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might start using a few phrases myself.
    The rest of my fellow press gangers were seated around the tables or on them. Kelly worked her way around the room and, one by one, they all waved and said hi. There was Alex Jones from Year Eight, Nisha Choudhury and Kieran Sanderson from Year Nine, Mel Wallis from Year Ten and a boy called Toby from Year Eleven who I’d never seen before in my life. And Jimmy, of course, but he was sniggering over a Macbook Pro and didn’t even look up.
    â€œAlex and Nisha cover school sports, Mel does all the arty stuff and Kieran is our music expert,” Kelly said. “We all keep an eye out for stories specific to our year groups too – the human interest stuff.”
    â€œLike when Team St Jude’s won the regional Kids’ Quiz,” Mel said, smiling, and I decided I liked her.
    â€œAnd when you blew it in the final,” Alex added, and I decided I didn’t like him. We’d finished in fifth place, out of the WHOLE COUNTRY, which was pretty amazing as far as I was concerned. But this was my first-ever magazine meeting and I wanted them to like me, so I smiled and ignored him.
    Mr Bearman appeared in the doorway. I saw Kelly’s eyes flash at Jimmy and he slammed the lid of the laptop so fast I swear his fingers blurred. What was that all about?
    â€œGood afternoon, everyone,” Mr Bearman said, closing the door behind himself and perching on the edge of a table. His gaze came to rest on me. “And welcome to our newest recruit. Great to see you here, Cassie.”
    Mr Bearman teaches me for English and is totally my favourite teacher. It was thanks to him that I joined Team St Jude’s in the first place (although if I’m totally honest, it was Nathan who did the persuading). Mr Bearman’s always been really encouraging. He’s pretty much the best teacher in the ENTIRE WORLD so having him in charge of the school magazine is completely brilliant.
    â€œHello, sir.”
    â€œSo, what have we got for this month’s edition, Kelly?”
    Kelly nodded to Jimmy and he scurried to the front of the classroom, a data stick in his hand. So that explained his presence among the cool kids, I decided – he was the technical support. Within seconds, he’d opened up a presentation on the interactive whiteboard and had backed away, giving Kelly centre stage.
    â€œSport,” she said, clicking on the first slide. “This week, we’ve got the inter-school netball tournament, the house football cup and next week it’s the swimming gala. Nish and Al have got the skinny on those.”
    The skinny? I supposed she meant that sporty people were usually thin but it seemed like an odd way to describe them. She clicked the mouse again and a picture of Liam and his band mates popped up. I cringed. “WOLF BRETHREN are St Jude’s hard-rock answer to The Droids. Since they’re also the resident band for the lower school’s May Ball, Kieran has got the scoop on their likes, dislikes and musical inspiration.”
    Huh, the thing Liam likes best is stuffing his face with pepperoni pizza, but he doesn’t use a scoop. I kept my mouth shut, though, in case I showed myself up. Liam had already warned me not to talk about him and the band. Besides, I didn’t want him to think I admitted he was my brother.
    Kelly glanced over at me. “Then we’ve got Cassidy’s efforts to change the St Jude’s rules about school uniform.” A slide appeared with a screenshot of the petition on it and I saw with a jolt that it had over five hundred signatures on it. My little petition, up there with my name on it, and all those people had signed to say they agreed with me. Who’d have thought it would grow so fast?
    â€œAh yes,” Mr Bearman said, smiling at me. “Quite the revolutionary, Cassidy.”
    The others were staring at me and I was glad I’d decided to leave my beret at home.