The question took me by surprise. “Uh, I don’t think so. At least no one has ever mentioned it.”
“To your face.” Joey chuckled.
“No,” I agreed. “Have you heard anything?”
“Oh, I was just asking,” Joey said, waving away the question. He glanced at his watch, then shut off the camera. “I think that’s good for now. I have someone else coming in.”
“Oh, okay,” I said as I stood.
I suddenly didn’t feel as fired up as I had when I went looking for Joey. Actually, I felt a little childish venting about Noah. But as soon as I thought about what he’d said again, my lip curled. I hoped Joey showed Noah my video so he could see how it felt.
When Joey pulled back the curtain, I jumped. Amy was standing there dressed in full hazmat gear.
“You’re scraping gum in here, too?” I asked.
“Nope.” Amy closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting out a long sigh. “I’m… doing an interview.”
My eyes widened. “What? Really? You don’t have to, you know.”
Amy gave several quick nods. “I know… but I think I’m ready.” A nervous chuckle escaped her tightened lips. “Push past your comfort zone, and all that.”
I looked her up and down. “In full gear, too?”
“It helps,” she replied. “Thanks for the idea.”
“Ah, Amy,” Joey interrupted. “Right on time.”
She gave me a small wave before taking a seat in front of the camera. I couldn’t believe she had actually agreed to be on camera by herself.
I left the editing suite to find Sam waiting in the computer lab. She grinned, jutting a thumb back the way I had come. “What do you think?” she asked. “Can you believe Amy’s actually doing an interview?”
I shook my head, mouth hanging open. “And… the hazmat suit was my idea, somehow?”
Sam shrugged. “Well, it was.”
“It was?”
Sam nodded. “Remember the fencing helmet?”
“Oh yeah.”
A while back, when it looked like Amy’s fencing team was going to be interviewed by a local news reporter, Amy had started having a full-blown panic attack at the thought of being the center of attention. I had suggested that she wear her fencing helmet to hide her face, and it had worked. I guess she thought her hazmat suit would do the trick too. If it had shielded her from being the center of attention in the cafeteria earlier, why wouldn’t it work for just one camera?
I nodded toward the editing suite. “Have you gone in there yet?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Yeah, once. Noah talked me into it.”
“Did you talk about your new invention?”
“A little,” Sam replied.
“Care to tell a friend what it is, since you were willing to tell a perfect stranger? From what I saw yesterday, I’m guessing it has something to do with feet.”
Sam shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. I just thought I’d put off the ribbing as long as possible.”
“Okay, one, now I’m superintrigued. And two, since when do I rib you about your inventions?”
Sam glared at me over the rims of her glasses. “Seriously, Swift?”
I held up a hand. “I mean, anything beyond good-natured goofing among friends.”
“You know what was weird about the interview?” Sam asked, obviously changing the subject. “Joey didn’t seem that interested in any of my inventions. He mainly asked a bunch of questions about other students. If I had any rivalries in school, stuff like that.”
“Really?” I was too embarrassed to tell her that in my last interview I hadn’t talked about my inventions once. I’d just vented about Noah.
“And that’s not all,” Sam continued. “Joey asked me a bunch of questions about you.”
“Me? Like what?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Things like how I felt about your dad founding the school. Did you get special treatment? Stuff like that.”
My lips pressed together and I felt another wave of anger wash over me. “I have a feeling Noah’s the source of that topic.” I told her about what my supposed best friend had said about me in the video clip Joey had shown me.
“Noah said that?” Sam asked. “I don’t believe it. That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
“Oh, he denied it, but I saw the recording with my own eyes.”
Sam shook her head. “Why would he do that?”
I didn’t have an answer, and I didn’t get a chance to respond anyway as the first-period bell rang. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a hall pass.
“You have another one of those?” Sam asked. “Amy asked me to stay with her for moral support.”
I shook my head. “Joey still has tons of them, though. I’m sure he’ll give you one.”
I left the computer lab and made my way downstairs toward algebra. As I shuffled along, my mind kept going back to my conversation with Sam. Was news of Noah’s and my argument so widespread that Joey was asking everyone about it? Boy, now I felt really stupid for going in there and fanning the flames of our argument. I had originally thought the Swift Academy’s reality show would turn into the Noah Newton Show, but was it really going to be the Tom Swift Show and I was just the last one to find out about it? And had I just helped it along?
10
The Intention Assessment
I DON’T KNOW IF I was just being paranoid, but ever since Sam had mentioned Joey asking about me, now it really felt like everyone at the school was watching me. Before, it was nothing more than a casual glance, but more recently, some of my classmates were full-on staring before turning to whisper into a nearby friend’s ear. I felt as if everyone was waiting for me to do something.
I’m sure I was just being oversensitive. Why would anyone care what went on between Noah and me? There seemed to be more and more drama to go around. Everywhere I looked there were different sets of friends bickering or walking away from each other in a huff.
“I don’t want to hear it,”
