BIG MESS

As soon as I left the library, I went straight to the principal’s office. I think it’s the first time in the history of me getting in trouble that I actually sent myself there.

I figured this was the only chance I had to make things better. Not great, but better, anyway.

I told Mrs. Stricker everything. I told her I was SAM. I told her it was my fault that Channel 11 had shown up, even though I wasn’t the one who called them. I even told her I was sorry, which I was. Sort of.

She didn’t exactly die of shock. But she told me to expect a conference with Mom. And if you’ve been following my story at all, then you know that nothing good ever happens during those conferences.

By the end of the school day, Mom was already there. She looked like she was in one of those movies where the person keeps waking up and having the same day, over and over.

I kind of felt the same way.

For a little while, Mom and Mrs. Stricker talked by themselves. Then they pulled me in there, and I got my punishment: eight detentions. That was one for every picture I’d taken and posted without people’s permission. (Good thing they didn’t know about the ninety-five pictures I didn’t use!) I also had to take them all down from the site and write a report about privacy.

But that wasn’t the really bad part. Or at least, not the worst part.

Mom told me to get my stuff, and that we were going to go home and have a talk. So I walked up the hall to my locker, and when I went past the library, I saw some after-school kids hanging out at the computers. But they weren’t looking at my SAM stuff this time. They were looking at Loozer. I guess word was already spreading that the mystery was solved, and that I was SAM, and that I was also a big fat you-know-what.

When I got to my locker, I saw that someone—maybe Miller, maybe not—had left a little art of their own.

That was the worst part. Or at least, that was the beginning of it.