Sadie Sinclair's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Sadie left the newsroom with the photographed name burning in her camera and a warning from Mr. Sorrentino in her ear. He would not run the story on one document. Not with a name this big. She needed a second source, someone inside who would confirm the authorization was real, or the paper would look like a grudge dressed up as journalism. She crossed the front lawn of the school at lunch and looked up at the brick face of the building. Three stories of orderly windows. A flagpole. Two front doors students used every day without knowing what moved through the offices behind them. She had one period to find a person willing to talk. She started with the bookkeeper's aide, a senior who filed purchase orders for community service hours. Sadie found her at a table in the library, sorting receipts into a binder. "I need you to tell me if a signature is real," Sadie said. She slid her phone across the table with the photo open. The aide glanced at it. Her face closed like a locker. "I'm not looking at that." "You already did." "Sadie. My scholarship goes through his office." "So that's a yes. It's his signature." The aide pushed the phone back. "That's a no comment. And if you print my name I'll say you made it up." Sadie pocketed the phone. She had almost enough. Almost was worse than nothing. She tried the front office secretary next, then a math teacher who had complained about the vendor last spring. Both waved her off. The bell rang. She had one name left on her list and no time to be careful. She found the custodian by the loading dock, coiling a hose. He was the one who had dumped the folder. He had not spoken to her since. "I need you on record," she said. "Just that you saw him carry the folder out. Not the contents. Just him." He kept coiling. "You said my name stays out." "It does. I'll write 'a school employee.' No description. No department." He looked at the dock, then at her camera. "He walked it out Tuesday nights. Three weeks running. That's what I'd say if anyone asked. Which they won't, because you won't tell them who I am." "I won't." "Then you didn't hear it from me." She walked back inside with her hands shaking. In the newsroom she wrote it up: the name on the purchase order, the vendor percentages, and one anonymous school employee who placed him with the folder on three separate nights. She printed a draft and set it on Mr. Sorrentino's desk. He read it standing up. He did not sit down. "Run it in Friday's edition," he said. Then, quieter: "The principal will know it came from us by second period."