Free Mustang Moon by Terri Farley Page B

home and he could spout off about the mistake she’d made.
    Right now, she’d better hurry to class.
    Â 
    â€œWe’ve got to hit the ground running,” said Mr. Blair.
    Sam’s journalism teacher looked more like a football coach as he fired off orders. Half the students loitered near a row of computers. The other half sat at attention in desks ranged in straight rows.
    The students whispering by the computers must be the veterans, Sam thought. The students who were seated and attentive, Sam admitted, looked like freshmen.
    â€œClass time is for putting out a newspaper. The textbook is for teaching you how to write. Here’s a schedule.” Mr. Blair flapped a sheaf of papers. “Do two chapters each night and turn in the work every day when you get to class.” Mr. Blair took a breath, then pointed. “What did I say?”
    â€œI, uh—” said a boy wearing a black tee shirt.
    â€œThat’s what I thought.” Mr. Blair turned toward Sam and pointed. “What did I say?”
    â€œWe’re putting out the newspaper during classand reading the book at night.” Sam rattled off what she remembered. “We turn in the work—” When Sam saw Mr. Blair’s eyes narrow, she hurried to correct herself. “We turn in two chapters’ worth of work every day.”
    â€œOkay.” Mr. Blair turned toward a bespectacled boy who sat with his feet atop a big wooden desk. “RJay, give this girl a story.” Mr. Blair jerked his thumb toward Sam, then asked, “Name?”
    â€œSam,” she said, lacing her fingers together in her lap to keep her hands from shaking. Then, as Mr. Blair scanned the student list in his hand, she added, quietly, “ Samantha Forster.”
    â€œHmm. A freshman.” Mr. Blair stared so long, Sam thought it very possible he was trying to read her mind. “Give her a story anyway, RJay.”
    The teacher shooed her toward RJay.
    Feeling singled out, Sam crossed the room. She tugged at the hem of her scoop-neck white shirt, even though she knew it looked fine with her new jeans. Today, she’d seen a hundred girls dressed the same way, but Sam still felt awkward as she stood before RJay. She guessed he was the editor of Dialogue , the Darton High newspaper, but he said nothing to confirm it.
    â€œGo see Rachel,” RJay said, and then he, too, pointed.
    At first, Sam didn’t recognize the name.
    Rachel looked like a model. Her sleek hair wasthe dark brown of coffee. She wore a short, trendy plaid skirt with suspenders. On most girls, it would look silly. On her, worn over a crisp white blouse, it looked great.
    Rachel let Sam stand and wait while she talked to a blonde in a cheerleader’s uniform embroidered with the name Daisy . Gradually, Rachel turned.
    Her rose-gold fingernails skimmed the wing of hair slanting across her forehead, lifting it away from her eyes. She scanned Sam from head to waist, but still said nothing.
    Sam turned hot with embarrassment. She felt like such a reject, but she had to say something.
    â€œRJay said you’d assign me a story,” Sam explained.
    â€œBack-to-school interview with Ms. Santos,” Rachel ran the words together, sounding bored and faintly British.
    Sam frowned. Ms. Santos . Her ignorance only deepened her blush.
    â€œWhere would I find her?” she asked. After she found her, maybe she’d figure out who she was.
    â€œOh.” Rachel stretched the word so that it sounded like ow . Did Rachel have an English accent or was she pretending? Sam couldn’t tell, but all at once she remembered. When they were out picking berries, hadn’t Jake said Linc Slocum’s daughter was named Rachel? Hadn’t he said Slocum was divorced and that Rachel and her brother spent summers inLondon with their mother?
    â€œOh,” Rachel said again, eyes sliding toward the cheerleader. “I guess the little cowgirl”—she