All That Glitters

by Laura Dower

  Morale at school that morning was low. Signs were posted all over FHJH telling students about the times and locations of their particular standardized-test practices. Most of them took place in people’s first-period classes. Madison couldn’t believe that. Her first period today was Science. That meant she had to take the test with her enemy, Poison Ivy.

  Before heading off to class, Madison, Aimee, Fiona, and Lindsay met up by the lockers for a good-luck hug. They agreed that everyone would get together later in the cafeteria to exchange thoughts about what had happened during the test. Aimee made Lindsay promise them all that she would not freak out in the middle of the test if she didn’t know an answer.

  Mr. Danehy stood at the front of Madison’s science classroom with a sour look on his face, waiting for the bell to ring.

  Madison slid into her seat. Ivy wasn’t there! She couldn’t believe her luck. No enemy, no problem. Another reason she was glad that Ivy was missing was that she wouldn’t have to deal with any more obscure accusations concerning missing (or stolen) notebooks. That morning Madison had not found Ivy’s notebook in her locker.

  “Please put your bags under your chairs.” Mr. Danehy started his speech about test rules. The class had heard a version of these rules at least a hundred times before.

  Madison stared across the room while Mr. Danehy was speaking. Her eyes landed on something familiar. Well, someone familiar.

  Hart was looking back at her. He smiled.

  Madison smiled, too. Her entire body warmed up when she did that. It was a strange sensation. Normally, Hart made her nervous, but for some reason, looking at him right now, before the big practice test, she relaxed.

  Everyone got settled in their seats with sharpened pencils. A few moments after the class bell rang, Mr. Danehy formally began the test with a smack of his palm on his desk. “Go!” he cried.

  Most of the kids laughed nervously. Madison just stared straight down at the page. She wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.

  There weren’t too many questions on computer technology, which was a bummer, but there were questions on the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. Thanks to a study trick that Lindsay had shared on the train, Madison got both questions right. Or at least, she was pretty sure she did. She zipped through most of the math section, too. Egg’s sister, Mariah, had given good advice. This was a lot easier than it seemed.

  At lunchtime, Madison couldn’t wait to catch up with Aimee, Fiona, Lindsay, and the others to exchange reactions. Since it was just a practice test, the results didn’t really matter, except that it meant something among friends. Even if the grades didn’t count on people’s report cards, they counted when being compared with those of other kids in the class.

  Madison didn’t usually feel so competitive about that kind of thing, but even she found herself wanting an excellent score so she would have bragging rights. She hoped that Lindsay, however, got the best score of all. Lindsay needed bragging rights more than anyone. Of all her friends, Lindsay was the one who counted on the A-pluses. Of course, minus signs next to grade letters were unacceptable. And after a stressful (although very fun!) birthday weekend, Madison knew that a perfect (or nearly perfect) test score would be a most excellent bonus birthday present.

  The friends met up with lunch trays and headed for the orange table at the back of the cafeteria. The girls sat together, but as it worked out, Hart Jones ended up sitting directly across from Madison.

  “How did you do?” Madison asked him.

  Hart shrugged. He’d smiled before in the classroom, but now he was grunting, not even saying real words, and playing with the food on his lunch tray.

  Madison stared as he ate three bites of his turkey sandwich. Still, Hart said nothing.

  Aimee leaned over to Madison. “Gee, he’s real talkative today,” she murmured.

  Madison nodded. “I know,” she said.

  Fiona and Chet started bickering about one of the test questions. Chet thought he had chosen the right answer, but his sister told him that he was wrong. Fiona loved telling Chet he was wrong.

  “Hart,” Drew said. “You want to check with Coach about hockey this weekend?” He stood up holding his backpack. Hart stood up, too.

  “See you later, gator,” Egg said. He touched Fiona’s shoulder and gave Drew a high five. Madison noticed that, and it gave her a little twinge in the pit of her stomach. Egg and Fiona were sitting there like a couple while Madison’s crush was walking away.

  “So long,” Hart said to everyone at the table. “You too, Finnster,” he said softly.

  Madison sat up a little bit straighter. “Oh…bye,” she said, still wondering why Hart was acting so strange.

  Now the only kids left at the orange table were Chet, Egg, and the four girlfriends.

  Aimee picked at the rest of her lunch. Lindsay swiped a carrot stick from Fiona’s tray and took a bite.

  From out of nowhere, Dan Ginsburg appeared. “Where are the other guys?” he asked as he pulled up the bench and slid his lunch tray onto the table.

  Madison, Aimee, and Fiona quickly turned at the exact same time and stared right at Lindsay.

  Lindsay looked down at her tray. She didn’t know what to say. All the attention had somehow shifted her way, and she became self-conscious.

  So did Dan.

  “Um…what’s up, Egg?” Dan asked.

  Egg grunted. “Not much, man. Lunch today is gross. Don’t eat that lasagna. It was moving. I swear.”

  Madison looked over at Lindsay again.

  Dan shifted in his own seat. “What’s going on?” he asked, confused by all the furtive glances and the silences. “Who died?”

  Chet threw a piece of corn at Dan’s head. Dan laughed, sounding relieved, and then tossed back a roll. Then Egg joined in with a grape. Soon all three boys broke into a mini-food fight. Luckily there were no lunch monitors in the area.

  “I think I’d better go,” Madison said, standing up amid the mess.

  “I’ll come with you,” Lindsay said.

  Fiona decided to stay with Egg and the others. Aimee was staying, too.

  “See you after classes,” they said to Madison and Lindsay.

  “I was ready to throw food at you!” Lindsay whispered as she walked away from the table with Madison. “Am I blushing? I have never been so embarrassed—never!”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Madison said with a giggle. “I’m sorry, Lindsay, but you told us that stuff about Dan the other day, and then he walked up to the table, and…well, we all lost our cool. Sorry. Really. Sorry.”

  “Oh, I don’t really care,” Lindsay said. “It just felt weird, that’s all. Do you think he knows how I feel?”

  Madison shook her head. “No way,” she said quickly, unsure if that was the right response. “But I bet once he knows, he’ll be happy about it,” she added.

  Lindsay seemed pleased with that answer.

  As they walked out of the cafeteria, Madison noticed that neither Ivy nor the drones seemed to be at school. They weren’t sitting at their usual lunch table and they hadn’t been in morning classes, either. Madison figured they had probably decided to play hooky to avoid the test. She wondered who was smarter: Lindsay, for studying for the practice test—or Ivy, Rose, and Joan, for not even showing up.

  Madison and Lindsay made their way down the corridor toward the lockers. Madison opened hers and pulled out a math textbook for an afternoon class.

  Lindsay stood at her locker a few feet away. “Oh, my gosh!” she cried out. “I can’t believe I forgot to show you this at lunch.”

  Madison had to smile. Lindsay showed her a printout of one of Aunt Mimi’s digital photos from the party weekend. It was the shot of all four friends standing under the sign that read MADISON AVENUE.

  “It’s for you,” Lindsay said. “I have copies for everyone.”

  Madison gave Lindsay a hug. “I’m sticking it up on my locker right now,” she said. She reached into her orange bag. “Wai
t, I know I have tape somewhere inside here. Maybe at the bottom…somewhere…”

  She reached around inside the bottom of the bag but didn’t find the tape right away.

  “Paper clip…quarter…pencil—ouch! I just sharpened it…let’s see…here’s the tape. It’s stuck under one of my books…”

  With one pull, Madison produced the tape. Along with it, however, some other things slipped out.

  “What a mess. I need to clean my bag,” Madison said. “I have so much stuff.”

  One of the items that flew out was the copy of Lindsay’s birthday invitation. The pink-glitter envelope shimmered under the neon lights in the hallway. A few kids ran by on their way to their own lockers.

  “What’s this?” Lindsay asked. She handed Madison another envelope. This one was blue.

  “I don’t know,” Madison said. “I didn’t see that before.”

  On the front of the envelope was one word. Madison’s stomach flip-flopped when she saw it.

  Finnster.

  “Open it! Open it!” Lindsay cried.

  Madison wanted to tear it open, but her fingers didn’t seem to work.

  “You open it,” she told Lindsay.

  “Me? But…” Lindsay paused. “Maddie, this could be it.”

  “What?”

  “It. You know.”

  “Open it, please,” Madison begged.

  Lindsay gently ripped one corner of the envelope. Out slid a note. It was a short one, Madison could tell.

  “Give it to me!” Madison shouted, grabbing the note from Lindsay.

  Lindsay burst into laughter. “Okay, okay. Here.”

  Madison felt her knees go weak. She slid down the locker bank to the floor, landing with a dull thud. Lindsay sat down next to her.

  “Breathe, Maddie, breathe.”

  Madison peeled open the note.

  Hey, I don’t have hockey in a few weekends from now. My dad says he can take us to the movies. You wanna go then?

  Hart

  P.S.: Sorry about last week.

  Madison’s skin felt hot. Her eyes watered.

  Lindsay looked into her BFF’s face. “Maddie? Are you okay? What does the note say?”

  “Everything,” Madison said. She leaned into Lindsay and stared back at the note. “Everything.”

  Even though Hart had written on paper that was plain compared to Lindsay’s pink-glitter invitation, it didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered except for one thing.

  Hart Jones had asked.

  Madison was ready to say yes.

  And Aimee was so right about what she had said after they went to the planetarium. They definitely were not alone in the galaxy—not anymore.

  Mad Chat Words:

  BLOGYL

  Blog you later!

  22C

  Too, too cool

  WHA?

  What happened?

  <:-Z

  Uh-oh

  IGI

  I get it

  FCF

  Friends come first

  Blahblahblah

  Same old story

  Dunno

  I don’t know

  E-M

  E-mail

  TOYL

  Time of your life

  LMK

  Let me know

  BSTS

  Better safe than sorry

  Diff

  Difference

  :-l

  So there!

  Madison’s Computer Tip

  We got back from the weekend party at Lindsay’s aunt Mimi’s apartment and I was on a cloud. And then, just when I thought everything couldn’t seem more perfect, I got this incredible thank-you note from Lindsay in my e-mail. When you need to thank someone or send a birthday card or any greeting card, use an E-card service. I think I am going to send E-cards now to everyone I know all the time. The music and animation make it so much cooler than a card you get in the mail. Although, as Gramma Helen would say, there’s nothing like getting a real piece of mail. So I guess I’ll send E-cards and regular cards. Wow, I’m going to be busy.

  Visit Madison at the author’s page: www.lauradower.com.

  Turn the page to continue reading from Laura Dower’s From the Files of Madison Finn series

  Chapter 1

  MADISON LOOKED OVER AT Hart’s buzz cut. The locks of brown hair that usually fell across his forehead were gone.

  “The barber had some kind of meltdown,” Hart explained. “I asked him to cut it short and he came at me with the trimmer like he was whacking weeds.”

  “Well,” Madison said with a wide smile, “it looks kind of … well … cute.”

  Hart blushed. “Nah, it looks freaky, and you’re just being nice, Finnster. You’re always being too nice.”

  “Am not,” Madison said. She pulled her sweater around her body and looked in the other direction, trying hard not to giggle.

  Hart blew on his hands and then ran his fingers through the tangle of hair on top. He made another face.

  “I’ve only been outside for a minute but my hands are like ice,” he said. “What’s up with that?”

  Hart had on his red hockey shirt with the white Far Hills Junior High logo on the front and the number nine on the back. Underneath that, he wore a white turtleneck to keep warm. But it wasn’t working very well.

  The wind whipped around Madison and Hart. Instead of complaining, Madison just smiled again, pleased with herself—and with the situation. She and Hart were definitely flirting, right out there in the open, only a few yards from the school entrance. And that was a major step in their relationship.

  A loud throng of kids pushed through the front doors of FHJH. Even though the temperature had dropped, most kids were only half dressed, dragging parkas and hockey sticks and skates behind them. The sports teams all had away games that afternoon, or at least Hart and Madison thought they did.

  “Egg!” Hart yelled.

  Madison saw their mutual pal, Walter “Egg” Diaz, running down the steps two at a time. Behind Egg were Drew Maxwell and Chet Waters, two other friends and members of the FHJH Junior Varsity Hockey Squad. Behind the boys were Fiona Waters (Chet’s twin sister) and Aimee Gillespie, Madison’s two best girlfriends.

  “The game at Da Vinci was canceled,” Egg said breathlessly.

  “No way,” Hart said. “But the buses are right here. They’ve been here for ten minutes.”

  “They had a problem at their rink. Power went down late yesterday, I guess. They tried to fix it, but basically, it’s a swimming pool, and the gym is flooded,” Egg said.

  “Bummer, right?” Chet said.

  Drew shook his head. “This stinks. I know we could cream those guys. Their team is so lame on offense.”

  “Why didn’t they just play here instead?” Madison asked.

  “Good question!” Hart said.

  “Hey—if there’s no away game, then what are those buses?” Fiona asked, pointing to two large buses parked on the side of the school parking lot.

  Everyone spun around to survey the buses more closely. Madison saw the words MR. MOTION PICTURES painted across the side panel. She hadn’t noticed that before. The name was strangely familiar, but she couldn’t remember….

  “That must be the film crew Principal Bernard was talking about,” Drew said.

  “Film crew?” Madison asked aloud.

  “What? Are they here to film the hockey game?” Hart asked.

  “Nah,” Drew continued. “I bet it’s the film crew for the documentary. Principal Bernard posted a notice by the lockers a little while ago.”

  “What documentary? What notice?” Madison asked.

  “We each got one in our locker, too, like some kind of permission slip,” Drew said.

  “Oh, yeah, I saw that,” Aimee said.

  “You did?” Madison asked.

  “Duh, Maddie,” Chet said as he held up a flyer with the words OUR SCHOOL ON CAMERA! DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS AT FHJH printed at the top.

  “D�
��d—documentary?” Madison repeated. She shook her head from side to side as if that could get rid of the sinking feeling she had in the very pit of her stomach.

  “What’s wrong with you, Maddie?” Fiona asked.

  All weekend, Mom had talked about a film on which she was about to begin work. Mom and her team at Budge Films had partnered with another, smaller documentary film group and its director to produce a feature on middle-school life in the twenty-first century. One of the schools selected for the feature just happened to be Rigby Middle School, located a few towns away. Madison had been relieved to hear that the filming would take place somewhere far away from her middle-school life.

  “So … you think they’re doing auditions for a movie or something?” Chet asked aloud.

  Fiona laughed. “You wish. Not like they’d ever choose you for a part.”

  Everyone laughed as Chet gave Fiona a hard nudge that nearly knocked her over.

  But Madison didn’t feel like laughing. Her brain was racing. These buses and this film crew had to have something to do with Mom. It was all way too much to be just a coincidence.

  “Maddie, your face is all red. Are you okay?” Aimee asked, grabbing her friend by the shoulders.

  Madison just mumbled. “Um … I don’t know … I can’t believe …”

  “She’s lost it,” Egg said as he and the other guys walked away toward the buses. Hart approached one and slapped the side of the door, but no one opened up. Chet jumped up to get a view inside one of the tinted windows.

  “I don’t see any cameras,” Chet cried.

  “What a moron,” Fiona grumbled.

  Aimee chuckled. “Maybe it’s a reality TV film crew….”

  “Don’t say that!” Fiona said, looking over her shoulder. “Can you imagine? They’d come into the school and make us walk on tightropes and eat worm eggs or something.”

  “Worms don’t lay eggs,” Chet snapped.