Chapter Nine
“I hate to be so redundant with the way I start these meetings, but we’re doomed.”
I’ve been to four Newsbag meetings now—the interest meeting, a one-on-one meeting with Amara for a few tweaks to tighten the quiz, the meeting where we all finalized the layout for the issue coming out next week, and today’s meeting where they’re going over ideas for the next one—so I know that this is the part where Amara bats Rowan lightly somewhere on their person to discourage the doomsday talk.
Today, though, Amara sighs deeply enough to make me marvel at her lung capacity.
“Ruh-roh,” says Colby, the current Style writer, her face hidden behind her bejeweled hands.
Amara reaches across the desk at the front of the room to grab Rowan’s coffee cup and take a pull of it with the energy of someone shotgunning a beer. “Same story, different day. The athletes are royals and we are mere peasants fighting for scraps.”
“Hey. That’s not fair,” pipes up Joey from the seat next to mine. His voice is lighthearted as always, but just under it is a clear shade of hurt. “We’re not seeing any of that money. They’re practically hanging us out to dry.”
“Is that so, baseball boy?” says Genevieve, the current Local News writer. “Last I checked those new locker rooms were looking swankier than any building I’ve stepped foot in on this entire campus. One of those plush towels probably costs half the price of printing Newsbag alone.”
Joey’s face reddens. “It’s not like any of us asked for that. Unlike the student-run groups, we don’t get to decide where any of the money goes.”
“Can confirm,” says Colby. “I know you all conveniently forget that I’m a tennis jock, because unlike Joey here, I don’t dress like I’ve been trapped in an Under Armour warehouse for the past decade, but we are all work and no pay. They get to run us ragged, but most of that money is probably going to the football coaching staff so they can twiddle their thumbs with caviar.”
Joey is so plainly relieved at Colby’s support that I almost chime in, too. Thanks to the cross-country team’s antics and the pressure of keeping her scholarship, Christina is a light breeze away from losing her mind. When I presented her with the invitation to the Alphabet Party, she didn’t hug me or high-five me but burst into sleep-deprived, happy tears.
Which is to say, I’ve got even more eyes on her than usual. But at this specific moment I have another more pressing concern than Christina or even the imminent peril of the zine, which is that Seb’s not here.
“Okay. So in summation, every single one of us is fucked, athletes and nerds and hybrids included,” Amara concedes. “Which leads us to our leading item for today, which is that the school wants to cut our funding in half.”
“Which would mean either losing the site or losing the physical version of the zine,” says Rowan.
I don’t need any elaboration for why either of those things would have catastrophic implications for Newsbag. They can’t lose the physical zines without losing the entire heart of what Newsbag was in the first place. But on the other hand, without the web presence, there’s no permanent searchable archive of what’s written—meaning those of us who are hoping to use Newsbag to leverage opportunities beyond Maple Ride are fucked.
One of the freshmen who has been attending the meetings as a potential freelance writer raises her hand. Rowan bites back a smirk at the formality and says, “You have the floor.”
“What if we printed something in Newsbag about all of this? Called out the administration?”
I resist the urge to press an impatient finger to the bridge of my nose. It’s a nice thought, but an unoriginal one. If she’d been reading even the past few months of the zine, she’d see all the work Rowan has done questioning the administration’s use of its finances—a natural extension of the work they were doing on the admissions process before they even got in.
Sure enough, Rowan’s lips form a tight smile. “I think we’re going to need to try something a little louder than that at this point.”
Their eyes scan the room then, and I know they’re looking for Seb. Underdog narratives like this are precisely Seb’s beat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Seb caught up with Amara and Rowan about the funding issues after the debacle the night of the Dorm Food-Off, or even before then.
But I can’t be irritated with Seb for that without a physical Seb to project said irritation on. So I pull out my phone and do something I’ve only ever done a handful of times, and text Seb of my own free will.
?????
Seb has his read receipts on, but they don’t pop up right away. My stomach does an unpleasant little lurch that I attribute to today’s dining hall lunch, a concoction bold enough to call itself chicken tenders.
“Which is why we’re starting this meeting with an unconventional ask, which is basically, does anyone have any ideas for bucking the system here?” Amara gives us all a grim smile. “At this point we’re at the end of our rope.”
Another freshman starts to raise his hand and then at the last second thinks better of it. “What about our alums?” he asks. “Don’t we have people like—writing for Netflix and Hub Seed and doing copy for celebrity booze brands? They can’t donate?”
Unlike me, Rowan does not resist the urge to press their fingers to the bridge of their nose. At least they can play it off as fiddling with their glasses.
“We can’t actually stipulate where any school donations go,” they explain patiently.
Amara nods. “Or else the Knitting Club would be in charge of not only the school but possibly the entire planet.”
Joey’s fists are flexing open and closed on top of the desk, lost in some thought. Rowan takes notice and says, “Hey, no bad ideas. You got something?”
Joey’s head snaps up, his expression apologetic. “I just—wish there was some way for the athletes and student orgs to work together for this. But I don’t think there’s a lot of crossover.”
Amara frowns. “There are plenty of athletes in student orgs.”
Joey shakes his head. “I mean in terms of, like, what we need. The athletes have too much money but no control. The student orgs have some control but no money. I’m not sure how we could team up and somehow ask for all of it at once. It’s just all kind of complicated.”
Something clicks into place then, like my brain has been churning since the beginning of the semester and finally has just the right ingredients to form a plan. The Dorm Food-Off meets the interactive-theater improv meets the Random Acts of Chaos club, and when I put it all together it might solve the student orgs’ and athletes’ issues.
“Maybe we just go full chaos then,” I say.
Two dozen sets of eyes swivel to look at me. I should be used to it from all the time I spent leading the school newspaper. But this is more eyes than I’ve ever had on me when I’m about to say something that is the antithesis of Good Responsible Sadie. I feel another lurch in my stomach.
But then Joey sits up a little straighter on one side of me, and one of the freshmen leans in on the other, and I remember this isn’t about me but all of us.
“Define ‘full chaos,’” says Amara, already intrigued.
I press my palms flat to the top of the desk in front of me, grounding myself. Even then I can’t help flitting my eyes toward the door as if Seb might miraculously emerge from it. It’s strange, voicing this without him. Usually we’re witness to each other’s power moves. I’ve gotten used to the irritating way we build off each other, always compulsively finding ways to make the other’s ideas even better and being entirely too smug in the process.
But Seb and his smugness are nowhere to be found. I just have to rely on myself.
I take a quick breath to steady myself and lock eyes with Amara. “Last week at the Dorm Food-Off you said something as a joke—about how if the administration mistook us for jocks they’d fund us.”
Amara nods carefully. “I stand by it, even if I only believe in running shoes as decoration.”
“So maybe we spend a day doing that. Pretending to be student athletes. All of us, across the student orgs. We all dress up like we’re going to practices, carry basketballs and tennis rackets around, ask the university to sign waivers for us to miss classes for travel games and generally make ourselves mild nuisances for an entire day.” I clear my throat. My phone lights up then with a text back from Seb, but I can’t look at it now—I’m on a roll. “So then when the administration asks what the hell we’re up to, we say we’re not categorizing ourselves as organizations anymore, but sports. So they have to fund us, too.”
My little monologue is met with a resounding silence that at first I don’t know how to interpret. Which is fine, because I’ll probably die of whatever was in those “chicken tenders” before the embarrassment can get to me anyway.
“So basically just like—a ripple. So everyone on campus knows about the funding issue. Not just the people reading Newsbag or the ones directly affected by it,” says Joey.
I turn, so relieved I could hug him. “Yes. Exactly.”
“You did say you wanted something unconventional,” says Colby from behind us.
When I finally hazard a glance at Amara, her eyes are bright like a little kid who just figured out how to tip over a cookie jar. “Okay. Keep saying things.”
“It could be like the Dorm Food-Off,” I say, the idea forming in my head as I go. “We get all the student orgs involved. We get the athletes involved, too.”
I look over to Joey and Colby, who both nod their enthusiasm. “We could help supply the equipment,” says Colby. “Not my usual version of styling people on campus, but you know what? I bet a bunch of us would be down.”
Joey’s expression has lost all of the unease from earlier. He looks energized enough to start shoving baseball hats and mitts onto the entire Newsbag crew immediately. “Then we could have the student orgs try to register themselves as sports, with an athlete there to ‘vouch’ for them so they can get the funding.”
“There would have to be something in this for the athletes, too,” says Rowan, who evidently already has a solution to that. “One thing we’re able to do that they’re not is we can see how the funding is divvied up between the student orgs. Full transparency.”
“Imagine that,” says Colby wryly, inspecting her nails.
Rowan pulls their laptop off the desk and starts typing into it as they speak. “So the jock in each pair would try to get them registered, and when they say no, the student-org rep could ask to see the school funding again. Ask why we only get to see where our money is going, and not the athletes’.”
“Only after a healthy amount of making a spectacle on campus all day,” says Amara. “We want to get their attention first. So far the stuff we’ve been publishing or quick stunts we’ve been doing haven’t worked. We’d need to fully commit.”
I just manage to stop myself from blinking in surprise then, because it’s clear we’re not just considering my idea but that Rowan and Amara are full-on running with it.
“And we’d need people to represent each club and be willing to go to the administration. I could do it for Newsbag, ” says Rowan. “But I’d have to reach out to the others, see what they’re thinking.”
“Yes, yes,” Amara agrees. “Okay. Shit.” She shoots me a wide grin. “I like where your head’s at, Sadie. Let’s hammer out some more details for this at the end of the meeting, and see if we can’t get other orgs and athletes on board.”
We move on to discuss topics and pitches for the next zine then. I’m trying not to look like someone happy enough to catapult themselves to the damn moon when Joey leans in, clearly about to say something, only to get interrupted by Rowan asking, “Joey, where are we at with that film club event? Did they decide on a theme?”
When I glance back down at my phone there’s a reply from Seb. I covertly swipe my screen.
Engineering stuff. Tell my future fellow staff members I say hi
I wince on Seb’s behalf. Then unwince. Because yes, that’s bad for him, but good for me, right? At least that’s how the scale always used to tip in my head. Now it feels like it’s on the fritz.
Too late—already told them you’re back on your home planet, spores and all, I text back just the same.
Seb hasn’t texted back by the end of the meeting, which we finish up earlier than expected. We’re all talking fast now, building on the idea of what we’re now calling Jock for a Day and brainstorming little ways we can cause a commotion without causing a disruption—basically, get the attention of the administration without getting in the way of classes.
We can only get so far with the idea before we see how many people are willing to get on board with it, so we end on a high note, with Rowan, Amara, Colby, and Joey agreeing to get in touch with the people who run the student orgs and the captains of different teams to see what the vibe is. Joey catches up with me on the way out the door.
“Hey, that idea of yours? Badass.”
I try not to smile too hard and reveal how borderline smug I am about it. “Well, only if it works,” I point out.
We fall into step easily, the same way we did at the farmers market just before I revealed that I am, in fact, the most oblivious human alive. We’ve texted back and forth a few times since then, but both got swept up in tests we had to study for, so the decision of whether to go on a date has conveniently been tabled for now.
Which is a relief, because if I’m being honest, I haven’t given much thought to it at all. My entire frontal lobe is just the second Newsbag piece with, like, two other brain cells devoted to checking in on my family.
“Why wouldn’t it work?” Joey asks.
I shrug. “I mean, there’s no saying the jocks will want to get in on this anyway.”
“‘Jocks,’ huh?” Joey teases.
“I may have watched a fair amount of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, ” I confess. “I’m conditioned.”
“No, I like it. Makes us sound cool,” says Joey, shifting his shoulders into a cool-guy slouch. “And I actually think the ‘jocks’ would be more into it than you think. I get the impression the other teams on campus are worked up about all this, too. It’s just we’re not like the student-run orgs—we’re kept totally separate, so it’s not like we can be, like, ‘Hey, are you also feeling like the school is sucking you dry?’”
“Yikes. It’s that bad?”
Joey’s lips tilt to the side. “Yeah, it’s not great. Spring semester was total whiplash last year. Zero sport-life-work balance, especially for the scholarship kids, you know?” He gestures vaguely in the direction of our school’s monstrous stadium on the other side of campus. “No matter where the money’s going, there’s a lot of pressure for all the teams to keep up our winning streak, so practices are off the rails sometimes. Maple Ride has a rep to protect.”
It makes me think of Seb’s piece on how unprepared a lot of us are for sex and relationships after finishing high school—how the sudden independence doesn’t come with an instruction manual or, really, any tangible support.
“It sounds like you guys need some kind of advocate. Like a neutral third party.”
“Guess we’ll be each other’s advocates for now. Sweeties unite.”
I snicker despite myself. “It’s never not funny to me that we call ourselves ‘Sweeties’ when most of us had to crush our entire high schools to get in here.”
“I like it. Keeps the other schools on their toes,” says Joey. He turns to me suddenly, eyes crinkling. “Also, dibs on dressing you up as a baseball team member. Colby will try and get you in tennis gear, but trust me. The baseball crew is where it’s at.”
I sidestep the part where that means I’d likely be wearing Joey’s jersey all day, because that feels very girlfriend-adjacent. “Joke’s on you when I start singing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ at the top of my lungs all over campus,” I say instead.
“So we’re throwing in a free concert, too?” Joey quips. “Anyway, if you really want to fit in you’ll have to learn how to do our ‘jock’ handshake.”
“Oh, yeah? How does that go?”
Joey stops on the sidewalk, then gamely lifts a hand up for a high five. I raise my eyebrows at him but lift my hand to his. He seizes it, weaving his fingers through mine. “It’s like this,” he says, and then in slow motion pulls me in so we knock elbows and bump chests. “Except, you know, all fast and macho, with an excessive amount of grunting.”
“Gotcha.” I pull my hand out of his. “Okay, try me again. If I’m gonna be a jock, I’ve got to go full Method.”
Joey grins, and this time when we seize hands we work up enough momentum to thud into each other. “Rah! Jocky jock! Sportsball team,” I exclaim, adding a series of grunts. Joey laughs and we stumble into each other, nearly knocking foreheads before we find our footing again.
“Perfect,” he says, with a happy lilt in his voice. “Welcome to the sportsball team.”
We’re still laughing when I turn to get us on the main path back to the dorms, where someone is fully stopped and staring at us. Not, not someone—Seb. He looks as if he’s suspended midmotion, the way rabbits do on the edge of the sidewalk when they hear you coming and don’t know which direction to run.
“Oh, shit,” says Joey. “You just missed the meeting, but I think there are still a few people in there.”
Seb opens his mouth to answer Joey, but his eyes are on me. “Right,” he says after a moment.
“Rowan made smoked-butterscotch cookies,” I add. What I really want to do is ask why Seb is acting like he just fell into a wormhole and got spat back out in this exact spot, but it feels like too personal of a thing to ask in front of Joey.
I’m reconsidering, though, when Seb takes a step back and says, “I’ll just read the catch-up email.”
“You sure?” Joey asks. “I bet they could use your thoughts—Sadie here came up with an awesome idea to get more eyes on the funding issue.”
That seems to rattle Seb back into his body a bit. “Oh, did she?” he asks.
His tone is just wry enough that I’m expecting him to rib me about it. In fact, I’m kind of hoping he will, because this Seb is worrying me a little. But before Seb can say anything else, Joey wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in.
“Sure did,” says Joey, giving me a quick, proud squeeze. “It’s going to be epic.”
Seb’s eyes lose that gleam of mischief, and instead look between me and Joey, settling on the space where I’m half-tucked into him. I’m so unused to the expression on his face that there’s a split second when I wonder if Seb could actually be jealous.
But then Seb smiles. It’s not a particularly bright smile, but it’s a firm one. “Well, good,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll, uh—I’ll go check in. See if I can’t help with anything.”
“Sounds good, man,” says Joey, releasing me to give Seb a cheerful wave.
Joey angles himself toward the main path, but I don’t move just yet, watching the back of Seb as he walks into the building.
“Huh.”
I don’t realize I’ve voiced that nonthought out loud until Joey asks, “What?”
I shake my head and start walking.
“Oh—I dunno. Seb and I have this thing where we usually, like, lightly eviscerate each other for sport,” I explain.
“Yeah, I noticed,” says Joey. And then, after a beat, “We all did.”
“I’m worried he’s been body-snatched,” I say. “Who knows what I just sent in to talk to Amara and Rowan?”
Joey shrugs again. “Or maybe you’re both just growing out of it. Becoming real friends.”
I half choke in my effort not to laugh. Joey looks mildly concerned, but I don’t even entertain the idea of explaining it to him. I don’t think I could explain what Seb and I are to each other in any singular word, but friends certainly isn’t it. Whatever we are, it goes so deep that the word feels too flimsy for it. Like there should be a new word, something as crackling and maddening and inevitable as we are.
“Maybe,” I say instead.
But I still feel uneasy, and then uneasier still the longer the day goes on. A feeling I can’t find the root of until it’s time to set my alarm to go to sleep, and I realize Seb never texted me back. No, that’s not the realization—it’s that I wanted him to, and my disappointment is just one more thing about Seb I can’t fully explain.