Revenge of the Geek (22 page)

“It’s Nora,”I said.

“Your friend?”Hannah asked.

“Ex-friend,”I corrected her.

“Uh-oh. What did she do?”Hannah said.

“She’s trying to take over my life,”I said. Then, realizing that this probably sounded dramatic, I said, “Seriously. She’s already taken over my friends. Now she’s trying to take over my spot on
The Ampersand
.”

“I’m going to need details,”Hannah said.

So I started at the beginning and told her everything, even the stuff that made me sound paranoid. I told her about Nora’s chameleon behavior, how I was fairly sure she had completely made up an imaginary boyfriend, and how she had swooped in and snagged the fiction spot in the first issue of
The Ampersand
. Hannah listened quietly and attentively, not once interrupting to tell me that it sounded far-fetched.

Finally, when I’d finished, I looked at Hannah. “So? What do you think?”I asked.

“I think she sounds like a complete psycho,”Hannah said.

“My mom said pretty much the same thing,”I said. “But even if that’s true, there’s nothing I can do about it, right? Charlie and Finn don’t see her for what she is. And her short story has already been chosen for
The Ampersand
. It’s not like I can undo that.”

“That’s the really sketchy part,”Hannah said. “Well, no, I take that back. Everything she’s doing sounds sketchy. But the short story is the part that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does. It’s one more thing for her to copy from me. Remember how you noticed that Nora was dressing the same as me? She even bought exact duplicates of some of my clothes. Becoming a writer for
The Ampersand
was just the next step,”I argued.

“No, that’s not what I meant. Of course she submitted her story because she knew you wanted to get yours published. But the question is, Where did she get her story from?”Hannah asked. “Do you really think she just wrote it overnight?”

“It must have been something Nora had been working on,”I said.

“That Nora never mentioned to you? Not once? Not even when you told her that you write?”Hannah asked. She raised her eyebrows, which had recently grown back after being waxed off for a photo shoot during her short-lived modeling career.

“Yeah, I know. It is strange,”I said.

“It’s more than strange. It’s downright fishy,”Hannah said.

It slowly dawned on me what Hannah was saying.

“Wait. You don’t think she wrote that story herself?”I asked.

“Do you?”Hannah asked.

“I just assumed she had. I mean, submitting a story for publication that you didn’t write . . . That would be really bad. And where would she have gotten it from?”I asked.

“I’m sure she copied it from somewhere,”Hannah said, shrugging.

“But that’s plagiarism,”I said. “She could be kicked out of school for that. She wouldn’t take that kind of risk. Would she?”

“From what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t put anything past her. You know, maybe it’s a good thing Dex is away at school. She’d probably have swooped in on him, too,”Hannah said.

“Actually, Nora’s specifically mentioned how much she’s looking forward to meeting Dex when he’s home for Thanksgiving break,”I said.

“See?”Hannah shuddered. “Incredibly creepy. It’s almost like having a stalker.”

“But no one’s going to believe me,”I said. “She has both Charlie and Finn fooled. And
The Ampersand
editor, too.”

Hannah sat up straight. “You’ll just have to prove it,”she said. “Prove that the story isn’t hers.”

“How can I do that?”I said. “First of all, I haven’t even read her story. And second, I’m sure that if she is passing a published short story off as her own, she wouldn’t have been dumb enough to pick a well-known one.”

“There must be a way to research it. Couldn’t you get a computer program to do that for you?”Hannah asked.

“Probably. But I wouldn’t know how to create a program that would do that,”I said. Computers had never been my thing.

“Finn could do it,”Hannah said.

“Sure, he could. But I don’t know if he would. He likes Nora. And he thinks I’m jealous of her,”I said.

“How annoying,”Hannah said. “Maybe Emmett could help. I’ll ask him.”

“That would be great,”I said. I hesitated, and then smiled for the first time since the disastrous
Ampersand
meeting. “Thanks, Hannah.”

“For what?”

“For listening to me. And for believing me,”I said.

Hannah smiled back at me. “That’s what sisters are for,”she said.

Charlie called after dinner. Willow and I were out for our evening walk down the beach.

“Nora told me what happened,”she said.

I wondered whether Nora had called Finn, too. Probably. She was rallying my friends to her side.

“Oh yeah?”I said. I tried to keep my voice as neutral as possible, but vented my frustrations by kicking a broken fragment of shell out of my path. Willow started at the sudden movement, and then looked up at me reproachfully.

“She said you seemed really mad,”Charlie continued.

“I have no interest in hearing anything she said,”I said.

“So you
are
mad.”

“Charlie, I really don’t think you should get in the middle of this,”I said.

“I don’t want to be in the middle. But Nora called me in tears. She’s really upset,”Charlie said. “I think you should talk to her. I know she wants to talk to you.”

“That’s funny, considering she hasn’t called me,”I said. I’d lost the battle to remain calm. Anger leaked into my voice.

“She thinks that if she does, you won’t talk to her. Or that it will somehow make things worse between you,”Charlie explained.

“Did she tell you what she did?”

Charlie sighed. “She told me that her story was selected to be in
The Ampersand
.”

“And you think that what she did was okay?”I asked.

“I absolutely think she should have been up front with you about her intentions to submit her story,”Charlie said. “But ...”

I gritted my teeth. “But?”I said.

“But I think she had every right to have her story considered,”Charlie admitted.

“I knew you would take her side,”I said. The words tasted bitter on my tongue.

“I’m not taking her side! I’m not taking sides at all,”Charlie said.

“Of course you are. You just called to tell me I should talk to her. That’s taking a side,”I said. Willow pulled at her leash, wanting to get closer to a trio of seagulls that was strutting around on the wet sand. I gave her a gentle tug back, and wound the leash around the hand I wasn’t using to hold my phone.

“It’s taking a side to encourage you to work out a problem with a friend?”Charlie asked.

“Nora is
not
my friend,”I said flatly.

“Just because her story was selected over yours?”Charlie asked. I felt as if I’d been sucker punched. “Is that what you think?”I

asked.

“What am I supposed to think? You’ve been jealous of Tabitha Stone ever since her book was published,”Charlie said.

I couldn’t help myself. “Self-published.”

“Whatever. Then you were jealous of Tabitha when she got the fiction spot in the first issue of
The Ampersand
. And you were thrilled when she lost it. And now Nora has it, and you suddenly hate her,”Charlie said. I could tell she was building an argument, much as a lawyer would. “And Finn told me that the other night when you were at Grounded, you were complaining about Nora. That you had some paranoid theory that she changes the way she acts around different people. Which is ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous,”I repeated. For the second time that day, I went cold all over. It felt like my body had been dipped in ice water.

“Yes, it’s ridiculous. Nora’s the same person whether she’s with you or me or Finn or anyone,”Charlie said. She sighed again. “Miranda, don’t you think that you might be a little jealous of Nora, and you’re letting that color the way you see her?”

I couldn’t speak. There was no point telling Charlie how wrong she was, or explaining how manipulative Nora had been. No matter what I said, Charlie would just turn it around and say that I was jealous.

And, okay, sure, maybe I’d had a problem reining in my jealousy in the past. Maybe I was jealous that Tabitha Stone was always singled out for her writing ability. And maybe I had worried too much that Dex’s ex-girlfriend was trying to get back together with him over the summer, or that he’d end up liking one of the girls in his study group. But this situation with Nora was completely different.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,”I finally said, my voice an emotional croak. It was hard to get the words out past the lump in my throat. “Look, I have to go.”

“Miranda, don’t go. We should talk about this,”Charlie said.

“No, thanks,”I said. “I don’t feel like talking anymore.”

I ended the call, and stuck my cell phone back in my pocket.

Chapter Twenty-four

T
he next day, I got to school early and headed straight for
The Ampersand
office. Today, I was glad to find the office empty. It would make my job much easier. I got out the file where the completed articles were kept and paged through it. Nora’s short story—titled “Lamp Light”—was near the top of the stack. I made a copy of the story and then put the original back in the folder. Five minutes after I’d first entered the office, I left with a copy of “Lamp Light”tucked in my backpack.

I haven’t done anything wrong
, I told myself. After all, I was on the magazine staff. I had every right to read the articles. In fact, Candace encouraged us to do so, so we could give the authors feedback. But, at the same time, I didn’t want anyone—especially Nora—to know what I was up to. Probably because I had no intention of giving her constructive feedback. To the contrary, I was planning on using it to bust her.

The more I thought about Hannah’s reaction, the more I thought she was right. What were the chances that Nora, who had never once expressed any interest in writing, just happened to have a short story on hand, ready to submit? Much less one that was good enough to blow Candace away?

I was dreading the morning ahead of me. Nora was in my lit class, and both Nora and Charlie were in physics. I didn’t particularly want to talk to either of them. Especially not until I’d had a chance to investigate whether “Lamp Light”was an original work of Nora’s.

Luckily, Nora was already there, sitting in her usual seat, when I arrived at Mrs. Gordon’s room. I sat across the room from her. It meant having to sit next to Tabitha Stone, but that was vastly preferable to sitting next to Nora. Besides, Tabitha seemed much more quiet and withdrawn than usual, and her eyes looked suspiciously red.

“Hey, Tabitha,”I said as I took the seat next to her.

She glanced up at me, startled. “Oh. Hi, Miranda,”she said. I thought she looked a bit wary, as though worried that I would say something unkind to her about the lost fiction assignment. Guilt flooded over me. Why had I been so happy to hear she’d failed? Sure, Tabitha could be cocky, but that didn’t mean I should take pleasure in her unhappiness. It really wasn’t very nice.

I hesitated. “I’m sorry about your short story getting pulled,”I said.

Tabitha shrugged and looked glum. “I really liked my story. I don’t understand why Candace hated it so much,”she said.

“I’m sure she didn’t hate it,”I said.

“No, she did. She actually said, ‘I hated your story,’”Tabitha said.

“Really? That’s harsh,”I said. “But it’s just her opinion. You never know why one person likes a story, and another doesn’t.”

“
Hates
it,”Tabitha clarified.

“You know my mom’s a writer, right?”

“Yes. She writes romances, right?”Tabitha said. To her credit, she managed not to sound snotty, even though I knew she probably considered commercial genre romances to be beneath her literary tastes.

“Yes,”I said. “And Sadie always says that she ignores the reviews, both good and bad, because you’re never going to make everyone happy all of the time.”

“That’s smart,”Tabitha said, nodding slowly.

“And if it makes you feel any better, my piece got spiked, too,”I said.

“It did? Why?”

I nodded. “It was my own fault. I interviewed my boyfriend for a piece on student athletes, and didn’t disclose that I have a personal relationship with him. I didn’t know I had to.”

“Really? Well. That’s not
so
bad,”Tabitha said.

I smiled. I could tell that she didn’t approve, but was making an effort to be nice.

“No, I screwed up. I should have known better,”I said. “I understand why Candace pulled the piece.”

“The thing that worries me is, what happens now? Will she ever give me another chance?”Tabitha asked.

“I know what you mean. I’m worried about that, too,”I admitted.

Tabitha and I smiled shyly at each other. I realized that this was the first time I’d ever really talked to her without feeling consumed with jealousy. It made for a nice change. Tabitha and I might never be close friends, but there was no reason we couldn’t be friendly.