1. Pretend it’s a tea party. Be on time, polite, and go by the schedule without protest. (In other words, not like what happened in Iowa . . . or Kentucky . . . or Minnesota.)
2. Don’t swim with sharks. No need to make enemies right off the bat. (Even if they’re jerks, and you’re just standing up for someone they’re tormenting, like in California. And Germany. And Michigan.)
3. Make like an invisible girl. Stay on the right side of the teachers and the principal. (And the best is if they barely notice that you exist. Again, even if they’re jerks, or wrong about something, or completely unfair . . . like in New Mexico, Arizona, and Alabama.)
4. Make a friend.
As the shiny, hectic blur of the city passed outside the taxi window, I spun a whole scenario of life here: a perfect set of non-jerk friends chasing down stories together, vanquishing the villainous, and then heading to the movies, where we’d crack in-jokes and share popcorn coated in delicious, chemical-filled faux butter.
The taxi pulled up at the curb of the Daily Planet Building. I’d seen pictures of it on TV and in magazines re-covering stories the Planet had gotten to first. It had always struck me as larger than life, but here it was.
“You have to pay me and get out before you can go in there, you know,” the cab driver said, not unkindly.
“Right.” I passed him some money and climbed out. My eyes traveled up and up the many, many floors and landed on the globe at the top.
I looked down at the card in my hand again. And that was when it hit me—I was going to be working at the Daily Planet. I added to my fantasy: me and my friends staring out over the city from high in the skyscraper, drinking coffee and rubbing elbows with real reporters, people who pressed politicians and mobsters and people like my dad for answers.
Before I even realized I’d started walking, I was at the bank of revolving doors and then inside one, my fingertips pressed to the glass panel like I could make it turn faster, until I spilled out into the lobby. The buzz of conversation echoed off the marble floor, people clicking across on their way in or out, in the middle of no-doubt important conversations with each other or on their phones.
A fresh-faced, freckled security guard waited behind a desk. I approached, the card still in my palm.
“I’m Lois Lane. Here for Perry White,” I said.
My heart was beating embarrassingly fast, but he couldn’t know that from looking at me. He gave me a sweep of the eyes up and down like he could, though. “For the Scoop, I take it?”
“Which floor do I go up to?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You’ll need the service elevator. Go past the main ones there, and then take it down to level B.”
“B as in ‘Baby, this view is to die for’?” I asked hopefully.
The guard raised an eyebrow. “B as in ‘basement,’” he said.
So: not exactly my fantasy. But, like a good soldier, I marched past the nice elevators, the trademark globe traced in white like icing across their fronts. I stopped at a set of narrow, grim, gray elevator doors.
Turning, I saw the guard watching me. He nodded.
I pressed the call button, and the service elevator doors creaked open so slowly I was tempted to help them out. I admit it. I was a little bummed that the Scoop offices weren’t far above the city streets with a great view through the gleaming windows. But even the basement at the Planet must be pretty awesome, right?
Not so much to look at, I discovered. I exited into an even grimmer sub-level, the walls painted a dismal gray. My boots echoed on dingy tile as I passed tall frames that held yellowed front pages, their headlines shouting about murders and corruption, stock market crashes and deadly fires. The sound of muffled voices, hollow and indistinct, came from the same general direction as a dim glow at the end of the long, dark hall.
Past the bend in the dark hall was an open door. As soon as I went inside, I recalled my fantasy vision of working here and pressed the mental self-destruct button to erase it.
There were three staffers my age, a girl and two boys, all of them frowning at Perry White, whose back was to me.
The girl was Maddy from my English class, so at least that was an excellent sign for the making-a-friend part of the plan. She and one of the two guys sat at big slabs of desks—not unlike coffins—which housed computers that appeared to be the only things in the room that weren’t holdovers from history. The ancient variety, recorded in lost decades of decaying newsprint. The third staffer was a preppy boy perched on the corner of his coffin slab.
A fourth desk was empty.
The three noticed me at the same time, aiming their frowns past Perry to where I stood.
“Lois!” Perry turned and greeted me with a suspicious level of enthusiasm. “Welcome to the Morgue!”