But where were the supplies coming from? The supply room was empty.
“She’s hiding them somewhere,” said Mr. R. “and only giving stuff out to her bootlickers, like Brown. You know she hates you.”
I didn’t stay to listen. I knew where to look.
The door was locked, of course, and the shade pulled on the window. I tried to look under the door. Nothing.
Then I got lucky.
American History is my last class. Mrs. Reyes was showing us posters from WWI with the projector, the one I’d seen Brown with, not Jeannie’s. Then the classroom phone rang.
Mrs. Reyes listened and sucked in her breath. “I’ll be right there,” she said. Then she called the office. “I need a sub immediately.”
She grabbed her purse and ran out of the room, looking bad. Everybody was talking, wondering what happened.
A few minutes later, this dude walked in. I had seen him around school, but I didn’t really know what his job was. Like an aide or custodian or something I think. He was pretty young.
“Chill out, chill out,” he said, “or I’ll make you put your heads down on your desks until the bell rings.”
Somebody swore at him, but the guy just laughed.
“What happened?” everybody wanted to know.
The guy shrugged and said he thought it was Mrs. Reyes’s kid’s day care that called.
I was staring at the poster still projected on the screen when it came to me.
As the bell rang and everyone ran out, I went up to the guy.
“Umm, you know, Mrs. Reyes asked me to take the projector cart back to the room,” I said, wide-eyed.
“Uh, okay,” he said.
“But I need, like, a key for it. Mrs. Reyes probably took hers, but do you … ?”
“Oh, yeah, right. Uh, here,” he handed me his ID lanyard and keys. “Should just be one of those keys. Hurry up, I want to get going.”
I grabbed everything before he could think too hard about it and zoomed down the hall with the cart. The fourth key worked in the door, and I busted in and slammed the door closed.
I shoved the cart to the side and looked around quickly. Boxes of paper sitting on one of those wood platforms, two boxes of markers, two more carts with computers and projectors. Boxes of toilet paper, staples, pencils …
I heard someone in the hall. I ducked behind a box in the corner as the door opened. Two people were talking. Mrs. West and someone I didn’t know.
“We really don’t need this many projectors,” Mrs. West said.
“I’ll sell one for you if you give me 10 percent,” laughed the man who was with her.
They took some stuff and left.
SEVEN
Now I knew it was true. There were plenty of supplies, but Mrs. West wasn’t letting a lot of teachers have them, especially the teachers I liked. That made me mad. I wanted a way to call Mrs. West out.
I remembered how mad I was when Shakira dissed me in the “roses and raspberries” part of the school newspaper. I don’t know why, but a raspberry is a bad thing or something.
Anyway, it’s the only part of the paper most kids read and sometimes there are fights because of what people say. You can only use people’s initials and Jeannie won’t print everything people write, but it’s not hard to figure out.
I thought I could write, “A big ol’ raspberry to the wicked witch of the you-know-where who’s hiding everything we need to learn.” Then she’d be all freaked out someone knew.
I went to Jeannie’s room where the box was for “roses and raspberries.” Jeannie wasn’t there, but Aviante was on the computer. He’s the editor. He’s kind of cute, and someone said he liked me last year. I needed help to write it funny so I started to tell him about it.
“Whoa, whoa, hang on,” he said, tipping back in his chair. “This sounds bigger than some little nah-nah boo-boo. Destiny, you should write an article about this, and it just happens I’ve got space in next week’s edition.”
He kept bugging me and flirting with me until I sat down at the computer. I wrote it with Aviante telling me to put in stuff like “this intrepid reporter” and “while undercover.”
We were laughing like crazy.
“But, Aviante, doesn’t Jeannie read everything before the paper comes out since she’s the advisor?” I asked. “She’s not gonna let this be in.”
“We-ell, I was just putting the finishing touches on it after she approved it, but your story is too good to miss,” he said, winking at me. “It’ll be in there.”
“Won’t she get in trouble?” I asked, worried all of a sudden.
“Nah, I’ll take the blame. Besides, journalistic freedom is a protected right,” he said in a news guy voice. We busted out laughing again.
EIGHT
I still wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but it was like a dare from Aviante so I went along with it. He didn’t put my name on the article. And he swore the Supreme Court or something said no one could get in trouble because of a newspaper.
He was wrong.
The paper came out on Tuesday. We found out on Thursday that Jeannie had been transferred to another school. And then on Friday the reporter came.
Mr. R grabbed me in the hall and marched me to his room. Aviante and some woman I didn’t know were there.
“Sorry, D, Robinson put the screws to me and I squealed. Besides, this could be really big, just like I thought,” Aviante said.
Mr. R pulled up a chair for me. “Destiny, this is Monique Atwater, a reporter from the Washington City Paper. She’s been investigating money and supply mismanagement and general crappiness by administrators in the DC public schools.”
“You got a hold of a great story for my cover article, especially with your use of the school newspaper,” Monique purred. Her nails were so ill I couldn’t stop looking at them.
I opened my mouth.
Mr. R jumped in. “You owe it to Ms. Jeannie for going behind her back with the paper.”
So I told Monique everything.
And that’s why Harmon Holt picked me for this internship job. I guess.
NINE
I’m kind of suspicious of guys.
Probably because my mom is pretty bitter after getting dumped with no child support by my dad and Darius’s dad. I don’t remember my dad, but I do remember Darnell before he disappeared. I have a picture of him that Darius and me look at sometimes, but we don’t let Mom see.
Mom’s always said she’d kill me if I turned up pregnant. I’ve had boyfriends, nothing serious. But when I fell, I fell hard.
I first met Chaz on the sidewalk. I was looking for the address of the building for my job and trying to walk in Denise’s shoes. I walked right into him.
“Hey,” he said, grabbing me so I didn’t fall over.
“Sorry …” I said, staring up at him. He was so fine. I thought, What a good start to the day. It made me just a tiny bit less nervous to look at a cute guy and forget everything for a minute.
I just wanted to look at him more, so I said, “Do you know where this address is?”
He looked at my paper and laughed. “You must be Destiny. I’m Chaz.”
He held out his hand. Feeling like I was dreaming, I put my hand in his, forgetting how to do a confident handshake like Ms. Williams had taught me. I just wanted to hold his hand.
He pulled his hand away gently and laughed again. “We’re right here, c’mon.”
As I followed him into a building, I thought, he’s so hot! I’ve gotta find out how old he is, if he has a girlfriend, and go to the bathroom to check out my butt in this suit. And I am wearing Mom’s boots tomorrow, for sure. Maybe I still had no idea what I was doing here for this internship thing, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I tried to pay attention to what Chaz was saying as he showed me around the office. He introduced me to three other people and gave me an ID to get into the building. But he was so cute, it was really distracting. Then I realized I had to come back to ear
th.
“Umm, I’m just wondering if you can tell me what time you want me to be here … and when I’ll be finished,” I said.
I felt stupid asking right away, but Mom had made me promise. She had found a free summer Bible camp for Darius, but it was only mornings.
Chaz raised his eyebrows. “Why, do you have another job, Destiny? You know this internship pays really well, right?”
I squirmed. I didn’t want to get into my family problems with him. My first feeling of relaxation left me. We might both be black, but I bet he didn’t grow up worrying about money. Not with a billionaire stepdad.
“No, I just … my mom wanted to know,” I muttered.
“Well, it will depend on what we’re working on. As a reporter, you already know that you have to be ready to go when a story comes. So there might be some nights when we’re out later.”
He turned on a computer and logged in.
“If she’s worried about you taking the bus late, I can always give you a ride home,” he said without turning around.
Now I was really feeling like a little kid. But I also loved that he was talking about us doing lots of stuff, being out together.
I shrugged off my worries about Darius. It would work out. Like Denise said, it was my mom’s problem. Darius was her kid, not mine.
TEN
I’m not stupid. I tried to prepare for this job, just like Ms. Williams suggested. It still seemed weird that I was chosen when there are so many eager-beaver overachievers at my school. Even my friends couldn’t believe I got picked. But it seemed like a good deal with no catch, so I thought I should make some effort.
I looked up Polichat online a little at school. It was kind of boring. And obviously I wasn’t actually a reporter for the school newspaper—I just wrote that one article, and Aviante helped with it. I didn’t usually read newspapers and that kind of stuff. So I didn’t really know anything about being a reporter. But it just seemed like asking people questions and snooping. I can do that, right? Right, I told myself to push away nervous feelings.
I didn’t really know what I wanted to do after graduation. Denise makes good money as a flight attendant, and she gets to travel everywhere. But she says the job can be hard when people are mean or she flies overnight. And boring a lot of the time too.
Sometimes I did like to write, especially when Jeannie assigned stories. But my favorite subjects in school were choir and accounting. Accounting was kind of an easy class, but I like money, even fake money. I liked adding it up and seeing how much there is. It made me feel like when I’m grown, I won’t have to worry about money all the time like my mom. I was going to be a senior next year, so I probably should have been thinking about that stuff.
Within minutes of being in the office with Chaz, I was focused less on his hot body and more on panicking and trying to hide it. It was like he and the three other people in the office were speaking a foreign language when they were talking about their jobs.
I should have read a lot more or asked Bosley more questions. Now I felt like I had to BS. Or maybe it was okay I didn’t know any of this stuff. I mean, I am just a high school kid.
I decided to just listen a lot. There was another girl—Maya, I think Chaz said. Maybe I could ask her later about things. I didn’t want to look dumb again in front of Chaz.
“We’ve got a new project we’re all excited about,” Chaz was saying. “You know Jeff Johnson?”
I hesitated. Was I supposed to?
Chaz smiled. “It’s okay. He’s a, a …”
“A tool,” Maya said sourly.
“I believe he calls himself a searchlight for truth,” one of the other guys laughed.
“Wha-aaat?” I couldn’t help saying.
“Exactly,” said Maya. “Basically, he secretly videotapes people and tries to make them look bad to prove that his pathetic beliefs are right.”
“Like, he’s looking in their windows?” I asked, confused. Denise had an ex-boyfriend who was always trying to look in her windows after they broke up. Then she got a restraining order. Scary stuff.
“No, no,” said Chaz, giving Maya a look. “He interviews them. I mean, he’s usually pretending to be someone else, not a reporter, but he’s just talking to them and videotaping what really happens.”
“And then he takes that videotape and edits it. He switches stuff around and cuts things out to make a totally new reality. He’s a con man, not a journalist,” Maya countered.
“Well, not this time,” said Chaz, turning back to a computer again. “He gave us the raw tape, and it looks pretty bad for the mayor.”
Can you see why I was confused?
“Here,” Chaz said to me. “Why don’t you watch the video for yourself.”
ELEVEN
Chaz left to make phone calls, and the other guys ducked back behind the little walls around their desks. Maya turned to her computer.
“Umm, who’s this video about?” I asked her softly.
“The mayor’s son,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s working on his dad’s campaign, and Johnson asked him about voter fraud. Just watch, you’ll see.”
Voter fraud? I didn’t even know what that meant.
You couldn’t see Jeff Johnson in the video, of course, since he was making it. But you could see the other guy—the mayor’s son, I guess—really good for most of the video.
“I’m scared,” said JJ (as I was calling him in my head). “I don’t want us to lose. I’ve got some names of people that are, uh, deceased and whose voter registrations I can use.”
“Oh, wow,” said the mayor’s son. “Dude, you know I need to tell you that you should just focus on getting out the vote.”
“No disrespect to your dad, man, but what if it’s just not enough? I’ve got utility bills so I’m golden,” said JJ.
“Well, in that case,” said the mayor’s son, “I think my dad would be very interested in these extra votes. It’s gonna be a close election, and he needs all the help he can get. In fact, we were just talking about something like this last night.”
Maya snorted. I jumped. I hadn’t realized she was watching over my shoulder.
“He’s just such an idiot,” she said.
Okay, now or never, I thought. I don’t see how I can fake this one.
“Umm, I’m kind of confused,” I said. “What does that Johnson guy want to do?”
“He doesn’t actually want to do anything he’s saying. All he wants is to get Billy—that’s the mayor’s son—and the mayor to look like they’re willing to commit voter fraud,” said Maya.
I must have still looked stupid because she sighed.
“Johnson is saying he can go to lots of polling places with the names and utility bills of dead people, pretend to be the dead people, and vote for the mayor. That’s illegal. And Baby Boy Billy agreed to it. And said his dad would. That’s why Chaz and Johnson think it’s a gold mine,” Maya explained.
I frowned. I got it now, but it still didn’t make sense in a basic way.
I watched the rest of the video. Just a little bit more talking about how they could vote for dead people.
I watched it again, looking carefully at Billy’s face. He seemed so relaxed. Was JJ pretending to be a friend of his? He couldn’t be so dumb as to just start talking about this with any random guy, right?
I was wondering where JJ had the camera hidden. Somewhere on his head, I thought, since he got Billy’s face straight on. What did this freaky tiny camera look like that Billy wouldn’t notice?
I was going to ask Maya what she thought when Chaz strolled over and leaned against the wall.
“Pretty awesome, huh?” he said. “It’ll definitely affect the outcome of the election once we break this story. We’re sitting on it for the moment while we dig for more.”
“You mean, you’re letting Johnson decide when would be the best time to break this story,” said Maya.
Chaz seemed like he was ignoring her. “As you can see, Destiny, we’re
still a small operation. We’re the newest part of Chatter, and I personally am eager to prove ourselves. Johnson is a valuable source—he could have taken this video anywhere else.”
Maya rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer.
“Later on I’m heading out to the mayor’s press conference,” said Chaz. “I thought you might want to come along. I was thinking that this internship would be a lot of shadowing and doing a little bit of reporting yourself. But none of that getting coffee crap.”
He smiled at me and I melted.
TWELVE
Then he went back to his desk. Maya was still facing her computer. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing right now. I mean, it’s not like I can’t find fun stuff to do on the Internet. And I definitely know how to look busy.
But … I really didn’t want to screw this job up. I might not be exactly what Harmon Holt thought I was (some super reporter girl), but I did want something more out of life than my mom got. And this seemed like as good a way to try to get it as any. Everyone kept telling me it was so great, so maybe I really needed to step up.
The video was frozen on the computer screen. I started it over. Just looking at something over and over can help me get it. That’s what I do with schoolwork.
“Could you use earphones?” Maya asked, sounding grumpy. “I’ve already watched that five times, and I’m sick of Johnson’s voice.”
“Sorry,” I murmured. I paused the video and pulled my earbuds out of my purse.
As I watched again, I wrote down my questions.
Who is JJ?
Who was he pretending to be?
Where was the camera?
Was Billy always so stupid?
Did they do anything with the plan or just talk about it?
Would the plan work?
Had the mayor done this kind of stuff before?
The Campaign Page 2
