Keep It Real (From the Files of Madison Finn, 19) by Laura Dower Page A

scream at them. He hits himself sometimes. I love him but he embarrasses me, you know? He never sits still and he hates it when I touch him.
    So that was what I was not talking about. I just froze up at the thought of telling u. I’ve written and rewritten this e-mail to you about ten times this weekend b/c I wanted it 2 be perfect. Of course u of all ppl should know the truth.
    Thanks for listening/reading. I’ll write more l8r.
    Yours till the ear waxes (LOL),
Vicki aka Bigwheels
    Madison read all the way to the end and then went back up to the top. Was she reading this correctly? Bigwheels had a brother with autism?
    All at once the air around Madison felt heavier than heavy, closing in on her like a wool blanket, choking her. It was hard to breathe.
    Wait. Life wasn’t supposed to be this serious—was it?
    Madison opened her files.
Keep It Real
    Madison paused and read the file name aloud. Then she read it again.
    She wanted to type, but the words wouldn’t come. Her fingers remained suspended above the keyboard in a state of paralysis.
    All she could do was stare at the cursor.
    Blink, blink, blink.
    What was Madison supposed to do with this new, difficult information—about Ivy, about Bigwheels?
    Was it possible that sometimes Madison was the one who didn’t know how to keep it real?

Chapter 11
    M R. DANEHY SEEMED TO be feeling a hundred percent better on Monday.
    Actually, it was more like a hundred and ten percent. No more congestion, loud coughing, or spraying sneezes. He was like Tigger bouncing around in front of the blackboard at the front of the room.
    “Boys and girls, I have your quizzes from the library the other day,” Mr. Danehy announced with a lilt in his voice. Every move he made was way out of character for him. Madison half expected him to do a backflip. Was it his cold medicine?
    Normally when Mr. Danehy passed out tests that he’d graded, he would make a little speech about how everyone could have tried harder or studied longer or done something more, more, MORE. Then he would announce, in a low, serious, and very grouchy voice, that he had decided to grade on a wide curve, “because the grades were just that bad.”
    However, today the only curve in Mr. Danehy’s classroom was his ear-to-ear grin.
    “You’ll be happy to know, students, that I gave everyone an A,” he said as he walked around the room and dropped the tests on the desks.
    Madison’s jaw dropped. Everyone had gotten an A? Ivy had gotten an A?!!
    “I am so-o-o glad I didn’t waste time studying,” Ivy said under her breath. “Because it didn’t even matter in the end, did it? So there.”
    This turn of events made Madison queasy. She didn’t have a head cold, but her head was stuffed nonetheless—with thoughts of Bigwheels’s brother, Aimee’s teacher, Ivy’s mother, and more.
    Madison turned to Poison Ivy.
    “Um…where were you on Friday?” Madison asked.
    “Busy,” Ivy snapped. “Why?”
    “Just wondering,” Madison said, drumming her fingers on the lab table. “Um…because…”
    Grrrrrr.
    Why couldn’t Madison come up with a good follow-up question?
    Ivy was unfazed by the entire exchange. She sat up tall in her seat and waited for Madison to talk. But when Madison didn’t come through with the compelling next question, Ivy let out an enormous, annoyed sigh.
    Madison watched as Ivy leaned over and wrote a note, probably to Rose Thorn. Normally the enemy was a text-messaging kind of girl, but that wasn’t allowed in classes, not even on Ivy’s perfect pink cell phone. Madison was tempted, but she restrained herself from reading Ivy’s paper note. Glancing at things had gotten her into enough trouble that week.
    After folding the note, Ivy checked her face in her compact, puckering up to add a smear of lip gloss that smelled like raspberries.
    Up at the front of the classroom, Mr. Danehy wrote a long list of biology vocabulary words on the board. He asked the class to copy down the list and look