I’m really sorry for being so rude to you, Mac.” Sam hugged her friend the next morning in the cafeteria before school.
“Aw, you know I love you like a sister.” Makayla’s smile always brightened Sam’s day.
Sam saw Grace Brannon walking to a table on the other side of the cafeteria. “I’ll be right back,” she told Makayla before racing over to Grace.
“Hey, Sam,” Grace said.
“Hey. I wanted to invite you to come with me to our youth rally next weekend at the Arkansas 4-H Center. It’s with my youth group at church. We go canoeing and swimming and play badminton. At night, we sit around the campfire and roast marshmallows and share what’s in our hearts with each other. It’s kinda like our official end-of-summer event.”
Grace crossed her arms over her chest. “Trying to save me now that you know I don’t believe in God?”
“No. Yes. Um, exactly.” Sam shook her head, laughing. “Of course I want to save you, but that isn’t for me to do. I just thought you might enjoy coming with me. Makayla will be there, and Lissi and Ava Kate, and probably more people that you know from school.” She shrugged. “You won’t hurt my feelings if you say no, but I wanted to invite you so you know you’re very welcome.”
Grace smiled. “Well, thanks. Next weekend?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish I could because it sounds like fun, but we’re going out of town. Camping up on Petit Jean Mountain.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun. We went there over the summer.” Sam saw Lana entering the cafeteria. “Anyway, I just wanted to invite you. I’ll see you in class.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Sam turned toward her table.
“Hey, Sam?”
She spun back around. “Yeah?”
“Keep inviting me, okay?”
Grinning big, Sam nodded. “Sure.” She ran back to Makayla, her heart racing as if she’d run a marathon rather than just sprinting across the school cafeteria.
She’d planted some asparagus.
Lana ran up to them. “I can’t believe she actually did it.”
“What?” Sam asked. She braced herself for the news of who Aubrey had assigned the story to. At least there wouldn’t be more than one or two follow-up features.
“You haven’t seen today’s blog post?” Lana’s eyes were big and round.
Sam hadn’t wanted to pour salt in her wounds, so to speak. The sting of being demoted back to writing tips from teachers that nobody would ever read still burned. “Um, no. I didn’t get a chance.”
And she’d also been a bit worried about needing to apologize to Makayla. Saying she was sorry was hard, even if it was the right thing to do.
“You have got to read it,” Lana said, tugging her toward the door. Makayla followed, snatching up their backpacks.
They ran down the breezeway, ducking past the security guard into the media center. Mrs. Forge glanced up as they entered, recognized Makayla, smiled, then went back to her computer.
Busy with a game of solitaire, no doubt.
Once at the computer, Lana turned to Makayla. “I can’t get to the website.”
Makayla took over the keyboard. Within seconds of her fingers flying over the keys, the Senator Speak page loaded for them to read.
. . . It is a rare thing indeed for a middle school’s newspaper reporter to not only report with diligence but also with honesty.
The entire Senator Speak editorial staff is proud of our own Sam Sanderson for her breakthrough reporting of the Chenal 9 bomb incident. Sam turned over key evidence to the police to assist their investigation, and now the case is solved. Well done, Sam Sanderson. Well done. Sound Off, Senators. Leave a comment with your thoughts. ~ Luke Jensen, reporting
“Ohmygummybears!” Sam couldn’t believe Aubrey had let Luke post the article, and she really couldn’t believe Luke had written it in the first place.
Luke Jensen. Hello?
Mrs. Forge looked up, frowning. “You girls need to go ahead and sign off. The bell will ring in a moment.”
“Before you do,” Lana said, “look at how many comments you have.”
Sam scrolled down to see. Four hundred and eighteen.
Seriously?
All expressing congratulations to Sam and the newspaper. Even comments from Mr. Hughes and Mr. Milner. And the superintendent of the school district. Oh, and even a couple of members of the school board. Oh, oh . . . and Mom and Dad and Captain York . . .
And the editor from the high school newspaper! He’d posted: Good job on stellar reporting. Looking forward to welcoming some of the staff to the high school paper.
Oh. My. Gummy. Bears.
Editor of the Senator Speak, here I come!