What's Your Status? (11 page)

“Good,” Nate said. “Because I think you’re right…. It would be nice to dance to it at the prom. Even if we do have to bribe the DJ.”

Nate kissed the top of my head again, and it was so nice and peaceful that I really didn’t want to wreck the moment. And I had a feeling that’s exactly what would happen if I started interrogating him about his ex-girlfriend and his amount of sexual experience. “Oh, I think Tanner’s probably pretty cheap,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. I could feel Nate’s laughter against my back, and I closed my eyes, just savoring the moment.

The moment was interrupted a second later when my phone vibrated with a text.

INBOX 2 of 56

From: Mom

Date: 5/20, 9:35
P.M
.

Hi hon. Time to tell Nate goodbye. And please remember to bring back ice cream this time. Love, Mom

I turned to Nate. “I think the jig is up,” I said. “My mother appears to be onto us.”

“We’ve been made, huh?” Nate asked. He removed his arm from my shoulders and we stood up. “That time you were here for two hours and went back empty-handed probably didn’t help.”

“Probably not,” I admitted. We kissed goodbye, much more briefly than I would have liked, but I knew I had to get home soon, or my mother would just keep texting me.

Nate headed to his truck, waving goodbye as he pulled out of the parking lot. I waved back, glad that things were still good between us, but totally confused about how to bring up the other stuff. I gave up trying to figure it out for the moment and headed into Gofer to pick up my mother’s sorbet.

When I returned home, we ate dessert, and I endured my father’s lame jokes about how slow Gofer’s service had gotten recently. After the table was cleared, my parents descended on it with their laptops, and I headed up to my room to check my Q feed and finish
Dr. No.

I had just fired up my computer when there was a knock on my door. Figuring it was my mother coming to lecture me some more about charity work, I sighed and opened it. Travis was standing on the other side.

“What?” I asked, wishing I could still look down at him and hating that he was getting close to my eye level. It might be enough to make me start wearing heels.

“Oh, I was just wondering,” Travis said, smiling pleasantly—always a bad sign—as he leaned casually against the doorframe. “How was detention this afternoon?”

I stared at Travis, too stunned to come up with a lie. “How did you know about that?”

His smile grew wider. “So it’s true?” he asked. “Interesting. Did you happen to tell Mom or Dad, perchance?”

I scowled at him. “Not yet. But how did you know about that?”

Travis gave me a condescending look. “You put it in your status, Madison. It’s pretty much public knowledge.”

I blinked at him. “Wait,” I said. “You’re on Status Q? And you follow my updates?”

Travis was using the patronizing tone that made me want to smack him with something heavy. “It would appear so, wouldn’t it?”

I crossed my arms. “Why didn’t I know that?”

“Um, you have, like, a million followers,” Travis said.

“That’s not true,” I snapped. Unlike the regular Friendverse, you could set your updates so that anyone could follow them, not just the people you were friends with, and my Q—like most of my friends’—was set up that way.

“Do you know everyone who follows you?” he asked.

“Well…no,” I admitted. I probably only knew about half. But it wasn’t like I was gossiping about other people
anymore; I’d learned my lesson about that. But there was nothing wrong with giving out information about myself. Except, apparently, if my brother was checking my updates. “But I think I would have noticed your name.”

“Well, maybe it’s not my name,” Travis said, still smirking. “Not everyone is who they say they are online, Madison.”

“Well, that’s just creepy,” I said. “Stop following me.”

“I just want to know if you’re going to tell Mom and Dad, or if you want me to,” Travis said. I suddenly had a feeling that he was making me pay for forcing him to ask me nicely to get dinner.

“Well,” I said, adopting a similarly pleasant conversational tone, “I guess that depends on whether you want me to e-mail Kittson the picture I took in the Galápagos of you picking your nose. Or should I just put it up on my Friendverse? Because I’m sure Olivia would love to see it.”

Travis stared at me, eyes narrowed, apparently trying to figure out if I was bluffing. “Fine,” he conceded after a moment. “Forget it. Just don’t do anything with the picture.”

“Don’t tell Mom and Dad anything,” I replied, “and I won’t.”

Travis pushed himself off the doorframe and headed down the hall, only stumbling over his feet once as he headed back to his own room.

I rolled my eyes and shut my door. I pulled out
Dr. No
and was all set to start reading, but what Travis had said was bothering me a little. I put aside Mr. Bond, gently
opened my computer, logged in to Status Q, and looked at my list of followers. Three hundred. That did seem like kind of a lot. Since I only followed the updates of my real friends, theirs were the only updates I saw. The other people who followed me didn’t affect what I saw on my feed, so I almost never thought about them.

But as I looked at the list, I realized that there were a lot of names I didn’t recognize. I didn’t see one that seemed like it might be Travis’s, but knowing him, he’d probably chosen some incredibly obscure name. I didn’t know why all these people wanted to follow me, since most of what I posted would only make sense to my friends. But some people just liked to be following a lot of other people. Like those Friendverse members who had millions of friends, the majority of whom they’d never actually spoken to.

I thought about going through the list and deleting some of the people I didn’t know, but I hesitated, my hand over the keyboard. I kind of liked having a lot of followers. Your social status had a lot to do with how many followers you had. Not that I really cared about that. But still.

I decided I’d simply stop sending updates about being in detention until I could figure out Travis’s screen name and block him. Then I pulled up my iChat, preparing for my nightly conversation with Schuyler and Lisa—I needed to tell them what Brian had said. And then I would get back to the world of tuxedo-wearing spies.

You know, eventually.

CHAPTER 7

Song: Ungodly Hour/The Fray

Quote: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

—Abraham Lincoln

KitKat → mad_mac
Madison, it’s 7:04. Where are you?!

mad_mac → KitKat
Um, at home. Half asleep. Getting ready for school. The ush. Why?

KitKat → mad_mac
Why are you at HOME? You need to meet me at the Putnam Hyatt NOW. I got here at 6:45. We have to look at the ballroom before school.

mad_mac → KitKat
Wait, what? Are you kidding?

KitKat → mad_mac
I don’t joke about this stuff, Madison. This is serious. This is the PROM. Get here ASAP!

mad_mac
(grumbles)

KitKat → mad_mac
And why do you not know about this? Haven’t you been reading my blog?