Rumor Has It (Chapter 3)

    "Look at this," Madeline demanded, flattening out the school newspaper on the girls' lunch table. "Just look. Look at this."
    Madeline stood up straight as the girls observed the inside of the paper.
    "Mads, it's a newspaper," Lizzie noted.
    "I know what it is!" said Madeline. "I'm talking about the top of page six."
    "It's a picture of you," said Skye. "Big whoop."
    Madeline sat down in her usual spot. "It's not just a picture of me. It's a picture of me hugging Jackson under 'Laguna's Loveliest Lovebirds'."
    "Oh, that's what you're upset about," noticed Debra. "You're still seeing Jackson?"
    "Yes. I mean no!"
    "Then why does page six imply that you're with Jackson?" asked Andrea.
    "I don't know! But I'm not with Jackson."
    "Then why were you hugging him?" questioned Debra.
    "Because we're friends! Can a girl hug a boy?"
    "Sure," replied Skye, "if a girl doesn't mind that the boy's only hugging her just to feel her breasts on his chest."
    "That is not why Jackson was hugging me. He was thanking me for helping him pick flowers for Priya, who thinks I'm cheating on my 'boyfriend' with my boyfriend."
    "I'm not following," admitted Lizzie.
    "Then follow this. All of Homer's friends keep coming up to me, giving me dirty looks and calling me a two-timer. I am a one-timer, thank you very much. That's supposed to me and Homer on page six."
    "Well, who took the picture?" asked Skye.
    "I don't know. That's what driving me so crazy!" Madeline banged on the table. "Someone must've seen us hugging and snapped a picture successfully because our eyes were obviously closed. I don't know if it was one of Jackson's friends; I know it's not you guys. But whoever it is, it's gonna go down."
    "Please. You can't even hurt a fly. Flies hurt you."
    "Does it say who turned in the picture?" asked Andrea.
    "I don't know," responded Madeline. "Let me see." Madeline lowered herself closer to the paper and read the italic note under the text, "Photographs provided by Sady Zealand, Geoff Fowl, and... Pamela McAdams." She growled as she furiously slapped the paper.
    "Figures," said Skye. "Figures, figures, figures."
    "Tramp, tramp, tramp!" Madeline uttered, banging the table three times.
    "Why do those freakin' Cow Belles always have to ruin our lives?"
    "It's not our lives. It's my life."
    "Oh, then we're good."
    "This is some bull crap," commented Andrea. "Do you want me to Picasso their faces up?"
    "You will do nothing to their faces," commanded Debra. "Madeline, this is just one newspaper article."
    "Yeah, but it gives out all these intimate details about me and Jackson that just aren't true. But everyone believes it because it's in here. This is changing my life."
    "It's just one rumor. Don't worry, it will go away."
    After Debra said that, two girls slowly walked past the friends' table. They captured a glimpse of the girls and start gossiping to one another. 
    "There goes the two-timer," said one of the girls.
    "And look," the other girl started, "she's friends with the Latina with the butt pads."
    "And the bulimic and the black stoner."
    "Don't forget the pink-haired witch."
    "Oh, yeah. Let's hurry up; I don't want to walk into some voodoo."
    The two girls sprinted away with the friends watching them go. Then the friends started making shocked faces to themselves. They just couldn't believe what seemed to be everybody was talking about them, especially in the wrong way.
    "I'm about to Picasso four girls," admitted Andrea.