The Muckracker's Tale

Epilogue

And that, more or less, was how The Whitehall Times became a permanent part of the school.

It wasn’t easy. I wrote the story — a detailed exposé of Juliet, who was never seen again after her family withdrew her before she could be expelled — and printed it for everyone to read. It seemed, for a time, as though everyone wanted to become a reporter, submitting stories and ideas for stories and articles on subjects from the sensible to the mind-numbingly boring. I had problems sorting out the truly interested from those who just wanted to jump on the bandwagon — ironically, Juliet’s first-year accomplice became one of the former — and wound up assigning make-work tasks in a bid to keep staff numbers manageable. We went back and forth from one edition a week to three a week and then back again, as sales went up in the wake of the scandal before falling back to their original levels.

But hey, we could support ourselves. I never had to ask for money from the school.

It wasn’t so easy for me either. Everyone knew what I’d done to make sure no one could bury the truth and whispers followed me wherever I went, both about the streaking and about how I’d spied on Juliet’s meetings. My father was proud of me — he understood how far one had to go, sometimes, to get the truth out — but everyone else? Not so much. I was in the odd position of being both adored and admired and yet shunned and loathed, a person everyone wanted to know and yet didn’t want anywhere near them. They invited me to their gatherings and yet kept their mouths firmly closed, whenever I was near. It shouldn’t have surprised me — my father got the same treatment, in town — and yet it did.

They’re happy I exposed Juliet as a cheating fraud, I thought sourly, one evening. A great many things had happened, between then and now, yet my treatment hadn’t changed. But they’re also concerned about what I might expose about them.

And they gave me a nickname, one I wore as a badge of honour.

Muckraker.