Book 10: Taking Charge

Chelsie is good-looking, but not the stunner I pictured her as when I read the text. And I saw her hair more like auburn ringlets(which it's describes as) than red and frizzy. She looks young here, and when she looks young, she looks more than a sligthly grown up Mallory Pike than my dance club leader. And that stressed editor pose is so Mallory in a few years. I can see the name Morelli-Strauss on the front page. Heh.

Chelsie runs quickly out, missing breakfast, and missing James with limo, as she prefers taking the subway to school. She has a lot to do on Mondays, since it's newspaper staff meeting that day. Maria, the editor-in-chief asks her to check why Randall hasn't dropped his new cartoon off, as Jonathan, the managing editor isn't there to check it. Chelsie adds it to her to-do-list. She's a bit messy and disorganized, but wants to make her best expression as the youngest member of the editorial board. Barbie is a rowing reporter and delivers here feature where she asked students where they would like to go to get out of the cold. Ana hands her the latest baskeball stats before she goes the track meet. Tori prints them out for her. Chelsie is really interested in Jonathan Kleig. He's smart, fun to hang out, is interested in music, clothes and literature, wants to change people's lives with his writing and his eyes crinkle in this cute way when he smile. She hopes that it won't be a repeat of last week, when he asked her to meet him early at school. She had Nichelle help her pick out a cute outfit, but Jonathan arrived in the middle of the regular meeting. He strolls in now. Chelsie gives him an update and Jonathan says that he's so lucky to have her around. He asks her if she can type in the story on the new Spanish teacher for him. She says that it just looks like the notes, and Jonathan says that the right pages must be lying at home. Chelsie will still do this. Jonathan runs to the pre-college board workshop, he'll talk to Chelsie about the layout later after school. Chelsie wonders if being helpful is the way to capture his heart.

In history class Chelsie looks at her to-do-list. She still has to write Jonathan's article, review the layout, proofread the editorial page, and make headlines for the features section. She hurries to lunch with Nichelle, who says that Chelsie always pulls through. She can't join her at Shawn's, Nichelle's brother's basketball game today. That reminds her that she has to find something else that can cover that game, as Matt Allens, who usually does it, is sick. She hints if Nichelle and Ana can make some notes, as they're going to the game anyway. Ana replies that Chelsie always choose the hard way to impress a guy. She promises to this if Chelsie buys soda and popcorn at the next game.

Chelsie meets the new Spanish teacher, Miss Rodriguez. Chelsie thinks that she's a very interesting person, as she's also speaks Italian and Portuguese in addiction to English and Spanish and dreams of being a Broadway actor. They talk about the theatre. Chelsie feels that writing down the interview, called "teacher feature", flows smoothly. Most staff members arrive. Chelsie compliments Lara on her dress, and they talk about last night, when Lara's father has taken them to a club to see a band some of his students played in. Lara, Maria and Nichelle talk about doing a four page supplement on a special theme. Maria wants this to be on something of bigger significance. Jonathan comes in, shouting "peace" (obviously to some kids in the hallway, Chelsie and Lara notices). Maria thinks that this is an interesting theme. They take a vote. A few kids vote for animal rights, Tori only votes for extreme sports, and many kids want to focus on peace. Naturally, since MIH's students are very aware of political issues and global events. Maria, Jon, and Chelsie will work with some ideas. Ana, Lara, and Tori will meet for a walk in Washington Square Park in an hour. Chelsie has too much homework to join them. They'll feature the timecapsule project, where Tori and Nichelle are cochairs. Maria and Jon are fried from writing college essays. Maria wants to get into Yale or Columbia. Jonathan are hoping to get a scholarship to Princeton, but his good grades are slipping. Chelsie doesn't know what she will do without them at the newspaper. Maria says that the Miss Rodriguez piece is strong writing, but she credits it to Jonathan... She has to go, so she asks Chelsie and Jonathan if the can come up with some ideas. They'll catch a bite after school tomorrow.

Chelsie is in the library, finishing her English essay fifteen minutes before the game. Everyone is described as tall and maths and science experts except Ana and Chelsie. Are all of the girls supposed to go under that description since we don't hear anything else, or should we guess that they're probably short and suck at maths? She meets the other girls, except Tori, who isn't into spectator sports, as she stayed at the school anyway. They're happy to see her, and start to giggle and say the guessed she would bring up Jonathan's name in less than a minute. MIH play really well, and are leading over The Chargers. Chelsie tells them that she's going out with Jonathan tomorrow. The other girls think that this sounds like a date, and she'll borrow Lara's scarf. Chelsie is waiting outside school next day, thinking of what to say to Jonathan, when he suddenly arrives. He asks her if she wants to go to one of his favorite restaurants, a very cool teahouse Chelsie has never noticed before. She thinks that Jonathan didn't give her enough credit on the text not on purpose, as he didn't know that his notes weren't readable and she had to do it from scratch. Jonathan says that Chelsie could home when his band are going to play here at the end of the month. Chelsie wonders if she sounded too enthusiastic when she accepted the offer. She orders peppermint tea and a chocolate chip scone, Jon orders a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin. He also plays guitar, but wasn't involved in Sing Out, as he was involved with the paper and other personal stuff. His band was supposed to open for Accidental Housewives that night, but it got cancelled. Jon is excited to work with Chelsie on this as she probably knows a lot about this with her diplomate father. Chelsie think that young people's opinion on peace is too often overlooked. She thinks that they needs to get comments about peace from teenagers from all over the world, and they could do that by getting comments from high school students from all over the world on the school website, which Tori can help them with. They already have many kids from different parts of the world at MIH, and they could help them contacting students from their old schools. Jonathan will get an early start on the time capsule feature. He makes Chelsie make a list of story ideas and assign them. Jon has to leave for a study group and almost collides with a woman on his way out the door. Chelsie understands that Jonathan has been under a lot of pressure. She wonders if this was her first real date...

Chelsie is delighted to cover the time capsule meeting for Jonathan on Tuesday, hoping that he'll appreciate her more. She has a lot to do, later she'll write a history essay and work on the peace supplement. She's slightly disappointed that she and Jonathan doesn't share the byline for the Miss Rodriguez interview. Nichelle briefs her, saying that this probably won't be a twenty minute-meeting as it's the committee's first open meeting. They've found a company that makes affordable time capsules, they've got school and city approval to bury it, and they've filled out most of the paperwork, but they can't agree on what to put in the capsule. It's up to the students to decide what goes in it. The classroom fills up with about a hundred people and it's hard for Nichelle to be heard over the noise. Tori whistle to make them quiet down. Chelsie is impressed with how confident and poised Nichelle is when she gives a summary of the work with the time capsule. Chelsie hates public speaking. Barbie thinks that they should include some news articles. A freshman suggests putting a couple of clothing items and their pricetags in. Ivan thinks they should include results of the science projects, Lara some paintings made by MIH students. Damian suggests that they leave the box empty to shock future kids. They discuss for two hours, but no decision has been made. Chelsie think it was fun, but she's tired from writing all the suggestions down.Nichelle gets an idea that the kids should email their suggestions to the MIH website and vote on them, then they'll put the top choices in the capsule.

Maria thinks both the article and the website idea are great. Chelsie is passive aggressive again and feels sad that she has so much to do and that Jonathan is getting compliements on her work. Chelsie brings her own chicken curry sandwich to table, when the others are eating the school cafeteria's sorry excuse for tacos. She's losing her appetite and the other girls thinks she seems less happy. Then Chelsie hears Jonathan talking with Maria and taking the credit for her website suggestion. Chelsie comes in and join them, but doesn't say anything. Maria asks Chelsie to write the main editorial "Is peace possible"? Jonathan looses his balance on the chair. Chelsie thinks he deserved more than a bump to the head. And she's supposed to like the guy? I smell a possible serial killer.

Chelsie catches Tori by the half-pipe and asks her to work on the website so students can send in their thoughts. Her dad is home a week early from Egypt and he got tickets to Ursula and the Happy Inch? Is that supposed to be a family friendly version of Hedvig and the angry inch? How can Chelsie do her homework, work on the copy for the webpage, the editorial and proofread five articles? She tries to call Jonathan to make him give her a day more to proofread, but an old woman answers and Chelsie wonders if she got the wrong number. She grabs her favorite hat on her way out the door. The show is great. After that, Chelsie takes some hot chocolate and biscuits when she's going to work on the editorial. She goes to find a better lightbulb, but stops to laugh at a photo of her and her father wearing ponchos in Peru. Her mother comes out and asks her why she's looking for a lightbulb in the middle of the night. She follows Chelsie back to her room and Chelsie explains the newspaper situation. Chelsie goes to bed, but she sneaks up to write more later. Chelsie can barely hold her eyes open. She finishes her draft, but when she turns on the computer, she makes five new last lines and three opening paragraphs. In the end, she's made five different versions of the piece.

Chelsie asks the girls at school the day after which version they prefer. The all seem to like the first one she wrote best. She even does a quick rewrite after getting her friends perspective. Later she'll stop by helping Tori and Nichelle counting the votes they received and checking how much of the stuff that will fit in the time capsule. Jonathan feels bad about the time capsule article taking up so much of her time. They've received hundreds of ideas on the webpage, half of them not serious and from Damian. Much easier when they remove those, as they're silly and students were only allowed one vote each. They have it under control now, so Chelsie goes to see Jon as she needs to talk to him. He seems upset as he has so much to do and his grandmother is sick. Chelsie feels guilty for being secretly mad at him. Chelsie is a bit anxious about Jonathan's opinion about her editorial, but he hasn't even read it yet.

Chelsie has replayed the conversation with Jonathan in her head all weekend. On Monday she has to get the basketball scores from Ana, and go over the layout for the features section. She finds out that she needs to take all of her books home. Lara came to talk to her about the essay. She's in Ms. Hong's class with Jonathan, where they were supposed to write an essay very similar to Chelsie's editorial. Ms. Hong read out an essay very similar to Chelsie. You guessed it, Jonathan's. Lara recognized this as she read all five versions, so she asks Ms. Hong to give her a copy of the essay, and as Chelsie reads it, she discovers that Jonathan has stolen her essay. She thinks that there must be some sort of explanation. Lara and Barbie thinks that Chelsie shouldn't let Jonathan get away with this. They urge her to speak to him.

Chelsie search Ground Zero, the cafeteria, and the newspaper office for Jonathan. She nearly gives up when Maria says that he is leaving right now. Chelsie follows him downtown, where he walks into what looks like a broken down apartment building. She follows him five floors up and knocks on Jonathan's apartment door. He can't let her in, so they go out to talk. Jonathan's mother died a few years ago, and his father left him, so he moved in with his mother's mother. His father stopped sending money a while back and now his grandma, who lives to see him get a scholarship to a good school, is sick. Chelsie tells Jonathan that she discovered his plagarism. He didn't intend to steal it, but he felt like he couldn't write as good as her. Chelsie says that everyone writes in different ways. Jonathan has had a really tough with college applications, his grandma getting sick, so he had to take up a part-time job. He only wanted to take inspiration from Chelsie's story, but it was so late, so he ended up copying it. He says that he'll talk to Ms. Hong first thing tomorrow. Chelsie ends up talking about everything he has been taking credit for her efforts and the work he keep loading over onto her. Now she has said everything she needed to say. She puts away the Generation Beat notebook and does her other homework. She break down in tears when Barbie calls and explain everything, and that she still don't think he's a bad person. Chelsie will go ice skating with her friends this weekend. Her mother remarks at the dinner table that it's nice to see Chelsie happy again. Aww.

Maria shows Chelsie this strange note she got from Jonathan where he resigns from the paper. He says that's he's not worthy of his position, so he thinks Chelsie should be managing editor instead. Chelsie needs to talk to Jonathan herself, as it's too much to get ready till Tuesday on her own. She finds him washing dishes at Ground Zero. He failed the assignment, but isn't going to be kicked out of school. He felt horrible and like he didn't deserve to be managing editor. He should really work on his college applications, but he can't decide which version of it to use. Chelsie says that her friends helped her decide and she still consider him a friend. Jon decides to be more honest with Maria and tell her all the great things Chelsie has done. And then he gives Chelsie a hug. Mr. Toussaint says that he's surprised by Jonathan admitting that he did something immoral like stealing Chelsie's essay. Chelsie accepts the apology, and says that the Generation Beat shouldn't suffer without him as he made a mistake. Maria speaks to Mr. T. in private. She makes Chelsie senior editor, which gives her a nice position with less work and more options to do her own writing. All her friends congratulates her. Jonathan wants to take her out to eat to celebrate. Chelsie suggest they go to Eatz this time. Jon thinks the menus are really dirty and gross, and as they don't serve coffee, he takes a chocolate milkshake, the same as Chelsie.

Time capsule burial. The ground is frozen, but Damian gets a woman with a earthmover to help out. The box is filled with letters, cd-s, newspaper articles, clothing, books, science projects and art. They let Tori put one inline skate in the capsule. Jonathan stops them, saying that they has to put the first issue of Generation Beat where Chelsie's listed as a senior editor in the capsule too. Tori will rearrange the box, but it overflows when she takes off the lid. Jonathan says that he's a walking disaster. Chelsie replies that she will miss that walking disaster next year.

The article is about the time capsule burial, and it teaches kids to out sources on their work and never copy anything. I had a class mate who could get away with copying articles straight from Wikipedia. Annoying for those of us who put in some effort. And I hate writing exact page numbers of sources. It's just boring, when you've used one tiny paragraph or large parts of the book. Writing=lies=distrust in this example.

This book in one word: Aww.