PRIVILEGED ELITE: AN UNDERCOVER EXPOSÃ OF THE WORLDâS RICHEST TEENAGERS
The injustice needed to be documented. The table of scholarship students needed to realize the inequity, not applaud it. I wasnât going to get better stories from Jesse anytime soon. My next assigned story would probably be an investigation into the most effective locker organization techniques, if you have the money. The headline would be: âDonât Just Wing It . . . Bling It!â Or something equally stupid. Professor Ferguson told me towrite something only I could write. Who better to expose the rich and privileged than someone on the flip side of the coin? A peasant. No one else in this newsroom could do it like me. The only other scholarship student on the journalism staff was Jesse, from what I could tell.
Maybe the principal would never allow such a story, but undercover exposés were hot-ticket items for most magazines. Thereâs a reason the Hiltons and the Kardashians make millions off exposing their lives. If the school didnât want it, Iâd take it wide. And if I did it right, Iâd get the Bennington. Theyâd have to give it to me. Even if they didnât want to.
8
At home that night, I was stewing in my room. I couldnât get the story idea out of my head, but I didnât know how to approach it. Getting an invite to one of their parties seemed as likely as stealing nuclear codes from the CIA.
Besides, for now, it was just research.
My dad seemed to sense that I was fretting, because he knocked on my bedroom door with a cup of hot chocolate in his hand.
âWhatâs on your mind, Pipe?â he said, setting the mug on my desk and taking a seat on the edge of my bed.
âHow do you know somethingâs on my mind?â
He reached over and grabbed a pencil from my desk. It wasriddled with bite marks.
âOkay, maybe there are a few things on my mind,â I admitted.
âLike what?â
I took in a deep breath. âLike how Iâm going to pay for college. And why Iâm not totally the editor in chief already. And president of the New York Times . And why a show like The Bachelor is still on television.â
My dad nodded. âThatâs some heavy stuff.â He took a sip of my hot chocolate. âFirst off, thereâs nothing either of us can do about The Bachelor , so letâs leave that one alone. Second, your school record is impeccable. I have faith youâll get a scholarship.â
âBut every student who gets into Columbia will have an impeccable record. I need more than that to get a full scholarship there. I need the Bennington.â
âYou know, there are other colleges besides Columbia,â my dad said. âYou could get a full ride to eighty percent of them.â
âEighty percent?â I said skeptically.
âYes. I conducted a study.â He grinned.
âMaybe. But Columbiaâs my dream.â
He nodded. âI know.â He pointed to one of my bedroom walls. âThe Columbia poster hanging above your bed was my first clue.â
Right then, Michael burst into my room, tears filling his eyes. When he saw me, they started to flow down his cheeks. He rarely expressed this much emotion, and so I dropped everything else.
I stood up and held my arms out. âWhatâs the matter, bud?â
He gave me a little head butt to my stomachâhis way of making contactâand I put one hand on his chest and the other on his back and pressed. Sometimes the pressure helped to calm his storm.
âMr. Flannigan said I sweared, but I didnât,â Michael said.
My dad gave me a look like You got this?
I nodded and he stepped out.
âShh. Itâs okay. What word did you say?â
Michael said the F-word. âThatâs not a swear, right?â he asked, desperate.
I sighed. The rules of social behavior were very important to Michael. From an early age, his therapy had focused on
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