HughTube

Chapter 17

Watching from the bleachers, Simon and Molly were horrified by the crowd's display of viciousness. Finally, Simon had had enough. He rustled through my backpack and pulled out my laptop. Holding it high in the air, he stood up and yelled to the crowd. "I can prove it wasn't Hugh who ruined the posters!"

The crowd went silent. Still panicking, I looked over at Simon. What was he up to?

Simon spoke loudly to the crowd: "Last night, Hugh was editing HughTube all night long! Look!" Simon quickly sat down again and opened up my laptop. He worked fast, and after a moment, the laptop's screen image appeared on the huge video screen hanging at the front of the gym. It was open to my video editing program, and my latest unaired HughTube episode was there for all to see. What was Simon up to??

Simon clicked the trackpad, and the video began to play. It was cued up to the shot of Molly doing her hair flip in Social Studies class. My real-time narration played over the sound system: "Molly tosses her hair in her usual way. But is she just getting it out of her eyes... or trying to drive me crazy?" The next shot was of Molly handing out the tree-shaped air fresheners in the atrium. "Molly looks beautiful backlit by the light coming through the front doors. Her natural appeal just draws people in, makes them feel like they're her friends. I hope against hope that I don't disappoint her."

The crowd cracked up, and I turned white with shame. But I glanced over at Molly, and she was silent. She just sat there watching, touched and amazed.

Then Simon paused the video and yelled out, "Look! Right there! In the corner of the frame is the time: 9:30 PM! That's when Hugh was editing this. He couldn't've been here at 9:00 or 10:00 o'clock!"

Suddenly, Tanya turned to Trey, both still at their podiums. "So it WAS you!" accused Tanya.

"Me?! It was YOU!" cried Trey.

Simon called out with righteousness, "It was BOTH of you!"

Tanya shot daggers out of her eyes at Trey. "You messed up my posters, you loser!"

Trey shot some back. "YOU'RE gonna be the loser after the election! And your posters sucked!"

"So did yours! I made them look better!"

The crowd erupted in laughter again as Trey and Tanya kept yelling at each other.

Mr. Townsend tried to take charge of the situation. "Quiet down! Calm down, people!"

I must admit, I was kind of shell-shocked by all this, and I just stood there in the middle of it all, looking back and forth between Trey and Tanya. But then I looked back up at the screen. The image was frozen on Molly's face... and finally I was able to take a deep breath of calm.

I looked over at Molly again. She looked back at me... and smiled. She was no doubt happy my name was cleared, but it seemed like a sad kind of smile. I hoped it wasn't one of pity. I already had all the self-pity I could handle.