Family Ties

Alex passionately wants to be the Editor of his school newspaper, The Harding Hurrah. But he must first be elected by the newspaper staff. Evidently, this is more accurately a confirmatory vote, as Alex was running unopposed. And he was confirmed by a 21-17 vote, as 17 people including his sister Mallory voted "Not him."

But Alex's vision for the direction of the paper conflicts with the vision of Faculty Advisor, Mr. Winkler. Mr. Winkler prefers that the newspaper stay low-key, but Alex intends to inaugurate the newspaper's hard-hitting approach by renaming it The Harding Herald. For no other serious newspaper is named Hurrah. Mr. Winkler is proud of last year's lead story, Math Team Gets New Sweat Suits. But Alex seeks something along the lines of scandal and cover-up.

Alex gets his desire, as fellow-student Howie Samuels is aware of a cheating scandal, and a cover-up by the Principal, Dr. Schulte. 27 students had purchased an advance copy of an algebra test. Now Harding High School had the highest Grade Point Average in the district, and such a scandal would have caused Harding to forfeit that status. Since the Dr. Schulte's side is never presented, we don't know if he was truly covering up, or if he was in the process of investigating, in order to act more deliberately. But with Howie working part-time in the Principal's office, Alex had all the details he needed to proceed, including names.

One of the names was his sister, Mallory. Mallory didn't purchase the test directly. But since Ralph Rappaport, the ring-leader, likes Mallory, she was granted a free copy, and scored an undeserved A. It's not that Alex wanted to expose his sister, but he similarly had no desire to kill a story for the purpose of protecting her. Mallory urges Alex not to publish it, and Steven and Elyse walk in. Without revealing the details of the story, Mallory and Alex plead their respective case to their parents. Though Mallory pleads that people would get hurt if Alex publishes, Steven likens this potential impact to Woodward and Bernstein publishing the account of the Watergate cover-up, notwithstanding some got hurt. Truth is the highest standard in newspaper reporting.

Alex authors the story, and Mr. Winkler loves Alex's journalism. But the story conflicts with Mr. Winkler's goal of keeping the Hurrah low key. He orders Alex not to publish, and walks away. Notwithstanding, Alex publishes, for the story aligns with the truth – the highest standard in journalism.

The principal was livid. He spent two hours yelling at Alex, and then had his secretary yell at Alex as the principal took a break. Mr. Winkler lost the power of speech, though he managed the words to fire Alex. Mallory is incensed, and his fellow students all hate him.

Steven and Elyse have two problems: Alex for publishing names, and Mallory for cheating. For Mallory's part, she acted in rebellion to having to live up to the expectations Alex had set for the Keaton name. Without cheating, Mallory would have received a C, and Alex had received straight A's since sandbox. Mallory wanted just once to match Alex.

Mallory has no desire to talk to Alex, but Jennifer tricks her into granting him access to her room. Alex offers to help Mallory in Algebra, but Mallory is afraid Alex will laugh at her – and for good reason: he will. They agree to work on a sample question together. True to form, Alex solves the question in his head, while Mallory demands to know some rather obscure and irrelevant details of the question before she was willing to seek a solution. As Mallory rambles on, Alex walks out unnoticed.