Page 69 of All These Beautiful Strangers

I took it and read while Leo read over my shoulder.

Item #2: Mr. Franklin’s trig midterm

Leo let out a low whistle.

“Damn, Reisling,” he said. “Who’d you piss off to get landed with this?”

Drew and I both looked at each other. Ren. All of Drew’s flirting with Crosby hadn’t gone unnoticed. Ren was using the Game to carry out her revenge.

Stealing an exam would have been bad enough because of Knollwood’s zero-tolerance policy when it came to cheating. If Drew were caught trying to steal an exam, she’d be expelled, no questions asked. But this particular exam was even tougher, because Mr. Franklin always wrote the exam fresh the day before it was given. There would be no easy shortcut, like getting an old exam from a previous student or sneaking onto his computer to print a copy. No, this would be some serious Mission: Impossible stunt.

“I’m not sure,” Drew told Leo. “But someone up there hates me.”

As I stood outside the door to the room that housed the Knollwood Chronicle, I imagined all the things I’d rather have been doing at that very moment.

Eating a jar full of raw jalapeños until my throat blistered.

Having another heart-to-heart with Mariah about my personality disorder.

Running a marathon on a searing August afternoon, with heat pooling on the pavement.

None of these things sounded fun, exactly, but they were all more appealing than what I was about to do. Still, I told myself to suck it up, exhaled deeply, and pushed open the door to the newsroom.

My view of what a high school newsroom would look like was largely and improbably shaped by old films like His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane and All the President’s Men. I imagined a kinetic room where editors—clad in glasses and sweater vests, each with a pencil tucked behind one ear—chased their reporters down narrow rows of desks, demanding to know where they got their scoops, the reporters always vowing steadfastly to never divulge their sources. I imagined journalists hunched over typewriters, and endless piles of Styrofoam cups nesting stale coffee, and the sound of phones ringing.

The Knollwood Chronicle’s room looked like most other classrooms around campus—the same bland, taupe-colored walls, the same gray carpet. A few desks and computers and chairs. An old patched-up couch at one end, and at the other, a steel filing cabinet. It was quiet, mostly—there were only a handful of people, mainly sitting at desks, clicking away at their keyboards, and another small group in the corner on the couch.

“Can I help you?”

I turned and saw a girl with pale skin and dark hair sitting behind the desk closest to the door.

“Is this the Chronicle?” I asked.

“In all our glory,” she said. She stood and leaned over the computer on her desk to shake my hand. “I’m Penn Franklin, the editor in chief,” she said.

Penn was a senior. We’d never officially met, but I had seen her around.

“I’m Charlie,” I said. “I was hoping to try the Chronicle out for Open Period. If you have any spots left.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. It wasn’t just that I was wandering in in the last week of Open Period asking for a spot. It was also that I was an upperclassman who had never stepped foot in the Chronicle before. Most students who did Open Period were underclassmen, freshmen eager to find their place at the school, carve out their niche. And most juniors, well, they had already found their place. Most of them had climbed to the upper rungs of whatever club or sport they had joined as freshmen. Drew was cocaptain of the volleyball team. Stevie was president of the Student Ethics Board. Leo was president of the junior class. I was title-less.

“What department are you interested in?” Penn asked. “Writing, photography, layout, marketing, sales?”

“Writing,” I said. “Definitely writing.”

“Most of our beats have been given out already,” Penn said, tucking a sheet of hair behind her ear. “I’ll have to check and see if any of our editors have room to take you on.”

“I can take her.”

I knew the voice before I turned around and saw her shiny, perfectly coifed blond curls. Harper Cartwright.

“We have a spot in Features,” Harper said, smiling at me.

I instinctively gritted my teeth.

“Perfect,” Penn said before I could edge my way out of it with some bullshit excuse. Because I knew what this would be, what I was getting myself into. As a new writer, I expected to be hazed a little, to do coffee runs, to get the shitty stories that nobody else wanted. But this would be something else entirely. This would be placing myself directly under Harper Cartwright’s thumb, something I was loath to do given she was Dalton’s most recent ex and she probably suspected Dalton and I were more than friendly.

“Perfect,” Harper said, and I saw the evil gleam in her eye. “We’re just wrapping up pitching, if you want to sit in.”