The phone rang at seven thirty the next morning as they rushed to get ready for work and school. With a call that early, Adam’s parents feared someone was ill.

Adam feared the call would make him ill.

His mother took it, and Adam could tell she definitely had not won the Publishers Sweepstakes grand prize.

“We are breaking new ground,” she said, hanging up. “That was the dean of discipline. Seems you’re in big trouble, young man. One of us has to go with you to get you back into school. Adam, this is unbelievable. Were you going to say anything?”

Adam was trying to think fast. He didn’t want to say a word until he found out what they had on him. There were lots of possibilites. Fortunately, he was catching a cold. He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose hard. Maybe it’d generate some sympathy.

Right.

“Suspended!” yelled his mother. “You, Adam Canfield. Honors student. Four-pluser. Don’t you have anything to say? Aren’t you sorry?”

Adam was delighted to be sorry; he just needed to know exactly what to be sorry for. He hated manipulating his parents but had no choice. He dropped to one knee, lifted his arms high, and hollered, “What did I do? I didn’t do anything. Just tell me one single thing I did.”

“What did you do?” yelled his mother. “Where do I begin? You failed to show up for detention, not that you felt you should tell us you even had a detention. Two detentions, no less. So now it’s strike three! Let me shake your hand. Please, stand to accept the award. You’ve won a day of in-school suspension. What’s going on? You bomb at the science fair, but you’re number one with the Dean of Discipline?”

Adam felt enormous relief. That was all? He’d done it! He pumped his fist.

The moment he did, he knew it was a mistake.

“You’re celebrating?” It was his father’s turn. “Do you know what they call someone who does something wrong and feels no remorse? A sociopath! You know what happens to sociopaths? They grow up to be serial killers. They murder innocent people and sit in the courtroom smirking.”

“No, Dad, I swear, I’m sorry. I wasn’t happy about getting in trouble. I was just afraid it was something worse.”

“Worse?” said his father. “There’s something worse? Adam, we’re on the slippery slope. No science fair medal. Suspended from school. I notice your hair’s getting a little long. Half the time, your baseball cap’s on backward. What’s next?”

Adam dropped his head. He tried to look like a person who would never smirk in a courtroom.

He blew his nose.

It might have worked. His parents left the room and were whispering.

When they returned, they started by saying that they knew he was a good boy and was under a lot of pressure.

Then they said they were worried he might have been traumatized by being mugged and felt it would be good for him to see a therapist. They kept emphasizing that his problems seemed to have started after the mugging. “It doesn’t mean we think you’re crazy,” said his father. “It just means it might be good if you talked things out with someone. Even this cold you have. Emotional problems can lead to physical illness.”

Adam considered protesting. The only reason he had a cold was that his baseball coach believed in practicing in level-five hurricanes.

But Adam held his tongue. Things were going too good. All he said was “OK.”

When his dad went to get the car keys, Adam sat back and let out his breath. He’d pulled it off. It was the second terrific thing that happened to him in twenty-four hours.

The night before, he’d lain in bed and thanked God for putting Mr. Buchanan’s room on the first floor.

Jennifer and Phoebe walked into 306, looked at each other, dropped their backpacks, executed synchronized swoons, and fell to the floor, apparently dead.

“Very funny,” said Adam, who was finishing putting toner in the Slash copy machine. “You guys are hilarious. I assume you know that slapstick is the lowest form of humor.”

Phoebe lifted her head. “The pun is the lowest form of humor,” she said, and flopped back to a dead position.

“You two can stay dead the rest of your lives for all I care,” said Adam. “I will never enter a room again without knowing the location of the nearest copy machine.” He took out the two science fair score sheets and made copies. “Too bad you’re dead,” he said. “These may be the most important documents ever to enter this room.”

Immediately Phoebe jumped to her feet. “The Top Ten Bully list!” she shouted. “Let me see.”

“Get back,” said Adam. “I liked you better when you were dead.”

Jennifer was still on the floor but now was glaring at the ceiling. “Phoebe!” she said. “I told you the coeditors had things to do before showing you the list. I told you we were afraid the list would hurt some good people. Is any of this familiar?”

“Yeah,” said Phoebe. “But I thought maybe the junior coeditor was finished.”

“I just told you on the way up,” said Jennifer. “Ten seconds ago.”

“I see your point,” said Phoebe.

The three gathered at the newsroom conference table — a picnic bench that some editor years ago had saved from the trash. “So here’s the good news,” said Jennifer. “The public meeting on the three-hundred-year-old tree was great, plus Phoebe dug up amazing stuff from her secret iceberger sources.”

Phoebe was beaming shamelessly.

“It’s nice to see you happy,” Jennifer said. “Tell the junior coeditor what you got.”

“Quite a story,” Phoebe said. “But to appreciate it, you have to go back to ancient Mesopotamia . . .”

Adam shot Jennifer a panicked look.

“Phoebe, we’re in a hurry,” said Jennifer. “How about if I tell Adam how you nailed it for the front page?”

“Front page?” said Phoebe. She leaped up and started sashaying her hips and snapping her fingers in the latest version of her renowned front-page dance. “The streak goes on!”

Jennifer motioned for quiet. She explained that to determine the sturdiness of the climbing tree, the state forestry department took borings of the trunk and discovered that the tree is a shell with a two-foot hollow center shaft surrounded by an outer ring of solid wood one foot wide that supports the tree.

“Sounds like it might fall any second,” said Adam.

“Exactly my reaction,” Jennifer said.

“This is the front-page part,” said Phoebe. “The streak goes on!”

It was nowhere near that bad. After reading Phoebe’s first story in the Slash, a secret source mailed her an inspection report of the tree that was done twenty years ago by the Tremble Nature Center. That old study calculated that the climbing tree had a two-foot hollow shaft and a solid outer ring one foot wide. “In other words,” said Jennifer, “the tree is exactly as strong today as twenty years ago. Nothing changed!”

“And for those twenty years,” said Phoebe, “it never fell once. Baby, the streak goes on.”

Adam was impressed, but Phoebe made it hard to say so.

“It’s a bit more complicated,” said Jennifer.

“I’m really not sure we need this next part,” said Phoebe. “It just slows down the story.”

“Fairness,” said Jennifer, “remember? The golden rule of journalism? Give both sides of the story.”

At the public meeting, a forester told the audience about the 1802 copper beech tree at West Point Military Academy. In August 1989, experts finished an inspection, pronounced the tree hardy, and predicted it could live another hundred years.

“The next day,” said Jennifer, “the trunk split in half. All that’s left is a desk.”

“Whoa,” said Adam.

“So even though Phoebe’s iceberg reporting has probably saved the climbing tree,” said Jennifer, “we have to make clear that when it comes to old trees . . .”

“No guarantees,” said Adam.

“I’m still not sure we need that last part,” said Phoebe.

After Phoebe left, the coeditors discussed the Willows story, which was nearly done. They loved the way one source led them to the next source, one story to the next story.

Adam’s visit to the Willows last fall for the story about Miss Bloch’s gift to Harris led them to Mrs. Willard.

And Mrs. Willard led them to Pine Street Church.

And that led them to Reverend Shorty, who helped them on the Dr. King story.

And the Dr. King story gave Reverend Shorty confidence to trust them for the story about the Bolands buying up the Willows.

This time, Reverend Shorty gave Jennifer several juicy quotes on the record.

“If they keep boarding up homes,” he said, “pretty soon there will be no houses left in Tremble that average working people can afford.”

And: “Many children now attending Harris Elementary/Middle will be forced to move away.”

They had just two things to do. They still had to interview kids from the Willows. Reverend Shorty gave Jennifer names of several families, plus there was Tish. Jennifer asked Adam to interview him; she said she’d feel funny doing it, after she and Tish had talked about it as friends.

“Friends?” said Adam.

“Just friends,” said Jennifer.

“OK,” said Adam.

Last and worst, Mrs. Boland had to be interviewed. “I dread that,” Jennifer said. “I felt like she held us prisoner in our own newsroom.”

“Don’t worry,” said Adam. “I’ve got a secret plan. She won’t trap us again. I dreamed about it.” Adam blew his nose.

“What secret plan?” asked Jennifer.

“You’re looking at it,” said Adam, blowing his nose again. But that was all Jennifer got out of him.

He did, however, have lots to say about his science fair investigation, and after swearing Jennifer to top secrecy, told the whole story of the visit to Mr. Buchanan’s room.

Then he explained how he was going to fix his science fair grade. He would go to Devillio and confront the man with the two score sheets. He wanted to see Devillio beg for forgiveness. And if Devillio dared rip up the evidence, Adam would flash two fresh copies right in his pathetic face. “He’ll never forget my name again,” said Adam.

“No offense,” said Jennifer. “That’s a rotten plan.” She accused Adam of letting “blood lust for sweet revenge” cloud his judgment. She said that if Adam went to him first, it would give Devillio the chance to twist things around and blame Mr. Buchanan. She said that Devillio would probably run to the principal and act like he deserved credit for uncovering this terrible plot. Then Devillio would look like the hero and Mr. Buchanan would get fired.

Jennifer believed that Adam’s best hope was Mrs. Quigley. He needed to show her the two sets of science fair grades, explain his project, and then tell her what Devillio did.

“You think I can trust Mrs. Quigley?” Adam said. “Remember how she left us trapped in 306 with Mrs. Boland?”

“Remember how she gave us cookies and told us her dad was a newspaperman?” said Jennifer.

“Remember how nice the witch was in the first half of Hansel and Gretel?” said Adam. “And remember the oven in the second half?”

Jennifer tore a page from her notebook. On one side she wrote Mr. Devillio’s name, on the other Mrs. Quigley’s. “OK,” she said. “Let’s put down all the positive reasons for going to Devillio first.”

Adam thought about it. He tapped his forehead to loosen up his brain juices.

All he could think of was blood lust for sweet revenge.

The next morning, Adam stopped in the office and told Mrs. Rose he needed to see the principal. “It’s important,” he said, waving a sealed envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL.

Mrs. Rose said the principal was busy, but he could leave the envelope.

Adam hesitated.

“Don’t worry, Adam,” said Mrs. Rose, smiling kindly. “I won’t lose it.”

“It’s not that,” said Adam. “I made fifty copies of everything.”

“Then we’ll be fine,” said Mrs. Rose. “Normally, the most we ever lose is twenty or thirty copies.”