“I like casual,” I said, hanging on that word.
“On the other hand,” Sam said, dropping the outfit in a heap on my floor as she grabbed another pair of hangers. “This tube dress totally says sophisticated, and if you pair it with this denim jacket and cowboy boots, it says chic with an edge.”
I rolled my eyes. My clothes were going to be doing a lot of talking tonight.
“Sam, the game starts in half an hour. Can we please just pick something?”
Her eyes ping-ponged between the casual-flirty and the flirty-casual outfits before she finally shoved the tube dress at me. “We’re going edgy chic. And I think I can glam your makeup just enough to pull this off.”
“Wait—makeup?” I wore a little mascara on a daily basis and had a tube of pink lip gloss conveniently tucked in my book bag, but that was about it.
Sam must have read my mind as she waved me off. “Don’t worry. I have an emergency touch-up kit in my backpack. We’ll have you looking date ready in no time.”
Somehow that did little to relieve my worry.
Worry that was well-founded as, by the time Sam was done with me, I was casual-chic-flirty, my makeup was edgy-sophisticated-glam, and my nerves were stretched-to-their-limit raw.
Not to mention that my heels (I’d drawn the line at cowboy boots) were Mom-will-never-approve high.
I slowly walked downstairs, Sam a step behind me. Mom was at the kitchen table, directly in the line of sight of the front door. She had her laptop out again, her eyes intent on the screen as she scrolled with her right hand.
“Too tall,” she muttered to herself. Some more scrolling. “Too skinny.” Scrolling again. Then Mom made a disgusted face. “Uh, too . . . hairy.”
Mental face palm. Mom was on Match again.
I took a tentative step forward.
She didn’t look up.
I tiptoed down the rest of the stairs, one eye on Mom, one eye on the door.
If she heard me, she didn’t register it.
Two feet from the front door, I took a deep breath and made a break for it.
“ByeMomgoingtothefootballgameseeyalater,” I quickly said as I thrust the front door open.
“Have fun,” she called. Her gaze never left the computer screen.
I had a bad feeling a Match intervention was going to be needed at some point.
Herbert Hoover High home games are total community events. Our school is set smack in the middle of San Jose, one of the largest cities in California and quickly filling with enough people to rival both Los Angeles and San Diego in population. Which means that San Jose tends to divide itself into smaller communities within the larger city, each section retaining its own small-town feel: Willow Glen in the north, Cambrian just south of that, Almaden Valley farther south, and our little section, Blossom Grove, nestled up against the Santa Cruz Mountains—where Friday nights you were either tucked in at home watching a Netflix or at the football game.
Honestly, most of the time I was more of a Netflix girl. School was a place I spent six hours a day, five days a week, usually under duress. I wasn’t really that into spending extra time there. But, I realized as I navigated the sea of people crowding the parking lot pre-game, I was in the minority.
Guys in HHH Windbreakers and girls in hoodies and Uggs gathered in groups, giggling, yelling, hailing friends, all converging on the stadium, which was lit up like daylight against the growing dusk outside. Just beyond the entrance gate were hot dog and nacho carts, a long line trailing behind them that spanned the length of the fence. The smell was intoxicating, reminding me that in Sam’s flurry of clothes, I hadn’t taken time to eat dinner. I could hear cheers from inside the stadium signaling that cheerleaders were on the field throwing their high kicks and oozing school spirit. The game that night was against Saratoga High, a longtime rival of HHH, which meant the administration was on high prank alert and the student body was on high party alert.
“Hartley?” I heard someone call my name. “Over here.”
I looked up to see Chase hailing me from the other side of the nacho cart. He was in the same clothes he’d worn to school earlier—jeans and black boots, though he’d covered up his T-shirt with a black hoodie that had a surfer on the front. He already had a cardboard container of nachos in his hands, steam rising from the gooey cheese. I quickly jogged over to him.
“Hey. Sorry I’m late. I had to walk,” I said by way of greeting.
He paused, then cocked his head at me. “You look different.”
Immediately I felt myself blushing. “Nope, I’m the same.”
Chase shook his head. “No. Something’s different.” He squinted through the dusk. “Are you wearing eye shadow?”
“No!” I ducked my head again, this time rubbing at my upper lids to get some of the gunk off. “I’m just . . . it’s the lighting. It’s dark out here.”
Chase grinned. “Well, I like it. You look good in the dark.”
My cheeks heated even further, and I wasn’t even sure if that was a compliment or not. “Thanks,” I mumbled, then grabbed a nacho and shoved it into my mouth to cover my embarrassment.
Chase grinned even wider. “Gee, help yourself.”
I did, grabbing another nacho and totally ignoring his sarcasm.
“The game’s about to start,” Chase said, nodding toward the stadium, where the cheers were rising to an emotional high. “We should get in place before the cheat guy shows up.”
I nodded, grabbing one more nacho before following him around the back out of the stadium and to the right, where a line of portable classrooms sat.
While every politician that ever runs for office in California uses improving schools as a platform, the truth is that our schools are perpetually broke. Meaning that classrooms are busting at the seams, and the overflow is usually housed in portable units parked in rows on any available space of land near the school. Though the word portable is a bit of a lie because they never actually move. In fact, my mom took geometry class in the very same “temporary” portable that I had it in with Mrs. Britton sophomore year.
The row of portables outside the stadium housed the extracurricular programs that lacked funding for real classrooms, including the pottery room, the shared room for glee club and choir, and the room that housed the extra football uniforms and the mascot’s costume.
It wasn’t at every school that mascots got their own changing rooms, but in our case he did. Mostly because our mascot was the Herbert Hoover High donkey, who everyone in the area fondly referred to as the HHH jackass. Last year, our football team thought it would be fun to sneak into the jackass’s locker and switch out the contents of his water bottle for vodka right before the last home game. And it might actually have been funny if the guy in the jackass suit hadn’t downed the beverage and vomited all over the field. Then, in a drunken stupor that left the administration red-faced and the fans cheering harder than on any other night of the year, he’d ended up braying at the cheerleaders and knocking the tuba player in the marching band over on his butt.
After that, the HHH donkey always changed in his own room.
Outside of which was a towering palm tree with a large gray rock sitting at its base.
I elbowed Chase in the ribs and pointed. “That must be where he does the drop.”
Chase nodded, then quickly looked around. To our right was the choir portable, to the left a line of bushes separating us from the condo complex next door. “We’ll hide behind the bushes,” he decreed.
Before I could protest that my heels weren’t all that practical for stomping through foliage, he’d already slipped between two hedges and disappeared.
Fab. Left with little choice, I followed, ducking as the brush grabbed at my hair, leaving little wet deposits on my denim jacket. Behind the bush, I found Chase squatting in the dirt. I bent my knees, lowering myself beside him while trying not to let my tube dress ride too far up my thighs.
Chase glanced over. “Nice dress,” he whispered, hi
s gaze lingering on the rising hem just a little too long.
I tugged it down over my knees, stretching it in a way that I’m sure would have had Sam cringing. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
We sat in silence a few more minutes, crouching in the dirt. I felt my feet starting to fall asleep as the strap of my heels cut into my ankles.
Then Chase leaned in close. “Hey.”
“What?” I whispered back.
“Are you wearing perfume?”
I swallowed hard. “No,” I lied. “Why would I be wearing perfume?”
Chase shrugged. “Maybe you’re going out later?”
I gritted my teeth together. Sam was so going to hear about this.
Chase sniffed the air. “You sure you’re not wearing anything? It smells like jasmine.”
“Must be the bushes,” I said.
Chase shifted. “I don’t think there are any jasmine bushes around here. Don’t they have flowers?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, little white ones, right? There are definitely no little white flowers on these bushes.”
“Shhh!” I said. “Someone’s coming.”
Which, thankfully, was true.
Through the shadows, I saw a guy walking toward the mascot room, head down, hands in pockets, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, obscuring his face. Nothing about his clothes stood out as distinguishable from any of the other hundreds of students at the game tonight.
“He’s early,” Chase whispered. “It’s not halftime yet.”
“Maybe he needs the cash now. Maybe he wants nachos,” I guessed, feeling my own stomach growl.
Chase and I watched as the figure paused outside the mascot room. He looked over both shoulders, then quickly leaned down in front of the rock by the palm tree.
“He’s picking up the cash!” I whispered. “Let’s go!”
Chase popped up from the ground, crashing through the bushes toward the figure. I followed a step behind, feeling my heels sink into the dirt as I tried not to step on anything too squishy or gross. Mud spattered up onto my legs as I emerged from the brush, tripping over a root on the ground.
Just in time to see the guy straighten up, turn away, and shove his hands back in his pockets.
“Hey!” Chase yelled. “Don’t move!”
Which, of course, the guy totally ignored. Instead, he spun around, took one look at Chase barreling down on him, and bolted, taking off in the direction of the choir portable at a dead run.
Chase didn’t miss a beat, running after the guy as he rounded the corner of the classroom.
I tottered after them as fast as I could, but actual running in three-inch heels and a tube dress was a total joke.
I came to the edge of the classroom and saw Chase still running after the guy. The other guy had a head start, but Chase was taller and easily gained on him. By the time they made it to the end of the line of portables, Chase was almost on top of him. I watched as he leaped forward, tackling the other guy from behind and bringing him crashing to the ground with a grunt.
I clacked forward on the blacktop with my heels, closing in on the pair as Chase flipped the guy over onto his back. It was dark back here, but the ambient glow from the stadium provided just enough light to make out his features as I got my first good look at the guy’s face. And realized it was one I knew well.
Chris Fret, the HHH Homepage’s sportswriter.
Chapter Six
“NO FLUFFIN’ WAY!” I yelled, disbelief hitting me as I finally caught up to the pair.
I’d known Chris since fifth grade, lived just two blocks away from him, and had spent every other afternoon with him at the paper for the last two months. While he was on the skinny side to actually play football, he knew the sport inside and out, and attended every single game for the paper. His commentary was smart, funny, and thorough, making it entertaining reading even for those of us who weren’t obsessed with stats and scores. Chris was a decent student, a nice guy, and an asset to the paper.
And the last person I would have expected to be selling cheats to the student body.
Chris blinked, his gaze going from Chase to me. “Guys?” he asked, confusion lacing his voice. “Dude, what’s goin’ on?”
“I should ask you the same thing,” Chase growled.
“Chris, how could you?” I asked, realizing I sounded frighteningly like my mom when she’d clucked her disappointed tongue at my less than stellar report card last semester.
“What?” he said, his eyes still bouncing back and forth. “How could I what?”
“Drop the act, Chris,” Chase told him. “We caught you selling them red-handed.”
“Dude, ‘selling’? What are you talking about?”
“You were picking up the payment,” I said.
Chris blinked. “I swear I wasn’t picking up anything.”
Chase gave him a hard stare then hauled him to his feet by his armpits. “You’d better start telling the truth or else . . .” he said, letting the rest of that threat hang in the air.
Chris made a small yipping sound in Chase’s grip. “Wait, you’ve got this all wrong. I’m innocent, I promise.”
“Then what the hell were you just doing?” Chase asked, his right hand still fisted in Chris’s shirt.
Chris licked his lips. “Okay, fine. Look, I was leaving payment under the rock.”
“Leaving payment?”
Chris nodded. “For the answers to Mrs. Perry’s chem quiz on Monday.”
Mental face palm. Chris wasn’t selling the cheats; he was buying them.
“The money was supposed to be under the rock before the game started, and the text said the answers would be there by halftime.”
“But the game’s already started,” I pointed out.
Chris shrugged sheepishly. “I’m a little late. I had to convince my dad to let me borrow the car first.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and Chase leaned in with a growl. Chris yipped again.
“I’m telling the truth!”
“What are you doing buying answers, Chris?” Chase asked. “You want to get suspended, too?”
Chris’s cheeks tinged pink with guilt. “Look, you can’t tell anyone, okay? My dad threatened to take away my driving privileges if I didn’t keep my grades up. I’m totally failing chem, and if I don’t pass this quiz, I can say adios to my dad’s station wagon.”
“Ever heard of studying?” Chase asked.
Chris blinked at him. “Between being at all the games, and the paper, and my after-school job, I don’t have time to study!”
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, then tell us this,” I asked. “Who are you buying the cheats from?”
Again he licked his lips. “I dunno. I never got the guy’s name.”
“How did you contact him?” Chase asked.
“Texts,” Chris said. “I asked around, and this senior gave me a phone number. I just texted the guy with what test answers I wanted, and he told me to drop the money here. He said he’d put the answers on a flash drive and swap it for the cash.”
In the distance, we could hear the sound of the crowd roaring. From the cheers, it sounded like HHH had made a touchdown. Chris looked from Chase to me.
“You have to believe me. I’m just an innocent consumer in all this.”
I shot him a look. Innocent was a relative word.
“There’s one way to prove that,” Chase said. “Empty your pockets.”
Chris nodded, then proceeded to turn the pockets of his jeans inside out for inspection. They were empty, as promised. The only things remaining in his sweatshirt pocket were his wallet (containing a student ID, a driver’s license, and three dollars in cash) and a set of keys attached to a chain with the eBay logo on it.
“See, I told you. I put the cash under the rock. I’m just the payer, not the payee.”
Chase didn’t answer. Instead, he kept one hand on Chris’s shirt as he led him back to the rock.
Whatever cas
h Chris had deposited was gone. In its place was a small black flash drive.
“He must have come and gone while we . . .” I looked at Chris.
“While we chased you down,” Chase finished, his teeth still gritted together.
“Sorry?” Chris said.
I felt my spirits sink as fast as my muddy heels when I realized I’d squatted in the bushes for nothing.
Chase picked up the drive, turning it over in his hands.
“These must be the test answers,” he said.
Chris reached out a hand to take the drive, but Chase quickly slipped it into his pocket.
“Oh, come on!” Chris protested.
But Chase got right up in his face, his voice low and menacing. “If you get caught cheating, not only are you going to be suspended, but I’m losing a staff member from my paper, which I cannot afford to have happen.”
Chris gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he took a small step backward.
But Chase wasn’t done with him. He took another step forward, his eyes narrowing. “So far, your only crime is being stupid enough to give this guy a wad of cash. Which means I have no reason to turn you in to the administration.”
Chris’s shoulders sagged with relief.
“But,” Chase continued, “if I find out that you have actually used stolen answers to cheat on a test? I have no choice but to tell the vice principal. Got it?”
Chris swallowed again. “Yeah,” he squeaked out, his voice an octave higher.
“Good.” Chase finally backed off. “Now you’d better get back to the game. Because I expect a finished article on our victory over Saratoga in my in-box first thing Monday morning.”
Chris nodded. “Yep. Right. Cool. I’m on it,” he said, then scuttled off toward the bright lights of the stadium.
I watched him go, feeling the disappointment of our busted evening.
“Now what do we do?” I asked. “We totally missed the guy selling cheats.”
“Now,” said Chase, “there’s only one thing left to do.”
I almost hated to ask. . . .
“What?”
“Set up a sting.”
Social Suicide Page 5
