Star Reporter (10 page)

Mum left Dad in charge of the twins and followed me up to my room. I thought she was going to tell me to tidy it up – little does she know I am treating the floor as my floordrobe to hide the fact that I accidentally Superglued a bottle of nail varnish to my butterfly rug.

“Did you have enough money?” she asked, hovering in the doorway as I pretended to pick things up.

I explained. She gave me the hardest squeeze when I handed her the envelope with all of her money still inside. That's when I knew that borrowing Molly's dress had been the right thing to do. Liam might accuse me of being selfish sometimes, and yeah, okay, sometimes he might even be a teensy bit right, but this time I was happy to prove him wrong. All I had to do now was return the rest of the money to Dad and everything would be peachy in Bond HQ. I'll do it tonight, then polish my halo. Who knew being selfless was such fun?

I cannot believe what I have just seen. Remembering my promise to Molly, I went to ask Liam what was going on with him and Anjel and he gave me a really peculiar look and asked if I'd seen JUICE ON JUDE'S.

“Not since Saturday morning,” I said. “Why, is there more stuff about you and Anjel?”

He shook his head and threw me a look that was 25% sympathy and 75% disgust. “No. You're the star of the show tonight.”

A weird sort of buzzing started in my ears. “What do you mean?”

Spinning the laptop around, he pointed at the screen. “If I hadn't already told everyone you're adopted, I would now.”

Squinting, I read the latest headline and my heart started to pound. “EGGHEAD!” it screamed, and below it was a picture of me in my scarf. “WHAT IS CASSIDY BOND COVERING UP?” it read. “A DIY DYE JOB GONE WRONG OR THE WORST CASE OF NITS ST JUDE'S HAS EVER SEEN?” And that wasn't all. Underneath that was a close-up of the back of my hair in all its omeletty glory. “CASSIE SEEMS TO BE TAKING CHEAP BEAUTY TREATMENTS TO A NEW LOW WITH THIS MESS OF A HAIRSTYLE,” it went on. “CAN'T SHE AFFORD PROPER CONDITIONER? IF SHE'S TRYING TO BE A COOL CHICK, SHE'S FAILED – THIS IS ONE BEAUTY TIP NONE OF US WILL BE SCRAMBLING TO COPY!”

For the longest moment, I couldn't breathe. How had this happened? The only people who knew about it were Molly and Shenice and they wouldn't have breathed a word to anyone. And why had it taken a week to appear on the site? There'd been no shortage of stories on there so I supposed I'd had to wait for my turn but still…

Sucking in a deep breath, I thought back to the week before, wondering how anyone could have taken a picture. Whoever it was must have snapped the close-up while I was in the playground at the start of the day, and the scarf shot soon after, before I'd gone to the bathroom with Kelly to sort it out properly.

The room started to spin.

Kelly.

Feeling dizzy, I shut my eyes and thought hard. She'd had the opportunity to take the close-up, when she'd been supposedly helping me. What if she hadn't been helping me at all? What if she'd been setting me up?

Opening my eyes, I shook the thought away. It couldn't be her – she was far too nice to be responsible for something so nasty. An image of her expression when she'd asked about Mr Ramirez appeared in my mind. She was nice. Wasn't she?

Feeling as though I might throw up all over Liam's messy bedroom floor, I cleared my throat and tried to sound casual. “What else is on there?”

“The usual made-up rubbish,” he said, scrolling past a photo of WOLF BRETHREN with a great jagged crack down the middle. Then I saw something that almost stopped my heart. There, on the screen, was a scathing post about Hannah de Souza's ear operation, complete with a picture of Dumbo. I felt the colour drain out of my face. “Oh no…”

“Someone you know?” Liam asked.

“Er, yeah. Can I have a look?”

He pushed the laptop towards me. “There you go. Knock yourself out.”

I felt him watching me as I sat on the bed. The story had gone up late last night, which was why Molly and Shenice hadn't seen it, and it was stomach-turningly vicious. It was all there, every last detail I'd innocently given to Kelly. And what was even worse was that people had added comments, horrible things they'd never dare to say to Hannah's face. I shut the lid of the laptop and tried not to cry. It had to be Kelly – no one else could have included the bit about Hannah's turban making her feel like Professor Quirrell, the bit that Hannah had told me in confidence and I'd passed straight on to Kelly. It didn't matter that I'd thought I could trust her – I was pretty sure that wouldn't make Hannah feel any better.

Without a word to Liam, I got up and stumbled along the landing to my room. My phone showed six missed calls from Molly and five from Shenice. We met online and our emergency talks lasted for over an hour. They agreed that Kelly must be the brains behind JUICE ON JUDE'S, although I'm not so sure she didn't have help. Looking back, Jimmy had been really shifty at the first magazine meeting, maybe he'd been working on the JUICE ON JUDE'S site then.

And if he's involved…how many of the others are digging out people's secrets and reporting them back to Kelly?

The worst thing is that I can't tell anyone about any of this without incriminating myself. What am I going to do when Hannah finds out what I've done? She's going to kill me and I totally deserve it.

Joining the circus looks pretty good right now.

E-PETITION Number of signatures: 1100

I don't know how Kelly Anderson sleeps at night. I lay awake until the early hours and for once it had nothing to do with Joshua and Ethel – the headlines from JOJ just kept playing over and over in my mind. I didn't know what Hannah would do when she found out I'd betrayed her but she'd be devastated that everyone knew her secret. When I finally did nod off, I dreamed that she told Mrs Pitt-Rivers I had ruined her life and I ended up in prison.

I'm not really sure how I got through the day, to be honest – it felt as though everyone was whispering and pointing at me. It was actually a relief to come home and play peek-a-boo with Ethel and Joshua, who might dribble on me and bite my fingers but who weren't twisting my words for their own entertainment. Mum knew something was wrong, I could feel her watching me at teatime as I pushed my food around the plate, so I made an excuse and escaped upstairs before she started asking questions.

Rolo seemed to sense I was down because he lay at my feet even though I didn't have any cheese on me. I rubbed his soft ears and half-heartedly tried to concentrate on my fractions homework, then my phone flashed up a message. I glanced at the screen – it was from Molly.

Have you seen JOJ?

No OMG. No exclamation marks. No kisses. A worm of nervousness crawled through me. What now?

No
, I typed.
Do I need to look? xx

Within seconds, my phone pinged again.
Ask Shenice.

Gnawing my lip, I got up and went to see Liam. He was lying on his bed, white headphones plugged into the laptop. There was no point asking him if he'd checked JOJ – he was still sulking over all the negative WOLF BRETHREN coverage.

He yanked one earbud out of his ear and the tinny screech of guitars filled the air. “Haven't you ever heard of knocking?”

“Never mind that, I need the laptop.”

“What's the magic word?” he said, placing a hand on the top of the screen. “If you get it wrong, you have to bring me a cup of tea every morning for a week.”

My nerves were jangling – I didn't have time for his stupid games. Snatching the laptop away from him, I typed in the JUICE ON JUDE'S address with shaking fingers. Downstairs, I heard the faint ring of the doorbell and ignored it. I had far more urgent things on my mind. Why hadn't Molly just told me what it said? I wondered, as I waited for the JOJ logo to load. What had Kelly done now?

“Cassie?” Mum's voice floated up the stairs. “Shenice is at the door.”

I frowned. What in the name of Twiglets was she doing here? And why wasn't this stupid page loading?

“Tell her to come up,” I yelled down to Mum.

“Oh no,” Liam said, folding his arms. “I'm not having you two giggling and talking rubbish when I'm trying to work on my music. Go back to your own room.”

I ignored him and stared at the blank screen, listening for the thud of Shenice's feet on the stairs. It didn't come. Instead, Mum shouted up again and she sounded annoyed. “She doesn't want to. Come down here and speak to her yourself, please.”

Letting out a growl of frustration, I whirled around and headed for the stairs. “Don't touch that laptop,” I instructed.

Shen had her back to the door when I arrived. “What's up?” I asked. “Your internet isn't broken as well, is it?”

“What's up?” she said loudly, spinning around so that I could see her face was wet with tears. “Well, let's see – could it have something to do with the fact that my so-called best friend has totally ruined my life?”

My mouth fell open. Who was she on about – Molly?

“Don't act like you don't know what I mean,” she went on, her face twisted with anger. “How long did you wait before you went running to tell Kelly? A whole day or did you text her the same night?”

“Shenice, I really don't know—” I began, then trailed off as a horrific suspicion dawned on me.

“Save it, Cassidy,” she hissed. “I hope you're happy with your spiteful new friends, because guess what? I'm never speaking to you again!”

She strode off down the path without a single backward glance. In shock, I closed the door and turned back into the hallway, only to see Liam walking down the stairs, the laptop in his hands.

“I'm not surprised she's upset,” he said, turning it round to show me a photoshopped image of Shenice being bottle-fed by Mr Ramirez. “Cassidy Bond, what have you done?”

E-PETITION Number of signatures: 1220

Shenice is refusing to acknowledge I exist, Molly can't decide if she believes me or not and every time I started to forget how miserable I was, I heard someone else sniggering about Mr Ramirez and Shenice's mum. It sucks to be me so I can only imagine how much suckier it is to be Shen.

I couldn't blame Molly for spending every break and all lunchtime with Shenice. But it meant I was left on my own and it didn't seem fair. We should be working up to fever pitch discussing the ball tomorrow night. Instead, we weren't talking at all and if I hadn't already agreed to go with Nathan, I doubted I'd even be going. I caught him glancing over a few times during the day, a puzzled look on his face when he saw the permafrost between Shenice and me. I'd better explain tomorrow.

Mum must have worked out something was up because she tried to ask if everything was okay. It was just me and her; Dad was out doing an Elvis gig, Liam was putting in one final WOLF BRETHREN rehearsal and the twins were asleep. We were sitting with a tub of ice cream between us and the TV on low when she turned to me, a gently concerned expression on her face.

“Did I hear you and Shenice arguing yesterday? Is everything okay?”

For a moment, I was tempted to spill out the whole sorry story – how stupid I'd been in trusting Kelly – and let Mum cuddle me until it felt better. But I couldn't face seeing the disappointment in her eyes when she realized I'd messed up again. So I summoned up a false smile and lied through my teeth.

“Oh yeah. It was all a big misunderstanding. We're good now.”

She studied me for a moment. “You know I'm always here for you, don't you? Even if my eyes are sometimes propped up with matchsticks and I've got my T-shirt on inside out?”

This time my smile was genuine. “Yeah.”

She turned back to the TV. “Good.”

She dozed off not long after that and I sat staring at the tiny figures on the screen without really noticing what they were doing. Shenice and Molly and me have fallen out before, of course, but it's always been over stupid stuff and we've made up eventually. The way Shenice had looked at me yesterday, like I'd stabbed her through the heart with a rusty knitting needle, had been different, though. I wasn't sure if I could EVER make it up to her. What if she feels the same and we NEVER make up? How will I cope if I lose my besties for good?

I am trying my hardest to get into the party spirit but, after another day in the friendship-free zone at school, I'm pretty much ready to snuggle under my duvet and never come out. Not even the glittery ballet pumps Mum surprised me with when I got home from school were enough to lift the black cloud of gloom I had floating over my head. In fact, it wasn't until I slipped Molly's dress on and saw a strange girl reflected back at me in the mirror that I felt the first fluttering of excitement. In ten minutes, Nathan would arrive to pick me up and I'd get to spend the whole evening talking to him. At least I wouldn't have to stress about accidentally ignoring Molly and Shenice – they'd be blanking me on purpose.