A cool breeze whipped around my wavy brown hair as I stepped out of my classroom, ready to head to our lunch meeting spot. After I got away from the crowds lining up for hot lunch, I sprinted over to our meeting spot at lunch, not waiting for my friend Autumn to come with me, smiling when the sun warmed my cheerful face. Another refreshing breeze went by, causing my hair to flutter around. I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of my happiness! When I finally got there, my two best friends McKenzie (Mack) and Maya were already getting their lunch out.

“Hey! Wait up, Riley!” Autumn yelled, running to catch up to me. I sat down happily.
“I feel like a little flower. Like the sun is warming up my world, making me, the little flower, come out into the light,” I sighed dreamily, hugging Maya, who returned the hug with a smile. I smiled back, spreading out my arms in attempt to reach the warm sun.
Kelsey was standing in the corner with her phone possibly texting her twin brother Kevin. She looked very isolated from our group. Finally, she came over.
“Oh my gosh, did you see the new music video that Taylor Swift published yesterday?! I was gushing all over it!” Mack said, her eyes sparkling with delight. I noticed that she had styled her straight brown hair to be wavy, a new look on her that I loved immediately.
“YES! I absolutely loved it!” Maya replied, squealing even though she wasn’t the squealing type. She covered her mouth instantly, and kept her cool, folding her arms and sitting back.
“Riley, did you watch it once?” Mack turned to me. Her expectant look felt familiar, and I welcomed it, ready to reply.
“No, I didn’t watch it once, I--” I began.
“WHAT?!” Mack cut in before I could finish.
“You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say that I didn’t watch it once, I watched it A THOUSAND TIMES!” I finished happily. Mack relaxed, happy that I was still a faithful Swiftie.
“You guys are so lame. Why don’t you focus on other things? I don’t even see why Taylor Swift is your idol. She’ll never notice you, she probably doesn’t even know you exist!” Kelsey interrupted our conversation.
“What…?” Mack’s voice sounded hurt, and Maya ducked her head, the blonde strands covering her face, possibly to hide her watering eyes. The two looked as if they were ready to leave.
“Whatever…!” Kelsey tossed her long platinum blonde hair and strode away confidently. She had left us almost in tears, all of us had ducked heads.
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“Umph!” I unlocked the door to my house after school, ran up the stairs to my room, pulled out the stack of math homework from my backpack, and sat down in front of the computer.
“UGH…” I muttered, staring down at the torturous math question below me. A stray strand of my hair came into view. I blew it away, but blew too fiercely, because my hair stood up, billowed down, and more stray strands came into view.  I was beginning to wonder if this was all just a dream: Kelsey mocking Taylor Swift, my math teacher assigning double the pile of work that we had not been taught (although I had a faint idea of how to do it), and my history teacher lecturing us on some subject that seemed to have nothing to do with history. Then I heard a knock at my door.
“Riley? You might want to see this, even though it’s not the best.” It was Maya, but she seemed upset. I wonder what happened.
“I’m gonna need your laptop for this.” I nodded, and she typed for a few seconds, then showed the screen to me. It showed a website, clearly a bullying website, because there were a bunch of our classmate’s “secrets” and the creator’s comments about it.
“‘Lena Davis: Did you really think people would copy your lovely so-called fashion? You may think that you are a person that covers up nicely, but you might want to reconsider. Have you seen the back of your pants? No? Well, you might want to pull up your pants so we don’t have to suffer. Your pink Barbie underwear is showing.’ What? That is so not nice! True, even though we can all see it, you don’t need to embarrass her!” I muttered angrily under my breath.
“I know! Who did this?” Maya asked, but we both knew that it was a rhetorical question. For now…
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“Mack? Not here? I thought she was here a moment ago!” Ms. Johnson called out the rest of the roll.
“Ms. Johnson? I think Mack went to the bathroom. She seemed to be upset.” Autumn spoke up, her auburn hair standing out to the rest of the classes’ hair. Automatically, both Maya and I slid out of our chairs, excusing ourselves to go to the bathroom. We gestured for Autumn to come along too.
“Mack? Are you here?” Maya called out. There was no answer. We looked under all the stalls for Mack’s unique boots, and finally found them in the biggest stall.
“Mack? Do you want to come out?” Autumn said. There was silence. Then a few sobs erupted from her stall, and we knocked on the door, waiting for her to come out. Click. Mack gestured for us to come in.
She took a shaky breath, a rare breath that came from her, and I felt a weight pressing on me, like some doom was headed for us. Her phone screen flashed out at us, and Maya immediately grabbed it before Mack could stop her. Maya’s eyes flashed with pain and anger, something that I’ve hardly ever seen before. Maya was one of the cool, tough people that were always chill about everything.
“Is this what you were crying about, all alone in a bathroom stall, without telling us? Let me read this. ‘McKenzie Evans: Did you think that no one would find out that you had a crush on--’ him--‘? Well guess what--we all know now. So don’t try to cover up your deep love. We all know now that you’re trying to play hard to get.’ WHAT? Who would know about your crush other than--oh… I see why you would want to be in this stall, all alone, without us, yeah…” Maya said, fiddling with the door with her shoes. I, on the other hand, was lost for words. Instead, the feeling of darkness engulfed me, filling me with fear, even though the lights in the bathroom were shining normally.
“Do you think that we--your best friends--would ever want to hurt you? Especially since we told you secrets that you could give out? It must have been someone else…” Maya thought hard. I finally found my voice.
“Clearly, the bully has updated the website. Look, it has almost everyone’s secrets in this thing!” I exclaimed.
“Good job, Captain Obvious,” Maya smirked.
“HEY!”
“We need to find out who created this website. And FAST. The bully might get to everyone’s secrets--ALL OF THEM. For now, we just have to lie low and not tell any more embarrassing secrets or mistakes that we made. Including crush secrets too. Just in case,” Maya continued, ignoring my protest.
“What about our other friends?” Mack spoke up, her voice slightly shaky from crying.
“Not even them. Just us four. No one else.” Maya seriously wasn’t taking chances, and her eyes turned back into her normal fierce coolness that was unique in my eyes. We agreed, and walked back to class as if nothing had happened.
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“In math, Emma was crying. Was it the website?” The five of us were at our lunch meeting spot, and we recited any new things that happened because of the website.
“No, Emma was crying because she didn’t get 100% on her last math test. Why it matters so much to her, I have no idea.” It was Kelsey. She slipped her phone back into her pocket, and I figured that she was texting Kevin again.
“Uh… I think there’s another update on the website!” Autumn said. Mack, Maya, and I crowded around her phone and gasped, and when we turned to Kelsey, she was gone. Mack was evidently reminded of her secret on the website, because she started to cry again, but this time they were silent tears, while Autumn tried to comfort her.
“Riley, we need to find out who updated the website. NOW.” Maya said, turning to me. I nodded, and we stood up, ready to look for proof.
Before we could go to the computer lab, we heard footsteps coming over to us, and we turned to see a small group made of 2 computer experts, 2 athletes, 3 fashion experts, 2 artists, and 2 popular girls. We greeted them warmly, but their greeting was grave when it was returned.
“We need your help.” The leader, a popular girl named Quinn stepped out, and her perfect aura shone brightly, but I could tell that the aura was slightly tainted with pain and mistrust.
“The website?” Maya asked, and Quinn nodded, and her eyes began to water, but she wiped them away.
“We were wondering if you wanted to join our little group and help find out who is behind the--ugh--website,” Britney, another popular girl said. Maya and I looked at each other, and looked at Mack and Autumn, who nodded for us to join and walked over to the bathroom.
“Okay. We’ll join.” I confirmed.
“Awesome!”
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“Okay, so we need to get into that, then…” The two computer experts were going over their computer plan at my house. Quinn and Britney were instructing Regina, Rachel, and Summer to make clothes that wouldn’t stand out so the group could sneak around easily to find proof, the file, and the culprit(s).
“Add in a necklace, a little bit of glitter--” Britney was saying.
“Britney, we can’t get too glittery, otherwise it will stand out too much!” Quinn remarked.
“Well, there’s no point in going in looking awful and coming out with more awful stuff. It’ll soften the blow! Add a skirt with leggings, high heels that are easy to navigate in…”
“We’ll just have a stylish black trench coat over a black turtleneck and black leggings. Okay, maybe the high heels for the 5 of us!” Quinn said.
“Wow… A moment ago you were telling us not to stand out!” Britney said, her eyes twinkling.
“Well, if you can’t beat them, join them!” Quinn contradicted Britney, who groaned.
“We’ll be fine with black boots,” Maya cut in. We got together and discussed our plan:

Get into the computer lab after school
Get onto the website
Track down the history
Find out who did it
Get proof or pictures proving on culprit’s technology
Tell principal so she can give out fair punishment
Job is finished
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“Um… guys? Bad news. You might want to take a look at who created the website.” Madison gestured for us to come over.
“WHAT?! Double check that!” Maya yelled, and we shushed her, reminding her that we weren’t supposed to be here at the computer lab at this time.
“It was Kelsey.” I said, and that was all I could say. I was, once again, at a loss for words because of the website.
“Yup,” Britney replied.
“Yup...” Maya and I echoed in a trance. She didn’t look surprised at all, which shocked us. Did Kelsey do bad things when we weren’t watching?
“Sweetie, you might want to open your eyes. Did you not notice the whole time?” Britney said, patting Maya’s shoulders. Maya pulled away, breaking out of her trance.
“Don’t touch me. I kept my eyes wide open. So don’t call me ‘sweetie’, okay?” Maya said fiercely.
“Sweetie…” I repeated. Maya shook me, and I snapped out of it.
“That’s why Kelsey isn’t listed in the website. All criminals have one fatal flaw in their plan!” Britney finished bitterly. Criminals? I thought, Wow. People must hate her.
“We need to get the truth--although it’s gonna be pretty nasty--out of Kelsey. Tomorrow. Meet us at our lunch spot.” Maya said, and all of us agreed, then parted ways.
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At lunchtime, the rest of the group arrived, and Maya and I waved them over to a spot away from Kelsey.
“Okay. So we tell Kelsey to admit that she created the website, then ask why she did it. And if we have to, we’ll pester it out of her.” Quinn went over our plan to get the truth out of Kelsey. The group walked over to Kelsey, who was typing swiftly on her phone. This time, I didn’t believe that she was texting her brother. Britney lost her patience, and snatched Kelsey’s phone.
“Hey! Give it back!” Kelsey said angrily, but Britney looked down at the screen, saw what was written on it, and was about to throw it onto the ground, but Kelsey grabbed it just in time.
“It’s time that you admit that you created that stupid website!” Britney yelled.
“Why should I when I’m all left alone, and nothing to do but to find some dirt about you people that are all happy without me? Why should I be nice to you all when my ‘friends’ ignore me and treat me like trash? What else do you want me to do?!” The words had tumbled out of Kelsey’s mouth before she could stop herself, and she clapped her mouth shut with her hands. Britney took the chance and snatched up Kelsey’s phone.
“What? That’s what you think we do to you? Why would you think that?” Mack came over. No answer.
“Why would you think that?” Mack repeated. No answer. Instead, a sad look emerged from Kelsey, but her eyes were fierce, red, but hurt.
“You guys always leave me by myself! I never have anything to cut in about, so I just…” Kelsey stopped, angry tears flowing steadily down her cheeks. Her once perfect hair had been tied up into a messy braid.
“Find things like secrets about other people to make yourself feel better? So we would notice, and then after all of this mess, continue to like you and be friends with you? Because that’s not gonna happen any time soon.” Maya finished for her, frowning at Kelsey with crossed arms, and Kelsey glared back at her with almost the same fierceness. Almost. The two glared at each other until Kelsey gave up, Maya’s stone cold stare piercing through her.
“Fine! I admit that I created that website! But I don’t want to be you when I find out that I’m expelled!”
“‘When’? Why not ‘if’?” Autumn had spoken up. Hurt flashed through her eyes, and I felt bad. Autumn had been really good friends with Kelsey when she was little, but when she met us a year later, the four of us became close friends. Kelsey joined in, but we didn’t talk to her that much. And now, Kelsey was dishing out dirt on people that Autumn cared about, but Autumn probably still cared for her, even though she knew that Kelsey didn’t want anything to do with them after they found out what she did.
“I’m telling Principal Smith,” Autumn said, and she and Mack headed for the principal’s office. Our group followed after her, Britney pausing to kick Kelsey’s backpack away, but Quinn pulled her away, flashing a look of pity for Kelsey, who buried her face in her hands and started to cry.
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“Mrs. Smith? Oh, is the principal here?” Quinn asked the secretary when we arrived in the office.
“Yes. The principal is right… here,” the secretary said, leading us to Mrs. Smith’s office. I stepped forward and knocked on the door.
“Come in!” Mrs. Smith’s business voice rang out. We entered her office. I noticed that she had the unwanted website up on her computer screen, and pointed to it.
“Mrs. Smith, that website. We know who created it, and we have the proof.” I said, and Britney held up Kelsey’s phone. A gasp escaped from Mrs. Smith’s mouth, and she covered it quickly.
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“It was Kelsey! Why, I should have that girl suspended--wait no, expelled!--from our school! Students all around are upset by all of this! We need to take down this website and expel Kelsey!” Mrs. Smith said, evidently trying to keep her voice under control, but ended up in a shrilly mess. She straightened awkwardly, realizing she was talking to around 15 students.
“Mrs. Smith? I think I have a better idea, because I don’t think Kelsey will learn from her mistake when she gets expelled.” I quickly explained a better punishment: Giving Kelsey cafeteria duty. It’s better than getting suspended or expelled, Kelsey, I thought to myself. Maybe she will learn from her mistake, and maybe it’s time we forgave her, I mean, she felt left out because of us, and I don’t want an angry friend coming after me and my school! After all, helping people is my thing!
Mrs. Smith agreed, then shooed us all out of the office. When we arrived back at our lunch spot, I saw Kelsey crouched into a little ball, and I gave her phone back to her.
“You should probably go to Mrs. Smith’s office before she makes it an announcement.” I said, and Kelsey stood up.
“Yeah, maybe that will work out for me,” Kelsey replied sarcastically, and her voice cracked.
“Everyone but Kelsey Edwards, please disregard this message,” Mrs. Smith spoke through the loudspeakers. Obviously, everyone listened in to the loudspeakers.
“Kelsey Edwards, please come to the office--about that horrid bullying website!--Sorry. I repeat, KELSEY EDWARDS, come to the office... now.” Mrs. Smith’s professional voice boomed through the loudspeakers. Kelsey began to cry. Everyone in sight came over and started yelling at her because of the website. I felt awful, but then realized that it would blow over after a while. After all, people in our school couldn’t hold a grudge on someone or something for a long time.
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“Ugh! That cafeteria duty was awful!” Kelsey muttered, wringing her already clean hands, then stopped in front of our group, including Mack and Autumn. 
“I’m sorry for what I did. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. Will you possibly forgive me?” Kelsey said, hanging her head like a naughty child.
“You’re forgiven. Even though you did act out a little intensely, we are only growing up. We still need to learn a lot more about our world. Besides, everyone already knows about these secrets. I’m sorry too.” I replied, and everyone around her apologized along with me. Kelsey’s demeanor changed from scared to relieved, but she was still confused.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because you felt left out of our conversations. Maybe you could actually try to listen to Taylor Swift, and then you will have a place in our conversations!” I finished cheerfully. Kelsey agreed, smiling gratefully.
Automatically, we dragged Kelsey over to a source of technology to get her involved, all of us laughing along the way, talking as if we did so every day. The sun shone on my face happily, and I welcomed its warmth, feeling accomplished as our group walked past people, and everywhere we went, people apologized to Kelsey, who apologized back.
The sound of the computer clicking onto one of Taylor Swift’s videos stood out, and the whole group listened in. Kelsey listened to the first words and smiled. I glanced over and smiled, the sunshine restored in my renewed peaceful world. Kelsey had become the new Swiftie. 
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