Bex made it through the entire homeroom period staring straight ahead. Every once in a while she could see a flicker out of the corner of her eye as the two cheerleaders gestured to each other around her, but she didn’t dare look. Even if they didn’t know anything about her, she was still the new kid—and if movies and television had taught her anything, it was that cheerleaders were to be avoided at all costs.
So when the homeroom bell rang and the two girls cornered Bex, she knew that her fate was sealed. Images of being shoved into lockers and covered in pig’s blood at prom swam in her head as one of the girls tightened her already-perfect ponytail and the other studied her.
“I’m Laney,” the dark-haired one said. “And this is Chelsea.”
Chelsea, with a sun-gold ponytail and blue eyes that took up half her face, nodded.
Bex said a low hello to each of them while her stomach quivered. She waited for claws or teeth or a biting remark about her hair or her clothes.
“Do you know where you’re going next? It’s easy to get lost around here,” Chelsea said, her ponytail bobbing. “KDH is a pretty big school. Was your old school very big?”
“‘Big’ isn’t really the right word for it,” Bex said, hiking her backpack over one shoulder. “And I have—uh—ethics with Mrs. Chadwick next.”
“Oh, she’s great. Basically you just sit and she reads the paper and asks stuff about what it’s in it. It’s a pretty cool class until she makes you do that stupid newspaper log. Ugh.”
Chelsea rolled her eyes. “That was torture. I had black fingers for weeks.”
Bex’s eyebrows rose. “Black fingers?”
Laney nodded. “Yeah, you have to follow something that has been in the headlines for a month and cut out all the articles and write a bunch of crap about them.”
“But she makes you use real newspapers. The paper kind.” Chelsea looked absolutely mortified. “Chadwick’s weirdly old-fashioned and slightly decrepit.”
“Come on,” Laney said. “I’m going in that direction. I can walk you over there.”
Laney and Bex chatted the whole way, and by the time they entered the junior hall, Bex was breathing normally—laughing even.
“Okay, you’re right there,” Laney said, pointing to a door over Bex’s shoulder. “I’m down there. Find me later. We’ll have lunch.”
Bex pressed open the classroom door without any of the trepidation she’d had before. There were only a few kids already in class, and the teacher—a youngish-looking woman with her dark hair clipped back in a low ponytail—was chatting with a kid in the front row. He was hinged forward, his shaggy, black hair dragging across his eyes as he shook his head against everything she said.
“No, no, no. It’s art.”
Mrs. Chadwick—possibly fifty years old and nowhere near Chelsea’s description of “decrepit”—shook her head but was smiling. “It’s illegal.”
“Oh, jeez, this again? You’d think the guy would give it a rest already.”
Bex spun, stunned, and found herself nearly nose to nose with the kind of guy who showed up in all those California high-school-on-the-beach movies. He had wide, brown eyes and brownish-blond hair that looked like it had been colored by the sun. When he smiled, the entire room brightened and Bex felt her temperature rise at least ten degrees. She was sure she was blushing; probably so much that her eyeballs were red. She took a fumbling step back. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. You must be new, or I must really have been sleeping through this class. I’m Trevor.”
“I’m new.” Another ten degrees. “Not new. I mean, I’m new here but my name is Bex.” She paused and bit her lower lip. “That was really smooth, wasn’t it?”
“Nah, you did great. The name question is a hard one for a lot of people.” He gestured toward two empty desks. “Here.”
“Thanks.” Bex sat next to Trevor, her eyes going over his head to where the student and the teacher were still engaged in heated debate. She jutted her chin in the student’s direction. “So what’s that all about?”
Trevor glanced, then shook his head with a low groan. “That’s Zach. He thinks he’s some big feature filmmaker because he’s the camera guy for the school news channel. He’s really just a huge pain in the ass. Argues about everything.” Trevor held up his hands. “Wait, sorry. Not argue, debate. He likes to debate everything. Probably hoping for an all-out brawl so he can whip out his GoPro and win a Pulitzer or something.”
“That’s journalism.”
“What?”
Bex’s eyes were still on Zach, watching the passionate way he argued, his body poised as though he would hop over the desk to prove his point. “The Pulitzer is for journalism. Not filmmaking. Does he do this all the time?”
Trevor leaned back and kicked his legs forward, resting his feet on the desk in front of him.
“Yeah,” he said with a yawn. “Better get comfortable.”