Authors: SO
“Don’t get me started on the FDA,” Roman says. “Or the USDA.”
“Not to mention the NSA and Department of Defense,” Kiara says. “I’m totally applying DOD after college so I can, like, infiltrate.”
Ash pats her on the shoulder. “Our girl here’s a code breaker. Not to mention an ace hacker. Hardwired, of course. Wireless isn’t secure.”
She shrugs. “How else are you supposed to learn about the freedoms the government is revoking, one quiet infringement at a time?”
“Quiet infringements?” I say.
Kiara pushes my laptop closed, inspecting the side for what I assume is a hardwire port. “It’s like you haven’t even
read
the Patriot Act.”
Tens and Roman chuckle, like,
Yeah, right! Who hasn’t
read
that
old classic?
I look to Ash with a pleading gaze. “Rein in your minions, fearless leader?”
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“Not until Kiara admits that hyperdrive technology is vastly efficient, thereby making the
Millennium Falcon
a much more elegant ship.”
I slam my soda can on the coffee table in mock indignation. “Listen up, nerd herd. I was in the room at Comic Con when Neil deGrasse Tyson articulated all the reasons why the
Enterprise
wins the starship smackdown, so in all manner of superior space technology I defer to him, a legit astrophysicist, over a group whose primary mission in life is to unplug the Internet. Now please shut up about fictional societies and help me figure out this presentation or I’ll activate the locator chip on the laptop and broadcast your shit to the man.”
That locator chip thing? I don’t even know what I just said. But Ash looks pretty impressed, and everyone cracks up, including me.
“You went to Comic Con?” Asher asks. “And stood in the presence of greatness like that?”
I shrug. “Truefax.”
“Marry me?” he says.
“Only if we can update our relationship status on Facebook.”
He winks. “We’ll find a way to cross this digital divide, Lucy.”
“Let’s start with PowerPoint.” I reopen the laptop and 282
flip through the templates. “These backgrounds suck—we need to pick something semicool.”
“Dude, no,” Ash says. “PowerPoint is the devil’s playground. Bill Gates? Definitely working for the other side.” I blink and stare, openmouthed. It’s getting to be my usual response with Ash.
“Allow me to demonstrate the proper way to do a group presentation.” He snaps his fingers, and Tens, Kiara, Stephie, and Roman are on their feet, standing in formation.
“Point made,” I say. “Let’s put our nonlobotomized heads together and see what we come up with.” Ultimately, we compromise with a combination PowerPoint slide show and live-action interpretive dance on the negative effects of cyberbullying. We map out our bullet points, and I let them run through their moves, offer a few pointers on making it more obvious that they’re supposed to be electrons bouncing up against humanity.
“Thanks for coming over today.” I save the PowerPoint presentation and close the laptop. “Sorry I got you guys into this mess with my stupid scandal.”
“Not your fault.” Ash offers a sympathetic smile that his friends mirror. “And I don’t know who’s trying to frame you, but obviously they’re in deep. That’s why this 283
presentation is so key. If we can reach just one person, stop this from happening to someone else . . . you know?”
“Tagging. God,” Roman says. “Bad enough you can post pictures of anyone without their permission. Now there’s facial recognition technology and location data . . . creepy.” He shoves in another guacamole-covered chip. “Sanctioned stalking.”
“And sanctioned bragging. Sanctioned bullying.” Stephie nods at me, her blue eyes bright and compassionate.
“You really are in a position to take a stand here, Mockingjay. Go all hashtag privacy rights on their asses.” I blow a frustrated breath into my bangs. “I’m not a poster girl, guys. I’m definitely not a revolutionary. I’m just trying to clear my name. Get Zeff off my back and prove to my friends that it wasn’t me.”
Kiara says, “If they’re your friends, shouldn’t they just
believe
you?”
It’s a fair question, one I’ve considered. I know Cole believes me, but Griff? There’s still a shadow of doubt in her eyes, and how could there not be? She’s splitting time between me and Ellie, caught in the middle. And Ellie’s back to pretending I don’t exist.
“My friends are—”
“Who wants bundts?” Jayla sings her way in through the front door, Bundt Heads box in hand. I swear she’s reading 284
Mom’s parenting magazine articles on how to relate to your ornery teen and her friends. She should’ve checked the freezer—we’ve still got a few dozen left over from the
“you’re not on the list” prank meeting.
I smile at her with gritted teeth. “I thought you were busy promising to stay at the mall and far, far away?”
“Whoa. You’re . . . Ohmygod. The . . . Dangers . . .
Aren’t you . . .” Kiara’s hyperventilating, and the guys are about three seconds from full-scale fanboy meltdown, all of them tripping over their sneakers and wheels to help Jayla with the that box.
Before someone loses an eye, I stand and take the box from my sister, set it on the coffee table.
“This is top-secret, superclassified, doesn’t-leave-this-room-or-I-kill-you information.” I scrutinize each (e)VIll
member, meeting their eyes in turn. “Jayla Heart is my sister.”
Kiara still can’t breathe, and the boys are practically squealing. It’s a common reaction from those who haven’t bought into the tabloid smears, but the show never gets any less barfy for me.
Still, Jayla seems touched. For all her marriage proposals and Heartthrobs fan page likes, Angelica Darling is mostly a joke. She acts all cool and bubbly, all
the show must
go on,
but she
has
to know how people see her—the tabloid 285
version. The Angelica version. That’s who she is in their eyes, not even a real person.
I look at her now, her eyes misty, her smile almost shy, and my heart hurts.
Ash says, “Miss Heart. I truly apologize for the interruption at the pep rally. I hope the exercising of our First Amendment rights didn’t upset you.”
Jayla laughs. “Dude, not a problem. You guys rocked out there! I’m just sorry some jackhole sent pics to the tabloids—I hope your parents aren’t pissed.” Ash beams. “They don’t even know about it,” he says.
“As long as they don’t check the secret cache under my SETI server . . .”
Stephie rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell people the location of your secret cache, dumbass.”
While (e)VIll continues with the being-enamored-with-Jayla portion of our meeting, my Mars Investigations team arrives, Spike in tow. He spazzes when he sees Night, and the two of them crash down the basement stairs in a blur, like,
Come on!
Let’s go do something naughty while the people aren’t watching!
Cole’s got a folder—sorry, a
dossier
—full of printouts, photos Franklin enlarged on the school printer. Before he shares the details, he looks cautiously at Asher, waiting for my signal.
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“Asher,” I say. “Tens. Roman. Stephie. Kiara. What I’m about to share is, like the identity of my sister, highly classified. My friends and I are working undercover to investigate the scandal. If you’re not interested, I understand, and you can leave now, no hard feelings. On the other hand, if you want in, you got it. Full security clearance.” I scan the ragtag (e)VIll members assembled in my TV
room. How must I look through their eyes, a girl who until recently never spoke to them? A girl who spent more time making fun of their club, their mission, than she did finding out what they were about? A girl who never bothered to learn one simple thing about any of them—a hobby, a favorite book, how they spend their weekends?
Who am I to them? To anyone?
Labels float in the air before my eyes, angry black font on torn white paper.
Goth. Gamer. Ashamed sister. Bitch. Zombie freak. Bad friend.
Loner. Slut. Narc. Slarc.
“Dude. Are you serious?” Ash pumps his fists in the air, like,
Rock on!
“I speak for everyone when I say, uh, yeah!
We live for this stuff. And I’m not leaving my future wife out to dry.”
Franklin says, “Congratulations on your engagement.” Cole and Griff simultaneously raise their eyebrows.
“Confidentiality is a given with us,” Stephie says. “I 287
don’t even let my parents film the swim team meets. None of us have Face-frack or Insta-sham or any of that crap.”
“Only my nana,” Kiara says, and everyone laughs, and minutes later, we’re huddled around the coffee table, bundts and corn chips everywhere, looking at a spread of party photos that just yesterday would’ve mortified me.
There’s something about a real-life joint mission, a shared burden that lessens the sting in a way that all those hours surviving zombie attacks with my online gamer crew never has.
“After all the bloody cross-checking,” Griffin says, fake accent cutting in and out, “I’ve determined that our mystery wing wearer is one of five girls. Olivia, obviously—best guess. Her friends, Haley and Quinn. Farrah, the zombie girl who was—according to the vampires—making out with all of them. And Clarice, president of SASA. John had wings for a while, but they were silver, and despite his eagerness to go all scandal, I don’t think he’s interested in 420 in a sexual or drug hookup way.”
“Thanks for the analysis, Agent Colanzi.” I look over the photos again, some of them circled in Sharpie where the girls appear with pink sparkly wings. “Guess they had a sale at the fairy store.”
Kiara lines them all up, poring over each one with stern concentration.
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“I’m telling you, Olivia makes sense,” Griff says. “She’s majorly crushing on Cole, and she’s been giving you shit hard-core ever since this happened.”
“She also told Zeff I started the Juicy page myself,” I say.
“No.” Cole shakes his head. “She’s acting crazy, but before all this, Olivia was really quiet and sweet. She’s pissed, but I don’t think she’d go to all this trouble just to out me and Lucy. Plus, that picture of her? Her dad freaked.”
“Maybe it’s a cover,” Griff says. “It’s not like any of us talked to the dad. Right?”
“Despite her atrocious accent,” Franklin says, “Griffin has an excellent point.”
She beams. “Thank you, Franklin.”
“Well, it’s not zombie girl,” I say. “Cole and I saw her in the bathroom with one of the vamps at the same time our fairy would’ve been in the closet with 420.”
“You guys. It’s
her
.” Jayla, who’d been quietly snarfing bundts until this moment, points to a picture of Clarice.
“Wait. She’s right,” Ash says.
“Dude.” Tens shoves Asher’s wheelchair. “You didn’t even see who Jayla was pointing at. You’re just in love with her.”
“
You’re
in love with her.” Asher’s face is the color of Jay’s fuchsia tank top.
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“Jayla Heart? I’m
totally
in love with her,” Kiara says with a playful smile, “and I say she’s right, too.”
“You
guys
. Clarice?” I grab the picture for a closer look.
Clarice is bent over the recycle bin, dropping bottles in by the fistful. There’s a clear shot of the wings. Pink, sparkly.
“No way. She’s so, like,
proper
.” Jayla points to the photo in my hands. “Look at the wings.
See how the top edge is scalloped? Three scoops there. Most of the others only have two.” On the table, she pushes aside shots of Haley, Olivia, and zombie girl, all with two scoops.
She grabs a picture of Quinn. “This one has three scoops, but only the tops of her wings are sparkled.” She points to Clarice again. “The sparkles on the bottom set these apart.
Now, look at the picture of the wings in Cole’s room.” She shuffles through the stack and locates it, holding the two photos side by side. “Same wings. It’s totally her.” I take a closer look. As much as it pains me to say this, my sister’s right.
“Clarice is a closet stoner?” Cole scratches his head.
“Really didn’t see that coming.”
“She’s legit,” I say. “I’ve sat through her ‘just say no’
lectures—no way is she into that stuff.” Franklin taps a pen against his chin, leaving a blue smudge. “If that’s true, what on earth were those two doing hiding out in the—oh.
Oh
!” His eyes go wide.
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“You think they were hooking up?” I ask.
Jayla snorts. “Hiding out in a closet? You can bet they weren’t doing an intervention.”
Clarice and 420? That girl’s whole raison d’être is to bust him. She’s tried to convince Zeff to get a search warrant for his locker, filled his backpack with pamphlets, scowled and huffed at his constant cannabis cloud. That’s just what the president of Students Against Substance Abuse does. And 420 . . . well, he’s 420. He’d be the president of Students All
About
Substance Abuse if being president of something wasn’t so mentally taxing.
“Lucy. You thinking what I’m thinking?” Jayla’s eyebrows wiggle. “Season three, episode eleven?”
“Ohmygod . . . Barista Boy!”
Angelica had this crazy crush on her barista, but she couldn’t let her fiancé know, and the barista always gave Angelica decaf instead of regular because she was so high-strung and bitchy to the baristas, and they’d always make fun of Lady Wiggles, Angelica’s wallet-sized dog.
But one night she got there just as the dude was closing up, and he made the coffee without charging her because he’d already closed out the register. She was all appreciative—cue the witty banter—and in the very next frame, Lady Wiggles nosed her way into the supply closet to reveal Angelica and Barista Boy getting it on, complete with all 291
the half-caff, extrafoam, extrahot, triple-shot innuendos you’d expect.
“Lucy?” Roman asks.
“Mocha what? What?” I blink back to reality. TV room.
(e)VIll and Cole, Griff and Jay, the guilty-looking dog duo who probably broke something downstairs, all of us crowded around the table, everyone looking at me.
“I asked if you think they took the pictures,” Roman says.