When school ended Monday, the Renegade Reporters did a triple fist-bump. Then Brielle headed to The News at Nine and the other two walked to Ash’s house, carefully avoiding two piles of dog poo. “There was only one yesterday,” Ash pointed out. “The dog poo bandit has been at it again. Sadie thinks we should report on it, but I don’t think we want our first episode to be about dog poo.”
“Definitely not,” Maya said. “It’s so gross. Why can’t the owner just pick up after their dog?”
“Maybe it doesn’t have an owner,” Ash said.
“Like, it lives in a row house all alone?” Maya asked with a giggle.
Ash had meant that it was a stray, but now she pictured a dog standing on its hind legs and opening the door to its own house. She pretended to be a dog as she put the key in her lock and twisted it. They both barked and laughed as they entered, took off their shoes, and dropped their backpacks.
Like many row houses in Federal Hill, the Simon-Hockheimers’ was over a hundred years old. It was long and narrow and had once contained many small rooms, but Dad and Abba had taken out most of the interior walls years ago, making the first floor one long, open rectangle with each room flowing into the next. It made the space feel open and airy despite its narrowness, but it also made privacy nonexistent. Standing at the front door, Ash could see straight through to the door at the back of the house. That also meant that everyone else—Sadie in the kitchen, Olive and Beckett at the dining room table—could see and hear her.
“I hear you two are mine every afternoon,” said Olive, tapping her fingers together with faux wickedness. With Olive, though, it was a convincing faux wickedness. In addition to being a nanny, she was an actress. She usually did plays that were meant for grown-ups. (“It’s avant-garde,” Olive had told Ash about her last show. “You’d be bored to tears.”) But she was currently rehearsing to be Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and she’d promised Ash and Maya front row tickets to the first Sunday matinee.
“We’re your responsibility,” Ash confirmed as she walked toward the dining room. “But it’s not like you’ll need to watch us. More like you’ll need to keep Beckett and Sadie out of our way.”
“Hey!” said Sadie, who stopped searching the pantry for a snack in order to put her hands on her hips.
“Yeah,” said Olive. “That’s no way to talk about your Story Scout.”
“Is that what I am?” Sadie asked excitedly.
“Yep,” Olive said. “It sounds fancy, doesn’t it?”
“Fa-ee,” repeated Beckett.
“Yes, very fancy,” said Sadie.
“Too fancy,” said Ash. “You haven’t even given us a real story idea yet.”
“Yet,” said Olive with a wink.
“Ink!” said Beckett. He closed both his eyes tightly and then opened them again.
“Wink wink wink,” said Olive. Back in nanny mode, she started tickling Beckett while making exaggerated winks, and he broke into baby laughs.
Spying an opening, Ash hurried down into the basement. Maya followed and closed the door behind her.
“Welcome to our new TV studio,” Ash said.
Both girls fell silent, taking it in. Ash had never given much thought to her basement. It was just another part of her house. Until this moment, when she seemed to be seeing it for the first time, and through the eyes of Maya. But not her best friend Maya. That Maya had once spent a whole Saturday in this basement playing “holiday boutique,” which meant she and Ash had taken turns “buying,” “selling,” and gift-wrapping everything in sight. That Maya had squeezed Ash’s hand when Abba yelled at them for wasting three full rolls of wrapping paper, two dispensers’ worth of Scotch tape, and the twenty minutes he had to spend unwrapping “presents” in order to find a tube of caulk to seal the toilet. That Maya didn’t care one bit about the look of Ash’s basement.
But at this moment, Ash was viewing her basement through the eyes of expert videographer Maya Joshi-Zachariah. Videographer Maya was used to working in The News at Nine studio, designed by Van Ness Media and filled with top-of-the-line broadcasting equipment. Ash’s basement was only partially finished, so there were linoleum floors and brick walls and metal ducts running along the ceiling. Half of the basement was dug out, which meant both girls could stand upright without hitting their heads on a wooden beam or plastic pipe. But a set of two steps led to a section of the basement that was even less finished. That part had a concrete floor specked with dirt, and if one of the girls grew an inch—or wore her hair in a particularly high ponytail—she’d have to stand at a slant. Even Brielle, the shortest of the group, would have to avoid standing on tiptoe.
“It’s not the News at Nine studio,” Ash said apologetically.
And Maya, proving herself to be the best friend anyone could ask for, said, “Well, this isn’t The News at Nine.”
Ash felt the relief physically, like she’d just put down a stack of heavy textbooks. Excitement restored, she asked, “Where do you think we should set up?”
Maya closed one eye, made her fingers into a box, and looked through it at one side of the room, then another. “We don’t want too much stuff in the background,” she said, “or people will be looking at the stuff instead of you.”
“Good point.”
“Maybe that wall over there? Let’s do a test video.”
Ash handed Maya her phone. Then she stood in front of the wall. “Tell me when to start.”
“Anchor in three . . .” She stopped and shook her head, embarrassed. “I wish Brielle were here to do this part. Maybe we should wait till Friday when there’s no News at Nine meeting, so she can be with us after school.”
“It’s only a test video,” Ash assured Maya. “You don’t need to be so official.”
“All right.” Maya still sounded unsure, but she held up Ash’s phone and pressed record. Then she nodded and mouthed, “Go!”
“Test, test, test,” Ash said in her news anchor voice. “This is the first test video from our new studio in my beautiful basement. Maybe we’ll get some good footage for our blooper reel.”
Outside, a city bus approached the corner. It let out a puff when it stopped, then made a heaving noise as it leaned toward the curb. With the basement windows right at ground level, the sound was so loud, it shook the room.
Maya wrinkled her nose and stopped recording. They watched the short take. It had picked up every decibel of the racket from outside. Not even Brielle’s Van Ness Movie Maker skills could dampen that sound.
“Let’s try someplace farther from the window,” Maya suggested. “Maybe that corner by the steps?”
Ash went over to the corner, and Maya gave her the signal.
“Test number two!” Ash said loudly. “We’re trying the corner, where a bus may still make the walls shake, but it might not destroy our ears.”
They watched this new take. The sound was slightly better, but just as Abba had warned, the lighting was terrible. “My face is all shadowy.” Ash sighed. “It’s like I’m reporting from an open grave.”
“Well, we said ‘underground,’ ” Maya joked.
Ash grinned. “Live from the Greenmount Cemetery,” she said, “this is The Underground News.”
Maya held the phone up again and started recording. Ash grabbed a wrench from an open toolbox and held it up like a microphone.
“Tonight, we’re going to meet with a very special guest,” she said into the wrench, “Mr. Ebenezer Ebenezerus, who died in 1781. We’ll ask him about changes he’s seen in the cemetery over the past two hundred years.”
Maya pressed her lips together in an effort not to laugh. She motioned with her hand for Ash to keep going, and to move around as she spoke. So Ash walked slowly across the basement, keeping her wrench-microphone close.
“There’s a full moon over the cemetery tonight, as you can see, so it’s the perfect time to continue our ongoing series, ‘Werewolves: Are They Real?’ ” Ash had now reached the place where the high ceiling ended and the low ceiling began. She lowered herself, slowly, onto one of the steps separating the linoleum floor from the concrete. “Later tonight, the Renegade Reporters will meet with Skeleton Sally, who’ll show us how the ghosts plan to celebrate Halloween. Stay with us.”
“Cut!” said Maya.
Both girls cracked up the second the camera was off.
“Skeleton Sally!” said Maya.
“Ebenezer . . . what did I call him?” Ash asked.
“Ebenezer Ebenezerus!”
When they’d calmed down, Maya said, “For real, though, Ash, I think this is the spot. Look how good it looks.”
They played it back. It looked better than Ash could have hoped. Sun from the windows lit her face just right. The brick walls on either side were cast in shadow, but in a way that seemed artsy and hip. Sitting on the steps made Ash look casually cool, though still serious, like someone you’d want to meet for coffee between college classes. The concrete and even the dirt added to the whole effect. It was the exact opposite of the bright, polished, squeaky-clean News at Nine studio. In other words, it was exactly what The Underground News was going for.
“It’s perfect,” Ash said.
Maya squealed. “This is fun. Let’s do one real take, just to get something down.”
Their first episode was just going to be an introduction, something to ease the viewers in. The team had decided as much over the weekend, and they’d all agreed it was a good plan. But now that it was time to record it, Ash’s stomach flip-flopped like she’d just done a loop de loop on a roller coaster. This wasn’t a new sensation—she’d gotten it right before every news report she’d ever delivered—but it had been so long since she’d reported the news, she’d forgotten to expect it, and the surprise made her stomach do a second loop, right after the first. You’ve got this, the anchor told herself, the way she did every time the pre-show nerves made her body feel like an amusement park. But did she? It was one thing to read a teacher-approved script and have it transmitted to her elementary school. It was something else entirely to host her own YouTube show that could be viewed by anyone in the entire world.
“Remember,” Maya said reassuringly, “we’re not live. That means we can do as many takes as we want.”
“You’re right,” Ash said slowly. Why hadn’t she thought of that? That was why she and Maya made such a good team; Ash spoke for them both, but Maya was always in the background, helping her know what to say. Ash still felt like she might be on a roller coaster, but her shoulder harness was secure, because she was riding with Maya.
“You ready?” the videographer asked, her camera in position.
The lead anchor sat down on the steps. “Let’s do this.”