“No? That’s what he said?” Maxine perched herself on the edge of her white linen sectional, which made the sofa in Cat’s apartment feel like it belonged in a dollhouse. “Is Schwartz living in a different decade? Just because this is high school, this stuff can’t just be allowed to go on.”
Dipti, whose long, dark hair was pulled back into a bun, said, “I’m grounded for the entire semester. My parents thought I was bowling. Bowling? Like it’s my fault they’re gullible?”
“I got kicked out of regionals!” Tamara said. “Disqualified from the pageant because of ‘inappropriate conduct.’ My hand”—she held up her right hand and waved like the queen of England—“was holding a tequila shot.”
Riley hopped up from her center couch seat to nab some of the spotlight. “Tequila, honey, and Dr Pepper. For accuracy.” She looked at Cat, who tried not to grimace.
“I lost my car for two months,” Maxine said. “My parents would have never found out about the party otherwise.”
“Not fair” and “Can’t keep brushing us under the rug” and more came from the girls’ lips. They wanted to tell their story of injustice. And they chose to tell it to Cat. The number of views on that online article she’d written must have shown them how relevant The Red and Blue could be.
Out of the corner of Cat’s eye, she saw Angeline sitting just back from Maxine’s gleaming white surfboard on the bottom step of the staircase that led to the second floor, letting the focus be on everyone but her. Smart campaign strategy. These girls would leave here and tell their friends how Angeline supported but didn’t outshine them. Her sister was always thinking about herself, even when she appeared not to be.
With the next pause in conversation, Cat asked the question that would allow the girls to directly respond to Principal Schwartz’s “no.” “Does this make anyone feel uncomfortable in school?”
Every hand shot up. Cat lifted the newspaper’s camera and clicked.
* * *
Cat sat at the lunch table two days later ignoring her grilled cheese and holding her newspaper in her hand. The last copy. In the entire school. Maybe even in town.
Grady had swung by the grocery store that morning and said the stack there was gone too. Every copy of the latest Red and Blue had been snatched up.
Her words were being read. Read by actual people.
A tingle traveled from the crown of her head all the way to her toes. Then she got back to business, grabbing her notebook and compiling her to-do list: increase the print run, pitch more advertisers, recruit another writer—at least one.
Battle of the Exes, the election had been dubbed—not by Cat. Though it was news, and she’d reported it as such. That it made Angeline twitch was simply a bonus.
She smoothed the front of the newspaper and slipped the issue between two plastic sheets in her portfolio, which thankfully had room for many more. Because this was bigger than just one story. The tentacles of the Frankengirls reached in all directions, and Cat would cover them all.
And the Fit to Print judges would get the chance to see it.
Cat grabbed her phone and plugged in the Fit to Print website.
She clicked through until she found the application. Her heart beat faster with each empty box she completed until she reached “Apply.” She tapped the button, and that was it. The Red and Blue was officially entered for the Fit to Print award.
She exhaled a long breath.
“Is this seat taken?”
Cat looked up to see Emmie Hayes in a blue cardigan and pressed khakis holding a tray.
“Sure. I mean, no, it’s free. I mean, sit, please.”
Emmie lowered herself into the seat. “Great issue. Definite keepsake material.”
Cat’s face grew hot. “The plastic’s maybe a bit much, but I picked up the habit from my grams.”
Her grandmother had kept a scrapbook of every one of Gramps’s stories from the small paper in upstate New York where he started to the Portland Sun in Maine to The Boston Globe and even an article or two in The New Yorker.
“You should be proud of it.” Emmie squirted hand sanitizer into her palm. “You’re a decent writer.”
“Decent”?
“But the way you construct a story, it’s engaging. You really bring everything to life. Impressive.”
“Impressive” was better.
“You really think so?” Cat asked.
Emmie scooped up lettuce and nodded.
“Because . . .” Cat scooted to the edge of her chair. “Well, I’m thinking if the election continues to hold people’s interest, then covering it like this—weekly, at the very least, maybe even twice a week until the votes are cast . . . I mean, it could change the whole way the school thinks about the paper. They’d be looking for it. And Grady wanted me to skip the actual printing and just publish this whole thing online. But Stavros and Jen never used our website. And the Fit to Print award has never been won by a digital paper. The Red and Blue has enough obstacles to climb, you know? But Grady’s as persistent as an itch from a mosquito bite, so I did let him upload the stories—but only after they were in print. I gave in and let him set up Twitter and Instagram accounts too. He said they already have more than three hundred followers on each. Do you know, is that a lot?”
Emmie set down her fork with a clunk.
Cat cringed. “Oh, wow . . . that was really insensitive to be blathering on about covering the election you wanted to win. I’m really sorry.”
So neutral was Emmie’s expression that Cat wasn’t sure if maybe she hadn’t actually been paying attention, was on the verge of tears, or was about to lash into her . . . and then, Emmie gave a crooked smile.
“Should have won,” she said. “But it’s okay. I just thought you might need a reminder to breathe.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess I don’t have many people to talk to about this, except my gramps.” Cat sounded like a six-year-old. She cleared her throat. “It’s too bad you didn’t win the primary. Your ideas were good. You seemed to know how to do this.”
“Not well enough apparently.”
“Welcome to the tsunami that is my sister.” Cat jutted her chin across the cafeteria. “Just look at her. Flipping pancakes on an electric griddle. I’ve never seen my sister do anything in the kitchen except mix cucumber slices into coconut water, but here she is actually cooking at her ‘Vote for an Angel’ gluten-free, dairy-free, taste-free pancake breakfast.”
“Branded as such with everyone repeating it. Even though it’s lunchtime.”