Gemma Halliday - Social Suicide

The second book in the Hartley Featherstone series, 2012

YOU HAD TO BE INCREDIBLY STUPID TO GET CAUGHT cheating in Mr. Tipkins’s class, but then again, Sydney Sanders was known for being the only brunette blonder than Paris Hilton.

HOMECOMING QUEEN HOPEFUL SUSPENDED

FOR CHEATING ON TEST

I looked down at my headline for the Herbert Hoover High Homepage , our school’s online newspaper. Usually our news ran the exciting gambit from the custodian retiring to a hair being found in the Tuesday Tacos in the cafeteria. So a cheating scandal was way huge. And I’d been surprised when our paper’s editor, Chase Erikson, had assigned me the biggest story since the principal’s car was tagged in the back parking lot. After all, I’d only been working on the Homepage for a short time, making me the resident newbie.

I had a bad feeling that this story was some sort of a test. Do well and I’d earn the respect of my fellow reporters as well as a certain editor with whom I had a complicated personal history. Fail and it was the cafeteria beat for me.

Clearly I was shooting for outcome number one.

I turned up the volume on my iPod in an effort to drown out the noise of the school paper’s tiny workroom and put my fingers to the keyboard.

Herbert Hoover High Homecoming Queen nominee Sydney Sanders was discovered cheating on Tuesday’s midterm in her precalculus class. Mr. Tipkins caught Sydney red-handed when he noticed the answers to the test painted on her fingernails. Apparently Sydney had incorporated the letters A, B, C, or D into the design painted on her fake nails in the exact order that the answers appeared on the test. After Sydney was caught, it quickly came to light that her best friend, Quinn Leslie, had used the answers to cheat on her test as well. Both girls are suspended from HHH while administrators investigate how the answers to the midterm got out. Sydney, previously considered a front-runner in the upcoming elections, will no longer be eligible to be Herbert Hoover High’s Homecoming Queen at next Saturday’s dance.

“That the cheating story?” Chase asked, suddenly behind me.

Very close behind me.

I cleared my throat as the scent of fresh soap and fabric softener filled my personal space. I pulled out one earbud and answered, “Yeah. It is.”

He was quiet for a moment reading my laptop screen over my shoulder. I felt nerves gathering in my belly as I waited for his reaction.

Chase Erikson was the reason I’d joined the school paper in the first place. He and I had both been investigating a murder at our school, each for different reasons. Chase because he was all about a hot story. And me because the murdered girl had been the president of the Chastity Club and had just happened to be sleeping with my boyfriend. Needless to say, he was now totally an ex-boyfriend. Anyway, Chase and I had sort of teamed up to find the Chastity Club killer, and once we did, Chase told me that I showed promising investigative skills and offered me a position on staff. Considering my college résumé was in need of some padding, I agreed.

So far working on the paper was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. When I’d first heard the term school paper I’d envisioned a bunch of extra-credit-hungry geeks with newsprint-stained fingers. But in reality, the entire paper operated online-no newsprint-and several students I knew contributed-none of them geeks. Ashley Stannic did a gossip column once a week that was total LOLs, even if only half the rumors she printed were true. Chris Fret contributed sports commentary and kept a running poll on this semester’s favorite player. In fact, the only thing that hadn’t been all smiley faces about working at the paper so far was Chase himself.

Chase was tall, broad-shouldered, and built like an athlete. His hair was black, short, and spiky on top, gelled into the perfect tousled style. His eyes were dark and usually twinkling with a look that said he knew a really good secret no one else was in on. He almost always wore black, menacing boots and lots of leather.

One time Mom picked me up from the paper for a dentist appointment and, when she met Chase, described him as “a little rough around the edges.” When Ashley Stannic played truth or dare at Jessica Hanson’s sweet sixteen and had been pressed to tell the truth, she’d described Chase as “sex in a pair of jeans.” Me? I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of Chase. All I knew was that things had been uncomfortable and a little awkward between us since The Kiss.

Yes. I, Hartley Grace Featherstone, had swapped spit with HHH’s resident Bad Boy.

When we’d worked together on that first story, I’d ended up getting kidnapped and almost killed. Almost, because Chase had been there to save me at the last minute. And as soon as Chase had rescued me, he’d kissed me.

Briefly. In the heat of the moment. When emotions were running high.

It was a night neither of us had spoken of since, and I was 99 percent sure that it had meant nothing at all beyond relief on both our parts that I was still alive.

But that other 1 percent still persisted just enough that in situations like this-where the scent of his fabric softener was making me lean in so close that I could feel the heat from his body on my cheek-I still wasn’t sure whether I thought of Chase as sex in a pair of jeans or a guy who was a little rough around the edges.

“This is good,” Chase said, bringing me back to the present.

“Thanks.” I felt myself grinning at his praise.

“But you can do better.”

And just like that, my grin dropped like a football player’s GPA. “I can?”

Chase nodded. “Sydney got caught cheating yesterday. You really think there’s any info in this article that every person on campus doesn’t already know by now?”

I bit my lip. He was right. Within minutes of Sydney being busted, I’d personally received no less than twenty-five texts about it.

“So I should scrap the article?”

“No. Like I said, this is good. But you need more. You need to tell our readers something they don’t know.”

“Such as?”

“How did Sydney and Quinn get the answers to the test?”

I shrugged. “I dunno.”

Chase straightened up, crossed his arms over his broad chest (covered today in a black T-shirt with a band logo featuring a bloody zombie corpse), and furrowed his eyebrows as he stared down at me. “‘I dunno’ is not in a good reporter’s vocabulary.”

“No one knows,” I countered. “Quinn’s not talking, and no one’s seen Sydney since she was suspended.”

“Someone must know something. Who else have you talked to?” he asked.

I picked up the purple notebook where I kept all my important notes. “I texted Sydney’s boyfriend, Connor Crane, but he said all he knows is that Sydney is grounded for the rest of her life. And I saw the vice principal yesterday after school, and she said both Sydney and Quinn are suspended for the rest of the week.”

“And?”

“And the administration is considering a dress code that applies to fake nails.”

“And?”

“And I’m interviewing Mr. Tipkins tomorrow at lunch.”

“And what do you plan to ask him?” Chase asked, arms still crossed as he towered over me.

I pursed my lips together. This was part of the test. I could feel it. “He caught Sydney. I thought his perspective might be interesting.”