Revenge of the Geek

by Piper Banks

  I thought about this. Scarily enough, Sadie was starting to make sense to me.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I got to school early on Tuesday morning and headed straight to The Ampersand office. No one was there, so I dithered for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. I’d hoped I could hand my short story to Candace in person, so that I could express my enthusiasm to her. But I also wanted to make sure she got the story as soon as possible, and I knew that she checked her mail folder in The Ampersand office throughout the day. Finally, I decided it was better to get it into her hands quickly, and then hopefully I’d see her at some point during the day—in between classes, or maybe at lunch—and I’d be able to talk to her then. So I wrote a brief note of explanation, paper clipped it to the short story, and stuck it in Candace’s mailbox.

  Nora wasn’t in lit class that day. I wondered whether she was home sick, and sent her a text message checking up on her. This wasn’t exactly keeping the distance my mother had advocated, but I thought a text message was pretty harmless.

  “Where’s Nora?” Charlie asked when I saw her in physics. The table next to ours, which Nora usually occupied, was empty. Finn wasn’t there either, but I’d already seen him at school that morning—it was hard to miss the tall guy with the Mohawk—and so I figured he was just running late, as usual.

  “I don’t know. I sent her a text earlier, but she never responded,” I said.

  “I hope she’s okay,” Charlie said.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” I said. I hesitated, but then remembered what Sadie had said about having enough self-confidence to trust my friends. “You know, you hurt my feelings yesterday.”

  “I did?” Charlie looked surprised. “When? How?”

  “When you and Nora made plans to meet at Grounded right in front of me and didn’t invite me along, too,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Miranda,” Charlie said. And she really did look sorry, too. “You’re right; that wasn’t very cool. I just . . .” She stopped and looked down at her hands.

  “What?” I asked.

  Charlie gestured for me to lean closer, so that we could talk privately, without Tate Metcalf overhearing.

  “I think I just got carried away that someone else was excited about the idea of Finn and I getting together,” Charlie whispered.

  I sat back. “Charlie!” I said at full volume. “How can you think I wouldn’t be excited about that?”

  “Shhhhh,” Charlie said, making frantic throat-slashing gestures.

  “Sorry,” I said. I leaned back in so I could whisper. “I am completely supportive of you guys getting together. I just don’t think you should play games.”

  “Even if games are what works?” Charlie asked.

  I shrugged. “You already know what I think about that,” I said.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to Nora about it,” Charlie said.

  “Because she’ll just agree with you, no matter what?” I said.

  “Is that what you think of her?” Charlie asked, looking surprised. “That she’ll just go along with whatever I say?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said, shrugging.

  “That’s pretty harsh, Miranda,” Charlie said. She frowned.

  Before I could respond, Finn came in. He was walking oddly, dipping down low into each long step.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m trying out a new walk,” Finn announced. “What do you think? Is it better than my old walk?”

  “It’s finally happened: Finn has lost his mind,” Charlie said.

  “How does Chaddy-boy walk? Wait, let me guess.” Finn let his face slacken into a dumb, glazed expression and slumped down so that his arms were dragging on the ground, baboon style.

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “As if,” she said.

  “I’m Chad. I can walk and scratch myself at the same time,” Finn grunted, demonstrating by scratching his bottom.

  “Wow, you’re so funny,” Charlie said. “Not.”

  Finn straightened up, and loped over to his seat. Finn never sat down like a normal person. Instead, he always threw himself into his seat, long legs sprawled out in front of him. He turned around to face Charlie and me.

  “Hey, Miranda,” he said. “Do you have any secret boyfriends I don’t know about?”

  “No, just the one boyfriend. And he’s not a secret,” I said.

  “Good. That’s good. Because it’s important for friends to be open and honest with one another, don’t you think?” Finn said solemnly.

  “I don’t have a secret boyfriend,” Charlie said. “I just went out on a date. One date does not a boyfriend make.”

  “Did you ask your stepsister if she has any hotties she can set me up with?” Finn asked me, pointedly ignoring Charlie.

  “No. Besides, I don’t know if Hannah is in the hottie business. You sort of undermined that part of her business when you posted that Web site advertising for losers to call her,” I reminded him.

  “Hmmm. Maybe I didn’t think that through well enough,” Finn said. “Of course, I had a hot girlfriend at the time, so I didn’t know I’d be in the market.”

  “Maybe you should try to find someone to go out with who you like for who she is, rather than what she looks like,” I suggested. “Someone you know from school. Someone you can talk and laugh with.”

  Charlie kicked me sharply in the ankle. I yelped in pain.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said. “My foot slipped.”

  Finn gave her a curious look. But just then, the bell rang and Mr. Forrester stood, ending conversation. But as I got my laptop set up, prepared to take notes, I couldn’t help smiling to myself. I thought Finn might finally be catching on.

  As soon as I arrived at The Ampersand office for the weekly after-school meeting, I looked for Candace. She wasn’t in her usual place at the table at the front of the room. I hadn’t seen her all day, and so still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about the short story. Did she have a chance to read it? I wondered. My stomach wriggled with nerves.

  Be fearless, I reminded myself, and I took a few deep breaths to settle my nerves.

  Then, to my surprise, I saw Nora sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting next to her. “Where have you been all day? Did you get my text?”

  “There was something I had to do,” Nora said.

  “So you just cut your classes?” I asked. “They don’t really let you get away with that here. Someone from the main office will call your grandmother.”

  “So? She won’t care,” Nora said.

  She seemed to be in an odd mood. I couldn’t quite place it—was she upset? Distracted?—but then, suddenly, I realized what it was. Nora wouldn’t meet my eyes. In fact, she seemed to be looking just about everywhere except at me. At the whiteboard, where someone had written out a to-do list for Issue One. At Peter Rossi and Coleen Duchene—or, at least, at the back of their heads—who were sitting at the table in front of us, poring over their editorial notes. At Padma, who was hitting the hulking old copier, trying to convince it to spit out her copies.

  What’s going on? I wondered.

  “Nora, is everything okay?” I asked. But then, before she could answer, I heard Candace’s voice. I turned quickly, and saw that she had just walked into the office, Jimmy Torres panting at her heels. Jimmy was clearly infatuated with our editor in chief. I wanted to tell him not to waste his time. Candace was way, way out of Jimmy’s league.

  As I watched, Candace seemed to be gently but firmly trying to get away from Jimmy. Her cool, firm smile was in place, and she was gesturing toward an empty chair, clearly suggesting that he go sit in it. I decided that now was as good a time as any to approach her. Candace might even be grateful to me for giving her a good excuse to get away from Jimmy.

  “Wait, hold on one second,” I said to Nora. I stood, took a deep breath, and headed up to the front of the room, where Candace was now setting her things down on her table. Ji
mmy hadn’t yet taken the hint. He continued to hover nearby.

  “. . . and then I was working on my article, and I thought of this killer idea of adding a sidebar to the article. What do you think?” Jimmy was saying.

  “Hi, Candace,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”

  Candace glanced up, and I thought she looked relieved to see me standing there. “Sure, Miranda. Jimmy, give us a minute, please.”

  Jimmy shot me a resentful glance, but obediently moved back to take the empty seat next to Peter Rossi.

  “What’s up?” Candace asked. She had this way of standing very still when you spoke to her, which made it seem as though all of her attention was focused directly on you. It was both flattering and unnerving.

  Be fearless, I reminded myself.

  “Did you get the short story I put in your mail folder this morning?” I asked.

  “Yes, I did. I was a bit surprised to get it, actually. You’ve never mentioned that you’re interested in writing fiction,” she said.

  That just goes to show why you should have confidence in yourself, I thought. How will anyone ever know what you want if you’re not brave enough to stand up and ask for it?

  “I am really interested in fiction. In fact, I write all the time. Mostly short stories, although over the summer I expanded one of my stories into a novella. And I’d ... well, I’d really love to have one of my stories published in The Ampersand. If you think they’re good enough, I mean,” I said, completely aware that I was babbling, yet completely unable to stop.

  “I’ll keep that in mind. And I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Candace said. She smiled at me and checked her watch. “We should get the meeting started. We have a lot to go over today.” Candace raised her voice to be heard over the din. “Everyone, can you take your seats so we can get to work?”

  I felt like I’d been slapped. My cheeks flaming, I turned and headed back to my seat. What had just happened? Had Candace read my story? If so, she must not have liked it very much, I thought miserably. If she had, she wouldn’t have dismissed me like that.

  I sat next to Nora.

  “What did Candace say?” Nora asked, looking straight at me for the first time.

  “Nothing really,” I said, shrugging helplessly.

  Nora nodded, and suddenly became incredibly interested in examining her nails. But I was too busy reliving what had just happened with Candace to wonder about Nora’s odd behavior.

  Candace held up a hand until everyone had quieted and trained their attention on her. “First off, there have been a few changes in the selection of articles for the first issue. Miranda’s student-athlete profile is going to be bumped to the second issue.”

  Everyone glanced in my direction. My face felt like it was on fire.

  “And second, the fiction piece has been reassigned,” Candace said.

  It was my turn to look around. Tabitha Stone wasn’t there. I wondered how she’d responded to having her piece spiked. Would she stay on the magazine staff or resign in a huff? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Tabitha’s massive ego can’t handle the rejection, I thought.

  “Luckily, we have among us another literary talent who has submitted a story we’re going to use instead. And, I have to tell you, her short story absolutely blew me away,” Candace said. “I can honestly say, this is one of the strongest pieces I’ve ever read. I’m really excited that it’s going into our first issue.”

  I froze. Could she possibly mean . . . Was she talking about . . . Oh, my gosh. Did she mean me? My short story? My heart started to pound so fast and so hard, it felt like it might burst right out of my chest. Why hadn’t she said anything to me about it?

  But then Candace continued. “Please join me in congratulating Nora Lee on her amazing short story. I know this is a bit of an unusual decision, as Nora isn’t a member of our writing staff. But I think when you read the story, you’ll understand why I had to include the piece.”

  There was some scattered applause mixed in with low murmurings.

  “Thank you,” Nora said. “I’m really excited to have the opportunity.”

  I couldn’t look at her. In fact, I couldn’t move. In an instant, I’d gone from flushing hot with embarrassment to feeling like my entire body had been dipped in ice, freezing me in place.

  Nora had submitted a short story to Candace.

  No. It was worse. Nora had gone behind my back and submitted a short story to Candace.

  Nora had sat there, while Charlie urged me to submit one of my own stories, and hadn’t said a word about the fact that she was planning on submitting a story of her own.

  And Candace had chosen her story over mine.

  And suddenly, every single suspicious thought I’d had about Nora came into sharp focus. She had copied my clothes. She had tried to take over my friends. And now she’d succeeded in snatching the fiction spot on The Ampersand.

  “Miranda?” Nora said, taking care to keep her voice low, as Candace had moved on to talk about the pressing issues she was having with the layout. “I was going to tell you. I just . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  I finally turned to look at her. Nora’s face was pale, but otherwise unreadable.

  “I just didn’t want you to be mad at me,” Nora said.

  I drew in a deep breath. I was distantly aware that my hands were shaking. I clasped them together under the table.

  “Too late,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Somehow I managed to get through the rest of the staff meeting sitting next to Nora, even though she was the last person I wanted to be anywhere near at the moment. Even worse, I had to keep my anger contained—I didn’t want Candace or anyone else to think I was being a sore loser, in the mold of Tabitha Stone—even though keeping it inside made me feel nauseated.

  When the meeting was finally, mercifully, over, I packed up my things immediately, hoping that no one noticed how my hands were still shaking. I thought Nora might try to stop me, to try to talk to me again, but before she could, a small group of staffers led by Candace converged on her. They all wanted to congratulate Nora and discuss her short story. Not wanting to hear another word about how marvelous Nora was, I left quickly.

  I drove home, my head buzzing. Unfortunately, Bumblebee didn’t have a radio—my dad had considered this a selling point when he bought the car—so I couldn’t distract myself with music. But it probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway. Nora’s betrayal was too enormous for that.

  No one was at the beach house when I got home. I was glad. I let Willow out for a potty break and then went to my room, closed the door, and lay down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling fan, which was rotating in lazy circles.

  Why did Nora do it? I wondered. Why had she gone behind my back and submitted her story, even after encouraging me to submit mine? She’d never, not once, mentioned that she wrote, too, and she’d had plenty of opportunities.

  I tried to channel Charlie and look at the situation in a light that would most favor Nora. Maybe Nora had always dreamed of being a writer, too, and saw this as her big chance to get published. Maybe she’d been working on her story for weeks, or months, even, and didn’t want to tell anyone—tell me—about it until it was finished.

  The only problem with that scenario was that I just didn’t believe it. Nora had already proven herself to be a chameleon. Around Charlie, she was into art. When she with Finn, she suddenly liked video games. With me, she first had a long-distance boyfriend and then—when that story didn’t hold together—now she suddenly wanted to be a writer. In fact, it wasn’t so much that Nora wanted to be like me. It was more like she wanted to take over my life.

  My door opened, and Hannah breezed in.

  “Hey,” she said. “I saw your car parked out front, but you’re so quiet back here, I couldn’t tell if you were home.”

  “I’m home,” I said. “Just thinking.”

  Hannah gave me a strange look. “What’s going on? You seem weird. Did something happen? Is
it Dex?”

  “No, everything with Dex is fine,” I said.

  “When was the last time you talked to him?” Hannah asked.

  “Last night. But for only a few minutes. He had a study group meeting, and I”—I swallowed back the bitter taste in my mouth—“I was working on a short story for The Ampersand, so I didn’t have time to talk.”

  “Okay, just spit it out,” Hannah said.

  “Spit what out?”

  “What’s going on? You look like you just lost your best friend. Which I know is impossible, because I’m right here,” Hannah said. She flopped down on the end of my bed.

  This statement startled me right out of my funk. I knew we’d grown a lot closer over the past year, but I had no idea that Hannah thought of me as her best friend. I was touched.

  “That’s so nice,” I said.

  Hannah waved a hand at me. “I know, but I don’t want to get all sappy right now. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “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.