The Takedown Page 7

  “I didn’t know if you guys would be here.”

  I tried to sound casual, but my voice shook.

  “It’s the Walk,” Audra said under her breath. “We didn’t even miss the Walk when Fawnie took us to that seafood buffet in K-Town and we all got food poisoning.”

  “In my defense,” Fawn said, “it had good reviews.”

  Audra looked like a British dominatrix in her fitted black blazer, teeny skirt, and knee-high boots. Black. That was Sharma’s theme of the day for her color-themed week. It felt appropriate.

  “For the record,” Audra continued, “I apologize if I didn’t seem supportive yesterday. After you left, Fawnie and Sharm explained why this is such a big deal to someone like you. So I guess I can see why you kept it a secret and why you still don’t want to admit to it. Only I don’t want to be fed any more lies. So maybe until you’re comfortable talking about it, let’s just pretend it didn’t happen and move past it.” Her lips puckered to the side. “I know that didn’t seem like an apology. But, well, I love you, Kylie-cat. I really am sorry for not being there for you. I know there’s no worse feeling.”

  Actually, there was. The feeling when your bestie essentially calls you a liar to your face. My breakfast cereal curdled in my stomach. Wow. Thanks, friend. I could have continued to deny that it was me in the video or told them about AnyLies, but it’d sound like I was grasping at excuses. Besides, if I didn’t accept this lackluster support, I wouldn’t have any at all.

  “Thanks, Auds. I know that wasn’t easy for you to say.”

  She beamed at me. “Super-mature for me, right? I panic-attacked about it all morning.”

  “This is actually kinda neat,” Fawn breathed.

  The Walk normally garnered looks, but today all eyes were on us. So Audra chatted away brightly about nonsense. An always-unflappable Sharma swiped at her Doc. Fawn wore her sexy daydreamy look, which meant she was probably thinking about biscuit sammies. Unsmiling, I went for BTCH confidence. And we rocked the Walk that morning. To this day, it still stands as one of the most horrifying experiences of my life.

  See? It’s all how you spin it.

  In front of Coffee Check, I fumbled out my Doc. “That’s it?”

  “That was nothing,” Fawn giggled, pulling out her own Doc.

  Cue the moaning.

  It was quiet at first, but it quickly filled the foyer like a choir crescendo. It was like everyone had tapped play on the Mr. E. sex video at the same time with their volume on high. I mean, it wasn’t like that. It was that.

  Everyone in the vestibule had their tech out. It was impossible to know who was participating and who was innocently txting or doing last-minute homework. The sound came from at least fifty Docs. There was no way this many people had this big a grudge against me.

  Channing Gregory grabbed Bryan Alders and started imitating the video. Stupid Channing thought he could get away with anything because his father was VP of the most popular online network. Yvonne Rose Harper paraded past, her Doc in the air, Mr. E. going at it on-screen. At least four people were filming us, laughing. Fawn still had her Doc raised half in the air, waiting for a kiss that wasn’t coming. There wasn’t anything to be done. Reacting would only make for a popular related link.

  “Come here, betch.” Audra smiled brightly, shoving her Doc in her bag.

  Placing her tiny hands on my shoulders, she pulled me to her and kissed me, like kissed me, full on the lips. Fawn swooped in and planted a kiss on my cheek. After only a brief hesitation, Sharma lightly pressed her lips against my other cheek. The moaning was now covered up by catcalls and a murmur of whispers. The girls kissed me until after the video ended. When they pulled away, we were all flushed and smiling.

  “This builds character. You are bigger than this.” Audra tweaked my nose, then over my shoulder said, “That’s how you protect the people you love, güey.”

  When I turned, Mac was at the edge of the crowd. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled so low it was impossible to see his eyes. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his hoodie.

  “Macky,” I called.

  Shaking his head, he backed away, dissolved into the crowd, and was gone. The funny thing was, I knew just how he felt. He looked exactly as heartbroken as I’d been every time I’d seen him making out with someone who wasn’t me. But there was one huge difference. He’d gotten with those girls. I’d never touched Mr. E. And if he’d tried to talk to me about something terrible that had happened to him, regardless of his guilt in it, I would have been there to listen.

  Audra watched me watch Mac, then grabbed Fawn’s arm and sashayed away to first period, never mind that Fawn would immediately have to come back this way for physics. Guess today it wasn’t important that we all walked together.

  A bony hip bumped mine.

  “Why I prefer living online,” Sharma said. “Let’s go see how Mr. E.’s holding up.”

  First period. Mr. E. wasn’t in class. My classmates stared at me, waiting for my reaction. Despite her apology for not having been there for me and her miraculous save during the flash prank, Audra stayed thoroughly absorbed in her privacy-mode Doc when I sat next to her, barely registering my appearance. Two people recorded me.

  Cue the substitute teacher: “I know it’s only two days before Christmas, but I won’t stand for any nonsense or improper behavior. I expect you all to read or work quietly.” Cue my Doc dinging loudly a dozen times. Cue classmates’ laughter as everyone hid their Docs on their laps and flicked on some kind of EarRing device.

  Cue me checking my profiles for the first time that day and trying really hard to keep it together. My whole life, my G-File had come up as the second Kyla Cheng. The first Kyla was a film editor out in LA. Now when you searched my name, I came out above her. I had figured I’d be in my twenties before that happened, when I’d won an election as a junior senator.

  Ha!

  What’s worse, there were now dozens of tribute videos attached to my G-File. (Didn’t anyone have a life?) A few were simple vlog posts. Only one was in my defense: Ailey’s. She said that if I were a boy I’d be getting high fives right now instead of being ruthlessly talked about and ostracized by everyone I knew for being a slut.

  Um, thanks.

  The rest, the majority, were remake videos. Derek Boger’s had the most views. He dressed up like “me,” and the whole time another boy moved around behind him like Mr. E., Derek said idiotic things like

  “O-M-G, can you believe I have hair?”

  “I like clothes.”

  “O-M-G, look at my boobs.”

  At the end, when the dude behind him moved in for a kiss, Derek held up his Doc and said, “Kisses.”

  Cue Audra’s Valley Girl avatar voice whispering in my ear, “Look at this instead.” When I glanced at her, she winked.

  The link she sent was to the Bra&Panties slut’s most recent post.

  BRA&PANTIES

  Hey there, mavens and empresses. I picked up on something that happened in my locale today. Apparently there’s a high school minx in Brooklyn who slept with her teacher. Let me be the first to say—good job, honey! Now can we all get back to our commercialized holidays and please stop assassinating this woman’s character because she knows how to use her vagina?

  In honor of Li’l Miss Straight-A and all the other persecuted vixens out there, I hope you enjoy today’s special photo series. And don’t forget to tune in to my big New Year’s Eve reveal, only eight days away.

  The post was followed by a half a dozen shots taken in a room similar to our English class with two girls in different barely there outfits reenacting the Mr. E. video. As always, both girls’ faces were obscured by their hair, blurred out, or lopped off entirely.

  I like sex was written above each picture.

  The last photo in the series was of the girls, heads cropped off, cleavage exploding, as they gave the camera the finger.

  I like sex, it read. That doesn’t make me a slut.

  Gr
eat. The one person supporting me had disrobed her way to stardom. I could tell Audra was impressed and expected me to look equally so. But this wasn’t the kind of support I was looking for. Not to mention, the B&P slut had over a million followers. How soon would that reflect in views on my video?

  I gave Audra a thumbs-up. Cue her wiggling happily in her seat and humming as she flicked through her celebrity pages. Classic Audra—annoying and adorable all at the same time.

  I’d only been in school for thirty minutes.

  Instead of focusing on my present life of SHT, I decided to think about my future and finish my college admissions essays. But in five hundred words or less, when I swiped over to Scholar: The Place to Track and Submit Your College Applications, I saw twelve new unread messages. This was why my Doc had dinged at the start of class. I clicked on the one from Yale.

  Thank you for submitting your recent application to Yale University. This e-mail verifies that the admissions committee has received your electronic submission and will be considering it shortly.

  What? No. I hadn’t submitted anything.

  I swiped into my pending submissions. Harvard. Brown. Columbia. Every application was marked “completed.” Half the essays weren’t even finished.

  Cue me abruptly standing up. Cue my chair falling backwards. Cue Audra—hand to chest—staring at me like I was insane. Cue the substitute shouting, “Ms. Cheng, sit down now,” as if I were a notorious troublemaker. Cue me grabbing the lav pass off the wall, then sequestering myself in the tiny third-floor faculty bathroom so the girls wouldn’t find me.

  Question: Why haven’t hiding rooms been built into high schools?

  I mean, when things go wrong, we flee to bathrooms. I didn’t know where to sit. On the toilet? On the grody, pee-splashed floor tiles? Finally I sank to the floor by the sink. At least the door locked, so no one would see me.

  Clenching my head in my hands, I told myself maybe this wasn’t so bad. I could finish the essays, then call the schools one by one and beg to resubmit, explaining that Scholar had screwed me over. Yeah, right.

  As if reflecting my state of mind, my Doc let out a horror movie–style scream. Last night, I’d updated my contacts. So, before looking, I knew that AnyLies had just txted.

  Aw, having a bad day? Don’t worry. I think community college has rolling admissions.

  Wait. What?

  moi You cracked my college apps?

  As hard as I could in the small space, I threw my Doc at the bathroom wall. It bounced, unmarred, to the floor. That’s what crack-proof coating got you.

  Too bad they didn’t make it for people.

  Twenty minutes later, my face now composed, I sat in Dr. Graff’s outer office, in one of the mansion’s two turrets, completely numb. My surroundings felt like a reminder of everything I’d been robbed of. When I imagined myself in Congress, I secretly imagined that space, with its Tiffany lamps, worn brown leather chairs, and floor-to-ceiling old-skool bookshelves.

  I’d plotted my future out perfectly. Excellent service record and grades would lead to an excellent college and excellent internships. Except now they wouldn’t. A mean-spirited video prank was one thing. But submitting my college apps? That wasn’t just making my life miserable. AnyLies had just successfully derailed my entire future. Girls with sex scandals attached to their name need not apply.

  “Excuse me one moment,” I said to Dr. Graff’s secretary; then I hurried into the hall and went to the closest water fountain, afraid I might vomit. Only pretending to drink, I let the lukewarm water run over my lips as I waited for that throw-up feeling to go away.

  “Pull it together, Kyle,” I murmured. “You will not puke in a water fountain on top of everything else.” Please tell me I wasn’t going to puke in a water fountain on top of everything else.

  The sheer pitifulness of the thought made me straighten up. I purposefully scrolled through my Doc until I found it: President Malin’s quote about the South Korean blackout.

  Evil might have won today, but we are cleverer, more resourceful, and have the most powerful friends in the world. We are not to be beaten by them. We are the ones who will conquer Evil.

  Audra said something like that, too, on a near daily basis:

  “FCK them small betches.”

  Calmer, I went back into the office. No sooner had I sat down than the outer door opened. Forgoing a hello, Mom tossed her bag next to me and said, “You didn’t respond to any of my txts. How’s it going?”

  I flipped my hand back and forth, saw that it was shaking, and sat on it instead. “No one dumped a bucket of blood on my head or stabbed me in the belly with a sharpened spear, but it’s still early.”

  Although they did submit my admissions applications.

  I should have told her right then what AnyLies had done, but I couldn’t stand corroborating Mom’s suspicions that this was an act of revenge. What I needed to figure out was how they’d cracked my Scholar password. Even though it was too late, I flicked into Shield, scrolled down until I came to the Scholar icon, then tapped Change Password. Sharma had insisted I set Shield to change and record all my passwords on a weekly basis, but well, a lot of good that did me. Before closing out, I selected Apply Change to All, thereby updating all 112 of my profile logins.

  I swiped my Doc off and set it a little ways away on the bench, unable to shake the feeling that AnyLies was actually right there in my Doc, watching me.

  Dr. Graff blew in a few minutes later and swiftly ushered us into her office. In her most approachable moments, Dr. Graff could best be described as efficient, no-nonsense, and chilly. But she’d always been friendly to me. After all, in her top-performing high school I was her top performer. Once we were all seated, she swiped right to the chase.

  “I’m sorry to see that the video has only gained traction since last night. Luckily, the news outlets haven’t picked it up yet. But first things first. Mr. Ehrenreich insists this video is a forgery. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Cheng”—Dr. Graff took a breath—“but I do need to confirm this with Kyle. As I’m sure you’re aware, video-editing technology such as this is not easy to come by, if it exists at all.”

  My mom turned to me with a furrowed brow. Oops, had I forgotten to mention that part?

  My lips pressed into a straight line. If Graff believed that the student who organized a self-esteem seminar for freshman girls would sleep with her twentysomething teacher, then there wasn’t much I could say to dissuade her.

  “Maybe just answer the question, Kylie,” Mom said.

  In monotone I said, “Of course the video is a fake.”

  Dr. Graff was infamous for her unblinking stare, which she now leveled on me. Like eye contact would make me change my story, like I was lying.

  “Of course it is,” she finally said.

  In the tense silence that followed, my mom launched into her talking points about my college applications rapidly approaching their due dates (check that one off the list, Mama), my White House Internship Program application already being submitted, my wrecked G-File, and this video’s detrimental effects on all three. I peeked at my Doc. I had a txt from Sharma.

  sharm After school—city. Know hacker at Eden. Agreed to meet you.

  I forwarded the txt to the other girls, with the new intro:

  moi Operation Video Takedown in effect?! Sí?

  Apparently no.

  fawnal Can’t today Picking up our CSA farm share.

  audy Have plans.

  sharm Capturing Silver Tower (zombie stuff).

  Ouch, ladies. Not to play the diva, but this was my life. I couldn’t imagine telling one of them that I couldn’t be there because I had to pick up vegetables or had vague plans or had to kill M-F-ing zombies.

  “We understand your worry,” Dr. Graff was saying when I looked up. “And while we take cyberbullying very seriously at Parkside Prep, I must be frank. We are a small staff, tasked with expanding students’ minds, not policing their Internet tendencies. If it were
our responsibility to ferret out the source of every slanderous e-attack on a student, we would do little else.”

  “Please tell me there’s something you can do about this, Dr. Graff,” Mom said in her calm-before-the-storm voice.

  “Certainly there is, Mrs. Cheng. Just this morning at my DOE breakfast, I raised the topic of creating an exploratory panel focused on online defamation. And of course, we’ve already taken steps where our staffing is concerned.”

  I was stunned.

  “Does that mean you fired Mr. E.? Dr. Graff, he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a victim too. Maybe Park Prep could issue a statement on his behalf and—”

  Dr. Graff shook her head. “I don’t believe that’s wise at the moment, Kyle. Truthfully, it’s best to draw as little attention to this as possible. Mrs. Cheng, believe me when I say that no one cares about the reputation of Parkside Preparatory or its students more than I do. But sadly, as most schools are learning through one painful example after another, when it comes to online vileness like this, our hands are frustratingly tied.”

  Final bell.

  I’d made it. School was finito. Maybe the girls had been conspicuously absent from all our between-classes gossip spots. And maybe Mac hadn’t used the lav pass in AP Calc to come visit me in lunch. But now it was time for the good stuff, namely Park Prep’s Community Club’s pre–holiday party gift-wrapping session.

  Say that one time fast.

  Tomorrow afternoon, Christmas Eve, we were throwing a party for families from a women-and-children’s shelter in South Slope. Today was the gift-wrapping bonanza. We’d been fund-raising since September. The kids were going to leave with more presents than they could carry. The moms would go home with new clothes and coats and, most important—thank you, Swiped Tech on Fifth—a solar Doc-lite. Meaning their kids’ current situation wouldn’t force them to fall behind on the latest tech, and hopefully ensuring they’d still be in the running for a quality future.