“Hey,” Noah said.
It took me a second to realize that he was talking to me. “Hey,” I replied, going back to work on my robot.
“Thanks for making that lens filter,” he said.
I gave a quick nod and began disassembling my robot’s other arm. “I said I would.”
Noah shifted on his stool. “Well, Joey said it works great.”
“Good,” I replied without looking up.
Noah made a few notes in his notebook, then put his pen down. “Look, I’m sorry I got so worked up about it. I should’ve known you would come through.”
I let out a sigh, but still didn’t look up. “Whatever.”
Noah leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Hey, I’m trying to apologize here.”
Why was he whispering? Was he afraid the camera crew would record him being nice to me?
“Fine,” I said, glancing at him. “You apologized.”
Noah sat straighter again and shook his head. “Man.”
We didn’t speak for the rest of the class. I focused on making adjustments to my robot; he kept scribbling notes.
I did occasionally check in on Sam and Mia’s station. After Sam removed her feet from the tubes, she and Mia mixed what looked like plaster and filled the molds. By the end of class, they’d ripped open the cardboard tubes, revealing two white stone-like copies of my friend’s feet and ankles.
As the rest of day went on, my hurt and disappointment slowly morphed into anger. I didn’t realize it at first, but I started keeping to myself even more as I stewed over what Noah had said. When I did have to interact with other students or teachers, my statements were short, and sometimes even gruff.
I didn’t like feeling that way. My insides were wound up like a spring compressed to three thousand PSI. I wished I hadn’t kept quiet with Noah in class. I wished I’d told him how I felt.
Just before last period, I decided to remedy the situation. I swung by Noah’s locker, but I didn’t see him. I ran up to the third floor, thinking I might catch him in biology. He wasn’t there, either.
With Noah having a pocket full of hall passes and the run of the school thanks to his personal camera crew, there was no telling where he could be.
Then I remembered again what he’d said in the confessional. Maybe he was there, commenting on our last interaction. As I trudged down the stairs, I could just picture what he was saying:
“I tried to apologize to him, but Tom Swift’s too stuck-up to listen. His name’s on the school, so why would he care what any of us peons has to say?”
I grew angrier with each step.
When I got to the computer lab, I saw that Noah wasn’t in the actual editing suite. Instead, he sat in front of one of the school computers. But one of the camera crews was with him, so I wasn’t entirely off.
As I marched closer, I saw that Lori had her camera trained on the screen as Noah scrolled through lines and lines of code.
“Listen,” I said.
Noah held up a finger. “Hang on a minute, man.” He kept one finger on the keyboard, keeping the code slowly scrolling. “I didn’t have many sketches for Amy to animate, so they’re grabbing footage of my app code for one of their transitions.”
I trembled with anger as he put me off. “What? Are you in charge of everyone now? You going after Davenport’s job next?”
Noah stopped scrolling and looked up at me, a confused expression on his face. “What are you talking about?”
I gestured to the nearby camera crew. “I’m talking about the Noah Newton Show and how you’re tearing people down to get to the top.”
Noah pushed out of his chair and stood to face me. “Tearing people down?”
“You think I want to have the same name as the school? Do you know how much pressure that is?”
Noah nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah, you’ve literally told me that a thousand times.”
“Well, apparently you don’t believe me! You think it’s all an act. You think I really want special treatment, right?”
Noah spread his arms wide. “Dude! Again… what are you talking about?”
I tapped my chest. “And I’m not a good inventor? Half of my projects were with you. How does that make any sense?”
“Who said you weren’t a good inventor?”
“You did!” I snapped.
“What? No, I would never!”
“I saw you say it! I can’t believe you’d deny it to my face.” I threw up my hands. “You’d think the star of the Noah Newton Show would at least have the guts to own up to his words.”
With that, I turned and stormed out. As I hurried down the hall, I realized that the camera crew had been recording our entire exchange.
At that moment, I didn’t even care.
9
The Unwitting Escalation
“I THINK HE’S JUST JEALOUS,” I said, looking directly into the camera lens. “Do you know how many times he’s told me what he would do if he was in my shoes?”
“Oh yeah?” Joey asked from his usual spot in the confessional.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Noah’s told me that he would totally take advantage of having the same name as the school.”
After I got home from school the day before, I couldn’t stop stewing about what my “supposed” best friend had said about me. Sure, I’d told him off—that had helped release some of my anger—but I needed more.
That’s when I decided to fight fire with fire.
As soon as I got to school, I found Joey and offered to record another session in the confessional. After my previous reluctance, he was thrilled.
“I bet Noah would really like the school to be called the Newton Academy. No, he’d want it to be called the Noah Newton Academy, just so no one would think it was named after Sir Isaac Newton.”
I had thought up that one the night before.
Joey nodded in approval. “That’s great, Tom. Do you think any
