Ream’s mouth, pinched so tight it looked like the sucker of the tapeworms we dissected in tenth-grade Bio, softened into a smile. She tried to act tough, but she was kind of a pushover.
“Oh, fine. Just keep it brief. And I’ll be informing your parents that I told you to wait, so figure out your story, buster.” She took a step away and nodded toward the reporters. Game on.
I smiled, but it didn’t feel like it was working right. At least I wasn’t frowning. I gave a two-fingered wave to the cameras. A super-blond reporter in black had squeezed up next to the first one. Both thrust their mikes in my face.
“Kyle, why do you think your picture struck such a—” Navy started.
“—taken by someone you know?” Blond finished.
I couldn’t tell where I was supposed to look, or which question to answer. The sun was still hidden behind the building, and I could feel goose bumps prickling my forearms. Repressing a shiver, I fake-smiled harder and looked between them.
“I’m as surprised by this as anyone,” I squeaked out. “Like my girl—” Foul. “My, um, friend told me last night, it’s not even that good a picture of me.”
“Hundreds of thousands of Flit users would disagree, Kyle,” Blond Reporter said. “What do you have to say to them?”
“I guess that they’re lucky no one’s invented scratch-and-sniff flits? After a shift, I’m best appreciated from a distance. Like, ten feet or greater.”
The reporters chuckled. I wasn’t doing so badly. Still, I felt like I had that time Ollie and I went cliff-jumping at his cabin. Stomach: lodged in my throat. I should get out before I said something seriously stupid.
“Anyway, I have to get going. A flit is not a good enough excuse for being late to Ms. Casey’s class.” I grinned. It felt less rubbery. “Though feel free to try and help me out. Maybe if the picture gets a million reflits she’ll let me off the hook.”
I waved, turned, winked at Ream, and jogged around the cluster into the school.
I made it to Ms. Casey’s room six minutes after the bell. One minute too late.
“Here’s my homework,” I said, panting. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple girls pulling out phones to snap a picture while Ms. Casey was distracted. Me yesterday: just another kid they went to school with. They probably didn’t even think about me. Me today: worth posting pictures of to their feeds. I tried not to grin.
“You know the rule. Late is late.”
“I know, but I swear it wasn’t my fault.”
“Really.” Ms. Casey tilted her head to the side to make sure I got a better look at her smirk. Casey: champion smirker. Usually it meant she was about to be funny, which was impressive since she taught one of the most boring subjects ever. Today it clearly meant “I’m calling you on your crap, Kyle.”
“There were news vans waiting for me at the door.” She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously, ask Rea—, uh, Dr. Rheim. I got by as fast as I could, but I didn’t build time for that into my commute, you know?”
A couple kids snickered.
“What did you do that’s so newsworthy, Mr. Bonham?”
“Nothing. Someone took a picture of me and it sort of, like . . . I dunno, it blew up.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“He’s telling the truth, Ms. Casey,” Erin Rothstein said in her squeaky-high voice, raising a belated arm over her tight blond curls. “He’s totally famous now.”
“I saw the vans on my way in,” Caleb DeLeon offered to no one in particular.
A couple kids nodded. Ms. Casey frowned, then rolled her eyes and reached for my homework.
“Fine, for now you get a bye,” she said, shooing me toward my seat. “But if I don’t hear your name on the evening news, regular rules apply.”
“All right,” I said, grinning. “You will, though.”
chapter seven
RACHEL
WEDNESDAY, 11:20 A.M.
I should have been angry to see Monique beckoning me toward our usual lunch table near the fro-yo bar, like nothing had even happened, but I was mostly relieved. Jessie must have been in the crowd around my locker; she’d posted a video of me pulling off the pictures on Flit with the caption “Saving them for her scrapbook?”
It already had over three hundred luvs. Seeing anyone who didn’t look like they were half a second from laughing, or ready to drip patronizing pity on me, was a relief.
“Hey, Rach,” she said carefully as I walked up. I nodded at Mark Majors and Britta Goldberg, leaning over a manga together at the end of the table. Mark nodded back, his floppy brown hair falling over his eyes. Britta raised a few fingers before turning back to the comic, absorbed. Neither laughed and pointed, like I was a circus animal that had just done something hilarious with its own poop.
So now I had a solid three people in my corner, which sadly felt like an improvement.
“Hey, Mo.” I slid into a seat across from her.