Chapter Thirteen Layout Party!
The back room of the Haus bustled with noise.
Everyone had turned out for the layout session—or, as Emerson kept exclaiming loudly, the Layout Party, with a string of exclamation points implied by her sheer volume.
Nylan and Parker had been the first to arrive, together and with two party-size bags of hot chips to share, followed by Kodi, who helped James bring in enough chairs for everyone.
Even Stella had shown up—with a pumpkin-spiced Starbucks Frappuccino with extra whipped cream, just for herself.
The noise of them all overwhelmed the background noise of Mal’s brain, which spiraled loudly about everything they had to do today.
Even though they’d had a whole (blurry, impossibly fast) week to plan, Mal still wasn’t sure they could pull it all off.
Emerson, by contrast, was in her element among the influx of staffers.
She spread everything out on the old study table: printed pages of every story and poem, as well as each of Kodi’s art pieces and Nylan’s photos and even a two-page comic from Parker; larger blank pages to place everything on for sizing; and an army of pens, markers, glue sticks and (much to Stella’s chagrin, because “it gets on everything”) glitter with which to mark things up and stick them down.
Emerson’s laptop, unencumbered by age like Mal’s, glowed beside her, and she kept hopping between the paper layout and the digital one, balancing the two against each other to make sure they synched.
Mal sat quietly at the editors’ desk, watching from afar.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to participate—they did.
(They needed to, probably, because Stella kept vetoing everyone else’s ideas, and despite her volume, Emerson was having a hard time keeping her in check.) But beyond the periodic chime-in to redirect things—and to keep Emerson on track, because she kept going off on tangents—Mal sat off to the side by themself, checking their phone’s lock screen every five or so minutes to make sure they didn’t miss the time to leave for Maddie’s game.
They wouldn’t—they had set an alarm, plus three backups in five-minute intervals, just in case.
Still, their mind whirred with the worry of it all.
Even when they were finally called over to the worktable by Emerson, they couldn’t focus.
“I’m sorry,” they said, shaking their head like doing so would shake the anxious thoughts out. “What was the question again?”
“Oh, here we go,” Stella said, throwing up her hands. “They’re not even listening!”
“Cool it,” Emerson said, her voice sharp for a second, before she turned back to Mal.
When she went on, it was kinder again. “Stella is wanting to move up her bio—like, so that it gets a full page after her chapter of Through the Garden of Gems and Dahlias. But if we do it that way, we’ll have to condense Nylan’s photos or James’s content note to make room for it, and that doesn’t seem fair to me. ”
“Or me,” James said, a hand on his hip.
Nylan was quiet, eating a handful of hot chips.
“Life’s not fair,” Stella said. “So I don’t see why this zine should be either. You need my chapter, Mal, and I’ll pull it if we don’t do this.”
Mal opened and closed their fists at their side, hard and fast and so their nails struck the skin of their palm, biting at the flesh. They shook their head to themself. Between Stella’s words and their phone ticking toward their alarm, they felt on the edge of a meltdown.
“Let’s not be dramatic, Stella,” Kodi said, clearly trying to be diplomatic.
But Stella wasn’t having it. “I’m not being dramatic; I’m being realistic,” she said. “And if you want me, this is how you’ve got me, drama and all.” She turned sharply to Mal. “So, what’s the verdict, Editor in Chief? Or are you just going to flap your hands and fly away?”
And that was enough to make all the anxiety come to a head.
“No,” Mal said. Their voice was supposed to be even and calm, but even as the words came out of their mouth, they were a little too loud.
“The verdict is no. You can have your bio in the back like everyone else—like we talked about when you signed on, Stella. When you also agreed to not be dramatic, actually.”
“But—” Stella started.
But Mal shook their head, clenching their fists so their nails bit half-moons into their palms to steady them.
“If that doesn’t work for you,” they said, “that’s fine. You can walk. We’ll run Kodi’s art piece in the front. It would probably fit the MixxedMedia rebrand better anyway.”
For a stunned second, Stella just stared at them, blinking.
And then she said quietly, “It can go in the back. It’s fine. It’ll be your loss anyway, when people get confused with this stupid layout.”
“Emerson’s been very thoughtful about this layout, so that sounds more like a you problem,” said Mal, with a hard shrug. “And while we’re all here, Emerson and I need a quick vote from you.”
“Oh, we’re going to do this now?” Emerson asked, blinking up at them from the table. A sprinkling of glitter sparkled on her cheek. Mal couldn’t decipher what kind of look she was wearing—eager, or maybe proud.
Mal shrugged. Now was a time as good as any. And their anger at Stella reignited the anger they’d been trying to tamp down since last Friday: their anger about the rules, about The Plan. It flared now like all the fucks they’d shared with Emerson: astringent but effective.
“We’ve been made aware that we can’t sell copies of MixxedMedia at school like we planned.”
“Oh, come on,” said Stella with a curt, huffy laugh. She waved her hand at the barely organized chaos on the table. “Then what are we even bothering with all this for?”
“Because I think we should sell it there anyway,” Mal said plainly.
“Hear, hear!” said Emerson joyously before crunching into a hot chip. She dusted off her fingers and reached out to squeeze Mal’s arm reassuringly.
“They already showed us they don’t care about what we’re doing,” Mal went on.
The words bubbled up from inside of them, from where they had been stewing last night, while Mal couldn’t sleep.
“They canceled us. It’s not like they can cancel us again.
So I vote we just… sell it anyway. But I—we, me and Emerson—want to know what you think. ”
“Immediately no,” said Stella.
“Does she enjoy being the worst?” Parker stage-whispered to Nylan, who tried hard not to smile.
“Some of you might not have a lot going for you,” Stella went on, “but I do. And I’m not going to get busted for selling some bootleg magazine.”
“It’s a zine,” corrected Kodi. “And that’s fine, Stella. If you can’t sell your copies, I will. I’m in.”
Stella crossed her arms over her chest, eyes rolling.
“It’s giving very Kids on Bikes campaign hook,” Parker said, and though Mal had absolutely no idea what that meant, they understood this: “I vote yes too.”
“Me too,” said Nylan, smiling at Parker. “Also, is that another TTRPG? It sounds so fun!”
“Have you ever played that one?” Parker asked.
“No,” said Nylan, “but is it like—”
“Focus, friends!” Emerson interrupted—which said something. Parker shrugged, sheepish, and Nylan giggled.
“Honestly, I assumed we knew about the no soliciting thing already,” James admitted. “They always get really strict about the fine print with GSA fundraisers. So I guess I was on board with this before we knew it was a thing.”
“Okay,” said Mal. The anger in them now mixed something softer—an admiration for how easily everyone (except Stella, which tracked) recommitted to the zine.
Working together here in the back room was different from any experience Mal had ever had working within the walls of Holmes High, where everything felt like a challenge.
“We’re going really rogue, then. I mean, as long as you’re in, Emerson? ”
“Honestly, I am ready to follow you into battle, Mal,” she said, reaching for Mal’s hand and giving it a little squeeze. “Which is a ‘yeah, let’s sell this anyway’ vote, so we’re clear.”
“Then that settles that,” Mal said, and nodded. “Now I have to go. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
And with a last squeeze of Emerson’s hand, they turned, grabbed their backpack, and walked out the back room door, the heat of their swirling emotions carrying them forward.
The walk from the Haus to Holmes High School was long, and if Mal hadn’t been so keyed up, it would have been nice.
The air was cool and smelled fully like fall: dry leaves, damp soil, the faint smoke of a far-off burn pile, a hint of brine from the river.
It set the sensory scene for the new decorations Mal noticed cropping up: hay bales and home-made scarecrows, elaborate displays of pumpkins and other gourds, big bushel baskets of mums and pansies and late-season sunflowers.
But Mal’s cheeks burned hot—from worry and anger and feelings they were far too overwrought to pin down.
They pounded them out instead as they stomped up the sidewalk, the soles of their boots hitting the cement hard.
Half a block from 10th Street, their alarm went off—sudden and sharp, making Mal almost jump out of their skin, shrieking, before they turned it off with a huff and kept walking.
It was at 13th Street that Mal realized where they really wanted to be: not walking toward Maddie’s soccer game but still in the back room of the Haus, bent over the layout with Emerson and the MixxedMedia staff.
The realization was sudden, and automatically Mal was filled with a sense of guilt.
They had already forgotten this game once; it felt unfair to Maddie to even think about blowing it off a second time, to say nothing of the ire they’d face from their mom.
But the feeling still sat there, stubborn in their chest: this knowledge was Important, with a capital I.