FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 16 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT
“Can you Photoshop this?” Dace asks. She strides into the school’s photocopy room and tosses a paper at me. “Algebra test.”
I finish adjusting the aperture on my camera and then glance at the paper. “You got a D.”
“Thanks for the newsflash. Pippa Greene, ace reporter. You really earn your keep here on the school paper,” she says, hopping up onto the table in front of me and crossing her legs under her, yoga-style.
Photocopiers line the walls around the room leaving a rectangle of space in the room’s middle where a couple of tables are pushed together. In our budget-stretched school, the photocopier room happens to be the headquarters of the school news- paper, where I’m the photo editor, and of the photo club, where I’m president. The flatscreens of five iMacs form a line on one side of the tables. The other side is just open space, where we can lay out the proofs of the paper, or plug in our laptops.
(Not that I have one.)
(Although I’m planning on rectifying that with the prize money from a certain photography competition.)
(More on that later.)
“Are you in photo club? Are you on the Hall Pass masthead?” Jeffrey Manson grumbles from behind the computer directly behind Dace. “Oh no? You’re not? Then why are you in here?”
“How’d you get a D?” I ask Dace, then snap a pic of her as she sweeps her long blonde hair up into a topknot, then secures it with an elastic that’s hidden under a stash of colorful rubber bracelets on her wrist. She’s wearing her usual: leggings (black today), loose T-shirt (gray) and black motorcycle boots.
She shrugs. “Dunno. I’m not into algebra. And I’m busy with go-sees. Vivs can’t find out about this,” Dace says. “If I get below a B on anything, I have to skip a go-see or turn down a job. Which is so ridiculous, don’t even get me started, because hello, what’s going to get me further in life, modeling or knowing how to dissect a frog?”
She has really not been paying attention in algebra.
“What exactly do you want me to do with this?” “Change the D to an A?” she says hopefully.
I give her a look.
“Like, scan it and do it in Photoshop?” Dace suggests.
“No problem, but your mom will be able to tell it’s a printout, not a pen mark. She’s ace at that stuff.”
“So I email her the file and tell her the school’s saving paper.”
“Are you serious? Just do what you usually do.” Which is fake her mom’s signature. “Or—here’s a crazy idea, Dace, why don’t you tell her the truth? She’s going to find out eventually.”
I hand the test back to her as the paper’s assis- tant editor walks into the room. “Plus, I don’t have time—I’ve got an editorial meeting for Hall Pass in 10 minutes, then my volunteer assessment with the Glumster at 4.”
“Oh god, don’t even remind me. I have my first shift in half an hour. Helping bratty little kids? And on a Friday afternoon? Kill me now.”
Everyone at Spalding High has to complete 120 volunteer hours to graduate, starting in our junior year. Dace’s placement is at the after-school home- work club at the library. It doesn’t sound all that bad to me. There are worse placements. Much worse.
“I bet you’ll be great, Dace. You’re really fun, and funny—the kids will love you.”
“I just hope you get placed with me,” Dace says. I sigh. I’m sort of dreading having to add another thing to my life. It’s not that I don’t want to help other people, but things are going to be insane until after Vantage Point. The photography competition I mentioned. The photography competition—less than three weeks away, and whether I win or lose will alter the course of my life.
YOU ARE READING
The Rule of Thirds
Teen FictionSixteen-year-old Pippa Greene never goes anywhere without her camera. She and her best friend/supermodel-in-training Dace long ago mapped out their life plan: Pippa will be the noted fashion photographer, and Dace the cover girl. But ever since last...
