What If ... Your Past Came Back to Haunt You (11 page)

TIME ALONE

The past is much more likely to come back to haunt you if you film it on Super 8.

H
aley escaped to her bedroom and logged on to her computer. She was long overdue for some “one on none” time. Between all the drama in her life and the scandalous talk circulating at school, she needed to clear her head.

Once the door was closed, she took a deep breath and relaxed. From her bedroom window she could see the Highlands' driveway, but luckily there were no distracting signs of Reese. Now that his foot was broken, he was housebound, and it helped clear Haley's mind not to have him in view.

Haley checked her in-box and found an e-mail from Coco De Clerq with a link to a Web site for the teen queen's seventeenth birthday party. Haley clicked on it and a beautiful Web page opened on her screen. The words
High Tea
were written in an elegant font: gold letters on a china blue background. Coco's initials were monogrammed at the top of the page.

Coco must have hired a Web designer to make this,
Haley thought as she clicked on the picture to enter the site.

“You are invited to celebrate the birthday of Coco De Clerq,” it said over a photo of the De Clerqs' expansive lawn and white pool-house portico. The place, of course, was fabulous, and Haley knew the party would be too. She tried to imagine herself in this elegant setting, wearing . . . what? Whatever attire was appropriate for this shindig, it wasn't hanging in Haley's closet. If she went to the party, she'd have to take a serious shopping jaunt first.

Haley returned to her in-box and clicked on the next e-mail. It was from Irene Chen and the subject line read, “You might want to get a tattoo after you see this.“ Inside was a link to the new Web site everyone at school had been constantly mentioning in the halls, Hillsdale Hauntings, along with the coveted password.

Finally! This is it,
Haley thought, clicking through to see what all the fuss was about. Under the “Hillsdale Hauntings” banner, a ghost popped up and whispered, “Boo.” On a sidebar was a list of videos available for viewing. Haley scanned the choices and clicked on one called “How to Sleep Your Way to a Cover Shoot.” She had a feeling she knew who'd be starring in that particular Webisode. And she was right.

The video opened with a shot of Mia Delgado lounging on a mussed-up bed in her underwear—with a guy. She wore a bra and shorts and nothing else, her thick, dark hair sexily messy, a smear of red lipstick on her mouth. She laughed and flirted with the guy, who was lying back and harder to see.

“Want some water?” Mia said in her Spanish accent, taking a glass from the table next to the bed. She playfully poured a little water on the guy in bed with her.

“Hey! Stop it!” he said, but they both just laughed.

“I thought you were thirsty,” she said, and splashed a little more on him.

Haley was stunned. Mia Delgado, in her underwear, in bed, for everybody to see! She hadn't expected the videos to be this explicit.

Then Mia fell on top of the guy and started kissing him. Soon they were making out heavily while the video camera rolled. Haley could not believe her eyes.
Who shot this?
she wondered.
And who posted it on this site?

The video cut off after three minutes, just when things were getting
really
steamy. Haley returned to the menu and scrolled down the page. What else was on this thing? Wait a second . . . what was this video called “Boob Tubing”? She'd heard those words whispered around her a lot lately. She clicked on it, and as soon as the first image flashed on the screen, she had to suppress a shriek of horror.

There she was. Or at least her younger self.

With shaky fingers she clicked Play and the video rolled. It was grainy but beautiful footage, shot with her dad's antique Super 8 camera. There was Haley at age ten in a blue polka-dot bathing suit, riding on an inner tube being pulled at high speed by a motorboat on a lake. Haley remembered this incident with a sense of dread—it was old film from a vacation she'd taken with her family at Lake Tahoe. And she already knew what came next. The inner tube bounced on the waves until it crossed the huge wake of another boat. Haley was dragged through the water and the inner tube went flying. The force of the impact pulled her bathing suit right off her body. And still, the camera rolled.

“Oh no. Oh God no,” Haley murmured, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can't be seeing this. This can't be on here! This can't be . . . public!”

The video showed skinny little underdeveloped Haley washing up on the shore of the lake in her birthday suit. She stumbled onto the beach covering her private parts with her hands and diving for a towel.

The clip finally, mercifully ended. Haley felt faint. Her dad and his stupid camera. She hated it! She'd always hated it. And now look what had happened. She stared at her computer in shock and disbelief.

How could this have happened? Then she remembered her dad's latest project, to transfer all the old Miller home movies onto digital files for easy storage and access. And who, but who had been helping him at the post house? Garrett “the Troll” Noll.

Haley was mortified. She groaned, fell onto the bed, put the pillow over her head and screamed in frustration.

I'll never be able to leave this room again,
she thought.
Never ever ever ever ever . . . But even if it's the last thing I do, I will get back at that jerk Garrett for humiliating me like this. Maybe not now, maybe not this year, but someday, and for the rest of his life!

Poor Haley! She's joined the ranks of Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and many more famous faces—and body parts—seen by millions, or in this case hundreds, on the Internet. Sure, she's just a skinny kid in the video, but it's still humiliating. Maybe even more so. This is the kind of attention Haley could totally live without. One of the worst moments of her young life, replayed over and over for everyone at school to see. Thanks, Dad. Thanks a ton.

Of course, Mia showed almost as much skin as Haley did—and a heck of a lot more curves. Haley couldn't help wondering how Mia felt about her exposure—was she as embarrassed as Haley? Or was she proud of it? Maybe she'd posted the video herself. Haley found that hard to imagine, but anything was possible when it came to Mia Delgado, who was always criticizing Americans for their puritanism.

After those startling home moments, you nearly forgot about Coco's big birthday bash, didn't you? Any party given by the First Girlfriend is bound to be the talk of the town, especially when the governor herself is planning to make an appearance. Haley may feel like hiding in her room forever, but won't she regret missing the party of the year? And won't Coco's blowout eclipse her silly little video anyway?

If you think Haley is experiencing TOTAL MORTIFICATION and is never going to leave her bedroom again, turn to
TOTAL MORTIFICATION
. If you think Haley should keep her chin up, face the music and enjoy Coco's birthday party in spite of the haunting video, go to
TEA AND SYMPATHY.
If you are way too curious about that video of Mia and what's behind it, have Haley
INVESTIGATE MIA.
Finally, if you think Haley is feeling so angsty over the leak that she wants to turn to the dark side and punish herself with body art, go with Irene, Shaun and Devon to the
TATTOO PARLOR.

The video is out; the damage has been done. Don't let Haley do anything to make things worse.

PRINCIPAL CRUM'S LITANY

If you think people are whispering behind your back, they probably are.

H
aley walked into the auditorium as the students settled in for another rant from Principal Crum, who always seemed to be on the warpath about something. No one took his outrage very seriously, as anyone watching the Hillsdale students (tossing paper airplanes, tweaking each other's hair, tumbling over their seats and laughing and talking as if they were at a house party) could immediately attest.

Principal Crum had just entered the room, so Haley sat down where she was, near the front. She turned around and caught sight of alterna-rebels Devon McKnight, Irene Chen and Shaun Willkommen occupying the nosebleed section with Devon's blond neighbor buddy, Darcy Podowski, by his side. Irene was sketching in a notebook, Shaun was pounding his chest like a gorilla for some unknown reason, and Devon was leaning over and touching Darcy's wrist just where, Haley happened to know, Darcy had a small tattooed blue star. Darcy leaned toward him too, and he held her wrist and lifted it up toward the light to see the tattoo more closely.

Gross,
Haley thought, averting her eyes. Why was it so hard to watch Devon with that blond freshman? Haley wasn't sure, but something about the two of them together really bothered her. She looked around the room for something to take her mind off Devon.

The skate crew—Chopper, Troll and associates—crowded into the back corner. Devon hung with them sometimes, but lately he'd been putting more energy into his photography than his shredding. The Troll and Chopper were squirting each other with water guns, only whatever they were shooting wasn't water. Unless water was bright orange, which could happen, Haley thought, if the pollution in New Jersey got bad enough.

The brain trust—Annie Armstrong, Dave Metzger, Hannah Moss and Dale Smithwick—sat near Haley in the front row. Normally Alex Martin might have been with them, since he was cocaptain of the debating team with Annie, but he and Annie were still having shouting matches over his conservative environmental views. Instead, Alex sat near his fellow fiscal conservatives Spencer Eton and Coco De Clerq, although Spencer and Coco did not acknowledge his presence in the least. Coco had a large box in her lap and sat at attention, as if ready to spring something on the masses.

Soccer star and singer-songwriter Sasha Lewis sat in the middle of the room with her boyfriend, Johnny Lane; Cecily Watson; Cecily's guy, Drew Napolitano; and soon-to-be-Sasha's-sister Whitney Klein. Sasha and Whitney appeared to be chummier than ever, now that they were living under the same roof, at least on alternate weekends and three days during the school week. Coco kept stealing annoyed glances at their little clique and then quickly turning away so that they wouldn't know she'd been looking. Not a very effective strategy. Whitney and Sasha continued their whispering and laughing, oblivious, and Haley couldn't help wondering who they were talking about. Coco, perhaps? Or maybe Haley herself?

No sign of Sebastian Bodega or his sexy ex, Mia Delgado, but that didn't strike Haley as strange. She wondered if they had assemblies like this in Spain. She doubted Spanish school principals were as uptight as Principal Crum, but anything was possible.

Principal Crum stormed onto the stage in a huff, dropping papers on the way and bending down to pick them up, which made his pants ride up and showed that he was wearing mismatched socks that day.

“Vermilion Alert, people! Vermilion! A very, very serious matter has come to my attention,” he shouted into the microphone. The students quieted down somewhat, but not completely. Principal Crum was not expert at keeping their attention.

“I've just learned of the existence of a Hillsdale High Web site so heinous it defies description. I want you all to know about it so you can keep as far from this filth as possible. The site is called Hillsdale Hauntings.”

Bursts of laughter popped up throughout the room. Obviously some people were already well aware of this threat to their mental and moral health. A few people around Haley whispered and she thought some of them were looking at her.
I'm just being paranoid,
she told herself. Why would people be talking about her? She hadn't done anything exceptional lately. She hadn't even had a bad hair day in weeks.

“On this despicable site,” Principal Crum said, “someone—a student or students at Hillsdale, as I understand it—has posted explicit video footage of some of our own students. These videos contain graphic language and even some brief nudity—”

Now the room really buzzed, and again Haley got the feeling, stronger this time, that people were pointing and whispering about her.

“I want you all to avoid it like the plague! Someone is violating the privacy of our students. It's illegal and immoral, and I will get to the bottom of it.”

On the word “bottom,” Shaun Willkommen stood up and slapped his butt.

Great,
Haley thought. Principal Crum doesn't want people to see the site? Then why did he just advertise it to the whole school? No one could resist logging on to Hillsdale Hauntings now.

“I'd like to get to the bottoms of some of it too,” a guy yelled out from the back.

“Who said that?” Principal Crum's face was red with rage. Haley wondered if he used the color of his face to determine what kind of alert he called when trouble arose. If today was a Vermilion Alert, the principal's skin tone certainly matched it. “Who said that? Never mind. I'll find you. I'll find the perpetrators of this terrible crime against our modesty and good taste. And when I do it will be no joking matter, I promise you that. Now, since this is an Internet problem, we need to fight technical expertise with technical expertise. Not my forte, so I'd like to enlist the help of our school's finest scientific minds. Where are Hannah Moss and Dave Metzger?”

Hannah and Dave raised their hands.

“Right here in the front row, I see,” Principal Crum said. “Good. You two will be in charge of tracking down the culprit behind this perverted Web site. If anyone knows anything about this case, I demand that you turn the offender in to school authorities at once! Is that clear?”

From the back someone shouted, “Watch out for that killer wave!” Heads turned toward Haley.
Why?
she wondered.

There were giggles throughout the crowd. Haley was baffled. What was this all about? And why did it sound vaguely, creepily familiar?

“All right, people,” Principal Crum said. “That is all for now. I expect you to help us catch the criminal in our midst and stop the spread of Internet perversion now! You are dismissed.”

As the assembly broke up, Haley heard people making fun of Principal Crum and echoing the lines she'd just heard about the killer wave and “towel, please.” She felt uncomfortable. She tried to tell herself that everyone had days like this, that nothing was really wrong, but she couldn't quite convince herself.

Coco threaded her way through the crowd, using this opportunity to pass out invitations to her exclusive birthday party. It was going to be big, but not that big—plenty of people at school weren't invited, and Coco made sure they knew it. To those who were invited, however, she couldn't have been more gracious.

“Here you are, Zach,” Coco said, giving Zach Woolsey, a senior soccer player, one of her fancy robin's-egg-blue envelopes. “I hope you can make it. The governor will be there.”

As she passed Haley, she paused, and Haley expected to receive an envelope. Instead Coco said, under her breath, “Yours is in the mail.” Then she breezed past Haley, leaving a trail of French perfume in her wake.

“Yours is in the mail”? What was that all about? Was Coco too embarrassed to be seen in public inviting Haley to her party? Did she invite Haley at all?

Or maybe Haley's just having a paranoid day. Why is she feeling so insecure all of a sudden? Is it just her imagination, or is there a reason for it? Principal Crum himself said that salacious videos of some students have been posted online—could that lead Haley to the answers she's looking for? If you think Haley needs to find out immediately just what's on that Hillsdale Hauntings Web site, send her home on (
TOTAL MORTIFICATION.
)

Or maybe you think Haley's just having an off day, and by tomorrow everything will be back to normal and Coco's party invitation will show up in the mail. If you think she can't wait to witness the most decadent bash of the year, turn to,
TEA AND SYMPATHY.

In other news, why do Devon's attentions to Darcy bother Haley so much? Do you think he really goes for freshman meat, or is he just being neighborly to the budding blonde? Or maybe he's just way into tattoos all of a sudden. It's possible. To hang with the alternative clique and find out just how into tattoos Devon really is these days, go to the
TATTOO PARLOR.

Principal Crum is right about one thing: something creepy is going on at Hillsdale. Haley sees trouble everywhere she looks. But she can't be everywhere at once. At some point she has to choose a direction. Correction: You have to choose one for her.