Read Online Rumor Central by Reshonda Tate Billingsley - Free Book Online Page B

I’d let her into my world. At first, I thought about telling her some elaborate lie, but I was about to blow up and I didn’t really care if she knew. Besides, it was all over school that we were no longer friends, and most people knew it was because of my show. I just hadn’t told anyone the details.
    â€œTheir true colors showed after I got my own show. I couldn’t take the hate,” I said.
    She shook her head. “That’s so lame. These privileged kids don’t know how good they have it. It’s not even necessary to hate on other people.”
    â€œYeah, you’re right,” I said, telling myself that she obviously couldn’t be talking about me. Sui brought our lemonade and Valerie and I sat and talked about one of the rap videos on TV, as well as a bunch of other stuff. I was trippin’ over how mad cool Valerie had turned out to be when she was talking about something other than school.
    â€œWell, it’s getting late,” Valerie said after about an hour. “I’d better get going.”
    We stood and I walked her to the back, where I’d had her park. My mom would’ve had a stroke if she had come home and seen Valerie’s raggedy Toyota Prius parked in front of our house.
    â€œDang, where are my keys?” Valerie said, patting her pockets.
    I looked around and spotted them on a table by the door. “Is this them?” I asked, picking up the set of keys.
    â€œYep,” she said, holding her hands out.
    A picture dangling on the end caught my eye. It was a photo of a gray-haired couple in the wackest clothes I’d ever seen. They wore matching flowered shirts with gigantic collars. “Who is this?” I asked. “Are these your grandparents?” Talk about lame. I loved my grandparents, but I wouldn’t be caught dead carrying a picture of them around on my key-chain.
    She quickly snatched the keys. “No, those are my parents,” she said defensively.
    â€œDang, they’re old,” I frowned. “What, did they have you when they were like in their fifties or something?”
    â€œNo.” She looked down at the picture, then back up at me. Her eyes looked all sad as she added, “My parents are good people. They’re just old, but they mean the world to me.”
    Dang, I thought. Talk about bringing somebody down. I started to say something else, but then decided I didn’t really want to know. I needed to go get my beauty rest for tomorrow, plus I had to do research for tomorrow’s show, so Valerie’s sob story about her parents would have to wait for another day.

Chapter 13
    T amara was blowing up my phone. I knew it was because it had been three days and she was expecting some juicy dirt from me, but so far, I hadn’t come up with anything major and I was supposed to report to work tomorrow. I had one big story and a few other things I was working on, but I didn’t know if it was going to be juicy enough for them. Word was that our vice-principal used to be a man, but I quickly put that into the “who really cares” file. Besides, Tamara had said she wanted more celebrity dirt.
    â€œHey, Maya, what’s up?” my friend Angie said, approaching me. She was with some of her fellow cheerleaders and they all just looked at me without speaking. I didn’t sweat it though because I knew they were just some jealous trolls. But I was hot over the fact that Chenoa, who I thought was cool with me, turned her nose up and walked off. Trick. With the things I knew about her, she might want to check that stank attitude.
    I inhaled, deciding not to let her get to me. “Hey, Angie,” I said, not bothering to speak to the others.
    â€œDid you get Ms. Watson’s paper done?” she asked as we made our way inside the building.
    â€œGirl, please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Don’t even get me started. I am so far behind.”
    â€œI heard you got