Asking for Trouble: 1 (London Confidential) (19 page)

Monday at lunch, the newspaper table was abuzz. Last week’s sport column had been a hit too. Nearly two-thirds of the papers had been taken by the time I’d picked them up, and we were hoping that maybe this week all of them would be gone.

“Good work scoring a small advert from the chemist,” Jack told Hazelle in front of everyone, and he shot that smile in her direction.

She grinned—and blushed.
Aha! Hazelle is not immune to Jack’s charms.
I’d never before seen her lower her eyes and—almost—bat her unmascaraed eyelashes. There might be a side to her that I didn’t know about.

“So when will we find out who the mystery advice columnist is?” asked Rob, one of the printers. “We’re going to have another column for this week, right? I’ll need it soon if we’re going to get it in the edition.”

“Assuming that Mr. Abrams agrees to keep the column and the headmaster agrees to keep the paper, all will be revealed right after holiday break,” Jack said. “To great fanfare!”

“I’m dying to know who it is!” Melissa said. “He or she has done a splendid job.”

I smiled to myself. I could see it all now. We’d be in the newspaper office and I’d be standing in the back, unnoticed, as usual. Jack would call everyone to gather around. Then he’d ask me to come forward, and the rows would part. As the entire staff wondered why I was going forward, I’d sit down in the chair. I’d stick out my foot, and Jack would slip the glass slipper on it. No, no, that wasn’t right. I’d hold out my hand, and he’d stick my brand-new WA
Times
pen in it. Everyone would gasp. Hazelle would run crying from the room, and I’d track her down and try to be friendly.

A loud voice next to my ear snapped me out of my dream and back into the present. “Tomorrow is deadline,” Jack reminded us. He shot me the tiniest little look out of the very far corner of his eye. Enough that I would see it, but I doubt anyone not looking for it would have noticed a thing.

I know. I know.
I still hadn’t written the column on secrets.

“I’ve also got a little space next to the Father Christmas article,” Rob said. “Enough room for a little advert or a sidebar of interesting Christmas facts.”

Or amazing inside information on Father Christmas.

“Hey, Savvy.” Melissa’s hair swished as she turned to face me. She always smelled a little like grapefruit. I thought it was her shampoo. I needed to find a signature shampoo too. “Got any big plans for the holidays?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Hanging out.”

“Sounds low key,” she said. Then she bit into her wrap sandwich. “Maybe after the holidays I can go over a couple of my articles with you. You know, show you some style marks. We can talk about how to set up research and the like—find an unusual angle, squeeze information from unwilling interview subjects, and all that.”

She’d given me my first paper opportunity that didn’t involve a delivery bag when I interviewed Father Christmas. And now she was offering to help me even further. Truth be told, she’d been a really good friend.

Was I the kind of person who scooped a really good friend?

The verse directing the answer to this week’s Asking for Trouble column came to mind right away. I looked it up—Luke 6:31—but I knew it anyway. I wrote the column and, somewhat reluctantly, e-mailed it to Jack at 5:10 p.m. Tuesday.

Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend

Asking for Trouble

The good news was God had given me an answer—He’d given me wisdom when I’d asked Him for it. And He’d shown me how to sneak little bits of His truth into my answer, without people even noticing.

The bad news was He’d also shown me what I needed to do next. Something completely unexpected. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t see how it was going to work out for the best. But I guess that’s what faith really is about.

When I went to pick up the newspapers on Thursday—the last day of school before the Christmas holidays—they were almost gone. I headed back to the newspaper office. With it being so close to the holidays, there weren’t many staff members there.

“Five!” I thwapped the papers down on the counter. Rob cheered and pumped his fist in the air. Melissa and Jack danced in a little circle, and I stood there with my Au Revoir bag—slightly tatty and wet, but empty.

“Can’t see how the headmaster can’t let us go forward,” Melissa said.

“I can’t either,” Jack said. “At the very least, he’ll give us some more time to prove ourselves, and we can.”

As a reward, I pulled a candy bar out of my bag and took a bite. “What’s that?” Hazelle asked.

“Chocolate bar. Flake,” I said, proud that I was eating British candy—er, sweets—now.

She snorted. “How appropriate. Your new nickname, maybe. Flake for a flake.”

Melissa, who was standing nearby, must have overheard. She reached into her bag. “No, given Savvy’s taste in delivery bags—and the clothes she wears on nonuniform days—I’d say this is a more appropriate sweet.” She tossed something to me and I read the writing on the tube.
Smarties.

I turned and grinned at her. “Thanks, Melissa.”

“I mean that in both the British and American sense of the word,” she said. “Happy Christmas, Savvy.”

“Happy Christmas, Melissa,” I said. Hazelle had already turned her back on me.

Oh, if only I could live up to Melissa’s faith in me.

Melissa nodded and went back to the filing cabinet. Rob went to clean the ink off of the presses, and Jack came near to me. “Can you meet me at Fishcoteque in half an hour?” he asked.

“Let me check.” I texted my mother, who said it was okay. “Yes,” I said. “See you there.”