Middle Grade Mystery / Spy / Detective
Date Published: 04-28-2022
Publisher: Fitzroy Books / Regal House
Things don’t usually come to a screeching halt at the RAT, also known as Ridgewood Arts & Technical School, Ridgewood City’s most prestigious progressive institution. But that’s what happens when Headmistress Hardaway interrupts class and announces, “A scandal has rocked the fundraising committee!” Everyone is a suspect and Hunter Jackson, student council special investigator, vows to root out the student who’s heartless enough to steal donation money. He’s not alone. Ridgewood Roar news editor, Anthony Ravello, and the rogue, indie-press pioneer, Liberty Lennon, plan to do some journalistic digging of their own in a race against each other to scoop the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to their faithful readers…or at least their versions of it. With the truth getting murkier by the day, students at the RAT gobble up news bytes and wash them down with locker-side gossip as they try to unmask the classmate responsible for the missing funds.
Monday,
April 1 (faithfully submitted, A. Ravello)
I didn’t do anything wrong.
Ever since it happened those words
keep running through my mind. Over and over and I can’t stop them. It’s like a
mantra. I kind of feel like a parrot and I keep trying to convince myself I
don’t want a cracker. If I had the guts to speak a word of what happened to
anyone I’d probably sound like, “I didn’t
do anything...SQUAWK! But I helped! I helped! SQUAWK! I didn’t do
anything...SQUAWK!”
Man, I’m losing it. I’m letting the
conspiracy theorist in me take over. Maybe that’s why I’m writing all of my
thoughts on this stupid, yellow legal pad like I did back in fourth grade when
I thought being a journalist meant you wore a silly hat and cracked a flashbulb
in people’s faces. I guess you learn a lot in four years--like how to spot the
perfect kind of blabbermouths to serve as reliable sources; or how to keep your
trap shut long enough for the person you’re interviewing to give you everything
but a social security number.
I’ve mastered all of these
techniques and many more since I took over as the news editor for the Ridgewood Roar after Sharon Jeffers
graduated and moved on to high school. Now I’m stuck telling all of this to a
blank page because I don’t know who I can trust anymore, and I definitely don’t
want to know what will happen if anyone found out I was involved. But not
really involved. It’s hard to explain and I doubt even this legal pad is a safe
enough place to share the information.
I mean, if people at school found out exactly what happened I’m sure the whole news editor thing would go bye-bye. I’d probably take a year’s-worth of detentions, maybe even suspension. Man, I bet Ms. Hardaway would kick me out of Ridgewood Arts & Tech altogether...
About the Author
Frank Morelli is the author of the young adult novels On the Way to Birdland (2021) and No Sad Songs (2018), a YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers nominee and winner of an American Fiction Award for best coming of age story. His fiction and essays have been featured in various publications including The Saturday Evening Post, Cobalt Review, Philadelphia Stories, and Highlights Magazine. A Philadelphia native, Morelli now resides in High Point, NC with a brilliant illustrator and his fur babies.
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Fantastic excerpt, Breaking News sounds like a mystery that I want to share with the kids! Thanks for sharing it with me and have a sunshiny day!
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