Diary of a 6th Grade Ninja (a hilarious adventure for children ages 9-12) (5 page)

Thursday. 10:35 AM. Gym class.

Zoe and I sprinted toward the wooded area on the track as
soon as we exited the gymnasium doors. Mr. Cooper had his sunglasses on and was
lying back in a reclining lawn chair just to the right of the exit. His air
horn was sitting on the ground next to him. It was the fourth day I’ve been in
this school, and this was the position I was used to seeing him in.
Lazy and uncaring.
I think I’ll be a gym teacher when I get
older.

Once we entered the trees, the ninjas were
there
waiting for us. I guess there wasn’t any reason to
sneak up or anything since we had an appointment.

The shortest of the ninjas stepped forward. “I assume you both
have your clovers, otherwise it would be pea-brained of you to return here.”

At the same time, Zoe and I held out our four leafed
clovers.

“Excellent,” said the ninja. “
Eat
them.”

Did he just say what I think he said? Was this kid crazy?
But when I looked at Zoe, she was already chewing on hers. There was no way I’d
be shown up by my cousin so I popped the thing into my mouth and started going
to town on it. At first, I expected the taste of dirt and grass, but was
actually surprised. It wasn’t half bad! It was sort of tart and bitter. It’s
possible that I’d even try it again someday.

“Sick!” the ninja said with a laugh. “I can’t believe you
guys did that!”

Zoe stopped chewing and looked angry. She spit out the
clover and stepped toward the small ninja. “I’m about to make you eat a
mouthful of grass, you little—”

The ninja put his hands up, chuckling. “Wait, wait! I’m
sorry. It’s
cool,
you guys are in the clan. Seriously,
you’re
in
.”

Zoe perked up. “Really? Because you just made me
eat
a clover.”

I don’t know why Zoe minded. I was still chewing on mine.
“So we’re in?”

The ninja pulled the black mask off his face. I gulped the
clover down as soon as I recognized the kid – it was Wyatt, the short guy
we saw standing alone the other day.

“Wyatt?” Zoe asked. “
You’re
the ninja leader?”

“I am,” he said nodding. “And the two of you are our newest
recruits.”

 
I almost jumped
with joy, but I’m not so sure a ninja would hop up and down when they were
happy. “
Nice
,” I said. “So what’s next?”

Wyatt walked past us. The other ninjas remained in place in
the woods, watching as he neared the edge and continued speaking. “Now there’s
just
one
more test to pass.”

“But you just said we were in,” Zoe grunted with her arms
folded. “
In
is
in
, isn’t it?”

“
Sorta
,” Wyatt said as he parted
some leaves. “But you have to show your allegiance to the clan so that we know
you’re dead serious.”

Oh no. This is what I feared. He was going to have us
kill
someone.

“You must perform a final task,” Wyatt said, studying the
other students walking the track on the outside of the woods. “One that’s
incriminating
.”

“I don’t think I can kill anyone,” I whispered.

Wyatt looked over his shoulder at me. “Are you
nuts
?
Kill
someone? What’s the matter with you?”

I stared at the ground, embarrassed of opening my big mouth.
As I kicked at the dirt, I whispered, “It was a joke.”

Wyatt shook his head in disbelief. “
Doubt
it,” he
said as he returned his attention to the innocent bystanders walking the track.
“There’s no killing here. Come on,
we’re sixth graders
.”

“Then what is it?” Zoe asked.

Wyatt pointed his finger at one of the girls on the track.
She was walking with her friends. A purple and pink purse was slung from her
shoulder. “Steal Emily’s purse and return it to me within the hour.”

Zoe joined Wyatt at his side. “
What
? You want us to
steal Emily’s purse? Are
you
nuts? We’re not stealing anything from
anyone! Besides, those girls are my friends!”

Wyatt turned around and looked at me. “Then the two of you
are dismissed. Leave this place at once.”

I sighed, looking at my cousin. She was standing with her
hands on her hips – the usual “you’ve got to be kidding me” look in her
eyes. It’s a look I’m familiar with. I didn’t want to argue with her, so I
didn’t, but she must’ve seen my hesitation.

“Fine,” she said softly. She was doing it for me.

“Excellent,” said Wyatt as he slipped his mask back on.

“So where’s our black pajamas that we wear since we’re
ninjas?” I asked.

Wyatt shook his head and spoke from behind the fabric on his
face. “You get those
after
you return with the purse.”

“After?” Zoe asked.

This was going to be more difficult than I thought.

Wyatt and the clan disappeared from behind us. Zoe and I
waited until Emily and her friends made a full lap around the track so they
were right in front of us again. I could see her purple purse swinging gently
over her should. The strap was short. It wouldn’t be as easy as sneaking it off
her arm.

“What do you think?” I asked Zoe.

“I think I’m
gonna
be sick,” she replied.

She can be such a drama queen. “Thank you for going along
with this.”

She rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure I’m already regretting
it.”

I straightened my posture, feeling guilty about Zoe’s
involvement. I started to talk, to tell her she could back out of it if she
wanted, but she interrupted me.

“Look!” she cried as she pointed. “They’re taking a break in
the grass! She put her purse on the ground!”

When I looked out, I saw that Zoe was right. Emily was
laying on her back along with her friends. They were staring at the clouds or
something, I couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing, but I didn’t care. The
purse was free from her shoulder.

“Follow my lead,” Zoe said as she burst through the tree
line.

I jumped through, trying to keep up, but she was fast! She
sprinted like some kind of gazelle running from a predator! What was she going
to do? Was she just going to snatch the purse and run like heck? I’m pretty
sure those girls would notice something as obvious as that and, wait a second.
Was she going to use
me
as a distraction?

My heart started to race as I saw the whole disaster play
out in my head. She would scrape the purse off the ground. Just as the girls
would notice, I’d suddenly appear, hobbling like a penguin because I suck at
running. In all the chaos, they would see me as the bad guy and since I’m
pretty slow,
I’d
be the one those lions would devour.
How could Zoe
do such a thing to me
?

I watched as my cousin finally made it to her group of
friends. My heart stopped as I waited for her to grab the purse, but to my
surprise, she didn’t. Instead, she tripped just as she reached the circle and
tumbled across the grass violently until finally flopping about ten feet away
from them.

And then I realized her brilliance. Zoe’s friends dashed to
her aid as she clutched at her scraped knees. They were so concerned with her
that they left all their belongings behind in the grass. There were shoes with
socks stuffed into them, stretchy hair bands, and one lonely purple and pink
purse. Emily had left without it.

I grabbed it while watching Zoe and her
friends
talk in the grass. She glanced over at me and winked. I nodded at her before
sprinting back to the woods as quickly as my scrawny legs could carry me.

When I hopped through the trees, Wyatt was waiting for me
all by himself. The clan was nowhere to be seen.

“Well done,” he said as he held his hands out.

I dropped Emily’s purse into his palms. “So that’s it?”

His mask moved as he spoke. “That’s it.”

Suddenly Zoe stepped into the woods, joining us. Her faced
looked like
she had been slapped around by the dirt fairy
.
It even looked like her lip was bloody. Man, had she gotten into a fight since
I last saw her talking to her friends?

“Happy?” she asked.

“Quite,” Wyatt answered. His eyes looked piercing from the
ninja mask surrounding them. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one! The mask,
I mean… not his
eyes
. For the record, I had no intention of getting my
hands on one of his eyes.

Wyatt opened the purse and dumped the contents onto the
ground. Zoe clenched her fists in anger.

“Why would you do that?” She asked. “Why not just take what
you want and leave the rest somewhere she could find it?”

Wyatt chuckled. “Because that’s silly. The point of stealing
it is that it’s ours to do what we want with it.”

My cousin stared at the short ninja. I thought time had
stopped because of how thick the tension was. I was waiting for her to throw a
punch at him. She tended to do things like that when she was angry.

“I’m out,” she said, raising her palms. “This is making me
feel like throwing up.”

“You can’t just leave now, sweetheart!” Wyatt sneered.
“You’re a member of the clan and guilty of theft! If you leave, we’ll make sure
you regret it!”

The rest of the ninja clan started stepping out from behind
the trees. Many of the ninjas were pulling their masks back over their faces.
Their eyes looked angry.

“Whatever,” Zoe said as she stepped through the trees. From
the other side of the foliage, she spoke to me. “You
comin
’
or what?”

I looked at Wyatt who was still holding Emily’s purse. The
ninja was calmly staring at me, shaking his head slowly. It was one of the
hardest things I’ve said in my life. “Sorry, Zoe. I think I’ll stay here.”

Friday. 9:30 AM. Art
class.

I got to school late this morning, and it wasn’t by
accident. All night, my stomach had twisted and turned from not only stealing a
girl’s purse, but also betraying my own cousin. My parents didn’t seem to
notice, but my sister sure did. She was nice about it, not by asking what was
wrong, but hanging out with me while I wasted time playing video games.

When I woke up, I acted sick. My mom bought it for a little
bit, at least enough to skip homeroom. But when she caught me out of bed and
playing basketball in my driveway, she took me straight to school. She barely
gave me time to get ready! I arrived for second period art class, but with
messed up hair.

When I walked into class, I expected Zoe to scold me, but it
was worse than that. She completely
ignored
me. I know she saw me walk
into the room – everyone did and made fun of my hair. But she just sat at
her desk with her watercolors painting unicorns or something.

When I looked at her canvas, I saw that she was painting
flowers. I was wrong about the unicorns.

“Hey,” I said.

She didn’t answer.

“Hey Chase,” said
Brayden
. The
desks in the room were separated into clumps of four. He was in the clump
behind Zoe’s.

“Hi,” I said, unenthusiastically.

He switched from his clump of desks to the one Zoe was at.
“Did you hear about the food drive money?”

I had only gotten to school so I hadn’t heard about
anything
yet. “No. What about it?”

“It’s
gone
,”
Brayden
said.
“The container is completely
empty
.”

“What are you talking about? That thing was filled with cash
and sitting in the front office! Somebody stole it?”

“
Just
the money. The container’s still there, and
nobody knows who did it,”
Brayden
said.

I felt that same sick feeling roll around in my guts. I had
to take a seat and breathe slowly through my nose. I didn’t know what it meant,
but I had my suspicions. And from the looks of it, Zoe did too.

“Anyway,”
Brayden
continued.
“That’s that, so you’re all caught up in case you see a mountain of cash
sitting somewhere.”

I watched in silence as he returned to his seat.

“Happy with your new friends?” Zoe asked. She wasn’t even
trying to hide her sarcasm.

I didn’t want to make excuses. “I’m sorry about yesterday.
Really
.”

“
Really
?”

“
Really
!”

Zoe tapped the water off her paintbrush and set it on a wet
paper towel next to her canvas. “So you quit then, hmm?”

I didn’t answer.

“You’ve quit, and you also returned Emily’s purse, right?”
Zoe asked. The way she
rose
her voice grated on me.

“Well,
no
,” I whispered.

“Of course not,” Zoe said. “You know how I know?
Because she called me last night wondering if I had seen it
anywhere.
You know what I had to do then?”

I took a breath. I remember it being the longest pause in
the history of all pauses. “What?”

She leaned over and whispered. “I
lied
to her.”

That was it. If she was going to give me a guilt trip, I
didn’t have to take it. “I didn’t
ask
you to lie! You could’ve told her
the truth!”

“That I
helped
you steal it?” she whispered coarsely.
“Yeah, right. And commit social suicide? Forever to be branded as a
klepto
?”

“Whatever, Zoe. You
knew
what you were doing.”

I could hear her teeth grinding. “That I was helping my
cousin fit in at a school he was new at? That I felt so bad for him because
he’s such a
dork
that I couldn’t stand to watch him be
alone
?”

I nodded my head, destroyed by what she said. “
There
it is.”

“There
what
is?”

“The truth. You’ve finally revealed how you really feel
about it,” I said, surprised by the shaking in my own voice. “Well you don’t
have to worry about it anymore. I guess I’ll leave you alone forever then.
Happy?”

Ah, the classic guilt trip. I was good at those. Now I only
had to a wait a few seconds for her apology. And in three… two… one…

“
Good
!” she said as she stood from her desk. She
stormed up to the art teacher. He handed her a hall pass, and she disappeared
out the door.

And there I sat, smug smile on my face, waiting for an
apology that wasn’t going to be delivered anytime soon.

I’d never felt so stupid in my life.