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“Hey, Kate,” Trent said. He looked around for a place to sit, decided that the room was too small and leaned against the wall instead.

“Hi, Trent. You want something to drink?”

“Kate makes an awesome latte,” Eli said.

Trent shook his head. “No. Thanks, though.” He looked at Eli. “You ready for tonight?”

Eli stiffened. I thought I saw him tilt his head toward me. Trent glanced in my direction. “So, Kate,” he said, switching topics completely. “Brady tells me your history class has gotten kind of interesting.”

My very first thought was that he was referring to our unit on the Carthaginians and was making a joke. Then I realized that he meant the morning debates.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a Tiffany versus Brady type thing,” I said.

“I heard Lan was taking on Her Majesty, as well.”

I knew Lan would be thrilled when I talked to her later on and told her that Trent had actually mentioned her in conversation. I smiled. “Lan takes on a lot of things,” I said. We laughed, even though I wasn’t quite sure what I’d said that was so funny. I felt a little uncomfortable around Trent, like I had to try and impress him. I wanted him to think I was okay, but I didn’t know why I needed his approval.

“Hey, Kate, we’ll lock up tonight, okay?” Eli’s back was to me as he stacked cups that didn’t really need stacking.

“Oh. Okay, sure.” I was confused. Eli seemed suddenly cold. He wasn’t looking at me and I wondered if I’d said something to upset him.

“Nice seein’ you, Kate,” Trent said.

I took this as my cue to leave and gathered up my bag and pulled on my jacket. I left without saying goodbye to Eli and waited outside for my dad to arrive. I didn’t have to wait long, but the entire time all I could think of was how I had been kicked out of the one place where I always felt I belonged.

EDEN ALDER WAS HAVING a heart attack. At least, that’s what she told us on Monday at lunch. As editor of the Cleary Chronicle, our school newspaper, Eden had a “gut-wrenching” decision to make about the front page of the next issue: should she give lead-article status to the late-night protest over the “school mural” (as it was now being called) or Tiffany Werner’s birthday party?

The choice seemed simple to me, but Eden was in full-out panic mode. She had three hours until deadline and her staff was in an uproar. Half wanted the protest to be featured front and center while the other half argued that it was old news and had already been covered in the local papers. Tiffany’s party, however, was fresh news and of much more interest to the average Cleary High School student.

Lan and I listened to Eden as we ate our lunches. I, for one, was glad to be discussing something other than Trent Adams. I had spent the weekend at Lan’s house, and all she wanted to talk about was her current crush.

“How did his voice sound when he said my name?” she asked as she made banana spring rolls. Ever since the ninth grade Lan had made it her mission in life to get me to try new foods. At her insistence, I had sampled sweet mung bean soup and carp cooked in coconut milk and thang long fish cakes. If it were up to me, I’d live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I appreciated Lan’s efforts to expand my culinary horizons. Every once in a while, she made something that I loved, but most of the time I couldn’t figure out what animal I was eating and wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

“His voice? It sounded the way it always sounds,” I had replied.

Lan looked like she was concentrating hard on a complex chemical equation. “I need more information,” she said. “Help me out here.”

In the end, I retold the story of Trent’s brief visit to Something’s Brewing about a hundred times, never altering a detail. I didn’t talk about how it made me feel to have Eli give me the cold shoulder. Lan wasn’t really interested in that, anyway. She wanted to talk about Trent again at school that morning, and of course rehash it at lunch, but Eden’s dilemma had taken center stage, much to my relief.

Eden sat with her head in her hands, moaning about the tough decisions she was forced to make while Lan and I tried to offer our sympathy.

“I mean, it’s only the most important decision of my life!” Eden wailed. I glanced at Lan, who was picking at a salad. Eden had a tendency to exaggerate—not exactly a good quality in a journalist.

“I think it’s pretty clear,” I said. “The protest is much more interesting. It affected more students directly.”

“But that’s just it,” Eden said. “Only three boys were arrested, and they were released with a warning two hours later. No big deal. But the party? That affects hundreds of students.”

Tiffany Werner had announced on Friday that she was, indeed, throwing a party.

A big party.

To quote Tiffany exactly, “The biggest party this town has ever seen.” Her parents had rented out the country club, hired a band and booked caterers to celebrate Tiffany’s sixteenth birthday, which was, for some reason, a huge event. Monumental, people said. As if girls didn’t turn sixteen every day of the year and therefore it was a rare milestone that required a celebration ten times bigger than most people’s weddings.

There were a few people on the Cleary Chronicle staff who argued that Tiffany’s party would cause issues to fly off the shelves, or in the case of the Cleary Chronicle, to be plucked off the tables set up outside the cafeteria.

Tiffany’s story held a hint of mystery: two hundred and fifty students would be invited, but no one had yet received an invitation. The protest story had a bit of violence: a few kids had thrown bottles and were escorted “downtown,” where they had to wait in a holding cell until their parents came to pick them up. My dad had been there, cuffing freshmen and putting them in the backseat of his car. I didn’t ask for specifics and he didn’t offer any, but it was all over school and people were giving me some distance when I walked down the hallways as if I had something to do with it.

“But, Eden,” I argued, “you’re always saying that the school paper is like a time capsule. When people look back on this issue in ten years, what do you think they’ll find more important? A student protest or a birthday party?”

“The protest,” Lan said. She knew there was no way she was getting an invitation to Tiffany’s party, and I think she wanted to diminish its social importance as much as possible.

Eden seemed to consider this. She pushed her disheveled hair off her face and sat up straighter. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep, dramatic breath. “You’re right. Okay. I know what I have to do.”

Austin McDaniel, Eden’s assistant editor, came running up to our table a moment later. He plopped down in the chair next to her, out of breath. “Never. Believe. What. Happened,” he gasped, his face red.

Eden went pale. “No. Austin, I absolutely cannot handle anything else right now.”

Austin shook his head. “Huge. News.”

Lan passed her bottled water down the table. “Here. Calm down.”

Austin took a long drink. “Tiffany’s party,” he said as his breathing returned to normal. “It has to go on the front page.”

Eden sighed. “And why is that?”

Austin smiled. “Because it’s going to be on TV.”

THE SCHOOL WAS IN A KIND of pandemonium. The biggest party of the year was going to be taped for an MTV special. Anyone who had felt even a mild interest in attending was now foaming at the mouth, desperate for one of the exclusive invitations. Rumors flared up: no freshmen would be invited, all guests would be required to wear special wristbands, Tiffany’s parents were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. For her part, Tiffany stayed quiet, simply smiling demurely and twirling her hair whenever anyone asked her about it.

Of course, the party was featured on the front page of Wednesday’s issue of the Cleary Chronicle while the student protest was demoted to the bottom corner. I was reading the protest article at Something’s Brewing when Eli showed up for work. I didn’t hear him enter at first, but then he cleared his throat and I looked up, startled.

“Sorry. Did you say something?” I asked. Eli had called in sick on Friday, so I spent my shift with Bonnie, who was trying to convince me to give crocheting a try. I already knew from my failed attempt at knitting that I was all thumbs with a pair of fat needles and a ball of yarn. I tried, but I couldn’t get the hang of it.

“I was wondering if you could make me a drink?”

“Sure, just give me a minute.”

I had read the article three times already, but I wanted to read it again.

“It says here that the protest was ‘mildly successful,’” I read aloud. “What does that mean, exactly?”

I gave the paper to Eli and turned to the espresso machine so I could make him my patented Katie Bar Latte. I wanted to pretend that nothing unusual had happened the previous Thursday, that he had not hurt my feelings in any way when he asked me to leave.

“It says that the protesters were able to delay removal of the mural. I guess that’s successful.”

“Mildly successful,” I said as I steamed the milk.

“Of course, if they were trying to make headlines, they were very unsuccessful,” Eli commented. “This party has everyone going mental.”

I stirred three kinds of syrup into Eli’s latte. “Personally, I would have liked more information about the gorillas.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

I handed Eli his drink. “Like, did they ever catch this guy? Has he struck again? Why gorillas? What’s the whole point?” I had searched online to find the answers myself, but since the last gorilla had been spotted in Beulah a week earlier, there hadn’t been anything new.

“Sounds like you’re heading up an investigation,” Eli joked. “Are you helping out your dad or something?”

“I do not work for my dad!” I shouted.

Eli looked at me like I’d just slapped him, which I suddenly had the urge to do.

“Sorry,” I said, lowering my voice. “It’s just that people seem to think that I snitch, which I don’t.”

“Okay,” said Eli.

I didn’t feel like he really believed me. “My dad and I have a deal—he doesn’t ask and I don’t tell.”

“I get it.”

I was embarrassed. Eli hadn’t done anything intentionally cruel, and here I was, going off on him as if he’d insulted my family.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” I said finally. “My dad’s job is kind of a sore spot with me.”

Eli smiled. “It’s okay, really. I understand. It’s my fault for making a bad joke.”

A minivan pulled up to the window. The driver was a haggard-looking woman and the backseat was full of shrieking kids. “Do you have anything non-caffeinated?” she asked wearily. Eli was already pulling fruit juice out of the fridge as I typed in the order. We prepared five cups of apple juice for the kids and a double espresso for the mom in record time and handed the woman her drinks along with a full stack of napkins.

“Looks like she’s having a rough day,” Eli commented. I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood and change the subject, and I decided to let him. “So, we were talking about the gorillas, right?”

I smiled. “Sure.”

“And you were about to tell me what you really thought of them.”

“Was I?” It was flattering, I thought, that Eli seemed to really want to know my opinion. The truth was, I wasn’t sure what my opinion was. Listening to the morning debates at school, I knew I didn’t agree completely with Tiffany, although I could see she had a point. I liked Brady’s ideas more, but I couldn’t say why.

“You know,” I said finally, “I don’t have much of an opinion about the gorillas. But I do have an opinion about the person who’s making them.”

“Really?” Eli leaned back against the counter. “Let’s hear it.”

“Okay, well, I was thinking about how someone decides to create something. I don’t understand why he did it, but obviously there’s thought and talent behind it, and it takes a kind of courage to do that, to just put something out there for everyone to judge.”

“So you think he—or she—is courageous?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” I waited for more of a response from Eli. I wasn’t used to blurting out my thoughts like that, and part of me worried that he’d laugh at me, but all he ended up saying was “Interesting.”

A car pulled up, we filled the order and things were quiet for a few minutes until I broke the silence between us.

“Eli, do you think everyone is naturally creative?” It was something I’d been thinking about a lot lately. Everyone seemed to have something outside themselves that made them happy. Mom had her cakes and Lan had her orchids. I watched the other students at school, all of whom seemed to have something they loved, whether it was sports or music or movies. Even Tiffany Werner, with all of her pretentious flaws, had a passion for jewelry. Lately, I’d begun to feel like I was missing out on something. I didn’t have anything, really, that I felt passionate about. I liked different things, but I didn’t really love any one hobby or activity or distraction.

“I don’t know if everyone has a creative outlet,” Eli said, looking thoughtful. “But I think everyone should have something they love to do. I don’t know if it has to be creative, though.”

“Like sports?” I asked.

“Yeah. I mean, playing football isn’t considered creative, really, but it does involve thought and feeling and dedication. That’s an outlet of expression, right?”

“Right.”

“Why do you ask?” He stood up in preparation for a car that had pulled into the parking lot. The driver was examining the menu posted just before the drive-through window.

“I dunno. It was just something I was thinking about. I don’t really have anything like that.”

“You make a great latte.”

“Pouring liquid into a cup is not a talent,” I muttered.

“There’s got to be something you love.”

I thought about all of the things I had tried to do in my life. There was ballet, but I wasn’t graceful enough and it killed my toes. I took a ceramics course with Lan once, but painting chubby little animals didn’t excite me. I tried music, but everyone told me I was tone-deaf. I couldn’t draw a circle to save my life and any time I tried to help Mom decorate a cake I just made a huge mess.

“There’s nothing I’m really good at,” I said finally.

“Except precalculus,” Eli said. “You really helped me out, you know?”

“Then why did you—” I stopped. Maybe I didn’t want to know why he had changed around Trent. Maybe he didn’t want to be associated with me, the sheriff’s daughter. Maybe it was better to let it go and not think about it.

“Why did I what?” Eli looked puzzled. I had a hard time looking away from him. His eyes were the color of dark, polished wood.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

I sighed. How do you ask a question when you don’t want to know the answer? I tried to think of something clever, then blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.

“Lan likes Trent.”

I immediately regretted my revelation. Lan would kill me if she knew. Eli looked both confused and shocked.

“Lan likes Trent?” he repeated.

“Please don’t say anything to him,” I begged.

Eli raised an eyebrow. “That could be a problem.”

4

ON FRIDAY I DISCOVERED a shiny silver envelope in my locker, the corner edge peeking out from the grate where it had been slipped. My name looked like it had been laser-printed in a fancy font on the envelope. “Katherine Morgan” it read. On closer inspection, I realized that it was calligraphy, written by hand in deep blue ink.

I felt a surge of excitement, despite the fact that my name was wrong. It was an invitation to Tiffany’s birthday party. I had just assumed there was no way I would be invited. She was still at war with my best friend, which I thought pretty much killed any chance I had of going. Tiffany and I had worked as lab partners during our sophomore year, but she barely spoke to me the entire semester except to inform me that she would not be cutting into dead frogs. Maybe the fact that I had completed the dissection lab by myself counted for something and she was paying me back with an invitation.

I grabbed the silver envelope and the books I needed for class, slammed my locker shut and hurried off to first period history.

“Guess what was in my locker this morning?” I said to Lan as I slid into my seat.

“Guess what was in everyone’s locker this morning,” Lan grumbled.

“You were invited? That’s great!” I exclaimed happily.

“Look again. It’s not what you think.”

I carefully opened the envelope. The metallic pearl-colored paper was heavy in my hand, the exact opposite of the delicate cream-colored stationery folded inside. I read over the paper several times and then looked at Lan in confusion.

“It’s an invitation to the invitation?”

Lan nodded. “She wants the entire school to show up in the parking lot next Tuesday just to see if they’ve been invited to her little soiree.”

“What makes her think anyone’s that desperate?”

“Well, the camera crew will be there, so I’m pretty sure she’ll get a crowd.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved the pseudoinvitation into my backpack. I looked around the room and saw other people examining their own silver envelopes, furrowing their brows and trying to make sense of them.

I hadn’t told Lan yet that I had revealed her crush to Eli. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Eli had sworn he wouldn’t say anything to Trent, but he’d also said there was a problem.

“The thing is, Brady kind of likes Lan,” he’d admitted.

“I thought Brady was dating a sophomore.”

“He was. They broke up.”

According to Eli, Trent would never date a girl if one of his friends liked her. It was some kind of loyalty code among guys. I told Eli I would try my best to get Lan to see the better qualities of Brady, but I wasn’t making any promises.

“She really likes Trent,” I said. “A lot.”

“Well, Brady really likes her. A lot.”

I decided that we needed to do whatever we could to make our friends happy, but Eli wanted to stay out of the way and let fate take its course.

“But what if fate needs a little nudge?” I asked.

“Fate never needs a nudge,” Eli responded. “It only needs time.”

I was still thinking about what Eli had said—Fate only needs time—when Tiffany stormed into class. She didn’t look as happy as I would have expected the most incredibly popular girl at school to appear. In fact, she looked downright mad.

“Principal Carter is a complete moron,” she announced to the class as she slammed her purse onto her desk. Mr. Gildea hadn’t arrived yet, which was a good thing because there was no way he would tolerate her bashing the principal in his class, even if the complaint was remotely true.

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