Geek High

by Piper Banks

  “See for yourself,” Finn said, and he pushed his open laptop toward me. He had the Internet up, and set to the same weblog he’d shown me yesterday: geekhigh.com. At the top of the page, the newest entry read:

  GEEK HIGH STUDENT FAKES IQ TO GAIN ADMISSION

  GEEKHIGH.COM has learned that one of its students—sophomore opera aficionado Felicity Glen—forged her IQ test in order to gain admission to Geek High. Allegedly, Glen has an IQ of only 115—ten points below the requisite 125 IQ needed to gain entrance to the school. Apparently, the rules do not apply to all students…especially those with rich fathers who have bestowed significant financial gifts to the school. In not completely unrelated news, Morris Glen, the prominent local criminal defense attorney and father of Felicity Glen, has announced his intention to donate fifteen thousand dollars toward a new library for Geek High. Developing…

  “Is this true?” I gasped.

  “Absolutely,” Finn said with satisfaction.

  “How do you know?” Charlie asked suspiciously.

  Finn smiled enigmatically at her. “I just do.”

  “Who’s writing this?” I asked. “Oh! Do you think it’s Megan Reilly? I overheard her saying she was trying to get an internship at Entertainment Weekly next summer, and this is just the sort of stunt she’d pull to get it.”

  “I think Finn knows who’s writing it,” Charlie said, fixing him with a beady stare. “Don’t you, Finn?”

  Finn shrugged, trying—and failing—to look modest. “I may.”

  Charlie snorted.

  “What?” I asked, looking from one to the other. I had the feeling I was missing something.

  “It’s him,” Charlie said. “Finn. He’s the one writing it.”

  I looked at Finn for confirmation, but it was immediately obvious from his expression, which was a cross between smug pride and sheepishness.

  “How did you know?” he asked Charlie.

  She shrugged. “I know everything,” she said.

  Finn tossed a sweet-potato chip at her.

  “Hey! Don’t! Okay, fine, I saw you writing it in mod lit. You should be a little more discreet, you know. It was pretty obvious you weren’t taking class notes—you were typing way too fast,” Charlie said.

  “Thanks for the tip,” Finn said. He popped a chip in his mouth.

  “But why are you writing it?” I asked.

  “I’m an anarchist,” Finn said nonchalantly.

  “Writing a snarky tell-all blog counts as anarchy these days?” I asked, arching my eyebrows.

  “I’m starting small,” Finn said. “I’m slowly working up to overthrowing the school administration.”

  “Did you make this up about the Felimonster?” I asked, looking back at the salacious blog entry. It was written in bold white type against a black background, for dramatic effect.

  “Of course not,” Finn said indignantly. “That wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “So how’d you find out about it?” Charlie asked.

  “A journalist never reveals his sources.”

  “Please,” I said dismissively. “It’s a blog, not the New York Times.”

  “Let’s just say I have an in within the administration,” Finn said mysteriously. He drew a circle in the air with his fingers as he said it.

  “Mrs. Boxer,” I said, snapping my fingers and pointing at him. Finn looked crestfallen.

  “How’d you figure that out so fast?” he asked.

  Mrs. Boxer’s official title was executive administrative assistant to the headmaster, but that was just a fancy way of saying she was the school secretary.

  “Because (a) she’s a gossip, and (b) she adores you,” I said. “What did you do, bring her a latte and then, once she was hopped up on caffeine, wheedle it out of her?”

  “I did no such thing.” Finn actually looked affronted at this. “I just…overheard her talking. She didn’t actually know I was there.”

  “Did you hide in the coatroom by her office again?” Charlie asked.

  “Again?” I asked.

  “That’s where he hid last year when he was trying to find out if they’d figured out who was behind the rash of toilet paper thefts,” Charlie said.

  “That was you?” I asked, stung that I’d been left out of this scheme, too. “You guys don’t tell me anything.”

  “We wanted you to have plausible deniability,” Finn said.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said crankily.

  Although, still, I had to admit this was good gossip. I don’t normally subscribe to the politics of personal destruction, but Felicity Glen really did have it coming to her. I glanced over at Felicity’s table. She, clearly unaware of the piece Finn had posted about her, was still giggling with Morgan, and smirking in my direction. I knew I should tell Finn to take down the piece, and that no matter how much Felicity might torture me, we shouldn’t sink to her level. But I didn’t.

  Which, as it turned out, was a big mistake.

  Chapter 10

  Felicity found out about the blog in Twentieth-century History class. She was sitting at her desk, legs primly crossed at the ankles, skimming over the reading assignment Mr. Aburro had given us the day before, when Morgan came skittering into the room, looking both traumatized and titillated. She was clearly torn between wanting to appear upset on Felicity’s behalf, and overcome with the bounty of good gossip. Morgan bent over, and, cupping her hand over her mouth, whispered into Felicity’s ear.

  I watched as Felicity’s expression morphed from surprise to shell-shocked horror. She wheeled around in her seat and began to type furiously at her laptop. I couldn’t see what was on her screen, but I had a pretty good idea of what Web site she’d just surfed over to. Felicity leaned forward toward the screen, her shoulders bunching up to her ears. She turned to Morgan, who was doing her best to control her excitement and look sympathetic.

  “Don’t worry; it’s totally bogus,” Morgan said soothingly.

  But Felicity just shook her head and looked back at the screen. She whispered something to Morgan that I couldn’t hear, although I could figure out the substance of it, since they both then turned to look at me. Felicity looked wounded, and her moss green eyes had filled with tears. Morgan’s lips were pressed together into a tight, angry line.

  What were they…Wait just a minute. Did they think I’d written the blog?

  I looked over at Finn, who sat next to me (Charlie had opted to take History of the Renaissance instead). He was engrossed in a conversation with Tate Metcalf about some online role-playing game they were both hooked on.

  “Dude, you have got to try playing as an evil wizard. It’s the only way you can get the Wand of Asb’el. That wand kicks ass,” Finn was advising Tate.

  “Really? I always play as a paladin,” Tate said. “You get the good armor that way.”

  “True, but paladins are such boring do-gooders,” Finn said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Think of all of the henchmen you can recruit if you’re evil.”

  “Finn,” I hissed, tugging on his shirtsleeve to get his attention.

  “Just a sec. I have to illuminate Tate on the beauty of evil-aligned characters,” Finn said. He started to turn back to Tate, but I grabbed his arm.

  “Listen to me; this is important! She thinks I wrote that blog,” I said.

  “Who?” Finn asked. He looked at me blankly, blinking like an owl. I suppressed the urge to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Honestly, if you met Finn when he’s acting like this, you’d be shocked to learn that he’s a genius.

  “Who do you think? Felicity,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Huh?” Finn asked. And then he finally got it. “Ohhhhh,” he said, drawing out the word.

  “Right. Oh,” I said, and turned to look back at Felicity. She suddenly stood and bolted out of the classroom, pushing past Mr. Aburro just as he was walking in with a model of a World War I German U-boat tucked under his arm. Mr. Aburro is nearly as wide as he is tall. I was actually a little surpri
sed Felicity could squeeze by him.

  “Miss Glen, class is about to start,” Mr. Aburro called after her. But Felicity didn’t stop. Mr. Aburro looked startled. “What was that about?” he asked no one in particular.

  “I think she just read about herself on the Geek High blog,” Padma said helpfully.

  So everyone had found out about Finn’s blog. That hadn’t taken long.

  “Geek High blog?” Mr. Arburro repeated slowly. His brow wrinkled in confusion. “What’s a blog?”

  Morgan hurried out of the room after Felicity, calling out, “Felicity, wait!”

  As I watched her go, I felt uneasy. I knew I should feel vindicated, especially after Felicity’s blatant attempt to humiliate me in mod lit that morning. But I didn’t. Instead, I actually felt a little sorry for her.

  “It was during the First World War that truly practical submarines emerged. Germany used their fleet of twenty-nine U-boats to great effectiveness as the war began. Within the first ten weeks, the Germans had used their subs to sink five British cruisers. And on September fifth, 1914, a German U-boat was successful in sinking a British warship for the very first time,” Mr. Arburro enthused. He was just getting into his zone when there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Mr. Aburro called out.

  A small girl with blond ringlets and a snub nose shuffled in. I recognized her: Cecilia Bendell. Her older sister, Alex, was a senior. Cecilia couldn’t have been older than ten, and she looked traumatized at having to stand in front of our class. She handed over a note to Mr. Aburro, and then fled. Mr. Aburro put on his reading glasses and frowned down at the note.

  “Ms. Bloom, you’re wanted in the headmaster’s office,” he said.

  I looked up, surprised. Me? I never got called to the headmaster’s office. Sure, I’d had my share of trips to the principal’s office back when I was in public school, but not since I’d transferred to Geek Middle. But this I know—no matter what school you go to, getting called to the main office is never a good omen.

  “It says that you’re to go immediately, and not to wait until the end of the period.” Mr. Aburro pursed his lips, clearly not pleased with the interruption. “I’ll send an e-mail out with the homework assignment,” he continued, folding the paper and tucking it into his pocket.

  I gathered my books and stuffed them into my knapsack, and then closed my laptop and pushed that in the bag, too. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I stood and self-consciously walked out of the class.

  The headmaster’s office was located on the third floor of the main building, and could be reached only by hoofing it up six flights of narrow, twisting, creaking stairs. By the time I reached the tiny reception area, manned by the school receptionist, Mrs. Boxer, I was out of breath. Mrs. Boxer was a large woman—tall and broad-shouldered, with wispy gray hair that she wore up in a beehive, adding even more height to her already towering figure. The first time I saw her, I thought she was a man in drag.

  Mrs. Boxer was typing with two fingers when I came in. She started when the door opened, and lifted a hand to her heart.

  “Goodness, you frightened me,” she said, in a breathy, Marilyn Monroe–esque voice.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Boxer,” I apologized. “I was told to come and see the headmaster.”

  “Why? What did you do?” Mrs. Boxer asked interestedly. She was a notorious gossip, which Finn had frequently and shamelessly used to his advantage.

  “Nothing! Or, at least…nothing that I know of,” I said.

  “I’ll tell him you’re here,” Mrs. Boxer said. She picked up the phone and pressed a button. After a pause, she said, “Miranda Bloom is here to see you, sir. Yes, of course.” She set the phone back down and looked at me. Her plucked eyebrows arched like two sideways commas over her turquoise-lined eyes. “He said to send you right in. And I should warn you…he doesn’t sound happy.”

  “Really?” I asked. I started to feel uneasy. Just what had I done to warrant getting called into Headmaster Hughes’s office? It was only the second day of school. I hadn’t been back long enough to get into trouble.

  “You’ll have to stop and tell me all about it when you’re done,” Mrs. Boxer said eagerly. “Felicity Glen was in earlier, and looked as though she’d been crying, but she rushed by me so quickly I couldn’t get a word out of her.”

  There was an unpleasant prickling on the back of my neck. I had a good idea why the headmaster had pulled me out of class. I took a deep breath and walked past Mrs. Boxer. The door to the headmaster’s office was just behind her desk.

  “Good luck,” she whispered, and gave me an encouraging thumbs-up.

  “Thanks,” I whispered back, and then I pushed the door open.

  Headmaster Hughes’s office was enormous. It occupied half of the third floor of the central building. The room was lined in bookshelves, which were crammed with framed photographs and heavy leather-bound books, and the furniture was old-fashioned—a pair of cream settees, a fussy little coffee table, a decorative globe on a wooden stand. Past the sitting area there was a desk so large it looked like an island in the middle of a sea of Oriental rugs. And behind the desk sat the headmaster of Geek High: Mr. C. Philip Hughes.

  Headmaster Hughes’s head looked very much like an egg. Other than his caterpillarlike eyebrows, there wasn’t a hair anywhere on his head—his scalp was shaved clean, as was his face. He had dark, unblinking eyes, a square jaw with a cleft chin, and he never displayed his teeth when he smiled. Instead he’d draw his lips back in a tight, close-lipped grimace, pulling the outer corners of his mouth down instead of up.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Bloom,” Headmaster Hughes greeted me in his deep, slow voice. He sat with his elbows resting on the leather blotter, his hands arched together as though he were about to start playing Here is a church; here is a steeple.

  “Hello, sir. You, um, wanted to see me?” I said uncertainly.

  “Yes. Sit down,” he said, gesturing toward the pair of navy blue damask wing chairs lined up in front of his desk.

  “Thanks,” I said, and sat on the edge of one chair. I rested my knapsack on the ground next to my feet and waited.

  Headmaster Hughes was unnervingly silent. He fixed his stern eyes on me, his hands folded in front of him, and sat as still as a statue. A statue of a bald gargoyle. I did my best not to squirm. Just sitting there, being watched like that, made me feel guilty, even though I knew I hadn’t done anything. He was quiet for so long that when he finally did speak, I jumped in my seat.

  “How are you, Miranda?” he asked.

  This surprised me. I’d been sure he was going to start right off interrogating me about the Geek High blog.

  “Fine, I guess,” I said.

  “You’re adjusting to your new home?”

  My new home… Wait, how did he know about that?

  “Um…sure,” I said.

  “Your mother was concerned about how you’d handle the transition,” Headmaster Hughes continued, still staring at me. He didn’t seem to have any need to blink. It freaked me out.

  “My mother?” I repeated. When had he talked to Sadie?

  “We’ve been in touch,” he said.

  “But…she’s in London,” I said.

  “Yes, I know. We spoke just yesterday. She’s quite an extraordinary woman, your mother,” Headmaster Hughes said, his lips quirking down into his frown-smile.

  Extraordinary woman? Was that what they called child deserters these days? And why was the headmaster talking to Sadie anyway? I hadn’t even talked to her since the morning she’d flown to London. Well, actually, to be completely accurate, I didn’t talk to her then, either. I simply sat in the car with my arms crossed and tears of anger burning in my eyes, while Sadie drove me to my dad’s house. She, on the other hand, had nattered away about how excited she was to leave on her big adventure, as though we were best friends and not a mother and daughter in a fight. I think she finally figured out that I really was angry at her only when I didn’t bothe
r to return any of the messages she’d left on my cell phone’s voice mail. If there’s one thing Sadie hates, it’s being ignored.

  But since I didn’t have anything to say, I just sat there quietly and stared at the Newton’s Cradle perched on the edge of Headmaster Hughes’s desk. It’s the game that has five marbles hanging from strings, and which demonstrates the conservation of momentum and energy. You pull back one marble and then let it go so it hits the resting marbles, causing the marble on the far side to swing up and then back down again into the resting marbles, and so it continues until you stop it.

  I had an almost irresistible urge to reach out, pull back the nearest of the hanging balls, and start the Newton’s Cradle swinging. Seriously—my hands were practically twitching. But the unblinking eyes were still boring into my forehead, and so I managed to keep my hands folded in my lap.

  “Sometimes children who are dealing with a disruption at home are more apt to act out at school,” Headmaster Hughes said.

  He waited, and I had the feeling I was supposed to respond.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “It’s a way of trying to attract attention…a cry for help, of sorts.”

  Another pause.

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, nodding encouragingly.

  “And although it’s sometimes tempting as a parent or educator to let the disruptive behavior pass by, that doesn’t benefit anyone. Especially not the child, who is undoubtedly craving boundaries.”

  “Well…” I said, feeling a twinge of discomfort. Where was he going with this? And was I supposed to be the child he was talking about?

  “Which brings us to the matter at hand,” Headmaster Hughes continued. “Specifically, the blog entitled ‘Geek High.’ It has been alleged that you are the author of it.”

  “I’m not!” I said quickly.

  Headmaster Hughes raised one furry eyebrow at me. It was a pretty cool trick. If I could raise one eyebrow at a time, maybe I’d shave off all of my hair, too.

  “I am aware that you and Felicity Glen had a conflict this morning,” he said.