As soon as Eric had disappeared around the corner, I charged at Jonah like a bull, shoving him hard in the chest. Jonah was a foot taller than me and probably outweighed me by fifty pounds, so me shoving him didn’t really have much effect.

But he managed to look baffled. “What? What did I do? I wasn’t doing anything.”

I shook my head, my face still hot and red from my encounter with Eric. “God, that was awful.”

“It didn’t look that bad,” Jonah assured me, though his eyes were still twinkling with mischief.

“Eric barely knows that I’m alive,” I groaned, dropping my face into my hands.

Jonah laughed and caught my elbow, guiding me toward the newsroom. “Editor Eric Evans knows you’re alive, he just doesn’t know you’re alive in that way,” he finished, waggling his eyebrows at me. “But now, at least he knows that you’re a very serious person.”

I rolled my eyes. “And he’s graduating and going to college in the fall, so he never will. Which means I’m going to die alone! Literally, my obituary will read: Perpetually single girl dies alone, leaves everything to her twelve cats. That’s the sad legacy I’m staring down, Jonah.”

Jonah laughed. “Camilla, I love you, but you’re being insane. You’re not going to die alone. Or maybe you will—who knows—but there’s no way you can say that now. And I’m sure you’ll only have, like, two cats—three max. But seriously, you’re seventeen! And you’re stunning! You’re a hottie with a naughty body, and just because one dumb nerd doesn’t notice doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. Trust me.”

“Eric isn’t a dumb nerd,” I said, trying to sift through what Jonah had just said and figure out which parts were compliments and which parts were insults.

We walked into the newsroom, and Jonah turned to look at me. “Pumpkin, he edits the school newspaper and captains the chess team. I’m just calling it like I see it.”

“Well, he’s not dumb,” I point out, feeling a little petulant after my weird morning.

Jonah gave me a long stare. “If Editor Eric Evans hasn’t noticed that the biggest catch in this school is drooling over him, then he’s a dummy.” He thought for a moment. “He does have an excellent ass, though. I’ll give him that.”

I dropped my backpack on the floor next to my desk and looked up at Jonah. “Wait. You think I’m the biggest catch at this school?”

Jonah grinned. “Yeah, well, I mean—after me. And after Austin. Considering you’re a girl, you’re not so bad.”

I laughed at the qualifications on the compliment. “Wow, thank you. That was really touching. I hope someone puts that on my tombstone. Okay!” I waved him away. “I really have to get these proofs done, and I need to concentrate so I can get them done fast.”

“Right. For Editor Eric Evans,” Jonah teased.

“Because it’s my job,” I said, trying not to flush.

He laughed. “Whatever. Okay, well, hurry up with whatever you’re doing.”

“I’m going to try,” I muttered, pushing a lock of hair behind my ear.

“Austin is signed up for the sprints, and all the activities are set to start in an hour. You can’t miss him sprinting. You know how great his legs look when he runs.”

“I know, I know,” I told Jonah. “I’ll be there. Just let me get to work.”

I shooed him out, and he finally left, leaving me alone in the newsroom. With a sigh, I looked around the room, scanning for the printed proofs I needed to review.

“There you are,” I muttered to myself, grabbing the folder off of Eric’s desk.

I didn’t like to sit at the editor’s desk, even when Eric wasn’t around. Other kids did sometimes—just to finish projects or do quick fixes—but I never did. I knew I was being silly and superstitious, but I didn’t want to jinx anything.

So I took the proofs over to the copy editor’s desk and sat down, flipping the folder open.

Reaching for my red pencil, I started marking the errors as I found them, including a “there” instead of a “their,” and added some very crucial commas to change “Principal Sheila Mandell Finds Inspiration in Cooking Her Family and Her Dog” to a headline that didn’t imply our principal ate human and dog flesh to relax.

I rolled my eyes when I looked at the byline. “Of course Chip wrote it,” I muttered. Eric always tried to assign freshman articles to give them experience, but we all had to watch carefully to make sure it didn’t backfire.

When I’d finished noting the last “your” that should have been a “you’re,” I snapped the folder shut and headed toward the computer to make the changes on the file.

I knew Jonah would hate for me to miss Austin’s race, so I kept a close eye on the wall clock as I implemented the changes, but they went fast.

“Done,” I said to myself. But when I pressed save, nothing happened.

I grimaced and clicked save again.

This time, the screen froze and—before I could do anything to stop it—went completely blank. I stared in horror at the screen.

“No no no, oh god, please no,” I muttered in a panic, on the verge of tears as I frantically pounded the keyboard. But it was all for nothing.

The whole system had just crashed!