Truth about Truman School (4 page)

Amr called me to tell me we had some email to answer. It was addressed to the webmaster for the Truth about Truman.

Whoa! “
Some
email?” I asked. “As in ‘more than one' email?”

“Yeah.”

I slipped on my crocs and hurried down the street. Imagine my disappointment when I saw that one of the emails was from Hayley Wood, and she was blathering on about some brand new
underground cheerleading squad
(give me a break!), and how we should cover it for the Truth about Truman.

I plopped into a chair next to Amr. “Why didn't you tell me one of the emails was from
her
?” I asked.

“What difference does it make who they're from?” Amr asked. “What's important is they're from people who are reading the Truth about Truman.”

I just glared at Amr. He knew how I felt about Hayley and Lilly and that whole popular crowd. Didn't he feel the same way? Maybe not. Boys didn't get as caught up in stuff like that as girls did. Which was probably why I preferred to hang out with Amr instead of most of the girls at Truman.

“The thing is,” Amr began, “like it or not, if people like Hayley and Lilly and Jonathan and Reece are reading the Truth about Truman, then their friends are probably reading it, too. And if all the popular kids are reading it, then everyone's reading it.”

“Yeah, but nobody knows it's
our
website,” I said. “If people knew it was ours, do you think anyone would read it? Do you think Hayley would read it if she knew
we
were the ones writing all the stuff on it?”

“I don't know,” Amr said. “That's why we have to think about how we're going to respond to her email. We can't cover her cheerleading squad. Not if we're going to stay anonymous.” Amr paused. “We do want to stay anonymous, don't we?”

“We definitely want to stay anonymous,” I said. “Which means we can't cover the cheerleading squad. Aw, darn.” I snapped my fingers.

“No, but we could tell them they can write an article and post it themselves,” Amr said. “They can post their own video, too. If they can figure out how to do it.”

I made a face. I did not want
cheerleading
stuff on the Truth about Truman.

“We said this was everyone's newspaper,” Amr pointed out. “Doesn't ‘everyone' include people like Hayley and her crowd?”

I sighed. I wished it didn't have to. But Amr had a point.

So this is what we wrote to Hayley:

Dear Hayley,

The Truth about Truman is everybody's website. That means anyone can post an article
or a picture or a video. Feel free to write whatever
you want about your cheerleading squad and upload your videos. (Email us back if you don't know how to do it.) I'm sure everyone would love to hear how you started your cheerleading squad and see your video. Good luck!

—Truth about Truman Webmaster

Amr thought we should say that bit about how everyone would
love
to hear how she started her underground cheerleading squad (as if it were really that hard) and see her video to butter her up (and keep her and her friends reading our site). It about killed me to type those words, but I did. For the good of our site.

“Now who's the other email from?” I asked after I sent our response to Hayley.

“I don't know,” Amr replied. “Comicbookhero365. Any idea who that is?”

“Not a clue,” I said.

Okay. I'm kind of into comic books. Not just reading them, but drawing them, too. I had this one—well, it was about a math nerd named Nero. Nero was this eighth grader who didn't have any friends. He got picked on and stuff because he was like a human calculator. But then one day he saved this homeless guy's life, and the guy gave Nero super powers, so he went out and he saved the world and stuff. It sounds weird, I know, but it was actually pretty good. I mean, it had a good story. And well, the drawings weren't bad, either.

I just sort of wondered if maybe the people who were doing the Truth about Truman ever thought about having a comic strip on their website? The only thing was, I didn't want them to know who I was because, well … let's face it, I wasn't exactly the coolest guy at school. We all know that, right? People would probably laugh if they knew
I
wanted to do a comic strip about an eighth-grade superhero.

Of course, they'd probably laugh no matter what I wrote a comic strip about. Kids at school were always laughing at me. Half the time I didn't even know why.

But everyone likes comics. Even cool kids like comics. Have you ever met anyone who doesn't like comics? It's the most popular section of the newspaper!

So I emailed the Truth about Truman about my idea. I scanned in a couple frames from Nero to show them I could draw and that I knew how to put a comic strip together. I told them a little about the story, but I also said I could do a whole new comic if they wanted. It didn't have to be Nero. It could be any kind of comic they wanted. It could be a story or a single frame. Color or black and white.

I didn't know what else to say. That was probably good enough.

I signed my email “Comicbookhero365,” which was also my email address. I was pretty sure nobody at school knew who that was. Nobody at school even knew I could draw. Then I grabbed my mouse and moved the cursor over to the SEND button. But I couldn't quite bring myself to click on it.

What was I thinking, trying to pass myself off as a comic strip artist? No way would these people who were doing the Truth about Truman, whoever they were, be interested in anything
I
sent them. For a middle-school website, or newspaper, or whatever it was, it was really professional-looking. There were probably ten other people lined up to do comics for them. And all ten of those people were probably way better artists than I was. For sure they were more popular than I was.

But … what if no one else had volunteered to do a comic for them? What if they really wanted a comic?

I'd never know if I didn't send the email. So I clicked SEND before I could change my mind.

Forty-five minutes later I had a response:

Dear Comicbookhero365,

The Truth about Truman is everybody's website. That means anybody can post an article, a picture, a video, or a comic strip. We like your comic a lot, so we think you should definitely post it. Let us know if you need help.

—Truth about Truman Webmaster.

Wow! Did I read that right? They
liked
my comic strip?
A lot?
I got goosebumps when I read that! This was one of the best things that had ever happened to me.

I started to imagine this whole big thing where everyone at school would be trying to figure out who comicbookhero365 was. Even the cool kids. And when everyone found out it was me, they'd come up and say stuff like, “Trevor! We had no idea you were so great!”

Before I knew it,
I'd
be the guy everyone wanted to hang out with. I'd get invited to all the parties and girls like Hayley Wood would be all over me. I'd be so busy I wouldn't even have time to be a comic book hero anymore.

So Hayley decided that if a bunch of kids at Truman could start an underground newspaper/website then she, Brianna, and I should be able to start a cheerleading squad. Well, first of all, I doubted “a bunch of kids” had started that website. Like I said before, I was pretty sure it was just one kid: Zebby. Maybe Amr was in on it, too. Amr was the one who knew all about computers. No way was it a “bunch of kids.” Still, I had to agree with Hayley. If Zebby and Amr, of all people, could start an underground newspaper/website, then we should totally be able to start an underground cheerleading squad. I just wasn't sure we could do it by Friday.

We knew there'd be a lot of girls who'd want to do it with us (like Cassie and Kylie and Morgan), but Hayley, Brianna, and I thought it should be just the three of us because, well … I don't mean to brag, but
we
were the popular girls.

Hayley also thought that whoever was doing the Truth about Truman could write about us. But if it really was Zebby's website, I knew she'd never do that. She's got a thing against cheerleaders (she's got a thing about a lot of things!), and she sure wouldn't write a story about us for her precious website.

But I was a little surprised when she, or whoever the webmaster of that site was, said
we
could write one. And that we could even upload a video of ourselves. In fact, it made me wonder for a second if the Truth about Truman really
was
Zebby's site.

Brianna thought she could get her stepbrother to record us and send the video in for us.

“So all we need to do now is learn some cheers!” Hayley said.

We also needed to figure out what we were going to wear, and we needed to get some pompoms. I didn't think we had any hope of being ready in time, but no one tells Hayley Wood she can't do something.

So we all stayed after school on Wednesday, and Mrs. Conway helped us find some books on cheerleading. Then we all got on a computer and looked up different cheers on the Internet.

On Thursday we went to Brianna's house and practiced everything we'd learned for like three hours straight. I was surprised how good we were! I think it helped that we'd all taken gymnastics.

Once I was sure we weren't going to fall flat on our faces Friday afternoon, I started getting really excited about this. I always wanted to be a cheerleader, and I always wanted to have a boyfriend who was on the football team (which Reece is!). Back when they were in high school, my mom was a cheerleader and my dad was a football player. I thought it would be so cool if they both came to one of our games. Maybe they'd even remember that was how they got together in the first place.

I know … not likely, considering it had been like six months since I'd even seen my dad. And he only lives fifty miles away.

We had so much to do to get ready for that first game that I didn't have time to think about milkandhoney.

Those days right before the game? That was the last time I remember feeling truly happy.

Amr is my best friend, but he's Muslim, so he can never do anything right after school because he always has to pray for half an hour first. That's why I sometimes stay after school and hang out in the media center with Mrs. Conway. I like talking to Mrs. Conway about books and stuff, and after school is usually the best time to talk to her because the only people who are ever in the media center after school are Trevor Pearson and Sara Murphy.

But one day I went in there after school and Lilly, Hayley, and Brianna were sitting at three of the computers. You could smell their perfume all the way over by the door.

What were
they
doing here? I wondered. Did they even know how to read? (Okay, that wasn't nice.)

I started to turn and walk away, but Mrs. Conway called me back.

“Zebby, come here. That book I told you about last week is in.” I knew which book she was talking about—the one about women journalists. I was really anxious to read it, so I held my breath as I walked past those girls and went over to the checkout desk to get it.

“I haven't seen you in a while,” Mrs. Conway said as she checked out my book.

“Yeah, I've been busy with school and stuff,” I said. I was tempted to tell her about the Truth about Truman School. I wanted to tell her,
See, it was okay that I quit the
Bugle
. Look at this! Look what Amr and I started. Don't you think this is a way better newspaper than the
Bugle
?

But if Amr and I really weren't telling anyone the Truth about Truman was ours, then we couldn't tell Mrs. Conway, either. So I took my book and left.