Crossing the Line

Jules Kendall is heartbroken. Ever since Buck broke up with her, she has been drifting through her days in a fog, eating nothing but hummus, playing the same sad song on repeat, and shuffling off to school in bunny slippers. Her older stepsister and guardian, Connie, is desperate to help her open up, and she brainstorms ideas with her roommate Jillian, who is secretly working as an agent (Jules still believes Jillian just does antique pickups for Jason and gets lost on the way home). But nothing works. Even Connie's carefully planned breakup-grieving night, complete with ice cream, candy, tissues, and a wall plaque of Psalm 71:3, falls flat when the salty chips and sappy movies only remind Jules of Buck, and she retreats to her room. Connie sighs, "I feel like I'm failing at sistering."

At school, things get worse. Jules learns that Bridget Perkins's band has been chosen to open for the Smelly Pirates, a gig Jules's own band lost when their member Raz landed on house arrest. Stung, Jules accuses Bridget of stealing the spot, and Bridget fires back with a challenge: they will see who gets picked to sing with the school jazz band. That is when Valerie Swanson slinks in with an offer. She and Jules can't stand each other, but they both dislike Bridget more, so why not team up to give Bridget a taste of her own medicine? Jules agrees, on the condition that afterward they can go back to despising each other.

Valerie's scheme uses smoke bombs. Since auditions run alphabetically, Jules can finish her own audition, slip out, sneak back in through a prop garage Valerie leaves open, and set off a smoke bomb backstage to rattle Bridget, who famously falls apart when she is startled. The plan goes wildly wrong. The smoke bombs fill the auditorium, students scream that there is a fire, the whole school evacuates, and Mrs. Porter discovers Jules standing backstage. In Principal Solly's office, Jules claims it was an accident, refuses to name a partner in crime, and receives a three-day suspension. Solly leaves a voicemail for Connie asking her to call back and confirm she received the news.

Instead of coming clean, Jules digs deeper. She and Valerie rush to Whit's End, where Valerie distracts Connie with fussy questions about organic berries and nut milks while Jules swipes Connie's phone from the back room and deletes the principal's message. Valerie then leaves a fake voicemail, posing as a new world history teacher named Ms. Brunswick, claiming Jules merely has some late assignments and asking Connie to phone the office after hours to tell Principal Solly she got the message. The trick works perfectly. Connie gently encourages Jules about her homework and leaves Solly a vague, cheerful voicemail, never suspecting a thing.

Pleased with their teamwork, Valerie decides to skip school and join Jules on her secret suspension. "What are non-friends for?" she says. They plan to stake out a recording studio in Connellsville to catch a glimpse of Flying Poets, a band Jules loves. But when Valerie's car breaks down the next morning, the girls use Jules's emergency spare keys to borrow Connie's car from the Campbell College parking lot, counting on Connie being in class all day.

The stolen day is a blast, complete with pad thai and two cute band members. Then, on the drive back, Jules hits a parked car, and not just any car: a police car. Panicked, the girls refuse to even get out where security cameras might see them. Valerie insists the camera can't have caught the license plate, and they cook up one more cover-up: since Connie often forgets to set her parking brake, and her car was parked on an incline, they will return it and let Connie believe it rolled and dented itself. Insurance will cover it, Valerie reasons, so no one is out anything. They drive away from the scene.

Back in the parking lot, the furious officer whose brand-new car was hit orders his partner, Burke, to pull all the security footage and calls in the hit-and-run, vowing to put everyone on the case. The story ends on his ominous promise: "No one gets away with hitting my car!"