News Flash

  News Flash

  by Liz Botts

  Published by Astraea Press

  www.astraeapress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  NEWS FLASH

  Copyright © 2013 LIZ BOTTS

  ISBN 978-1-62135-280-8

  Cover Art Designed by AM DESIGN STUDIOS

  To my daughter, Addie. To my nieces, Simone, Samantha, Sophia, Reagan, and Jacie.

  Chapter One

  I fidgeted with the bright blue folder in my lap as I waited my turn to see the guidance counselor, Ms. Lewis. The top left corner had been worn down to the point that in another minute it would rip right off.

  The minute hand on the clock above the secretary’s desk gave a soft tick as it moved ahead. No one else was even in the office, so what could be taking so long? The note I had gotten while in Pre-Calc had said to come to the office immediately, and to bring my transcripts, college acceptance letters, and any recommendations I had, as well as info on my internship.

  My first thought had been what an absurd request, because who keeps all that stuff with them at school. But then I realized that I was one of those people—my mom called me Type A, whatever that meant—so I hauled my butt to my locker then to the office.

  When Ms. Lewis called me in, I held the folder just a little tighter. Getting called to the counselor’s office was never a good thing, and from the grim set of the woman’s mouth I knew I was right.

  “What’s wrong?” The words left my mouth before I could stop them. My mom constantly lectured me about tamping down my anxiety. She told me I came across as crazy when I started jabbering about all the possibilities of the things that could happen. I chewed on my lip as I waited for her to answer.

  Ms. Lewis looked down at a file on her desk. When she looked up, there was a softer look in her eyes. “It seems that during your freshman year, the study seminar you took did not count toward your total credits for graduation.”

  I stared at her, hoping against hope that she wasn’t saying what I knew she was saying. When she tapped her pencil against the desk, I knew she already heard my unspoken question. She continued, “That means that you are point five credits short. You can’t graduate unless we figure out a solution.”

  A cold chill raced along my spine. “I don’t understand. I’ve got all my paperwork right here. My transcripts are complete. Look. Look at them!”

  The blue folder spilled across Ms. Lewis’s desk, knocking over her paper cup of coffee. I stared in horror as the dark liquid oozed over everything in its path. “I’m so sorry,” I said in a choked voice.

  Ms. Lewis grabbed a handful of tissues, and blotted at the caffeinated mess on her desk. The look she gave me was enough to cow anyone into submission. She took a deep breath and moved her lips as if she was silently counting to ten. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she was. My mom always told me that I came on a little strong.

  “Now, as I was saying,” Ms. Lewis paused. “We only have a few options to remedy this situation. Fortunately we discovered it at the end of the quarter rather than the end of the semester. There’s still a chance for you to get into a class to earn that credit.”

  I settled back into my chair, knotting my hands together on my lap. “I’ll do anything. I have to graduate on time.”

  The tight lipped smile that Ms. Lewis gave me made me feel like a toddler being reprimanded. “Of course you want to graduate on time, dear. Now Mr. Carson’s special event planning class has a few openings. If you join now, and fulfill all of his requirements, you can earn the half credit by the end of the school year.”

  “Special event planning class? Wait, you mean the one that plans the dances? I can’t…” My voice trailed off as I tried to come up with a good argument to get myself out of the class. Everyone knew that Mr. Carson’s classes were full of the snotty girls who liked to pretend that they were popular but actually weren’t. I knew that sounded like a lot of bull, but the truth was I just didn’t want to be around those girls. They made me feel inferior, and I tried to make it a point not to be around people like that. Plus why would I want to hang around with airheads?

  Ms. Lewis leaned on her elbows on her desk, steepling her fingers in front of her face. “Miss Jones. Allison. You don’t have a choice. Without that credit you will not graduate with the rest of your class. You will have to go to summer school, and all of this may jeopardize your college plans. Frankly, you are lucky we even have a solution.”

  I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. “All right. Sign me up.” The resolve I faked in my voice came without my usual vibrato.

  ****

  “Oh, come on. It won’t be that bad. I’ll sign up for the class, too, if it’ll make you feel better.” My best friend, Jake, tossed an orange to me from the breakfast bar in his kitchen.

  I squinted through the curtains toward my own house, where my mom was out in the garden planting early bulbs. “My mom thinks it’ll be a good way for me to socialize. Can you believe that? It’s ridiculous that I even have to take the class. The stupid school made the mistake so why should I be punished for it?”

  “Al, I will seriously take the class with you.” Jake crossed over to the family room carrying a huge glass of milk with his own orange. He flopped down onto the sofa beside me.

  “Naw, you don’t have to do that. I’m just mad that it’s going to cut into my internship time. I should be focusing on my future, not just planning some stupid dance.” I dug my nail into the orange skin. “Ugh.”

  “It could be fun.” Jake pulled the peel off his piece of fruit, filling the small space with an intense citrus smell.

  “Are you serious? Planning prom is not fun.” I leaned back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Why was everyone being so positive about this ridiculous turn of events? Prom was just another silly distraction that made up the very fabric of high school. Only the morons that thought of high school as the best time of their lives got excited by stuff like that. I wanted to get out and grow up, pursue my career in journalism. Life was waiting for me just outside the cinderblock walls of James Buchannan High, and I didn’t want to waste time planning a dance.

  “Look, Mr. Carson’s a pretty fun dude. I worked with him freshman year when I took yearbook. I’m positive he’ll make prom planning great.” Jake grinned at me. “Besides if you don’t plan the prom, I can’t ask Mary Beth Johnson to be my date. And if she isn’t my date, how else will I—“

  “Don’t! Don’t even go there,” I said as I sat up so fast I knocked my orange and a throw pillow on to the floor. “There is nothing about the way you end that sentence that would make it okay.”

  “What?” Jake gave me his best innocent look, one I had seen many times before. “I was just going to say, how else will I be able to show off my awesome dance moves?”

  “Sure. That’s totally what you were going to say.” I groaned, rubbing my fingers against my temples. “I just don’t care about it, you know? It’s just a dance. People spend hundreds of dollars just for a chance to get…close, shall we say. And then what? Everyone goes off to college, hopefully never to see each other again.”

  Jake stuck his lower lip out at me in a mock pout. “That’s not very nice. What are you going to do when you have to see me every day next year?”

  “Jake, I see you every
day right now.”

  “Look,” he said, his face getting serious. “Do you want me to join the class or not? I’m serious about the offer. I have a free period this quarter, and you know I’d never let you do something awesomely lame without me.”

  Chagrined, I chewed on my lower lip. I could be such a jerk to Jake because he always let me. If I talked to any of my other friends that way, they’d call me on it good. And with my mom? Forget it. I hadn’t even tried to convince her of the absurdity of me being on the prom planning committee. She would pull her approval for my internship at the news station faster than I could blink. Mouthing off was not acceptable, but then again neither was calm, logical discussion. Pretty sure she should have lived during a time when it was all the rage for kids to be seen and never heard.

  “Fine,” I said with a resigned huff of air. “I’d love for you to take the class with me.”

  Chapter Two

  The chaos of the newsroom always got my adrenaline pumping. Despite the fact that our city was fairly small—only about seventy thousand people—there were two news stations. The one I interned at was by far the better of the two, not that I was biased or anything.

  “Hey, Allie.” Marika, the intern coordinator, handed me a stack of papers to file. I knew the drill. “Get to the floor early tonight. John and Bonnie have some stunning announcement.” She made a face that made me giggle, and I went to the big back office to the bank of filing cabinets.

  Even though the work was monotonous, when I got into a good rhythm I got a very Zen-like feeling. I always rifled through the stack of papers before I filed them. On the surface that seemed like a good way for an intern to get fired, but I knew so much about the goings-on of the newsroom. For instance, I knew that John and Bonnie, the lead anchors on the six o’clock news, had been chastised by HR more than once for overly-flirtatious comments made on air. That was a lame example, though, because everyone knew that those two were dating behind the scenes but refused to publicly acknowledge the relationship. Their reasoning? They didn’t want HR to get involved in their personal lives. Whatever.

  I had been working at the station for only a quarter. With one more under my belt before graduation, I hoped to be able to apply to the state university’s journalism school early. Normally for admission to the program, one had to be at least a sophomore with a semester internship completed. Early acceptance to the program would mean that I’d get a jump on my career, and might be able to land a really choice internship with one of the big stations my senior year in college.

  “Oh my gosh, what do you think Bonnie and John are announcing?” Chloe, the actual college intern, skirted in to the back room out of breath. She dropped down on the lone office chair, and spun around a few times.

  “Maybe they’ll tell us all that they’re engaged.” I stuffed a file in a cabinet, and sat back on my heels to look at her. We were work friends, just like I had school friends. She and I came from such different worlds that we would never spend time together away from the studio, but we got along well nonetheless.

  Chloe shook out her long blond hair before gathering it back into a messy bun. “They’ll never admit they’re together. It’s like their mission in life to keep their relationship a secret.”

  I filed a few more things while I mulled over what Chloe had said. Bonnie and John were a favorite topic of conversation around these parts, but we all had to be careful not to be caught. Gossip was severely frowned upon. I got the reason behind it, of course, that sort of behavior wasn’t professional. But I was a senior in high school, and Chloe was just a senior in college. We hadn’t grown into professionals yet, at least that’s what I told myself to alleviate any residual guilt.

  “Still, I think it might be kind of romantic. Especially if they declared their love on air.”

  “If they weren’t so old, I’d say they were cute. “ Chloe wrinkled her nose.

  I giggled. “They aren’t that old, and I don’t think Bonnie or John could be referred to as cute. Abrasive maybe, but never cute.”

  We chatted a few more minutes before Chloe schlepped back off to her official duties as go-fer. I finished my filing and stood. Stretching, I glanced around the little back room where I spent so much of my time. Not many of my peers would understand what I liked about this so much. Being part of something larger than myself made me excited. I wanted to produce the news someday, not be in front of the camera. Anchormen and women were a different breed of journalist. They had to have something else about them that normal people just didn’t possess.

  As I did most days, I paused at the edge to watch the activity of the newsroom. People were everywhere getting the days’ shows ready to air. I loved the rush, especially on a breaking news day. Then everyone scurried to and fro, barely avoiding collisions with one another as they relayed the most current information.

  “Are you done already?”

  I jumped as Marika came up behind me. “Yeah, there wasn’t that much today.”

  “Honestly, you’re better than half these saps that actually get paid to work here. Why don’t you go man the desk for a few minutes, and give Jamie a break.” Marika patted my shoulder, and I felt a flare of pride.

  Nearly skipping over to the little news feed that posted all the AP news for the day, I grinned at Jamie. “You can go on break now. Marika sent me over for a bit.”

  “Thank goodness, nothing is happening today. My eyeballs are about to bleed boredom.” Jamie grabbed her purse and fled toward the break room.

  The computer screen scrolled with benign stories, all marked yellow. I’d never seen an orange or red story come through, but then again I had only been allowed to man the desk one other time. My eyes glazed over, and I totally got what Jamie meant, and then a blip of orange came across the screen. I sat up a little straighter, scanning the brief for the pertinent info. When I realized that it was an alert for our city, my heart began to pound in my ears. I had no idea what the protocol was for this sort of thing. I scanned the newsroom.

  My eyes landed on Rory, a guy who ran all the social media for the station. He was the closest, so I waved a hand at him. “Rory! Get over here!”

  Rory looked startled, perhaps because he had no idea who I was, and I certainly wasn’t Jamie, but he dutifully came over to me. “What’s up?”

  “Look at that.” I jabbed the screen with my finger, and then looked up at him. With a growing sense of urgency and satisfaction, I watched Rory’s eyes grow wider. When I was pretty sure he’d finished reading, I said, “So what do I do now?”

  “I’ll go get Esther. If it goes red, come to her office, got it?”

  I nodded in his general direction as I continued to stare at the screen. The orange bar seemed to throb with my own excitement. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I mean, I was actually in the right place at the right time. Not that I’d get to do any actual journalism reporting, but just being the one to find the story was a big deal. Esther, the executive producer, would be pleased, to say the least. She might even learn my name, and stop calling me Amanda.

  My eyes had glazed over again, but a sudden, harsh slash of red on the screen brought me slamming back to reality. I read the text on the scroll, once, twice, and then jumped up and sprinted toward Esther’s office. My heart thudded. I could actually feel the importance of what I was about to do with every step I took.

  When I burst in the door, Rory was talking in a high, fast voice to Esther and one of the other producers. They were nodding, and moving toward the computer, but they all stopped and looked at me when I entered.

  “It just went red,” I said, my voice flush with adrenaline. “Shots have been fired.”

  “Rory, go get Bonnie, John, and Marika. We need to get a strategy session going. Amanda, go back to the news desk, and watch for any new information. Rory will be down to give you a new assignment in a while.” Esther was already at her computer typing in information. I could actually see the wheels in her head turning, and I stood rooted
in place as I watched her in awe. She looked up, saw me, and shot an annoyed glance in my direction. “Well? What are you waiting for? Go. This is a huge story.”

  I nearly tripped over my own feet as I propelled myself back to the desk, where I collapsed into the chair. The bright red bar seemed bigger than before, but the information was basically unchanged. There had been a bank robbery at one of the big banks downtown—right across the river from us actually—and now there were hostages inside with shots fired. This kind of thing didn’t actually happen, even in a small city like ours. A hostage situation was for the movies.

  While I kept my eyes trained to the computer screen for any changes, the newsroom became a frenetic whirl of activity. I knew from other breaking news days that John and Bonnie were in the tiny Green Room being prepped to go on air. I vaguely wondered where Marika was during the entire hubbub. Jake always made fun of me for using what he called “Grandma Words.” Hubbub was on his list. The thoughts broke through the excitement of the breaking news, and brought a smile to my face.

  “This is wild.” Rory reappeared by my side. I realized that I had never really looked at him before. Not the way I would normally look at a guy anyway. With his dark framed hipster glasses, smattering of freckles spattered across his nose, and the shock of ginger hair, he was cute. And young. Now that he was standing next to me, I could tell that he wasn’t that much older than me. Knowing that he wasn’t an intern, I bet that he was just barely out of college himself. That made him what? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Twenty-three tops? And I turned eighteen in just a few weeks.

  I nearly choked on my own saliva, and started coughing and sputtering. Not the most appropriate thoughts to be having in the midst of the biggest event to happen in my entire life. To make matters worse Rory patted my back with a few resounding thumps and said, “Are you okay?”

  Feeling the heat of a blush creeping up my neck, I said, “Yeah. This is just so crazy, I mean—“

  The sound of helicopter blades cut me off, and Rory’s jaw dropped. In a second he was off toward the large bank of windows that faced the river. I had been so interested in what was coming across the wire, that I hadn’t even thought to just look out at the action happening. Part of me was torn. Leaving the desk wasn’t really a good idea since that had been my assignment but I really wanted to see what was going on. So I decided to go for just a minute.