football games or dances or rallies. I felt awkward sitting by myself
when everyone else was with friends. But when I was working for the
Wave, I had a reason to be there. I was on assignment, a member of the
working press, with my notepad in hand and the Minolta around my
neck.
I began going to just about every extracurricular event at the school, and
the kids who shunned me before now accepted me and even sought me
out, posing and clowning in hopes of getting their picture in the paper.
As someone who could make them famous among their peers, I was no
longer a person to be trifled with.
Even though the Wave came out only once a month, I worked on it every
day. Instead of hiding in the bathroom during lunch hour, I spent it in
Miss Bivens's classroom, where I wrote my articles, edited the stories
written by other students, and counted the letters in headlines to make
sure they fit the columns. I finally had a good excuse for why I never ate
lunch. "I'm on deadline," I'd say. I also stayed after school to develop my
photographs in the darkroom, and that had a hidden benefit. I could
sneak into the cafeteria once everyone had left and dig through the
garbage pails. I'd find industrial-sized cans of corn that were nearly full
and huge containers of cole slaw and tapioca pudding. I no longer had to
root through the bathroom wastebaskets for food, and I hardly ever went
hungry again. When I was a junior, Miss Bivens made me the editor in
chief, though the job was supposed to go to a senior. Only a handful of
students wanted to work for the Wave, and I ended up writing so many of
the articles that I abolished bylines; it looked a little ridiculous having
my name appear four times on the front page.
The paper cost fifteen cents, and I sold it myself, going from class to
class and standing in the hallways, hawking it like a newsboy. Welch
High had about twelve hundred students, but we sold only a couple
hundred copies of the paper. I tried various schemes to boost the
circulation: I held poetry competitions, added a fashion column, and