by Rob Buyea
It wasn’t just me not operating like normal. Lake View Middle wasn’t the same, either. It used to be noisier, with more shouting and craziness—in the halls, especially. But lately the halls were full of whispers and stares.
“What’s going on with everyone?” I asked the Recruits at lunch. “I don’t remember it being like this.”
“You mean all the whispering and staring?” Trevor said.
“Yeah.”
“It’s me,” Gavin mumbled. “Everyone is whispering about me…and my mom,” he added.
I wanted to help, but my brain wasn’t working fast enough. I didn’t know what to do.
“It’ll stop soon,” Randi said. “After your mom is set free.”
“Hang in there, dude,” Mark encouraged. “It’s just going to take a little time, that’s all.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Natalie countered.
She had our attention.
“This nonsense in school doesn’t have to last,” she said. “Not if we give everyone something else to talk about.”
Natalie had something up her sleeve. But what?
The bell rang, and the cafeteria burst into a sea of bodies pushing toward the exit. “What do you mean?” Randi asked, yelling above the noise.
“Just what I said,” Natalie replied. “You’ll see.” She got up from our table and marched off to her next class. Sure enough, we found out exactly what she meant the next day.
Natalie Kurtsman gave our school something else to whisper about. Something I’d started and had forgotten all about.
I didn’t get many of the details, except that Chris got a more severe punishment than Brian, but I didn’t care. All I knew was that Brian started coming to my basketball practices and helping out every afternoon, earning his community service hours—and it was great. Brian had been a good player back in high school, but he was an even better volunteer coach. He was everything Coach Holmes wasn’t, starting with fair. Even though I was his brother and Mark was my best buddy, he pushed us just as hard as the rest. The only favor he did us was give us a ride home after practice.
It was when we were leaving the gym that I spotted Natalie down the hall. It was late for her to still be hanging around. Usually we never saw anyone after practice. What was she doing? I stopped and watched her.
“Dude, are you coming?” Mark said. He and Brian were standing at the exit doors, waiting for me.
I glanced back at Natalie. She had one of those boxes the printer paper comes in, and she was shoving it across the floor with one foot. It must’ve been filled and heavy.
“What’s she up to now?” Mark said, suddenly standing next to me. He’d come over to check out what I was staring at.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s go, fellas,” Brian called.
“C’mon, dude,” Mark said. “We’ll find out tomorrow.”
“You guys go on. There’s something I’ve got to do,” I said. “I’ll call Mom for a ride later.”
“Whatever,” Brian said.
Mark caught my arm. “No way! You like her, don’tcha?” he squawked.
“What? No! Shut up, you moron,” I scoffed, playing it cool. Then I turned and quickly started down the hall, taking long strides so I could get away from Mark before he made any other stupid comments.
Natalie was all the way at the other end. She had her back to me, so she didn’t see me coming, and I guess she didn’t hear me, either.
“What’re you doing,” I said when I got close to her.
“Ahh!” she screamed, tripping over her box and falling backward. Luckily, I was there to catch her. She twisted around in my arms and glared at me. “You scared me!” she said, punching me in the chest.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” She stared into my eyes. Our bodies and faces had never been this close. I quickly let go and took a step back. “I came to see if you needed help. Do you?”
“You can’t tell anyone,” she said.
“Tell them what?”
“Just promise.”
“Okay. I promise.”
She glanced around, and then she bent down and pulled a single paper from the box. She handed it to me. It was a one-sheet special of the Lake View Times. The headline read: CROOKED COACH, OR BOOSTER CLUB BUST? I scanned the story and saw Coach Holmes’s name. I started reading from the top. When I finished, I looked up.
“Well? What do you think?”
“Natalie, this is some serious stuff.”
“I know. Mrs. Woods said the same thing when I showed her what I’d written.”
“Is it true? I mean, the booster club really hasn’t done much to help our athletic programs, even after all the fund-raising?”
“Of course it’s true,” she exclaimed. “I wouldn’t fabricate a story like that. I’d lose all credibility as a journalist. I’m not saying Coach Holmes is guilty. I’m just raising the question of, where has the money gone?”
“Here’s what I know,” I said. “This story is going to be the talk of the school tomorrow, not Carla Davids.”
She smiled. “Told you I had a plan.”
Natalie was the bravest person I knew. She’d gone toe-to-toe with that lawyer lady in our classroom last year, and now she was going after Holmes. “I’m glad I’m on your side,” I said.
“You’re lucky I like you.”
“Do you?”
Silence. It got awkward real fast. My heart pounded inside my chest. Why did I say that? I was hot all of a sudden. I could feel my armpits sweating. I stared at the floor.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
My eyes widened. Really? I looked at her and smiled. Then I bent down and hoisted her box onto my shoulder, feeling like Popeye after eating his spinach. “Okay. Now what?” I said.
We walked up and down the halls, slipping a copy of her special report through the vents in every locker and underneath every classroom door. This story was going to hit Lake View Middle first thing the next morning. When we’d finished, we returned the empty box to the main office and stuck the last paper inside Mr. Allen’s mailbox.
“I’ve got to go,” Natalie said when we were back in the hall. “My father is waiting for me.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks for helping me,” she said.
I nodded. And then Natalie gave me a smile I hadn’t seen from her before. Or maybe it was her eyes that were different. I didn’t know, but I was feeling something I hadn’t felt before. I didn’t start breathing again until she was out the door.
I opened my locker, and books and papers spilled out on the ground around my feet. I’d only been back a few weeks, and already my locker was a war zone. Between the old work, my makeup work, and current work, there was too much for my deluxe clipboard to hold, but now was not the time to try fixing that. I scooped up the mess and stuffed it back inside. I had one giant pile of everything crammed on the bottom—except for my clipboard. My top shelf was a reserved space for that.
I hung my backpack and jacket and reached up to grab my clipboard, and noticed there was something lying on top of it. It must’ve been slipped through the vent in my locker door and had landed there. I pulled it out. It was a special edition of our newspaper.
I still couldn’t read as fast as I used to, but it didn’t take me long to get through it, and holy smokes! This was the kind of story Grandpa watched on those Law & Order shows.
“What do you think?” a voice behind me asked.
I turned around. It was Natalie. “You talked to all those coaches?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“How did you find out how much money was made at the dance?”
“I didn’t. You did.”
“What?”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
I shook my head.
> “Scott, it was your idea to do an article on the dance and the booster club in the first place. You kept track of all the ticket sales and money earned at the concessions that night. Your calculations couldn’t have been exact, but they were very detailed. I know you; I know they were close. Anyway, after you got hurt, I took over the article. We talked about it.”
“I don’t remember.”
“It’s okay. I never expected it to unravel in such a huge way, but it did.”
I glanced around and saw that everyone else was reading the article, and whispers were flying. Natalie had been right. Gavin’s mom wasn’t the hot topic anymore. It was all about Coach Holmes this morning—and Nicky didn’t like that. I spotted him shoving people out of his way, stomping toward us. I shrank back against my locker. Natalie twisted around when she saw my face.
“Are you the stupid girl behind this?” Nicky growled, holding up the paper.
Natalie stood tall. “I’m not a stupid girl, and yes, I’m the author.”
Nicky dropped the paper. His fingers curled into a fist and he pulled back his arm. I saw it in his eyes. It didn’t matter that Natalie was a girl. He was going to flatten her, and he would’ve if Trevor hadn’t gotten there first.
Seconds before Nicky let his knuckle sandwich fly, Trevor grabbed ahold of his arm and threw him. Nicky’s body bounced off the lockers next to me. He fell to the ground, but he didn’t stay down long. He sprang to his feet and went right back at Trevor. I was ready to see my first fistfight, but Nicky stopped when he saw that Mark was standing there, too.
“Smart choice,” Trevor growled. “You don’t want to do anything stupid. Everyone is watching you now.”
Nicky glanced around and saw that Trevor was right. Everyone was looking at him. “This isn’t over,” he hissed. Then he took off running down the hall.
I watched him until he disappeared. I didn’t want to, but I felt bad for him. I didn’t like his father, but I still wanted to believe there was some good in Nicky. I’d never met anyone that was all bad.
I was about to say something to Natalie and Trevor, when I saw them walk off hand in hand. My eyes popped.
Had I missed that much in school?
“Dude, that was awesome!” Mark cheered, grabbing me around the back of the neck after catching up to me.
“Get off me,” I said, shoving him.
He was laughing. “Seriously, that was awesome. Everyone’s still back there talking about it. You freaking tossed Nicky against those lockers, bro. That was sick.”
I shrugged.
“I thought he was going to come after you, but then he chickened out. I had your back. I was ready.”
“I know.”
Mark danced around, shadowboxing. “So you gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Kurtsman?”
“What’re you talking about? Nothing.”
“Dude, you got in a fight to protect her. Then you walked her to class, holding her hand. But you’re gonna tell me nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lovestruck, bro.”
“Shut up!” I said, shoving him again.
“Lover boy,” he jeered. He skipped ahead of me into his first period, still reliving the story.
He was ready to replay the fight with anybody who’d listen, and he was right, that was all anybody was talking about. Not me. The only thing I could think about was what had just happened with Natalie. I could still feel her hand in mine.
NATALIE KURTSMAN
ASPIRING LAWYER
Kurtsman Law Offices
BRIEF #18
Late January: Fists, Hands, and Interviews
I didn’t need protecting; I’m a strong young woman who can handle herself. But Nicky Holmes wasn’t playing by the rules. He wasn’t interested in a battle of wits and words. He was mere milliseconds away from clobbering me. I’d never been trained on what to do in such a situation. My life flashed before my eyes.
I won’t lie. What Trevor did left me feeling like one of those girls from the movies—not the airhead but the smart one that you root for who ends up with the hunk in the end. Trevor saved me. He took care of the bad guy, and then he took my hand and led me away. His fingers and palm were quite sweaty, but oddly, I didn’t care. I did begin to worry that maybe it was my hand that was sweating. My mind raced and my heart pounded. As we neared my first-period classroom, Trevor gave my hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go.
“I’ll be back to get you after class,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about that jerk.”
“Thanks,” was all I could manage in reply. I had to look away. For the first time in my life, I failed to keep eye contact. Only after I reached my seat did I finally start to breathe normally again—too bad nothing else was normal after that.
The first van pulled up outside our school fifteen minutes into class. It had the letters WGBTV written on the side. A second van with ARDTV showed up right behind it. And a third from BSZTV. When I saw the people with video cameras hopping out, my heart began pounding again. How had they found out? And so quickly?
“Miss Kurtsman, this is first-rate journalism,” Mrs. Woods had told me after previewing my report. “Don’t be surprised if this story catches the attention of people outside Lake View Middle School. Are you ready for that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s my girl.”
Here was my chance. I watched the different men and women as they walked across the parking lot and into our school. And then I waited. It didn’t take long. Mr. Trammel’s phone buzzed, and he paused his lesson to answer it.
“I’ll send her right down,” he said.
I was on my way before he’d even managed to hang up. Books in hand, I walked to the main office, where Mr. Allen stood waiting for me. He met me in the hall and whisked me into his office through the back door. “Natalie, did you contact these reporters?” he asked, not hiding the urgency in his voice.
“No,” I said.
Mr. Allen sighed. He sat on his desk and rubbed his brow. “Well, someone did, and now they’re hoping to interview you. When I first got here this morning, I didn’t see what you had written because I had to finish some other work. I just got off the phone with Mrs. Woods, and she told me to check my mail. Natalie, this is serious. If what you wrote is true, and I have no doubt it is, because it’s you we’re talking about, then the question you raised about Mr. Holmes and the missing money will be investigated.”
“As it should be,” I said.
“Yes. Yes. You’re right.” He slid off his desk and began pacing the room.
“Mr. Allen, relax. I can handle these reporters. You don’t need to worry.”
He stopped and looked at me. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
I understood his concerns, but I wasn’t backing down. It isn’t always easy to do the right thing. Hadn’t we learned that last year? I waited.
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“I’ve already spoken to your mother. She’s fine with you doing the interview, but I’m going to stay with you. You may not need me, but it’ll make me feel better.”
“Okay.”
“You ready?”
I nodded.
He sighed. “Let’s go.”
I followed Mr. Allen out to greet the reporters. They quickly cut to the chase. “We’d like to talk to you about your story,” one of them said. “And if it’s okay with you, Mr. Allen, we’d like to set up in your office.”
“Sure, fine,” he replied.
Back to his office we went. It didn’t take long for the crews to have their lights and cameras situated. I sat in the chair, where they positioned me and placed my hands in my lap. The interview began.
As promised, Mr. Allen stayed wi
th me while the reporters asked their questions. In the beginning they mostly wanted to know about me, who I was and how I’d come upon this information. The fact that Mr. Holmes had already made a name and face for himself on TV by attacking Carla Davids made for an even juicier story; the reporters were eager for my answers. They soaked up what I said. I sat tall and looked proud. I gave confident responses.
I had thought I was in control, but all the lights and attention clouded my vision. The more the reporters swooned over the young, impressive girl—me—the more I lost sight of what was truly important. The moment started to get the best of me, and it’s quite possible I would’ve missed my opportunity had one reporter not asked the right question.
“Natalie, why did you do this? What were you hoping to accomplish?” she asked.
I repeated her question inside my head. Why did I do this? And then the high-and-mighty Natalie disappeared and the real me—the one who knew what mattered—came back.
“Thank you for your question,” I said, “because this isn’t about me. It’s about Carla Davids. Yes, she broke the law by carrying on as an illegal immigrant, but she poses no threat. Carla’s been in our country, working hard and paying taxes, for the past seventeen years. She is a wonderful person, friend, mother, and member of our community who has been unfairly attacked by Mr. Holmes. Well, guess what? When that happens, the first thing you want to do is check the credibility of the source; that’s Lawyering 101. So I did a little digging—and it took only a little—and this story is what emerged.
“I want to remind our viewers that Mr. Holmes is innocent until proven guilty—that’s also Lawyering 101—but more important than that, I want to encourage our community to rally behind Carla Davids. I ask all of you watching: What possible good could come out of deporting Carla and tearing her family apart? The answer is ‘none.’ ”
