Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss(27)

“Hi,” I said instead. “I’m Lacey Barnes.” I presented her with my finished packet.

“Lacey, we finally meet. Come in, come in. Have a seat.” She pointed to the chair on the opposite side of her desk, then she sat down across from me. She started flipping through my packet. “How have you been faring? Too hard? Too easy?”

“Just right,” I said.

“Does that mean too easy? You answered that very quickly.”

“No. In fact the math has challenged me quite a bit.”

“Challenging is good.” She shut the packet and placed both hands on top of it. “Well, I’m not going to grade this right here, but I’ll email you. You have been getting my emails, yes?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a little button called ‘reply’ that you push, and then you can write back. I know it’s probably an outdated media for you kids, but I have faith that you can learn.”

I smiled. “Sorry. I’m really busy. I’ll work on that though. I could just deliver you my packets that way too—by email.”

“I know. I told your father that, but he said this was part of your compromise.”

“Of course he did.” One I hadn’t realized we’d made.

“I was wondering if you’d actually ever make it in here. I’ve seen a lot of your delivery boy.”

“Yes, Donavan. He . . . plays guitar.” I took a guess because that was the only one I could imagine him doing.

“He does?” she asked.

Maybe I was wrong. “And writes?”

“Yes, he does,” she said this time. “For the school paper.”

Again, I was surprised. But then I remembered how quickly he’d pulled out that improv the other day. He obviously had some creativity in there somewhere.

She pointed to the corner of her desk where a folded paper sat.

“The school still has an actual paper?” I was thinking she was referring to an online issue.

“We do, in fact, as archaic as that seems to most. I think it’s because about thirty years ago, we got our own small printing press. It’s still in our journalism department, humming along happily. We’re too proud to let print die now.”

“I still like holding words in my hands.” I craned my neck and tried to find Donavan’s name on the front page. I couldn’t make out much at this angle.

She nodded. “Me too.”

“Do you have an extra school paper lying around?”

“Oh! Yes, they’ll have extra ones in the journalism building. I would give you mine, but apparently I’m quoted in here somewhere. I haven’t read it yet. Plus, you can check out the printing press while you’re over there.”

I’d never seen one before. I tried to take advantage of opportunities where I got to see or experience new things. I never knew when I’d need knowledge like that for a character. “For sure.”

“It’s two buildings down, room 114.”

I stood. “It was great to meet you. I think I’m all caught up for now.”

“You are caught up until tomorrow, when you will have a whole new packet to start.”

I wondered if my dad knew that. Who was I kidding? Of course he did. “Right. Thank you.”

“If I had known you were coming, I would’ve had the next one ready for you.”

“Sorry, I thought my dad told you I was coming. Donavan will bring it for me.”

She nodded, slid my packet into her top drawer, and walked me out of the room.

I headed toward the building she’d said housed the journalism department. Room 114. That would be on the first floor. It would be easy to just walk by and look inside, see the printing press, maybe pick up a newspaper. What were the odds that Donavan had journalism this period? The odds were low.

When I got to the room and peered through the window, I couldn’t see this machine or the newspapers. I saw only rows of desks and computers and students typing away as if they couldn’t keep up on all the news happening at that very moment. I backed up to look at the number beside the door: 114. So where did they keep the press? In some back room? Had Mrs. Case been joking about the school owning one?

I moved to leave when I saw a big bulletin board that filled an entire wall inside the classroom. Pinned to it were newspaper clippings. I wouldn’t disrupt anyone if I walked inside to look closer, see what kind of articles this school put out. Okay, fine, I didn’t care about the articles so much as I was curious about what Donavan wrote. Finding out he was a writer was surprising, and I wondered if his writing would give any insight into his personality. If I was to succeed in loosening him up, this could help. I opened the door.

I was wrong. I disrupted pretty much everyone. They all looked my way, their fingers pausing for a moment on the keys to watch me skirt around the outside of the classroom. Now I needed to act like I was there for some official reason. I stopped in front of the teacher and flashed my visitor badge. “Hi, sorry to interrupt. I’m new here and just on a tour of the campus.”

“And you’re interested in journalism? You write?”

I gave him my best sincere, studious look. “Of course.” Now maybe he could point out where the printing press was hiding and let me look for Donavan in the sea of newspaper clippings.