each other well Mac tends to like many Predator athletes off the fields and courts as well They are his close friends and his acquaintances his fellow sports fans and his enthusiastic readers Sure if one examined the entire student body they would find as Mac’s mother might say a rotten apple or two in the pile But day in and day out Mac likes to think the Predators are good to one other But They do have a nasty habit not unlike every other middle school student who’s ever existed Curious by nature the Coyote Canyon student body just can’t accept not knowing about something or someone They need to know what happened how and why It’s why they’re such avid readers of his articles In the absence of known facts however they make up their own They attempt to do Mac’s job Irresponsibly and it badly they do
Dangerously Unfairly They scuttlebutt turn to No one in Mac’s time as reporter has ever been so enticing to these manufacturers and consumers of scuttlebutt as Roe Danner This is because no one knows anything about Roe She doesn’t have a single friend at the school She doesn’t look anyone in the eye No one’s sure if they’re being honest if she has raised her hand at any point during a class or given a presentation of any kind If forced to work in a group she listens attentively and does her part but never contributes ideas out loud Even during her tennis matches which she nearly always wins she never calls or corrects the score something her opponents take advantage of at times though she tends to dominate them so thoroughly they can’t cheat their way to victory anyway It seems as if every Predator has a different
theory about Roe Danner Some people say Roe thinks she’s too good to associate with the rest of the school Others say she’s simply shy Some even theorize that Roe is part of the Witness Protection Program that she or someone close to her did something so terrible or brave she now needs to pretend she’s someone else If she’s hiding from dangerous people students at Coyote Canyon explain she wouldn’t want to risk getting too close to anyone and accidentally revealing her secret Mac’s reporting instincts tell him this is all silly He has no idea why she keeps to herself but she doesn’t strike him as elitist or shy And really the Witness Protection Program Mac laughs to himself It’s way too far-fetched to be true At first everybody said these things quietly and behind Roe’s back But it’s more than a month into the school year and Roe hasn’t
shown any signs of letting her classmates in and the scuttlebutt has gathered steam When Roe shuffles through the halls her classmates aren’t so subtle in their pointing Their voices aren’t so soft and secretive It’s become common news that Roe Danner is the news and no one knows the first thing about her Today Mac travels the hall beside Roe Danner and feels his classmates eyes on the both of them The crowd parts down the middle everyone’s backs against the lockers as they watch Roe and Mac move through the center of the hall Their whispers envelop him and Mac wants all the more to make them stop Mac can’t understand why Roe puts up with it all Why doesn’t she talk to anybody If she doesn’t want to make friends why doesn’t she at least tell people to mind their own business That’s what Mac would do As a reporter for The Coyote Courier the
