Buzz Kill Read Free

because he was desperate to get in her pants. “Good one, Viv,” he grunted. “A flag. That’s funny.”
    Ignoring him, I peered up at Viv. “First of all, I don’t give a rat’s derrière about Chase Albright. And no offense, but I don’t think you should get your hopes up. I seriously doubt he’s dying to date a girl who just showed up on national TV getting trampled by a giant bee—in slow motion, no less.”
    Indeed, an amateur cell phone video of Viv getting crushed on the sidelines of a football game by Stingers’ mascot Buzz had resurfaced after going viral the year before. Just when it had seemed like “Cheerleader BuzzKill” had gone dormant forever—after upward of a
million
YouTube hits—ESPN had resurrected it for a bloopers show celebrating the start of the high school football season. Talk about national exposure—of Viv’s butt.
    She jabbed a finger at me, a murderous gleam in her eyes. “I swear, if you had anything to do with that—”
    â€œViv, I do not spend my time videotaping you,” I promised her. “That whole thing was Mr. Killdare’s fault. He’s the one who kicked Buzz. Go threaten him!”
    â€œSpeaking of which,” Laura interrupted, “have you seen Coach Killdare, Viv? Because I’m kind of worried about him.”
    Viv seemed to think Laura’d lost her mind. “I have no idea where he is,” she snapped, “and I don’t care if Hank Killdare fell through a wormhole into another dimension!”
    I had to admit I grudgingly admired her grasp of time-space portals.
    â€œNot only did he humiliate me,” she continued, her voice rising, “but if he gives me one more D for not climbing that stupid rope, I might not get into Harvard. I don’t care what the hell happened to him!”
    Ouch.
That was harsh. And why was she assuming that something had really “happened”? Had there been, say, a four-car pileup that the rest of us weren’t privy to yet?
    â€œIf you’d just eat something,” I suggested, not unkindly, “maybe you could climb the rope—and be in a better mood.”
    â€œNot all of us have freakish metabolisms and can stuff our faces all day,” Viv countered. She glanced at my chest. “Although if I were you, I’d wish I could gain weight
somewhere.
”
    Ooh, a flat-chest wisecrack. Those never got old.
    Grabbing my book, I finally stood up, as did Laura. “What do you really want, Viv?”
    She crossed her arms. “I’m here to remind you that you have an overdue story for the
Gazette.
And I want it on my desk, ASAP.”
    I knew that Vivienne didn’t care about that stupid story, and was, as usual, “reminding” me that as student editor of the paper, she was technically my boss for the year. One who took twisted delight in giving me the worst assignments—including this latest snoozer, about some chinks in a cinder-block wall, for crying out loud.
    â€œViv, if you honestly think I’m going to schlep out to the football field to look at a few cracks in the bleachers—”
    â€œOh, I don’t just
think
you’ll do that.” She cut me off. “I expect to see a story about the stadium’s
major structural problems
on my desk by the end of the day. And I want quotes from Mayor Jack Ostermeyer, too, explaining why this boondoggle of a school that he wanted so badly not only gives people cancer, but is already falling apart at the seams.”
    Laura sucked in a sharp breath because that was low, even by Viv’s standards.
    My dad had fought for the construction of our state-of-the-art school, but that stuff about people getting sick because it stood on the site of an old factory . . . That had all been disproved—after nearly costing Dad an election. And my mom had died of an aggressive form of leukemia, back when I was ten. Viv