2

The blog went up.

CLARA BARTON CRIME LORD: SCHOOL DEAN EXPOSED

Rachel thought it was the greatest thing ever.

But apparently no one else cared.

The post got a couple of likes but no comments. Two days went by, then three, and still no one at school had brought it up. It was as if the story had never been posted at all. Hope Barcomb marched through the halls of Clara Barton as she always did, making jokes and fart noises to her heart’s content.

Audrey was honestly a little surprised.

They’d spent all weekend pulling the post together and it was pretty well done. She’d written that Dean Barcomb didn’t have the background he said he did and added fake quotes from students who claimed to have paid Barcomb to get out of trouble. They’d even created and posted some fake documents. It was ridiculous.

Still, the fewer people who saw it, the better. Audrey had been pushing Bryant to finish his next Pi Chronicles cartoon so they could get another post up as soon as possible. And there was probably some new binge-worthy series that Melicia could write about. Audrey figured it was only a matter of time before the Barcomb post would be lost beneath all the newly posted articles.

On the fourth day, however, someone commented claiming he’d paid Dean Barcomb $100 to get out of trouble for trying to leave school grounds without a pass.

Then more comments started appearing: “not surprised” and “bet they didn’t even check his resume.”

Another: “This school will hire anyone! SMH.”

The link popped up in a group chat Audrey was in. Then Dean Barcomb’s picture—his real picture, not the cartoon one Bryant had drawn—showed up as a meme and made the rounds.

Audrey didn’t say anything to Rachel, Mel, or Bryant, and they returned the favor. Usually they didn’t talk much about old posts—it would be too easy to be overheard and caught.

But by the end of the week, even with Melicia’s new movie review posted, people were talking about the Barcomb post all over the school. They all seemed to be wondering if it was true. Audrey couldn’t tell if the story’s comments were real or if others were just joining in on the joke. For her part, she mostly ignored the talk or laughed about how stupid it was.

When her dad asked how school was, like he did every night at dinner, she didn’t bring up the gossip. Usually, she gave him a full report. It was just the two of them—her mom had left for good when she was little—and they had always been pretty open. But not about the blog. Not about this.

Still, Audrey was confident that all she and her friends needed to do was make it to the weekend. Gossip and stupid memes had short shelf lives. A day or two at most. One weekend would put an end to it, she was sure.

Mostly sure, anyway.

* * *

Audrey and her dad went to visit Audrey’s grandma over the weekend. It was a good distraction. She didn’t have to think about the blog. And she was glad to not have to face her three friends until this mess was all cleared up.

But by Monday, it had only gotten bigger.

Four more people had claimed online that they’d paid off Barcomb.

Another wrote Barcomb once “joked about having a degree in Poultry Science.”

Hope Barcomb now walked down the hall to the sound of chickens clucking.

You could almost feel her anger, like something out of Greek mythology. The lockers practically shook as she passed. It was amazing but also awful.

“Nope, she clearly can’t take a joke,” Rachel beamed after school when they all gathered at Melicia’s house.

“We should delete the post,” Audrey argued. “Like, right now.”

“Why?” Bryant asked, shrugging. “It’s obviously fake. And it’s working exactly the way we wanted it to. Did you see Hope today? Even her own friends are giving her a hard time.”

“Good,” Rachel said. “That’s what she gets for having such lousy friends. Let her get a taste of her own medicine for a change.”

“I agree with Audrey,” Melicia said quietly. “It’s probably good to take it down now.”

“I thought you said no one could figure out who put it up,” Bryant said, turning toward her with a frown.

“They can’t,” Melicia said. “But we don’t want anyone looking too hard either. If it turns into a thing . . .” She trailed off.

“Like a legal thing.” Audrey couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.

“Right. Maybe the cops could . . . I don’t know.” Melicia looked a little nervous. “They’ll maybe figure it was loaded from the library and get security footage or something.”

“Oh, please.” Rachel waved off the idea. “No, they won’t.”

Bryant’s voice was a little too high and strained. “I thought you used that special software stuff.”

“I do, but,” Melicia shrugged, “why mess around with it? Let’s just delete it and be done. Audrey’s right. Hope’s been knocked down a peg. Let it go.”

“I vote yes,” Audrey said quickly. “Take it down.”

“Me too.” Melicia turned to Bryant. “I’m not even gonna ask dear Rachel.”

Rachel grinned. “I think we should publically accuse her mother of witchcraft.”

“Now who’s the bully?” Audrey glared.

“It was a joke!” Rachel laughed. “Jeez, lighten up. Fine. We don’t even need Bryant’s vote. Take it down.”

“Good,” Audrey said, relief washing over her whole body.

“Who wants to go to the library with me?” Melicia asked. Her tech skills made her involvement almost mandatory. She was the only one who knew how to use the special flash drive she made with the software that messed with the coding to keep the posts anonymous. But it didn’t seem right to make her go alone.

“I have a shift at the supermarket soon,” Rachel said quickly.

Bryant shrugged. Audrey guessed that was a no.

“I’ll go,” Audrey said.

* * *

Audrey knew she was just being paranoid, but she felt like everybody at the library was watching them as Melicia logged into a computer. Her eyes darted from person to person—an older woman who lived a few houses away from Bryant, a girl she recognized from her math class, one of the kids she played soccer with when they were little—all of whom would be able to identify her.

The nerves that she had when they first started posting on the blog, nerves that had gone away after the first couple of months of making these regular trips to the library, were suddenly back. To cover her uneasiness, she started talking to Melicia a little too loudly about her English class. The librarian looked up from what he was doing at his computer, and a guy with a Clara Barton baseball T-shirt gave her an odd look. Audrey realized she was just calling more attention to herself and quickly shut up.

An hour later, the post and all the comments were deleted. As if they’d never been there. With the blog post gone, Audrey was sure the whole thing would finally blow over.

She was wrong.