Read Online Nice and Mean by Jessica Leader - Free Book Online

Phillips wouldn’t know they existed, and I’d have no way to get Marina to include them.
    The room was buzzing with partners talking excitedly—I overheard the words “rock star hamsters” and “the man with the hook”—but Marina wasn’t even looking at me. Instead she was bent over her handout, writing in the space that said “Topic,” “
Victim/Victorious
.” Then, next to “Scene,” she wrote, “One: Grammy Awards Red Carpet.” She was about to write something on the next line when Mr. Phillips plunked his stool down in front of my desk. “Haveyou two decided what you’re going to do yet?” he asked.
    Marina passed her paper across my desk. “Yup.”
    My heart still pounding, I stuck my hand on top of the paper. “Um,” I said, “not entirely.”
    Marina turned to me. “What?”
    Mr. Phillips raised his eyebrows.
    â€œI was hoping there could be a second part,” I told him, trying to pretend that Marina wasn’t there. “Like in that movie last year about where everyone sits in the cafeteria, they had interviews? I thought maybe I could do . . . interviews. That went after
Victim/Victorious
and sort of talked about how people decided what to wear.” Now that I’d said it out loud, it seemed beyond silly. Priyanka would never speak to me after a video like that! I thought quickly and added, “It would be like a fashion investigation.”
    Mr. Phillips nodded encouragingly. “That sounds like a good idea.”
    I did not need to turn to see that Marina was not nodding encouragingly. “Wait, what?” she asked. “We haven’t even talked about that.”
    The whole world seemed to be that white handout, lying diagonally across the cream-colored desk. “I did try,” I said in a small voice. “I think maybe you just didn’t hear me.”
    Marina clicked her pen. “Oookay.”
    â€œI really like your
Victim/Victorious
idea,” I added, feeling like I needed to explain, “but I think interviews are a little more my . . . style.” Not that she thought I had any style.
    â€œMarina,” Mr. Phillips said in an almost warning voice. “Does that sound okay to you?”
    â€œIf that’s what Sachi wants,” Marina replied.
    What was the end of that sentence?
She’s a huge nerd
? I hadn’t meant to be sneaky, but I couldn’t see any other way to make her listen.
    Mr. Phillips stood up. “I can see that you are coming from different places, and sometimes video partners do divide and conquer, so it’s fine that you’re going in separate directions. Just make sure you help each other on your shoots, okay?”
    I nodded. I wasn’t sure what Marina did.
    Mr. Phillips moved on to the next group.
    â€œGreat,” said Marina, reaching over my desk to grab the paper. “Now we have to redo it.”
    â€œI don’t think we do,” I said. “You can have that part back, and I can plan my half on my own page.”
    My only answer was the sound of writing, scratchy like the bug zappers in Nani’s courtyard. Three guesses about who was the bug.
    I should have been happy. I had gotten my idea into the video. I just wished I could have done it without makingMarina think I was a sneak.
    I stared at the blank space at the top of the page: “Topic
.
” What
was
my topic?
    Then I noticed the blanks next to the word “Scene.” There were six.
    Six?
    I had been so busy nightmaring about
Topic
, I had barely thought about
Scene
. If I couldn’t come up with anything, Marina would take over again with one of the many, many ideas that she was using to fill up her page. Our video was supposed to be only ten minutes long, fifteen at most, but hers looked like it could be a half-hour show all by itself.
    I slid my hand into my backpack, unzipped my pencil pouch, and pulled out a pen.