Top 8 by Katie Finn

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    â€œMadison MacDonald?” Stephanie asked.
    â€œUm, yes,” I said, beginning to get nervous. Unlike Schuyler and Turtell, I was almost never in the office, and I preferred to keep it that way.
    â€œJust a second, Miss Watson,” Stephanie said to Schuyler. “All the locker combinations have been stored in a secure database on Dr. Trent’s computer. We’ve had some problems with locker thefts.” As she said this, she glared at Turtell, who frowned right back. “Don’t go anywhere, Madison,” she added to me as she disappeared into Dr. Trent’s office.
    Schuyler turned to me, eyes wide. “What’d you do?”
    â€œRun for it, dude,” Turtell advised. “Don’t look back.”
    â€œI didn’t do anything,” I said, wracking my brain for any violation of school policies I may have accidentally committed. But then I realized it probably was something to do with student government. Due to Connor Atkins’s recount issues, I hadn’t been at the initial meeting with the other officers. Dr. Trent just probably wanted to welcome me formally or something.
    â€œHere you go,” Stephanie said, returning and handing Schuyler a piece of paper. “Please keep track of it this time.”
    â€œI will,” Schuyler promised. I saw her eyes dart up to the clock above Stephanie’s desk. “Um, is there any way you could write me a pass for class?”
    â€œShy,” I said quickly, hoping to get some info before she had to leave, “what did you mean before —”
    â€œMadison MacDonald!” Dr. Trent stuck his head out of his office and motioned at me. “Would you mind coming in here, please?” He pointed at Turtell. “I’ll deal with you in a moment, young man.”
    â€œBut I was here first!” Turtell protested.
    â€œMadison,” Dr. Trent said again, and disappeared into his office.
    I waved goodbye to Schuyler and followed. I’d only been in Dr. Trent’s office one other time, due to a misunderstanding freshman year when I’d been assigned Boys’ PE (stupid gender-neutral name) and refused, for obvious reasons, to go. Little seemed to have changed in two years; it was still stark and intimidating. However, there were now several framed inspirational posters of soaring eagles that said things like Why run when you can fly?
    Which didn’t really make any sense to me at all. Unless it was an inspirational poster for actual eagles.
    I took the seat in front of the desk and looked across at Dr. Trent, who steepled his fingers and frowned at me.
    â€œI have an open,” I said, to fill the silence. “I’m not cutting or anything.”
    â€œMiss MacDonald,” he said, pulling a file out from under his desk, “I’m afraid that a certain…matter has come to my attention.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, beginning to doubt that he was now going to welcome me warmly into the PHS student government family.
    He opened the file and I saw, to my horror, a printout of my hacked profile, in all its misspelled glory.
    â€œHow…how did you get that?” I choked out.
    â€œYou’re aware, of course, that all Putnam High students belonging to this social networking site have to ‘buddy’ the profile of Putnam High School?”
    Faint, faint bells were ringing from when I joined Friendverse. I remembered getting the bulletin from the school, which stated that all students had to approve the invite from the incredibly lame PHS profile. Apparently, it was to prevent students cheating and posting tests. But I hadn’t been doing anything like that.
    â€œYes,” I replied slowly.
    â€œWell,” Dr. Trent said, flipping through the pages of my profile, “your particular profile has recently been… brought to my attention.”
    â€œWait,” I said quickly. “My profile was hacked while I was away on spring