What's Your Status? (20 page)

mad_mac → La Lisse
IDK!

Jimmy+Liz → mad_mac
Mad, what did you do? I heard over the loudspeaker that Dr. Trent wants to see you in his office! (this is liz)

mad_mac → Jimmy+Liz
NO IDEA. But I guess this means I’m going to be late to English. Jimmy, tell the Toupee?

Jimmy+Liz → mad_mac
Affirmative, MacDonald. (this is jimmy)

Glen → mad_mac
Speak truth to power, Mad! Damn the Man!

Glen
THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY DISABLED

“Dr. Trent will be with you in a moment,” Stephanie, Dr. Trent’s secretary, said to me from behind her desk.

“Great,” I said, trying to find a comfortable position on the bench outside the office, wondering what on earth I was doing there. I’d been heading to English, the last class of the day, trying to speedwalk and skim my copy of
GoldenEye
at the same time, when an announcement had come over the loudspeaker that I was wanted in Dr. Trent’s office. I had no idea why, and just hoped that he would write me a pass back to English. I wasn’t about to get detention
again
, just because Dr. Trent wanted to talk to me about something.

I figured that it was just another prom thing—though why he wasn’t talking to Kittson about it, I had no idea. I looked down at the bench, to see if Glen had tagged it recently—or carved any of the tiny bench portraits that had become his specialty—but it was free of any graffiti. I wondered if it had recently been replaced.

The door to Dr. Trent’s office swung open, and he stepped out and frowned at me. “Miss MacDonald, go wait in my office,” he said, his tone very sharp.

I blinked at him, surprised. He had never spoken to me like that—like I was actually in trouble for something. But the tone was familiar, and I realized after a moment that it was how he sounded when he spoke to Turtell.

I stood and picked up my bag. As I walked past her desk, Stephanie shot me a sympathetic smile, which made me start to get worried. Was I in trouble? Once inside Dr.
Trent’s office, I took the seat across from his desk and, trying to calm myself down, looked at the collection of framed inspirational posters that covered the walls.

“Well. Madison.” Dr. Trent walked into the room and closed the door behind him. He sat behind his desk, steepled his fingers, and looked over his glasses at me in silence.

I didn’t say anything. I had learned from Turtell that this was one of Dr. Trent’s techniques—he would remain silent to get you to start talking out of nervousness, which increased the chances that you’d accidentally say something to incriminate yourself. But I hadn’t done anything wrong, as far as I knew, so I just sat there silently and looked back at him.

Dr. Trent sighed, pulled a file from his drawer, placed it on the desk, and drummed his fingers on it. I assumed it was mine, though I couldn’t see my name. While it wasn’t as large as Turtell’s—which resembled the final
Harry Potter
—it seemed considerably thicker than it had been just a few months earlier. “Do you know what this is?” Dr. Trent asked.

“My file?” I asked, glad that he had broken the silence first.

“Indeed.” He stopped drumming his fingers and rested his hand on it.

“Am I in trouble?” I blurted out, unable to stop myself. This whole thing had the feeling of an interrogation about it, and I could no longer believe that he’d called me out of class to tell me what a great job Kittson was doing organizing the prom.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Why? Have you done something that would get you in trouble?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I was just wondering why I’m here. I’m missing class, after all, so I figured it must have been pretty important.”

“Yes,” Dr. Trent said, spinning his chair around to face his computer. It was angled so that I couldn’t see the monitor. “You’re currently missing English with Mr. Underwood.”

“That’s right,” I said, figuring that he was looking at my schedule.

“Or as you refer to him, the Toupee?” Dr. Trent turned back from his computer and raised his eyebrows at me again.

“Um,” I said, thrown. “I’m not sure what you mean….” Jimmy and I called Mr. Underwood that, but it was really just a private joke between us. I was starting to get a horrible suspicion. I leaned forward slightly, and as I did so, caught a glimpse of Dr. Trent’s monitor. I saw just enough to see the background of my Q page, with all my updates, displayed on his computer. I sat back, shocked.

“Don’t you?” Dr. Trent asked. “You know, Madison, that I have access to all the Putnam High students’ Status Q pages.” He put air quotes around
Status Q,
for some reason. “And I have to say, yours has given me pause recently.”

“I didn’t…” I said haltingly. I was still trying to process this. Dr. Trent was reading our updates? Seriously? Maybe that was how he’d found out I’d been
in detention. So Turtell had been
right.
“I mean, I know you have access, but I didn’t think you checked them. I thought you might have more, um, pressing matters to attend to.”

“I do,” Dr. Trent said shortly. “And of course I don’t check everyone’s. Just those of the students who have…come to my attention.”

“And that’s me?” I asked, stunned.

“Of course,” he said. “Especially after…the incidents of a few months ago.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved. Suddenly, this all made sense. “You mean you’re making sure nobody hacks me again? I appreciate that, but you don’t have to check my page. I’d let you know if anything happened.”

“That is not my concern,” Dr. Trent said, flipping open my file. “Miss MacDonald, several people have been…unhappy with the way the incidents of this spring were handled.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, not sure what that had to do with me. After all, he was the one who had handled them. But my relief was beginning to ebb.

“A student—an honor student, at that—was expelled because of your actions. Another exemplary student was suspended….”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What do you mean
my
actions? Dell was the one who hacked me. And he was the one who had the locker-combination database, and was stealing from people. He admitted it!”

“He admitted it,” Dr. Trent said tightly, “when you
were recording him without his knowledge or consent. And some would call that entrapment.”

I blinked, not quite able to believe that this was happening. “But he still did it,” I said. “He damaged a lot of things in my life. And in other people’s…”

“Nevertheless,” Dr. Trent said, “the manner in which you obtained this information was spurious at best, and does not take into account any personal agenda you might have had.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, stunned. I didn’t know what had changed in the past few months. Shouldn’t this conversation have occurred before Dell was expelled and Ruth was suspended? A terrible thought hit me. “Is Dell—I mean, Frank—coming back to school?”

“No,” Dr. Trent said, frowning at me. “We have a zero-tolerance policy here. Once a student has been expelled, they cannot be readmitted to Putnam High School. And the decision to expel him ultimately did not fall to me, but to the headmistress. But his parents have put in a petition to have his record expunged.”

“You mean they’re trying to get Dell’s record cleared?” I asked, my disbelief turning to anger. “He’ll just get
away
with it?”

“He was expelled, Madison,” Dr. Trent said. “I’d say that’s punishment enough, wouldn’t you?”

I just stared across the desk at him. It seemed like the small justice I’d gotten was being taken away from me. But it also seemed like Dr. Trent was now blaming
me for the fact that I got hacked and ended up losing my best friend in the process. The poster right behind Dr. Trent’s head caught my eye. It read
Dedication: Keep trying until you just can’t try anymore…then try a little harder!
and featured a weary-looking eagle. Dr. Trent really did have the worst, least inspiring inspirational posters ever.

“But to the point,” Dr. Trent said, steepling his fingers again, “your updates have been troubling me of late.”

“Oh?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level. It did bother me that Dr. Trent had been reading my updates. But I couldn’t think of anything I’d said in them—besides insulting Mr. Underwood—that he might have objected to.

“Yes,” he said. “For example…it seems as though Miss Pearson gave you the Hayes crown. And then you sent out a status update—in a public forum—that it was in your possession.”

Oh. That. “Yes,” I said carefully, thinking about the crown, currently in the trunk of my car in the junior parking lot.

“And yet, when I contacted the Putnam Hyatt this morning, they had no record of it being dropped off yesterday, when it was expected.”

“The thing is,” I said, trying to stall in the midst of my rising panic, “as you know, I’m involved in many different activities, the better to have a well-rounded application, and yesterday was the strike of the
Dane
set. And part of my responsibility as a member of the Thespians is—”

“Madison,” Dr. Trent interrupted me. “You’re saying that you still have the Hayes crown?”

“Well,” I said. I tried to think of any other option, but then gave up and decided to tell the truth. “Yes. But I can assure you that it is very, very safe.”