Truth Read Free

even my dad, who’s pretty laid-back in general, can pull off that one.
    Georgia catches up to me in the hallway after the assembly. “Listen,” she says, “I was talking to Nate and he asked if we could keep as cool as possible about this whole thing. You know, don’t talk about it too much at school and stuff.”
    I shrug. “Sure. Jerome said the same thing.”
    The rest of the morning is a write-off. I drift through my classes until lunch. Then I remember I have a news team meeting.
    On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is supremely cool and 1.5 is about as cool as the average teacher gets, Ms. Chan is at least an 8. She’s the sponsor teacher of our TV show—
Fair Game
. The show runs on Fairfield’s local cable channel every Friday after school. It’s supposed to be like a news program, with an anchor introducing different reporters “on location.” Usually there’s one feature and a couple of short clips.
    Before she became a teacher, Ms. Chan was a reporter in Ontario. I can totally picture her with a tape recorder in one hand and a microphone in the other, following a lawyer down the stairs of the courthouse to get a comment. She looks like she should be on TV too. She has bobbed black hair, nice clothes, heels that click, click across the lab.
    The media lab is actually an office at the back of Ms. Chan’s classroom. There are a few chairs, a couple of big tables and two computer desks where we do our video editing.
    At our Monday meeting we divvy up assignments. This week there are the usual sports updates, a profile of the new art teacher and an exposé on whether men’s and women’s razors are actually different. The mainstory is a special feature on the murder investigation. That one’s mine.
    I sit for a minute after the meeting breaks up, organizing my thoughts. What would I most want to know if I was listening to the news? I’d want to know if Officer Wells was going to turn up at my house again. Maybe more about how they do a murder investigation. And the main thing: who was the murderer?
    That stops me. It’s like I’ve been refusing to think about it since Saturday night. Now there’s the giant question mark jumping at me from my notebook. Who killed Ted Granville? I was there, I should be able to figure it out. More than that — I should already know!
    Some people are always the last to know everything, but I’m the first. Too much time on the phone and an overdeveloped sense of gossip, I guess. I love secrets. When Georgia’s mom was pregnant last year (can you imagine getting pregnant when you’re forty-five?), I was the only one other than Georgia who knew for three whole months. Whenthat girl in grade ten moved away, who was the first to find out that her neighbors thought her dad was in the KKK? Me. Even though it turned out to be a lie. That’s all part of being a good journalist. I have to sniff out rumors and check the facts.
    So why don’t I know this?
    By the time I’ve finished wondering, everyone’s gone except Scott Rich, our best camera operator. Ms. Chan has assigned him to get some crime scene shots.
    Scott’s unusual in our school — he’s actually interesting. He’s only in grade eleven, but he seems like the sort of old philosopher that you’d find living in a mountain cave. He’s got shoulder-length, curly hair that he mostly wears in a ponytail, and it seems like he always has a video camera with him. He says he’s an observer of humanity. I swear he’s achieved a Zen state at age sixteen.
    The other day we were all hanging out at lunchtime in the courtyard of the school, and Georgia and Nate were arguing about what “mellow” music was.
    â€œMelancholy,” was Georgia’s answer.
    â€œYou mean sappy, my-boyfriend-dumped-me songs,” Nate said. “That’s not it at all. It’s tempo.”
    Then they saw