That familiar prickling simmered under Cat’s skin. Angeline was fluff, through and through. No wonder she weighed so little.
Accurate, fair, and thorough, Gramps always said. The core tenets of journalism. The opposite of everything Angeline did.
Clickbait headlines, incendiary posts, inflammatory trolls, Angeline as an influencer, anyone with an internet connection could post opinion as fact. The more salacious, the better. Truth had become secondary. With presidents gaslighting on Twitter and newspapers laying off thousands of journalists each year, real reporting was on the verge of extinction.
Someone had to care. Old-school journalism wasn’t dead. Grady needed to see that.
“I want to run a story about the average Acedia voter in the next edition,” Cat said. “You up for some student interviews?”
“On it, Chief.” Grady saluted.
Cat fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Remember to record them, but ask permission first.”
“On—”
“And remember, if you can’t write worth a damn, the least you can do is spell the names right.”
Gramps always said that too.
This time, Grady silently saluted and bolted out of the newsroom.
Instantly Cat second-guessed her decision. “Tell me I’m not creating a monster?”
“Creating, no. Feeding, on the other hand . . .” Ravi flashed a smile, and his lips formed a heart shape that Cat hadn’t noticed before. “No shame in going after what you want, is there?”
An unfamiliar flutter in Cat’s chest made her turn to the accounting ledger.
“I sure hope not because . . .” Ravi came up beside her, spreading out four freshly printed pages. “I’ve got my favorite, but you go first.” Each was a different spin on the front page of the last Red and Blue. “I played with the fonts and sizes but also the white space.”
Cat took in the changes. “And the column width.” She pointed to one on the end. “Makes this one seem . . . bolder.”
An eager head bob from Ravi. “Modern without being edgy. But the one next to it . . .”
“Razor-sharp,” Cat said.
“A real risk, that one. So different from the current look.”
Cat barely managed a nod, overwhelmed that Ravi had become so invested.
He misinterpreted and dialed back his enthusiasm. “Not that there’s anything wrong with our current layout. These were just some ideas. I should get started on designing that new Luck o’ the Harbor ad anyway.” He pushed a lightness into his tone. “Question is, are leprechauns cheesy or retro? Never can tell with the kids these days . . .”
“Wait.” The hairs on Ravi’s arm tickled Cat as he reached for the pages, and goose bumps erupted despite the newsroom being as hot as an Arizona desert. “I, uh, haven’t chosen my favorite.”
“You have one?”
“Not exactly,” she said, and his face fell. “The problem is, I have more than one. These are really good, Ravi. It’s nice to have you here.”
His hand was no longer gathering the printouts, but his arm had yet to move away from hers.
“To be honest . . .” Cat spoke slowly, unaccustomed to revealing any cracks in her exterior. “I was worried about going after Fit to Print without Stavros and Jen. Even with the student council election suddenly hot, nabbing the win is going to take every spare moment I have. But I feel so much better knowing you care about The Red and Blue as much as I do.”
“No one cares about this as much as you, Cat.”
Ravi shifted to the side, and Cat felt a coolness replace the warmth of his skin.
“Right then.” She straightened her spine. “This one.” She pointed to the modern but not too edgy redesign.
“You made a good choice,” Ravi said.
Cat nodded, feeling like she had and she hadn’t.
* * *
The locker room buzzed with chatter.
Cat traded her khaki skirt and black long-sleeve for gray knit shorts and a red Acedia athletic tee. Someone had set out vases with smelly sticks atop the three rows of lockers but hadn’t coordinated the scents, and the place smelled like a grapefruit pine forest dipped in sugar cookies.
She rested her foot on the wood bench in front of her, just down from Sonya and Riley.
“Two hundred and fifty dollars a ticket?” Riley waved a set of stapled pages. “Perhaps my stellar math score on the SATs needs adjusting, because I can’t even calculate something as basic as this. How could last year’s student council have mismanaged funds so spectacularly that prom’s going to cost as much as my last pair of jeans?”
“That we’ll tackle later.” Sonya brushed back her braids and removed the pages from Riley’s hand.
Riley picked up a clear reusable bottle with fluorescent green liquid inside and turned to Cat. “Is this true?”
“Got me.” Cat continued tying her sneaker. “Angeline’s your prom expert.”
“But isn’t this yours?” Riley said.
Sonya waited for Cat to finish tying and then handed her the pages they’d been reading.
Council Needs Counsling: Send in the Shrinks, Stat!
Cat frowned at the glaring typo and scanned the rest of the 8 ½″ x 11″ sheet of paper, sloppily laid out in two columns, probably using Microsoft Word, with a heading that read, The Shrieking Violet.
“What is this?” Cat said.
Riley sipped her drink, which added a minty algae smell to the already nauseating room. “Isn’t it, like, a special edition or something?”
“Of my paper?” Cat said. “Yeah, no.” She leaned against the locker and skimmed the top story.
Two hundred and fifty smackers for prom?
Gasp with me, Acedia!
We hate to be the one to light a fuse with our breaking news (oh, who are we kidding, we love it!), but sources say last year’s student council embizlled funds—–your funds—–and now we’ll have nary a penny leftover for a single apple p‚ie ball!
Sources? Like who? Cat gritted her teeth and moved on to the next story.
Saving Cows, Sacrificing Guinny Pigs
When the rumors fly, we here at The Shrieking Violet make it our mission to catch! Word in the halls is that the whole vegan bacon fiasco comes from a certain female teacher trying to grease her way into early retirement on the Cape with an artisanal “beets not beasts” product line.