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PRIVILEGED ELITE: AN UNDERCOVER EXPOSÉ OF THE WORLD’S RICHEST TEENAGERS
    The injustice needed to be documented. The table of scholarship students needed to realize the inequity, not applaud it. I wasn’t 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: “Don’t Just Wing It . . . Bling It!” 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. There’s a reason the Hiltons and the Kardashians make millions off exposing their lives. If the school didn’t want it, I’d take it wide. And if I did it right, I’d get the Bennington. They’d have to give it to me. Even if they didn’t want to.

8
    At home that night, I was stewing in my room. I couldn’t get the story idea out of my head, but I didn’t 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.
    â€œWhat’s on your mind, Pipe?” he said, setting the mug on my desk and taking a seat on the edge of my bed.
    â€œHow do you know something’s on my mind?”
    He reached over and grabbed a pencil from my desk. It wasriddled with bite marks.
    â€œOkay, maybe there are a few things on my mind,” I admitted.
    â€œLike what?”
    I took in a deep breath. “Like how I’m going to pay for college. And why I’m 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.”
    My dad nodded. “That’s some heavy stuff.” He took a sip of my hot chocolate. “First off, there’s nothing either of us can do about The Bachelor , so let’s leave that one alone. Second, your school record is impeccable. I have faith you’ll get a scholarship.”
    â€œBut 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€œYou know, there are other colleges besides Columbia,” my dad said. “You could get a full ride to eighty percent of them.”
    â€œEighty percent?” I said skeptically.
    â€œYes. I conducted a study.” He grinned.
    â€œMaybe. But Columbia’s my dream.”
    He nodded. “I know.” He pointed to one of my bedroom walls. “The Columbia poster hanging above your bed was my first clue.”
    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. “What’s the matter, bud?”
    He gave me a little head butt to my stomach—his way of making contact—and I put one hand on his chest and the other on his back and pressed. Sometimes the pressure helped to calm his storm.
    â€œMr. Flannigan said I sweared, but I didn’t,” Michael said.
    My dad gave me a look like You got this?
    I nodded and he stepped out.
    â€œShh. It’s okay. What word did you say?”
    Michael said the F-word. “That’s not a swear, right?” he asked, desperate.
    I sighed. The rules of social behavior were very important to Michael. From an early age, his therapy had focused on