Invisible

I couldn’t get over the weirdness of sitting across from Scott Fraser, as if nothing had happened between us. As if I hadn’t tried to befriend him when he transferred from some private school in Los Angeles . . . only to be stabbed in the back when he told Lisa Anne, “Jane? She doesn’t have what it takes to become a reporter.”

Direct quote.

I guess if you’re an attractive seventeen-year-old guy with a talent for photography you can blow off the geeks as soon as you get settled in. That’s probably how Scott viewed the situation, anyway. Not that I called him out on the whole “she doesn’t have what it takes” thing. Isobel was right: I’m not good with confrontation.

So I didn’t stalk over and yell: How do you know I can’t hack it as a reporter? I haven’t written so much as a muffin review! Thanks a lot for trashing me, jerk!

Instead, I did a silent 180-degree turn and headed straight to the library without saying a word. The worst part was that I had honestly thought we were becoming friends. That’s why I had arrived early to our journalism class, to see if he wanted to hang out with Corey, Kenzie, and me in Portland. I thought he might enjoy a brief respite from the boredom that is life in Forest Grove. I was just about to invite him when I overheard him talking to Lisa Anne. I fled without being noticed at all, because even in the midst of a verbal trashing, I was still a freaking master at the art of invisibility.

Too bad I felt like crap.

Still, I had wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even though the likelihood that Scott would apologize and explain that it was all just one big misunderstanding . . . not exactly good betting odds. I mean, part of me knew that was never going to happen. Not in this lifetime.

I just hadn’t wanted to accept it.

At the time, Kenzie’s fame was skyrocketing, and it was just starting to sink in that no matter how her newfound notoriety worked out, nothing would be the same again. The American public would either love her or mock her mercilessly, but in either scenario, the spotlight would follow her every move.

Relegating me back into the shadows.

That’s why I had hoped that the whole thing with Scott had been blown out of proportion in my head. I didn’t want to believe anything bad about my one new friend—someone who hadn’t known me since elementary school, who didn’t care about my sister’s popularity, who never treated me like the pathetic sidekick.

I couldn’t have been more wrong about the creep.

Turns out the reason he spent his first week at Smith High School fiddling on Photoshop next to me had nothing to do with my wit, my personality, or my dimpled grin. He had only pretended to like me because he wanted access to Kenzie.

I should’ve guessed as much from the very beginning.

Instead, I was blindsided when Lisa Anne congratulated him publicly on his amazing photo of my best friend, frozen in fear, as the media mobbed her. The one he must have snapped the day I attempted to introduce them to each other.

In the end he hadn’t even needed my help to capture his front-page-worthy photo—rendering me even more obsolete than before. Unbeknownst to me, that must have been the day he completed his metamorphosis from The New Kid to the well-accepted jerk. So when Lisa Anne led everyone in a round of applause, I blanched, mumbled some excuse, and fled to the bathroom. Scott and I had scrupulously avoided each other ever since. On the rare occasion that the limited number of computers forced us to sit next to each other, we both pulled out our iPods.

It was actually kind of amazing that the two of us hadn’t been forced together sooner.

I just wished my luck had lasted a little bit longer.

Rubbing my forehead tiredly, I told myself that armed with my plan I could handle Scott Fraser. It might even have been true if Mr. Elliot hadn’t effectively derailed me fifteen minutes before.

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” I muttered when I finally noticed him looking at me expectantly.

That was one way to make it clear that I refused to be intimidated on this assignment.

Not.

“I said, what’s your angle?” Scott sounded half bored, one quarter irritated, and one quarter smugly certain that I could never pull off a front-page story.

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted.

He crossed his arms, and I would have loved to say something—anything—to remove that stupid smirk from his face. Unfortunately, I had a feeling he was absolutely right: I wasn’t ready for this.

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Erm . . . no?” I probably shouldn’t have let my answer sound like a question.

“Well, that’s helpful, Grammar Girl.”

I glared at him. The only time our sportswriter, Brad, had asked him to edit an article, Scott had waved dismissively in my general direction and said, “Grammar Girl can fix it.” That stupid nickname had spread like wildfire and successfully removed the necessity for anyone on the newspaper to actually learn my name.

But I couldn’t do anything juvenile for payback. I had to be the bigger person if I wanted to prove that I could do more than apply basic rules of punctuation. Then I’d be taken seriously when I suggested adding a fiction page to the paper.

I just had to nail this story first.

“Could we hold off on the animosity? I got this assignment all of five minutes ago! Just . . . give me a second!”

Scott’s smirk never wavered. “Want me to come back sometime next week? Think you’ll have processed it by then?”

I took a deep breath and pictured him as a toothy iguana that I could blow up with the help of a handy grenade. Much better.

“Regardless of what you think, Scott, I’m writing the front-page story. And since your reputation is on the line, you should want it to succeed every bit as much as I do.”

I was bluffing, of course. Our stakes were nowhere near the same. If he took crappy photos it’d be disregarded as a fluke. If I bombed I’d be Grammar Girl for the rest of high school, or worse, I might be ignored completely.

But Scott didn’t need to know that.

“You think you can mess up my place on the paper?” His grin widened as if the thought were too ridiculous for words. “Not in this lifetime, Grammar Girl.”

Had it been anyone else I might have felt bad about lying right to their face to suit my own needs. But since it was Scott Fraser . . . not so much. I leaned forward and met his gaze evenly.

“We both know you’re still considered the newbie. And a few decent photos for the paper—”

“Decent!” Scott interrupted.

“Yep. Average shots at best, really,” I lied. “Definitely not enough to prove that you’re consistent. So if we don’t deliver a killer front-page spread, get ready to say hello to the bottom corner on page four.”

Scott’s smirk vanished.

Maybe I should reconsider joining the drama club. Sure, my sister starred in every theater production before she graduated, leaving a legacy I’ll never be able to fill . . . but it might not be the worst extracurricular activity for me. If I could make Scott buy that line of total crap, then maybe I did show promise as an actress.

Or maybe I had a future as a psychologist, because I knew exactly how to maneuver Scott into helping me out. Time to pound on some of his new-kid fears and watch as his apprehension about the wildly unpredictable Mr. Elliot took hold.

At least, that’s how it would have worked with anyone else.

He gave me a look of pure, smug confidence. “There won’t be a problem with my photos. If you have a story, I’ll have a shot. Come up with anything yet?”

I tried to recall Lisa Anne’s instructions. She wanted something sexy for the front page. Something provocative. Something that positively reeked of scandal.

Yeah, I had nothing. But lying to Scott’s face was becoming startlingly easy.

“Sure. I’ve got ideas.”

He looked at me expectantly.

“I’ll—uh, I’ll just . . . go undercover.”

He didn’t even try to hide his derisive laughter. “Right. ‘Jane Smith: Undercover Girl Reporter and the Case of the Missing Lunch Money.’ ”

He had a point. Going undercover sounded exciting in theory in a spy-next-door kind of way—but it’s sort of pointless if you don’t have an objective beyond writing . . . something. There has to be a target before there can be an infiltration, which left me right back where I started: screwed.

“I can do this!” I insisted.

“Sure you can, Nancy Drew.”

“Nancy Drew was a detective, not a reporter. Get your stories straight.”

“My stories aren’t the ones you should be worrying about, Grammar Girl. You’re the one with a front page to fill. So either figure it out or scurry back to your editing cave. I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t waste my time.”

I straightened my shoulders and mentally ground his precious camera into the gum-littered pavement sidewalks of Smith High School. “I’ll have something for you by the end of the day. At the latest.”

Hopefully.

He nodded. “Then I’ll see you at lunch.” And before I had the chance to veto that idea, he snagged his backpack and moved to an empty computer where he could tweak his photos in privacy.

Nothing like digging up a front-page story under the sharp photographic lens of an archnemesis while having lunch with my newly famous friends.

Oh yeah. Nothing could possibly go wrong there.