Black and White and Gray All Over (10 page)

The movie was good. It was a romantic comedy, and everything about the couple reminded me of me and Michael. I cried when they broke up and cried when they got back together and all around loved it.

Back home we chowed our sundaes—even Allie and my mom made their own—and then we headed upstairs to “settle in,” as my mom calls it.

But we weren't going to settle immediately.
There was a Buddybook survey to set up first. We got in our pj's and brushed our teeth; then Hailey pulled up her page and helped set up a little poll for me. It basically asked if kids were for or against school uniforms. We didn't make it specific to Cherry Valley Middle School, since it would be too hard to control for the answers, and anyway, since it wasn't up for real as a possibility, it didn't even matter. Hailey said she'd check it again for me tomorrow morning and tomorrow night, and I'd run with whatever the final tally was tomorrow night.

After Hailey did that, we decided we'd better look at Michael Lawrence's page. He doesn't have a photo up of himself—just a photo of his dog, Humphrey, who is a basset hound and really cute; even his dog is cute!—but a lot of times people tag him and their photos appear on his page. As we poked around his wall, Hailey suddenly gasped and pointed. I looked closely, and it was a tiny photo of Kate Bigley: her profile picture next to her name. She and Michael Lawrence were Buddybook friends! And not only that, they were playing an ongoing game of Words with Pals!

Alliances Shift as New Battle Lines Are Drawn!

Hailey and I looked at each other in shock; then I dropped my face in my hands and wailed. “I knew it! I knew they'd end up together! This is just like in the movie tonight when the guy meets the new girl!”

“Okay,” said Hailey, trying to click on the link to read the thread of the game, but it was locked. “Listen.” She grabbed me by the shoulders and made me look at her. “Just because they're playing some kind of dorky online Scrabble thingy doesn't mean they're dating.” Then Hailey muttered, “Why anyone would waste their time practicing their spelling online is beyond me . . . .”

I had to laugh. “It's not just spelling, Hails!”

“Oh, whatever! You know what I mean. Let's look at her page and see who she knows, okay?”

Hailey did some clicking and we were on Kate's page, but it was locked.

“Should I send her a buddy request?” asked Hailey.

I thought about it for a minute. “Nah. Not
tonight. I'm not in the mood to know any more anyway.”

“O-kayy . . . ,” said Hailey. “But if you change your mind . . .”

“Okay, I changed my mind. But you know what? Send it tomorrow after you leave. She knows you're sleeping over, and it'll look like we were Buddybooking all night long, checking her out and stuff.”

Hailey looked at me. “But we are.”

“Duh!” I laughed. “But she doesn't need to know that.”

We tried Googling her next, but nothing came up, except about some Kate Bigleys who were obviously older and not her.

“Whatever. This is boring.” I looked at the clock. An hour had passed. “And a total time suck, as usual. Will you please check the survey before you log out?” I asked.

Hailey checked. “Wow. Already a lot of replies. Seventy-three for it, twenty-two against.”

“Huh. It's totally weird, Hailey, but that's about the ratio I got when I interviewed people
outside school the other day.”

“Should we tack on a question about what the uniform should be?” asked Hailey, squinting at the comments on the screen.

“Nah. Thanks, though. With Pfeiffer's take on it all, I don't think anything will come of it anyway. Why make extra work for ourselves?” I said.

Hailey shut down the computer, saying, “You don't have to tell me twice.”

After we got into our beds and turned out the lights, everything was quiet, and then Hailey said, “Sam? If you like Michael, why don't you just tell him? There's always all these misunderstandings between you two, and it's because you don't talk! For journalists, you're not very good at communicating.”

“Maybe I should write it down.” I yawned. There was no way I was going to tell him anything of the sort.

Hailey left early for her watercolor field trip the next morning, but not without checking Buddybook for me.

“First of all, Michael hasn't replied on Words with Pals, just FYI.”

“Thanks. That is the important news, after all.”

“Second of all, the current polls are in and it's two hundred and thirty-four for to fifty-nine against uniforms.”

“Wow! People really have no life!”

“I know. It's sad.”

“Imagine the losers who
write
these polls,” I said, grinning.

“They must be total dweebs,” agreed Hailey, laughing.

“Have fun today, Hails,” I said, standing up and giving her a big hug in her chair.

After she left, I had some time to look at the Dear Know-It-All letters again. Mr. Trigg had e-mailed me back last night to say that there weren't any more letters so I'd better just go with something I had, assuming there was something good enough.

Sadly, there was something good
enough
, but it wasn't what I needed. I needed better than good enough. I needed awesome! I decided I'd go with the
“I miss my friend” letter, since it hit home the most for me. I started mapping out my reply, listing all kinds of things I could suggest they do together, like “Take a class,” “Go paint pottery together,” “Play Words with Pals” (aaargh!), and more. I'd write a little about the importance of shared interests and how they could keep friends united, and about making an effort to plan social outings and sleepovers and stuff. I had quite a lot of material by the time I'd completed my brainstorming, and I knew I could keep coming up with more. This column would be a blockbuster. A friendship 101 guidebook (or guide column—I was getting carried away!).

When I finished, an hour had passed and it was time for me to go meet Kate at the mall. Where before I'd been really looking forward to our outing, now I was kind of dreading it. I knew the subject of Michael would come up. How could it not? But what would I say? Ugh. I had a stomachache just thinking about it.

“Sam!”

I turned to see Kate waving heartily at me from
the Starbucks at the end of the mall.

“Hey!” I called in reply, and picked up my pace to meet her.

She started chatting as soon as I was within earshot. “Oh, I was so nervous you wouldn't come! New-girl jitters and all that. Like maybe I'd misunderstood, or gotten the time wrong or something.”

“Am I late?” I asked, feeling bad suddenly. I looked at my watch. Three minutes to spare.

“No, I'm just pathetically early because I had nothing else to do.”

“Oh, what did you get?”

“A strawberry Frappuccino and a cupcake. It's divine right now, but I'll probably feel ghastly once I've finished it.” Kate grinned. “It's a lot of sugar!”

“I'll get the same.” I went to order while she saved a seat for me at the counter that paralleled the line. While I waited, I saw a girl from my homeroom and we waved at each other; then my friend Tricia's mom walked by and we said hello. Finally the barista was the girl who's always there
on the weekends, which is the only time I go, and she knows my name because they need it to write on the cups for our orders. I know hers (Tara) because she wears it on her name tag. We greeted each other by name and had a little chat about the weather or whatever, and after she gave me my change, I went to perch on the stool next to Kate until they called my name.

“You must know everyone
in
here!” Kate exclaimed as I sat down.

“What? No, not really,” I said.

“It seems like it. This is really your hometown. You're lucky.”

“I'm sure it would be the same for you in your hometown,” I offered generously, but Kate shook her head.

“No. We've moved three times in the past four years. My mom is trying to get a teaching post at a university, and if you're not offered tenure after the first year, you move on. So now I never know anyone anywhere.”

“Bummer,” I said. “Or maybe it's really freeing? You can do whatever you want, wear whatever
you want, and no one will hold you back or call you out on it.”

“I guess. I just miss my old friends. And a few recent new ones, too.”

“Oh, do you keep in touch?” I asked, thinking of Buddybook.

“A little, on Buddybook.” She paused. Then she said, “Hey, how come you're not on it?”

I was surprised. “How did you know?” I asked. And, of course, right then they called me for my Frappuccino. “Hang on.” I got it and came back.

“Because I tried to buddy you and you don't exist there. I wanted to play Words with Pals with you, once I knew you were a wordie like me.”

Aha. And like Michael Lawrence, obviously!

“Oh. So . . . um, who do you play with?” I asked.

“I play mostly with my pals from home. Though I started a game with Michael Lawrence, and he never makes his moves. It's awfully frustrating, but then I shouldn't be surprised.”

“Oh?” Every nerve in my body thrummed as I waited for more information from her. “Why?”

Kate sighed in exasperation. “He's probably working too hard to bother with a silly thing like that. He's such a perfectionist! Always wanting us to check every little fact, do more research, call one more person. He's kind of a tyrant. I don't know how you put up with him,” she said. “Oh, but actually I do. Because you're perfect!”

“What? Me?” I nearly choked on my Frappuccino. The last word I'd even use to describe myself would be “perfect.”

“Yes,
you
, Sam Martone!” Kate said, smiling. “According to Michael Lawrence, anyway.”

“Oh, stop. No way,” I said. “I drive him crazy.” But I was tingling inside.

“You certainly do, but not in the way you mean.” She laughed. “He's always scolding me. ‘That's not the way Sam does this,' or ‘Sam always gets the quotes right the first time,' or ‘One time Sam said . . .' and on and on. Oh, my word! If I didn't feel secure in myself and my writing, I'd just about drop to the floor in a heap, listening to him natter on about you!” She laughed again, shaking her head.

“Ha-ha,” I tittered nervously. Was this for real?

“Yes, it's been very difficult for me to step into the Martone shoes in the famous Martone/Lawrence team. Like being an understudy. An insufficient one at best. I can't wait until it's over. I wish Mr. Trigg had never asked me to do it. It's just not playing to my strengths.”

I was so overjoyed at the compliments she was passing along that I could hardly participate in the conversation, but I made a huge effort and asked, “What are your strengths?”

“Oh, I love writing about fashion and pop culture. And my actual writing is pretty great, if I do say so myself.”

I had to smile, thinking of what I'd said to Hailey about my own writing, just a week earlier. But I didn't see this as a brag. When a reporter dissects her own skills like this, she's probably giving herself a pretty fair evaluation.

“Wow. So you should be writing the school uniforms piece and I should be writing the year-round-school article. Is that right?” I joked.

But Kate was dead serious. “Yes. Though I
would write the uniform article as a fashion piece with lots of photos of kids in uniforms and how they accessorize them to look great. We could have tons of photos from that guy . . . . What's his name? The friend of Michael's?”

“Jeff Perry?” I said. It was funny she didn't even know Michael's best friend's name. She and Michael couldn't be spending much time together if she didn't know
that
, at least.

“Yes! He would make a fabulous fashion photographer.”