be fine.

I start to text her, but something says check Instagram first. She had a certain tone to her voice today, making me wonder if she might actually start posting there.

As I leave, I start scrolling, then almost stumble at the fresh selfie on Carli’s feed.

It’s Diana’s blonde head smashed against Carli’s brunette, both of them Hollywood glam with that newfangled black-and-white filter.

Diana’s face bears no makeup, while her T-shirt, a modest scoop neck, bears a big, wide-eyed pink kitten. Meanwhile Carli boasts dark, gleaming lips and a deep glittery V-neck T-shirt, offering us a shadowy plunge to her unmysterious depths.

#JHhotties #ninthgrade #cheersquad

What? When? Where? How? Back home I lasted all of a minute before I ran upstairs to grab my phone. Now I want to fling it down a toilet.

When? Posted just now, yet it couldn’t possibly be today they were together—

Where—somebody’s bedroom—Carli’s—and not a place where #cheersquad cheers.

The How? Pure speculation. I knew Di was considering tryouts, but she never said she actually did. It must have happened in all those times she was busy these last few weeks.

That’s the What I just can’t get over.

How I hate this mystery. How I hate the logo of this app, its stupid little rainbow camera. Insta Hell for me, all the tagging and bragging and ragging and shagging and bodies not sagging. A journo can’t ignore it, and apparently neither can Facebook, which spent a billion last year buying it. Right now, all this virtual space does is trap me here in its slime, just so I can have the pleasure of watching my friend fade away.

Below the post, a flurry of comments tell these two how gorgeous they are. And two followers—one might assume salivating dudes—offer salacious commentary.

@jbrah69: let’s go full frontal

@longdonjuan: I’ll tap that

I move through fog into the hallway. Come Monday’s onslaught, when all manner of bodies brush, nudge, and touch my person here—when this hall is full to bursting with big kids demanding full frontal from those at hottie hashtags—how in Hades will I make it?

I’ve been telling myself all summer I’ll have Di. We always said we’d brave it together. But this breaking news—

—Carli’s way nicer than she used to be—yes, that’s the actual quote—I guess that’s the Why. Di chills with her because Di thinks Carli Caswell Kennedy has somehow found a soul.

I am passing shiny glass cases of basketball trophies. I am walking beneath a banner declaring the Spartan boys’ basketball team 2013 state champions, beside an entire wall devoted to local media coverage. A massive bulletin board with a blown-up, front-page photo from The Jamesborough Record. I stop short. Two smug White boys stand back-to-back, arms folded: tall creatures with sculpted delts and very good hair—the one on the left so handsome, he might be considered America’s Next Top Male. The headline says, Trophies R Us, while their look says, Bow to us. A taller, hotter version of the meanest boys I knew in middle school.

Another photo: a post-game shot with these same two dudes hoisted aloft by cheering players, and surrounding them, a bevy of hot girls in short skirts, screeching for joy because they’re anywhere near male victory. Guess who’ll fit this picture just perfectly? Diana Lucy Woods. She who always preferred sweats, swimming, and Bible study—now she’ll shake her booty and hike her skirts? Has she really committed herself to crotch-revealing kicks and life-threatening pyramids? Dear gods and goddesses, no.

I keep walking before I spiral. Keep moving. Follow sign, turn left, B wing. GO.

Outside Fairlane’s classroom is a bulletin board covered with various issues of The Oracle, including the last: May 2013. I’ve read it twenty-three times and its front-page headline I could recite by heart:

District Funds Drained: Unpopular in-service continues as campus toilets overflow.

Byline: Alice Jeong.

Behold that brilliant, cold, clinical prose. Behold the lede of only seventy-seven words, explaining the alleged abuse of district funds on needless teacher-training workshops. Behold that eagle-eyed investigation, exposing the school’s waste of thousands of dollars on off-site seminars the faculty hated and refused to apply to their curricula—while back here, classes lack textbooks and bathrooms, toilet paper.

Anonymous sources claimed Redden had a personal, prior relationship with the consultant who overcharged by the thousands. We’re talking kickbacks—corruption. And yet, the man still reigns. Why so untouchable? Why didn’t the school board make a move?

Why ask why when bullies like Carli Caswell Kennedy still reign? Apparently adults don’t have the first idea how to shut down fascists either.

Fairlane is at the door, smiling. Come on in.

I take a deep breath. I’ve not passed a year on this planet without new scars from my peers’ scattershot and targeted cruelty. Who’s to say the staff of The Oracle, even with our shared passion as members of the Fourth Estate, will be any different?

Inside the classroom sits an older girl at a desk. She looks up from her laptop, regarding me through thick black frames. She sports a mop of bristly black hair yanked back in barrettes; jeans faded in the knees; Birkenstocks; and a black T-shirt reading THE BEATLES, coated in white cat hair. Her look is unreadable, like a scanner recording my data—not unlike my father when he remembers I’m in the room. The familiarity of this warms my heart.

Minerva, meet Alice Jeong, senior editor, Fairlane says.

Oh my gods and goddesses. It is she. I stare at my Obi-Wan with awe.

"Welcome to The Oracle," she says.

CHAPTER 3:

I MEET MY MENTOR

H i, I croak.

"I read your Wolf’s Den editorials, Alice says, brown eyes relentless through those black frames. More rant than opinion."

But I did a dramatic simulation for the sake of the wage gap!

I wrote that editorial last spring after my experimental bake sale, where I tried to charge boys a dollar per item and girls, seventy-seven cents. Despite explanatory posters, my eighth-grade peers didn’t get my point, nor were they lured by my kick-ass espresso brownies. I sold exactly four: all to Ms. Frauenfelder, my journalism advisor.

Alice doesn’t blink. Not a fan of gonzo journalism.

But I successfully called out institutional sexism! I’ve got six months of observational data if anyone wants it.

How was it successful?

I draw myself up. Several stay-at-home moms stormed our principal’s office after reading about gender bias in PE and computer-science classes.

I do not add but think: I didn’t run your average middle-school rag.

Gonzo journalism needs self-satire. Don’t see it. Alice’s eyes rove to her screen. I do see excessive adverbs. What’s the latest you’ve got on the pay gap?

Still seventy-seven cents on the dol—

Seventy-four—or less for some demographics. See the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

My face gets hot. Right.

Feed subscriptions?

"Reuters, AP, CNN, WaPo, NYT, Bloomberg, PBS, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, The Independent, and WSJ."

"No Politico? No BBC? No Democracy Now?"

Adding now! I whip out my beloved Samsung Galaxy Note—part phone, part tablet with stylus—because that’s how we journalists roll. I feel quite alive. Alice is tough but instructive; already a mentor is she. Can I say, I love how she speaks in fragments, no concern for segues? No passive-aggressive subtext: just the facts. Let me plug in and download all her brilliance!

Um, did you know, I venture, we’re below twenty-five percent female representation in North Carolina’s state government? When women are fifty-four percent of the population? At this rate, we’ll never have a woman president.

Source?

Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

A cursory nod, but a nod nonetheless. I passed muster! This is my kind of boot camp.

Refrain from speculation.

Oh, yes, right, absolutely!

I’ll leave you to it, Fairlane says, startling me. He looks amused. Running to the book room. He leaves.

Alice scans her laptop screen. This story I’m working on, it needs first-year sources.

What’s the topic?

Hazing. Cheerleaders.

My heart stops.

Alice beckons me over. Know any of them?

I go and stand behind her. She’s looking at an Instagram post: Di jumping up and down and squealing along with Carli and other girls and yes, that is Madison, Carli’s skeletal henchwoman, easy to squeeze right in there. Big glossy lipstick grins on all except Diana with her natural smile. And lots of legs. Legs for miles.

Beneath it reads

WELCOME BABIES!

The photo is courtesy of an account called @jhscheerbabes. From this morning.

So Diana had this news and did not say.

There are allegations, Alice says, the squad puts first-years through disgusting rituals.

I feel like I’m slipping underwater. ‘Disgusting’?

Rumors. Weigh-ins. First-years duct-taped, coated with peanut butter. Iguanas too. Not necessarily in that order.

Iguanas? It’s not the order that makes me shudder.

Only confirmed fact is one hospitalization. Stomach pumped. Last fall.

The classroom tilts. I knew it. This squad is bad news for Di—the worst. I reset my gaping mouth. If there were injuries, then surely someone at school’s aware?

Tradition, Alice says with a shrug. Squad serves male basketball royalty. That peering gaze, back on me and ominous. Fans look the other way.

Say no more. We live in Jamesborough, North Carolina, which at first glance seems an artsy, liberal little town where residents sip fair-trade coffee and lobby for bike lanes. But after a shot of espresso, everyone races Priuses home to pressure kids to apply to Jamesborough University, known for more NCAA banners in basketball than Duke or Carolina could ever dream of. You go to JU because your father’s father’s father went there and screamed his head off for the black-and-gold. People profess their love of learning, but what they’re absolutely obsessed with is JU basketball. And guess which school happens to be the feeder?

Jamesborough High, sending oodles of players there since forever. It’s not the college admissions stats that have families salivating: it’s National Signing Day for Division 1. There’s always a signing table set up in the Jamesborough High gym, covered by so many cameras, while a bevy of cheer-squad girls shriek for the latest recruit from our school.

Can’t let a little hospitalization slow anybody’s roll.

We need sources, Alice says, willing to go on record.

I know some freshmen.

I’ll protect Diana with this information. I’ll protect all the girls!

Well, maybe not Carli. She can miss this news flash.

"Oracle style guide: first-years, not freshmen," Alice says.

Understood. My head hops like a rabbit while I make a mental note: Ban freshman from my lexicon. I should know better.

Fairlane returns with an armload of raggedy Odysseys, dumping them on a table near the board. Behind him comes a tall guy, at least six foot three, carrying a few copies with great reluctance. Big green eyes, brown hair tousled with product, very straight nose, and angular jaw. I suppose a heart thud or two would be in order. I’ve seen him somewhere—

He drops the books and moves back to the door. Can I go?

Fairlane points at his laptop. Stack the books, then enter numbers on this spreadsheet.

The guy stares back like Fairlane cannot be serious.

Fairlane says to Alice and me, Back in a minute.

You can tell this guy is weighing options as he scans the hall, watching Fairlane leave. He scans the classroom, and we might as well just be objects in it. Finally he sighs and slides into the closest seat. He starts texting.

While Alice watches him a long moment, I realize who he is. It’s his face all over the papers I just saw in that sports hall of fame. All over Carli’s Twitter and Instagram. In person he’s what one might call rock-star handsome, no filters needed. But there’s something not quite right with the eyes—a dark green more like algae on a stagnant pond.

Alice says, Don’t you have work to do?

Like I give a fuck, he snaps. He pockets his phone and pushes the desk away from him with a loud scrape. He goes to the book table and slams the paperbacks into crooked piles.

Alice turns to me, unruffled. I admire the ice in her veins. Get some first-year names on cheer squad, and I’ll send staff out to interview. Tell them it’s fine if they choose to be listed as not for attribution, Alice says.

The guy turns around. You’re doing a story based on stupid rumors?

No, we’re following a lead, Alice says.

From his tone, he must rank reporters with garbage. Don’t y’all have any ethics?

What’s the ethics violation?

Right to privacy!

Endangerment of minors, Alice says, is an ethics violation.

A long silence as they stare each other down. I fear someone is packing heat.

He says, You can’t just write whatever you want. The ice in his voice makes the hair on