Forget Me Not (From the Files of Madison Finn, 21) (7 page)

“Time? Oh. Well …”

“Maddie, you can’t just blow off all the interviews. You do want to be a part of the documentary, don’t you?” Drew asked.

Madison shrugged.

“Maybe Madison is more of a behind-the-scenes person,” Mrs. Wing said.

The four of them gathered around Drew’s monitor to check out his colorful, upgraded, and revised version of the school’s home page. He’d added an audio track of the school song, along with new graphics that all of the students in Mrs. Wing’s class had been developing for weeks.

“I don’t care how small this movie is,” Egg said. “Our school is going to be semifamous when people watch.”

Mrs. Wing marveled over the new home page, gushing with compliments, although she had a few adjustments to recommend, too. Drew clicked a few keys and started to rework a few of the graphics, but he quickly ran out of time. Classes were about to begin.

A bell rang in the hall. But it sounded unfamiliar.

“What was that?” Madison asked aloud.

“Yeah, what happened to the regular bell?” Lance asked aloud.

“The video crew tested some different bell tones,” Egg explained. “At least, that’s what my mother told me. Apparently, last night that Julian director guy tried some different bell tones. This was the one he liked best. My mom thinks he’s a little bonkers. She thinks this film is disrupting everything about school. I mean, can’t he just dub in some other bell sound when the flick is done?”

Madison nodded. “Yeah. Dub.”

“Bell tones, shmell tones,” Mrs. Wing said. She shooed everyone out of the tech lab. “Get to class, kids. Things are crazy enough around here. Let’s try to keep to the routine as much as possible.”

Madison, Egg, Drew, and Lance walked into the hall. It was hard not to get knocked around as people shuffled from place to place, not looking (or, seemingly, caring) where they went.

Since they were headed for different classes, Madison let the boys run ahead, as she stopped to adjust her pants cuffs. Although it was a chilly February day outside, her feet felt a little sweaty in the boots she’d worn. She laughed at herself. In trying to wear an outfit that would make her feel good—and filmable—Madison had unwittingly chosen clothes that made her feel absolutely, and literally, uncool.

The noise in the halls died down. The second bell was about to ring, but Madison couldn’t spot any of her BFFs. She heard familiar voices just around the corner.

“We need to talk,” the voice said.

“Absolutely, sir,” another voice said.

Madison knew immediately whose voices she was hearing. Principal Bernard was speaking to Julian Lodge. That much Madison knew. What were they speaking about?

She adjusted her pants a little more at the bottoms but didn’t stand up all the way. Staying crouched was a better position from which to eavesdrop.

“Perhaps we should step into my office to discuss this,” Principal Bernard said. Julian Lodge didn’t respond at first. Madison could only hear snippets of what they were saying. She figured they must have turned to face the opposite direction.

“You know we love your being here, your using Far Hills Junior High as one of your locales,” Principal Bernard went on. “But the school has its rules.”

“I understand, Mr. Bernard,” Julian said in that smooth voice he always used. Madison could almost see his face, smiling wide. He never stopped smiling.

“We need to scale back on the disruptions,” Principal Bernard said. “I know I promised you assemblies and chances to get the student body together for a dialogue as a large group. But that will be impossible now.”

“Impossible? Why?” Julian asked.

Madison’s legs felt tingly. Her limbs were falling asleep. She was afraid she might tip over, but she couldn’t stand up, not yet. This was too interesting. Was Julian Lodge in trouble? This was good.

Principal Bernard had a whole list of complaints. Madison listened as he rattled them off. He didn’t like the camera crew following students down the halls. He had caught sound-crew members smoking outside the school. The crew left the cafeteria a mess after shooting in there for only an hour. The interviews with students were taking up too much class time. That seemed to be the principal’s biggest complaint.

“I can’t have student life totally disrupted,” Principal Bernard said aloud. Madison didn’t hear a response from Julian Lodge—at least not right away. She sensed his frustration, however, even from around the corner.

“Mr. Bernard … er, Principal Bernard … the stressful part of the shoot is always the beginning….”

Madison tried hard not to laugh out loud. Mom had always told Madison the opposite. She believed that the hardest part of making any documentary was at the end—making sure the final shots were in place. Julian was sweet-talking Principal Bernard. She knew it.

“I realize there have been some disruptions,” Julian said.

“Some of our students, normally good students, have been skipping classes,” Principal Bernard said.

“I can understand, sir,” Julian said. “But this won’t last more than one week. Surely we can work out some compromise in that time….”

There was more chatter, but Madison couldn’t hear all of it, thanks to a generator that clicked on and drowned out the two voices. When the generator kicked off again a moment later, Madison heard the soft sound of hands slapping. Shaking?

Someone sneezed, but it wasn’t around the corner. It was right nearby. Madison looked up and saw Hart standing there. And as soon as she caught his eye, Madison toppled right over like a pile of blocks. She couldn’t believe how clumsy she’d been lately.

“How long have you been there?” Madison whispered.

“Long enough to see the truth,” Hart said softly.

“The truth?”

“You’re a spy, aren’t you?” Hart said. But then he started to laugh—loudly.

Madison got herself up. Her legs wobbled, so she couldn’t move fast.

“Shhhh!” she said, motioning for Hart to be quiet.

But it was too late. Principal Bernard whipped around the corner.

“Mr. Jones? Ms. Finn?” Principal Bernard said.

Then Julian Lodge poked his head around the corner.

“Madison!” Julian said. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

Principal Bernard shook his head. “This is exactly the kind of infraction I am talking about,” he said to Julian, sounding a lot more like Julian’s scolding principal than his colleague in the project. Then he turned back to Madison and Hart with a shake of the head.

“You two need to report to after-school detention today,” Principal Bernard said.

Hart and Madison’s eyes bugged out. “Detention?”

Madison had never even come close to being in detention before. She’d never gotten below a B. She’d never even been reprimanded, in class or anywhere else at FHJH.

“Detention,” Principal Bernard repeated coldly. “I need to start restoring order around here. You need to get to your classes along with everyone else in school. Maybe this will teach you. I know it will be an example to some of the other students who are pulling the same tricks.”

“Tricks?”

Madison swallowed hard. She and Hart must have had the same stunned looks on their faces.

“
Ahem.
Dismissed,” Principal Bernard said, clearing his throat. He spoke to them as if they were doing army drills. Then he motioned for Julian to walk down the hall with him—away from Madison and Hart.

As soon as Principal Bernard and Julian disappeared, Madison and Hart ambled, still stunned, down the hall to class. Despite all of Principal Bernard’s warnings, however, they did not hurry. They loped along in a fog.

“Detention?” Hart repeated. “I can’t believe this happened. I never should have stopped to say hello to you.”

“I guess not,” Madison said.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were listening to Principal Bernard? Didn’t you know he’d discover you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Madison said. She hated the tone in Hart’s voice, and the clank of the word
detention
echoed inside her head.

Mom would freak when she found out.

The rest of the day at school was packed with more interviews with Julian Lodge and the crew. Of course, Madison didn’t take part. She heard about it secondhand. She spent her after-school time staring at the clock in the detention room, waiting for four o’clock, along with some of the other junior high degenerates. No one talked to anyone else in detention. Hart sat clear across the room from Madison. He seemed to be getting angrier by the moment.

Madison’s friends came to pick her up when detention ended. Hart said hello to the girls but then scurried away.

“What happened?” Aimee asked, sounding both shocked and a little impressed.

“I didn’t get to class on time. I was hanging in the hallway,” Madison said. “And then Hart stopped to talk, and he got caught….”

“Whoa, you’re bad,” Lindsay said, giggling. “I love it.”

“But you never get in trouble,” Fiona said, sounding more concerned than the others. “Is something wrong?”

Madison shrugged. “Can we talk about something else, please? Tell me about the filming. What kind of stuff did they ask you?”

Aimee, Fiona, and Lindsay explained how they—and other girls in the seventh grade—had been given pieces of paper listing dozens of simple questions. Madison eyed one of the pink questionnaires. She thought hard. What would her answers to these questions have been?

What’s your definition of peer pressure?

Where do you go to have fun after school or on weekends?

What are the cliques in your school?

What is the workload in seventh grade?

Who is your favorite teacher and why?

After she skimmed the questions, Madison turned to Aimee. “Aren’t those questions kind of personal?” she asked.

Aimee nodded. “Yeah, but even though a camera was there, it wasn’t weird talking about personal stuff.”

“I told them my favorite teacher was Ms. Ripple, because she’s really easy on grades,” Fiona added, speaking about her science teacher. “I hope that footage doesn’t get selected. What if Ms. Ripple sees it?”

Madison laughed. “Ms. Ripple doesn’t care.”

“Maddie, don’t you think your mom will think it’s weird when she realizes that you have not yet been on camera—especially after today?”

Madison shrugged again. Her head felt ready to explode with all of the things that had happened in the past week.

“Hart’s mad at me,” Madison said.

“He is not,” Fiona shot back. “He never gets mad.”

“Well, he got mad at me,” Madison said.

“So? It’ll blow over,” Lindsay said. “That’s how it works, right?”

Madison wasn’t so sure.

“What did you answer when they asked the question about school cliques?” Madison asked.

Aimee, Fiona, and Lindsay all laughed at the same time.

“You should have seen Ivy,” Aimee said to Madison. “She sat there the whole time in a manic panic, answering like she was on some kind of soap opera, waving her arms around, showing off. Truly pathetic.”

Lindsay laughed. “Pathetic, but funny. She reapplied her lip gloss like, thirty times.”

“And when they finally put the camera on Ivy’s face …” Fiona cut herself off and the three girls burst into guffaws.

“What’s so funny?” Madison asked.

“The camera broke!” Aimee cried.

“What? No way!” Madison said.

“Yes, way!” Lindsay said with a snort. “Well, they ran out of film. That was the official problem. But filming stopped, and Ivy was not pleased.”

“Carmen, Beth, Daisy, and even Hilary Klein burst out laughing. Ivy was so mortified,” Aimee said.

“The drones couldn’t even brush it off,” Fiona said. “It was brutal.”

“Face it,” Aimee said. “It was great.”

Madison grinned. She tried to imagine Ivy’s expression at the exact moment when the camera malfunctioned. Madison had seen that look so many times before—slackened jaw, squinty eyes, accompanied by a wild flip of the hair.

“I wish you could have been there, Maddie,” Lindsay said.

“Me, too,” Madison nodded. She chewed the inside of her lip.

Up until that very moment, Madison had been wearing her short after-school detention stint as a badge of honor. But after hearing about how the film crew had so perfectly embarrassed Ivy in front of everyone, Madison became sad. She didn’t want to be on the outside of things—not that much. She couldn’t be forgotten while everyone else got their moments in the spotlight. She couldn’t afford to miss another Ivy dis.

And for the first time since Julian and the documentary team had arrived at FHJH, Madison wanted—no, needed—to be a part of the action.

“M
OM SAID THAT AFTER
tonight’s dinner I’m grounded,” Madison told Dad as they sat together in Casey’s Burger Shop for dinner. She nibbled on the end of a crispy french fry.

“She’ll get over it by tomorrow,” Dad said. “I’ll talk to her. After all, it was a onetime thing. And there
are
extenuating circumstances.”

Dad winked.

Madison smiled.

Dad always understood. Or at least he tried. Sometimes Mom got so bogged down by her work that she didn’t find time to listen to Madison’s side of the story. That’s what had happened with the incident at school. Mom had only heard about detention from Principal Bernard, and by the time she got back home, steaming like a teakettle, she didn’t even want to hear Madison’s defense.

“Don’t worry, Maddie. I promise I’ll talk to your mother about it,” Dad said, taking a sip of his milk shake. “You know how she gets. She feels bad sometimes. That’s the reason she overreacts.”

“Feels bad about
what
?” Madison asked.

“You know. Because she’s too busy. I know how it is.”

“You do?”

Madison popped another fry into her mouth and chewed slowly, thinking hard about what Dad was saying.

“So, tell me, what else is going on at school besides the torture of having Mom around?” Dad joked.

Madison laughed, a little relieved to change the subject.

“Well, I aced that English test. The oral presentation was fine. I remembered everything I was supposed to, thanks to the tips you gave me. Didn’t even need to use the file cards I wrote out.”