"Wow, Gretchen," T.J. said as the five stepped into her room. "You sure have a lot of tech stuff."
"My parents bring home stuff from their labs," she explained, turning on one of the two computers on her desk. "This one's really good for retrieving video files. Now I just have to see if I have the right USB port to connect it to the camera…"
She rummaged through a box of cables underneath her desk and finally pulled out one. "I think this one will work."
She connected the camera to the computer and typed in a few codes.
"Okay," she said. "The video file on here is retrievable, but…"
"Not a but," Spinelli moaned.
"It's going to take a while to download onto the computer," Gretchen finished.
"How long is a while?" Vince asked.
"About 24 hours," Gretchen said.
"That's not too bad," Mikey said.
"It will be done by tomorrow night then," T.J. nodded. "So we can meet up Monday afternoon before school and watch it."
"Sounds like a plan," Gretchen said.
"We can meet at my place," T.J. said. "My mom's going to be uptown shopping with my sister."
"Great," Mikey smiled. "We'll see everyone then."
….
"Did everything turn out okay with the video?" T.J. asked Gretchen as she walked into his house with her laptop.
"Yeah," she nodded. "I transferred the file onto my laptop this morning. I haven't watched it yet, though."
"Well play it," Spinelli said. "We broke into a school for this, now I think we all want to see if it was worth it."
"There's over 90 hours of video on here," Gretchen said, opening up her laptop. "We may have to fast forward through some stuff."
"Are there any dates on the video?" Vince asked.
"I believe so," she replied.
"Then why don't we just skip to the day before the shooting," he suggested. "That way we won't have to sit here and watch hours of our classmates, but we still won't miss Gus, if he's on here."
"Good thinking," Mikey said as Gretchen fast-forwarded the video. She stopped on the intended date, and turned up the sound on the laptop so everyone could hear.
"Everything looks pretty normal," T.J. muttered. "We never even imagined that-that what happened the next day would ever…"
"I know," Spinelli whispered.
"Hey, there's you, T.J.," Vince said, pointing at the screen where T.J. and Sebastian were leaning on the wall across from the trophy case. There weren't many people in the hall, so the five were able to make out what they were saying.
"Some game last night," Sebastian said to T.J.. "That was a nice cross you made to Nate."
"Thanks, man," T.J. said. "Too bad we didn't get home until eleven. I barely had time to scrape together that book report on The Scarlet Letter."
Just then, Spinelli and her friend Glen walked across the screen, past T.J. and Sebastian.
"Man," Sebastian said, looking after the girls. "Those chicks are freak shows."
T.J. shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he continued to watch.
"Um, yeah, T.J. said on the screen, putting his hands in his pocket.
"I mean did you see that little one?" Sebastian laughed. "What are with those boots? They look like she got them from Good Will or something!"
T.J. gave a small laugh. "Yeah…she sure is a mess."
"I hear she's a dyke," Sebastian continued. "Probably her and that other girl she's always with are a thing."
Spinelli, who hadn't said a word, curled her hands into fists as she continued to watch.
"I bet," T.J. said. Then the bell rang, and the boys hurried off to class.
"Spinelli, I didn't mean any of that," T.J. said quickly, turning to face her as the video played on. "It was all Sebastian; he's a jerk! You saw that the other day when he-"
"You agreed with him," Spinelli said softly. "You didn't defend me."
"I-I wanted to!" he stammered. "But I couldn't! I-"
She shook her head. "Don't."
"Spinelli! I-"
"Keep playing the video, Gretchen," she said, cutting him off. "We still have to find Gus."
T.J. buried his head in his hands as the others watched in silence for the next twenty minutes. The halls were empty, since class was in session, so the only people they saw on the video were a few teachers. But then, they heard some voices, and a few seconds later, they saw Vince and his friend Cole walk by and stop at the water fountain a few feet away from the trophy case.
"Glad coach lets us do whatever we want during gym," Cole said as Vince gulped down some water.
"He works us enough at practice," Vince pointed out, swallowing the water.
"That's for sure," Cole said. "Hey, look at this." He was pointing to a flyer above the water fountain.
"What is it?" Vince asked.
"It's about that National Honor Society thing," he laughed. "They're telling students if they want to join, they need to get their GPA's recorded! Man, how lame is that?"
"Sad you can't join?" Vince grinned at his friend. "You're barely passing anything."
"Barely passing is still passing, as you always say," Cole said. "Besides, even if I had a high enough GPA, I still wouldn't join. That club's full of geeks and losers. I mean look at that one girl, the one that's always winning awards for the science fair and math competitions…what's her name?...Grundler! That's it!"
Vince felt his stomach clench as he watched the scene on screen.
"That girl's crazy smart," Cole continued. "Too smart, if you ask me."
"What's wrong with being smart?" Vince asked.
"Come on, you know girls like her have no social life," Cole scoffed. "I mean, have you seen her with any guys besides those weird geeks from the math team? I doubt that girl could get a date if she posted an add online."
"Um, I guess not."
"Come on, let's head back to the gym. We can watch the girls stretch."
The boys walked away from the camera.
"Listen, Gretchen," Vince started.
"You're just like T.J.," Spinelli sneered.
"Yeah," Gretchen nodded in agreement. "I can't believe you would say those things about us."
"It was before we were friends again!" T.J. pointed out.
"Who cares?" Gretchen retorted. "Just because we had stopped being friends doesn't mean it's all right for you guys to say those things about us!"
"Like you guys never said anything about us before," Vince countered.
Both girls were silent.
"You see?" T.J. said. "You're just as guilty as us! I bet you two have even said stuff about one another!"
"Oh please," Spinelli said. "Everyone knows the basketball team talks trash about the soccer team."
"Well you probably-"
"Enough!"
The four fell silent and turned to Mikey, who had stepped between them.
"You four are all guilty," Mikey said. "You've all said stuff. But I know for a fact that none of you really meant it. Sure, it was wrong of you to go along with all of your friends when they were doing it, but all of us are teenagers; you know, peer pressure and all that? But like T.J. and Vince said, they didn't mean what they said on camera, just like I'm sure Gretchen and Spinelli never meant any of the things that they said either. Even though we weren't friends then, I don't think we ever stopped caring for us. At least, that's what I've always told myself when I heard things about me."
The others looked at their feet.
"He's right," Vince sighed. "And Mikey, I know there have been times when my old friends would…well, no use beating around the bush, would make you totally miserable, and I never did anything to help you and would just laugh with them. I felt terrible. Just like whenever my friends would say something about the rest of you."
"I know we've all said stuff," Gretchen nodded. "But Mikey's got to have suffered the most. And he never said anything about us."
T.J. and Spinelli nodded in agreement.
"I'm really sorry about what I said on the tape," T.J. said earnestly to Spinelli. "Really. I don't think that at all about you."
"Thanks," Spinelli smiled.
"And Gretchen," Vince said, turning towards her. "I didn't mean what I said at all. Not even a little."
"It's okay," Gretchen told him. "And while we're on this apologizing role, I want to say I'm sorry to everyone too. Especially Mikey."
"Me too," Spinelli echoed.
"I think this calls for a group hug," Mikey said, smiling widely.
"Oh, come on," Spinelli moaned, rolling her eyes. "You know I hate those."
"Yeah, there so cliché," Vince echoed.
Mikey, still the largest out of all of them, pulled them into a large hug.
"All right, big fella," T.J. laughed as they pulled away. "How about we finish watching that tape? We've still got to see Gus."