The Last Reporter

by Michael Winerip

  “You’re not up to anything, are you, Adam?”

  “Come on, Dad.”

  “Why do I feel like you’re up to something?”

  “Because you’re a dad, Dad; it’s your job to assume I’m up to stuff. It’s OK — I don’t take it personally.” And he jumped out and raised his arm in a wave without looking back.

  Adam had the drill down: drop off his backpack at his locker; make sure he had his notebook, his pen, and the secret list; hurry to the 300 corridor; force himself to slow down and look random (one, two, three, lollygag, four, five, six, lollygag); a final check to ensure he was operating in a Phoebe-free zone; then casually walk over to the locker where the two boys were talking.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” said Adam, holding out his notebook and pen. “I’m just checking to make sure kids got their free iPod downloads from Stub. For the election . . .”

  “Oh, yeah,” said the first boy.

  “Definitely,” said the other, and he pulled his iPod from his pocket and showed it to Adam.

  “Great,” said Adam. “Just checking. Can I get your names . . .”

  He held his breath. He hoped they couldn’t hear his heart pounding. It was so loud, it seemed to have relocated to the middle of his head, between his ears.

  “No problem,” said the first.

  “Sure,” said the other.

  And they gave Adam their names. Spelled them, too.

  “Great,” said Adam. “Just trying to make sure. Checking people on the list.” He pulled the secret list from his back pocket and flapped it in their direction.

  “Cool,” said one.

  “This means you’re voting for Stub next week?” said Adam.

  “Prez Stub,” said one.

  “He’s got great music,” said the other. “Appreciate the download.”

  “Great,” said Adam. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Sure,” said the first boy, and he nodded down the row of lockers. “You can get him, too,” he said, indicating a boy who was kneeling and pulling stuff from his locker.

  “Another satisfied member of the Stub Two-Fifty Club,” said the first boy.

  “Another vote for Stub,” said the second.

  “Right,” said Adam. “Thanks.”

  And Adam got that boy, too.

  The bell was ringing. He had to hurry to homeroom. He couldn’t believe it. He did it. He did it! So much worry. Arguments with Jennifer. Weeks of preparation. Getting the homeroom list from Mrs. Rose. Matching the lists. Yearbooks, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, memorizing photographs. Practicing walk-bys. Weeks of worry.

  And the actual reporting?

  Just a couple of minutes.

  And the key quotes?

  Just seconds.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  He did it.

  He really did it.

  He had to tell Jennifer.

  He couldn’t even be sure anymore: Was he mad at her, or was she mad at him?

  It didn’t matter.

  He had to tell Jennifer.

  He’d nailed it for the front page.

  A couple of times a day, Adam’s mom or dad drove slowly past the house where the kid who stole the bikes lived, looking to see if they saw any sign of Adam’s. This made Adam uncomfortable. “It’s kind of like we’re stalking him,” he said.

  “That’s the idea,” said his mom. “Let them know we know.”

  At dinner they were talking about it, and Adam said now that they knew the kid’s name, he was going to figure out what he looked like, get the kid’s homeroom number, and confront him at school.

  “You think you can track him down?” said his dad.

  “Sure,” said Adam. “I’ve got a list of kids by homeroom. Last year’s yearbook with everyone’s photo is in the school library; just match them up and pay a visit.”

  “Adam,” said his dad, “do you do this a lot?”

  “Dad, you don’t need to know all the details. Just trust me — I’m a trained reporter.”

  “Well, I don’t want you getting in a fight over this,” said his mom. “You can get in trouble at school for something that’s not your fault. That’s why we’re talking to the police.”

  “Well, I think it’s weird to keep driving by his house,” said Adam.

  His parents were quiet. They were looking at each other. Finally his dad said, “Adam’s right. We need to go talk to these people.”

  “Really?” said Adam.

  “After dinner,” said his dad.

  Adam was excited. He’d never seen his father get into a fistfight.

  They parked in front of the house. His dad turned off the van, and Adam wondered if this was a mistake — they might need to make a quick getaway.

  On the other hand, if the kid stole bikes, maybe the kid’s father stole cars, and it was best not to leave it running.

  Their house was nice, as nice as the Canfields’, and the woman who answered the door was dressed up, like Adam’s mom when she got home from work in the city. She held the screen door open while Adam’s dad introduced himself and Adam.

  He said he was sorry to be there, but he had reason to believe that her son had stolen Adam’s bike from their front yard.

  “It couldn’t be my son,” she said. “He wouldn’t do that; he’s not that kind of boy.”

  Adam’s dad said they’d reported the theft to the police, and talked to people at school. “I have a bill for the bike,” he said. “If you’re willing to pay for or return the bike, I’d be happy to tell the police that we’ve worked this out and we wouldn’t press charges.”

  “My son wouldn’t do that,” she repeated. “You’re mistaken.”

  “Look, I know he’s been in trouble,” said Adam’s dad. “I’m sorry. This is making me very uncomfortable. But it must be very hard living in a house with someone you can’t trust. It must be a terrible thing to know your child’s a liar.”

  And then suddenly, a kid started yelling out an upstairs bedroom window. “Leave my mother alone!” he screamed. “Stop it! And stop driving by our house! Leave us the hell alone!”

  “Go back inside and shut the window!” his mother called up to him. “You’re putting on a show for the whole neighborhood.”

  When she turned back to Adam’s dad, she looked frightened.

  Mr. Canfield handed the woman a business card and a copy of the bill, thanked her, and then he and Adam walked back down the path to the van.

  Adam was thinking, having your bike stolen was kind of bad, but having people know you’re a liar and thief seemed miserable.

  Adam watched his dad put the key in the ignition. He noticed that his father’s hand was shaking. He started to say something but didn’t. Adam knew how nervous he got when he was reporting a story and had to accuse someone of something bad.

  He hadn’t realized it was the same for grown-ups.

  Adam had become so good at avoiding Jennifer, he’d forgotten how to find her. She wasn’t in any of her old places in the hallway between classes or in the cafeteria during lunch, and he felt a pang of . . . well . . . He didn’t want to dwell on it, but serious missingness. And not just because he was dying to tell her about nailing the Stub Keenan story. It was a bigger kind of missingness, a more general kind of missingness, the kind of missingness that he felt in his chest, an achy kind of missingness. What was happening to him? He didn’t know or care; he just needed to get back to normal.

  He was worn out by being outraged just because Jennifer and that Ameche brother were — who knew what they were? Special buddy-buds, no doubt, or worse.

  For the first time, he had to admit to himself that maybe they were something smoochy.

  So be it. So what, right? He didn’t have the energy to keep up the outrage, day in and day out, morning, noon, and night, outrage, outrage, outrage. It was exhausting. Besides, as he’d learned from Ask Phoebe — and he knew this was really a bad sign, quoting Ask Phoebe — he had messed up big time with Jennifer.

  He
only had himself to blame.

  The truth was, this Ameche brother had shown himself to be a good Ameche, a decent Ameche, an Ameche who’d done everything aboveboard, fair and square. For that matter, it was Mrs. Ameche who was keeping any hopes for the Slash alive almost single-handedly.

  So Adam was done with all this nonsense. What was Ask Phoebe’s advice? Enjoy it for what it is.

  He wasn’t exactly sure what it is, was, or would be, but he knew he needed to go back to the way it had been, back to the time when he and Jennifer weren’t only official coeditors.

  He couldn’t stand being just official coeditors anymore.

  He needed it to be greater than official coeditors, even if it was less than something smoochy.

  It was like one of those equations in math class:

  Or maybe, less than or equal to something smoochy?

  He knew he would see her in science, since they were in the same class, but she wasn’t there either. Then he realized that Jennifer must be absent, which actually calmed him down. It was nothing personal. After class, he asked one of her friends if she was sick.

  “She didn’t tell you?” said the friend. “She’s got seat tryouts for Blue Lake, the music camp she’s going to this summer. In Michigan.”

  Did Adam know that she was going away? He couldn’t remember.

  “I guess maybe I forgot,” he said.

  He would have gone straight home. Clubs and sports were over for the year. But the baseball team was having an end-of-the-season pizza party. It was kind of fun. The coaches gave each player a joke award. Adam won Most Likely to Turn Up Without Several Pieces of Equipment.

  When he got home, he did something he hadn’t done in a long time. He sat down at the computer and messaged Jennifer.

  She was there.

  He asked how she’d done at the cello tryouts.

  Who knows? she wrote. Gave it my best.

  He was trying to think what to say next when she messaged again.

  Nice to hear from you, she wrote.

  Really, he wrote back. He meant really, like really true, but it must have come across as really? because she wrote back:

  Yes. I’ve been missing you.

  Oh, my God, that sounded great, but then he reread it and couldn’t be sure. Did she mean I’ve been missing you in a lovey-dovey way? Or did she mean I’ve been missing you in an I keep not bumping into you way?

  This was torture. Why did every word need to have seventeen meanings? Why wasn’t English one of those good languages where each word was allowed just one single meaning and had to stick to it? They needed to talk in person. There was too much going on below the surface. Time was running out, and they had so much to go over — the Stub Keenan story, visiting Mrs. Gross about the state test, raising money for the Slash.

  She must have read his mind.

  Want to come over and work? she wrote.

  Twins there? he wrote.

  Sorry, she answered. Yes.

  Jennifer’s twin sisters were in third grade and were every bit as annoying as Phoebe. They wouldn’t leave him alone when he went over her house: “Adam, will you be my boyfwiend?” “Adam, you look weally diesel in that shiwt.”

  Can you come here? he wrote.

  Jennifer’s mom pulled up in the Astro van. When Adam opened the screen door, one of the twins leaned out the van’s sliding door, spread her arms wide toward him, and hollered, “Mawee me, baby, and we’ll wide off into the sunset.”

  Adam gave her a weak wave; it really wasn’t that bad being an only child.

  Jennifer looked good. Really good. She had her hair in one of her frizzy ponytails — tight around her head and then fanning out wide in back. She was wearing a reddish sundress with skinny straps.

  He’d never noticed what smooth curvy shoulders Jennifer had.

  “You’re dressed up,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I had to, for cello tryouts. I was too lazy —”

  “No, no, it’s OK,” he said. “It doesn’t look bad or anything.”

  He asked if she wanted some food. “My mom left carrots and celery sticks and ranch dressing.”

  “Got any Cheez Doodles?” she asked.

  “Yeah!” said Adam. “I’ll get them from the garage.”

  “Meet you downstairs,” she said, and headed to the computer in the family room.

  Adam was amazed. In no time, it felt like they were back to normal. Maybe slightly better than normal. Adam couldn’t exactly explain it, but it felt a little exciting to be with Jennifer now.

  She pulled out a legal pad that had stories listed for the June issue — if they ever raised the money for a June issue.

  “I nailed the Stub Keenan story,” said Adam.

  “No,” she said. “Really? Now, that’s amazing.” And they clicked Cheez Doodles, like they were making a champagne toast. “I assumed we weren’t going to get it,” she said. “I was ready to cross it off my list.”

  “Your source was right,” said Adam. “The list is right, too.”

  “I knew it was right,” said Jennifer. “The source was one-hundred percent reliable. I just didn’t think it was gettable. Especially after we talked about it. You had me convinced we’d never get it into print.”

  “I had me convinced, too,” said Adam. “To be honest, it’s a little hard for me to believe.” He told her the whole story — from matching up the lists, to studying the photos, to Phoebe almost ruining everything, to the three boys giving him their names.

  “And they didn’t mind talking to a reporter from the Slash?” Jennifer asked.

  Adam didn’t say anything.

  “You know, you really are an amazing reporter,” Jennifer said. “It’s like you have special powers to get people to talk.”

  Adam was quiet; the only sound was him munching another Cheez Doodle. Then he said, “I didn’t actually tell them I was from the Slash.”

  Jennifer made a face, started to say something, stopped. She got up and began pacing. “You didn’t lie to these kids, did you, Adam?”

  “No,” he said. “No!”

  “So how exactly —”

  “I told the truth,” said Adam. “I said I was checking to make sure they got their free iPod downloads from Stub.”

  “So they didn’t know they were talking to a reporter?”

  Adam shrugged.

  “So they thought . . .”

  “I don’t know what they thought,” said Adam. “I was telling the truth. I was checking. They saw my notebook and pen and they never asked what my name was or why I wanted to know. And if they had, I would have told them.”

  “You would have said Adam Canfield of the Slash?”

  “Absolutely,” said Adam.

  “If they asked . . .”

  “Yes,” said Adam. “I would have said I was a reporter with the Slash.”

  Jennifer nodded. “OK,” she said. “OK . . . I think it’s OK. . . . We didn’t lie. . . . It’s an important story, buying an election. I’ll go online, check some journalism websites. See if there’s any ethics stuff on this. Probably it would be good to talk to a grown-up, too.”

  Jennifer mentioned Mrs. Quigley, the principal, whom they’d have to interview about this anyway. Adam thought of Erik Forrest, the world-famous journalist he’d written about in the last issue of the Slash. “I have to e-mail him one more time,” said Adam. “Make sure there’s nothing new on the state investigation of the Bolands.”

  “The Bolands are on my list, too,” said Jennifer. “We have to get a comment from the Bolands.”

  Adam shook his head. “No way,” he said. “I’m not going back to see that woman again. One visit to Mrs. Boland’s office was enough for me. You can send Phoebe.”

  “We don’t have to,” said Jennifer. “The state investigation’s already been in the New York Times.” She held up a printout of the news brief that she’d found online. “I’ll get the e-mail for Mrs. Boland’s assistant from Mrs. Quigley. We’ll tell them we’
re doing a story and ask for a comment. They won’t comment.”

  Adam liked that much better than a personal visit.

  “They’re going to be really surprised when they find out there’s still a Slash,” said Jennifer. “I bet Mrs. Boland turns purple again.”

  “Plenty of people will turn purple,” said Adam. “We have to go see Stub Keenan, get a comment from him about the downloads. That won’t be pleasant.” In Adam’s experience, when you accused an adult of doing something bad, they might yell at you, but they at least seemed to accept the need to be civilized. A kid like Stub might hit you with a chair.

  Jennifer was making a final checklist.

  The school election was next week; they had to see Stub in the next few days. Jennifer said she’d arrange an interview; she had a couple of classes with his campaign manager.

  They needed to go see Mrs. Gross, the fourth-grade teacher, about the state test.

  It turned out Adam wasn’t the only one to get an anonymous envelope in the mail; Jennifer’s was postmarked from Chicago.

  They needed a final meeting in 306 to make sure all stories got filed on time.

  Jennifer said she would call and reserve a date to have the paper printed.

  “We’ll have to get him the five-hundred-dollar deposit,” said Adam.

  “I did that already,” said Jennifer. “I got the money from Don.”

  Don? Who was Don? Adam couldn’t remember — Don. Don! The Ameche brother! That Don. For just a little while, he’d forgotten there was a Don, or more precisely, a Don situation. Everything had seemed so smooth and buttery up until now. Adam had to calm down. He’d promised himself. Half of him already knew this about Don and Jennifer, understood that this was coming, was perfectly clear that he should not be upset about this, that Jennifer was entitled, that it wasn’t his business, that he was going to be mature about this and not let it affect his friendship with Jennifer. He just needed the half of him that understood all this to deliver the message to the other half of him, because right now that second half of him, which apparently was located in his stomach, really hurt.

  He went into his pocket, pulled out his jawbreaker, and took a suck.