Gemma Halliday - Social Suicide

Sam shook her head so violently that her blond hair whipped at her cheeks. “No way. Big capital N-O. What if I get caught? Teachers are totally looking for cheaters now with the whole Sydney thing. I cannot get caught cheating!”

“You won’t get caught,” I assured her. “You’re not actually going to cheat. We’re just buying the answers. Heck, you won’t even see the answers. If all goes well, we’ll catch this guy in the act of grabbing the money before he even has a chance to drop the flash drive.”

Sam bit her lip. “This feels like a really bad idea, Hartley.”

My turn to shake my head. “No. It feels like a really good story. A good story that I need to jump on now before someone else does,” I said, remembering Ashley’s total ton of hits. “And one that no one else is pursuing because everyone thinks Sydney killed herself. Her killer’s going to go free to commit Twittercide again unless we figure out who he is,” I pointed out, trying to butter her up with her own phrase. “Please, Sam. For Sydney?”

Sam clenched her jaw. Then she finally threw her hands up. “Okay, fine. I’ll be your bait.”

“Thank you!” I squealed, coming in for a hug.

“But,” she said quickly, “if I get caught, I’m so pulling a Sydney and ratting you out to save my own GPA.”

I nodded. “Deal. Fine. You rock, Sam.”

“Yeah,” she said, grabbing her cell phone. “Let’s just hope I don’t rock it all the way to fudging suspension. What’s the guy’s number?”

I rattled off the digits that I’d extracted from Chris last night and watched as Sam punched them into her phone.

“What should I say?” Sam asked, turning to me.

“Hmm.” I thought a second. “Say that you got his number from a friend.”

Sam nodded, texting as I dictated.

“And that you have too many honors classes to keep up right now. You need the answers to Bleaker’s American Government midterm.”

I watched Sam’s thumbs fly across the mini keyboard as the words appeared on the small screen. I reread it over her shoulder, then we hit Send.

“How long do you think it will take to hear back?” Sam asked.

I shrugged. “Let’s hope not long.”

We settled in to do our American Government homework together (if we weren’t really going to cheat, we did really need to study) and waited, Sam checking her phone every couple of minutes to make sure we hadn’t missed him.

About twenty minutes later, just as we were going over the checks and balances system, Sam’s cell buzzed. We both jumped off the bed and dove for it. The text was from our mystery cheat seller, and Sam quickly opened it, both of us reading off the screen.

$50. drop under rock by mascot room friday b4 game. answers will b there @ 1/2time.

I shook my head. “We can’t wait that long. The midterm’s Friday. Tell him you need the answers today in order to have time to memorize them for the test.”

Sam complied, texting back. She hit Send and we both waited, staring at the blank screen. Three minutes later, a response buzzed in. Sam punched it open and we leaned forward to read the message.

2 soon. need more time

I pursed my lips together. “Tell him you’ll pay double for a rush job.”

Sam raised her eyebrows at me. “And where are we going to get a hundred bucks?”

“Don’t worry about that. Just type it.”

She shrugged, then did.

will pay $100 for answers 2day

A minute later, our response came in:

2morrow. oakridge mall. 1pm. $100 under the kangaroo’s paw at the kids playland.

Yes!

Commence Operation Stakeout: the Sequel.

By the time Sam and I finished studying and I walked the mile and a half from her place to my house, it was starting to get dark. I found Mom at the kitchen table once again, laptop open, eyes glued to the screen.

“Hey, Hartley,” she said, still not looking up. “That you?”

“Yeah.” I dropped my book bag on the floor and followed the scents of dinner into the kitchen. “What’s cooking?” I pulled the top off a pot on the back stove burner, leaning in to smell.

“Lentil and quinoa stew,” Mom answered.

I wrinkled my nose, wondering what the chances were I could sneak a pizza upstairs instead.

“Hey, come look at this guy on Match and tell me what you think.”

Oh boy. I could tell her what I thought without looking-nothing good could come of Mom internet dating.

“Uh, wow. You know I have a lot of studying to do…”

“I thought you were studying at Sam’s.”

“I have a lot more studying to do.”

“This will only take a sec,” Mom said, hailing me over. “Come look at this guy’s profile.”

Clearly I was not getting out of this, so I did glance at the screen. In the upper left-hand corner was a picture of a guy with graying hair and kind of a crooked smile. He was standing on the beach with a yellow dog next to him.

“What do you think?” Mom asked.

I shrugged. “He seems kinda old, doesn’t he? I mean, gray hair?”

“He’s not that old,” Mom said, cocking her head to the side. “He’s just a little salt and pepper. And his profile sounds very nice,” she said, indicating the paragraph of description under the “about me” section.

I scrolled down. “He says he likes long walks on the beach,” I read, rolling my eyes. “Cheesy.”

“What’s wrong with the beach? I like the beach,” Mom said.

I frowned at her. “And ‘holding hands at sunset’ and ‘candlelit dinners.’”

“So?”

“Mom! How cliché is that?”

“It’s not cliché,” she argued. “It’s romantic.”

I made a fake gagging motion.

“All right, enough. Don’t you have studying to do?” Mom said, making a shooing motion at me.

Thank God for midterms.

THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE UP WITH ONE THING ON MY mind: how to get one hundred dollars and fast.

Unfortunately, the only job I’d ever had was babysitting neighborhood kids, and even if I scared up a couple little guys to watch on short notice, no way could I make one hundred dollars in one sitting. Ditto Sam. Her parents didn’t allow her to have an after-school job, thinking it would interfere too much with her studies.

That left us with precious few options to earn money in time for the drop. We would either have to (A) steal it or (B) borrow it. Since neither of us were the larceny type, Sunday morning found us standing in front of Sam’s brother, Kevin, pleading our case for a short-term loan.

“I promise we won’t even spend it. We just need to use it as bait for a couple hours, then we’ll bring it right back,” Sam told him.

Kevin blinked, giving her a blank stare. Though come to think of it, Kevin always had kind of a blank stare on his face. He was dressed in jeans and a faded Green Day T-shirt, laid out on the sofa with one foot hooked over the end in a sprawling pose. The TV was showing some nature channel with a bunch of ocean scenes, and the coffee table in front of him was littered with an empty Cap’n Crunch box and half a pepperoni pizza.

“Dude, a hundred bucks is a lot of money,” Kevin said. “You know how many boobies I could save with a hundred bucks?”

I almost hated to ask… “Boobies?”

Kevin nodded. “There are only like a dozen Abbott’s Boobies left in the world. The whole world, dude! That’s, like, really not a lot.”

“Birds?”

Kevin nodded solemnly. “Endangered birds, dude. They’re being killed off by Yellow Crazy Ants.”

Clearly someone had been watching way too much Nature Channel.

“Look, we’ll do anything, Kev. Please? We really need the money,” Sam pleaded.

Kevin raised one eyebrow. “Anything?”