Don't Get Caught (5 page)

“Second period,” Crybaby says. “This was one of the notes I delivered that period. It was in with the others. She told me she didn’t have Max until fourth, but when that happens, I just say to give it to him when he shows up. Mrs. Hansen said she would.”

I’d easily pay a thousand dollars for a picture of the shock on Stranko’s face during Crybaby’s explanation. His mouth is open, but nothing’s coming out.

“You didn’t find this note the least bit suspicious, Max?” Mrs. B asks.

“Why would I? It’s an official pass. Besides, I don’t want to get in any more trouble.”

“What would be the point of having you bring me the trophy?” Stranko says.

“I have no idea. Maybe you thought I’d feel some sort of pride if I carried the trophy and I’d join the team.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Because you told me the other day how much I could learn from the lacrosse team.”

This time, I’d pay two thousand dollars for a picture of Stranko’s face.

“I swear I didn’t write that note, Mrs. B,” I said.

This is the truth.

“Do you have any idea who did?”

“No.”

And this is a lie.

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. If all is going according to plan, Malone has uploaded the contents of Stranko’s memory card to her computer and Wheeler has the phone back on stage. That’s a lot of ifs.

“Max,” Mrs. Barber starts, “this is the second time you’ve fallen for something like this. There’s a fine line between being legitimately tricked and simply being gullible. Your decisions, especially this one, are well on the side of being gullible. You have to be more careful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

Stranko may have a stroke right in front of me.

“However, it sounds like you and Mr. Adleta caused quite an unnecessary scene, and that can’t be dismissed as easily. What do you think, Mr. Stranko? Does a day of in-school suspension seem fair?”

Stranko shakes his head.

“I want him gone for a week at least.”

“That may be a bit much,” she says. “What about work crew instead? They wrecked part of the school; they’ll clean part of the school. We’ll make the punishment fit the crime.”

“Fine,” he spits. “But we add Dave Wheeler to that list too.”

“That’s fine. And I’ll have to call your parents about this, Max. They are in town this time, right?”

“Yeah, but here,” I say and pull out a pen. “Can I have one of those Post-its?”

On it, I write Mom’s and Dad’s work numbers. Another day of the school calling the unmanned phone in the church nursery is just asking for trouble.

“You can get them at those numbers. They’re usually not home until late.”

“Thank you, Max,” Mrs. B says. “You both can go. Thanks for your help, Ellie.”

“No problem, Mrs. Barber.”

We walk out of the office and into the hall, and it’s only when we’re around the corner that the both of us break into hysterics.

Step Four: the Getaway. Complete.

“The
Ocean’s Eleven
team couldn’t have done it any smoother,” Ellie says.

“You were quite the actress, Crybaby,” I tell her.

“No, Crybaby was a one-timer. Call me Puma.”

“What?”

“Puma. That’s my official code name. And you’re Mongoose.”

“I thought I was the Bleeder.”

“That’s for today only. You’re Mongoose from here on out.”

It’s a lot catchier than Not Max. And hell, Ellie can call me Bloody Diarrhea for all I care.

“So, Puma, huh?”

“And don’t you forget it,” Ellie says.

Before I can respond, she goes on her tiptoes and kisses me on the cheek.

“Gotta get to class,” she says and, catlike, is gone.

“So what can we steal next?”

Ellie’s question, of course.

The five of us are debriefing—something that occurs in every heist film after a mission is complete and everyone is back at headquarters. In this case, headquarters is my basement seven hours following the Stranko Caper, and the debriefing is more of a celebration than a review of the heist.

“Dude, the way we pulled that off, could you imagine the epic pranks we could do if we really were in the Chaos Club? No one could stop us,” Wheeler says.

“Yeah, we’re the ones who should’ve been in the Chaos Club,” I say.

“And Stranko never saw any of it coming,” Malone says. “I watched all of it from the back of the cafeteria, and no one had any idea what was going on. It was amazing. Tim tackled you so hard I thought you were dead.”

“My ribs are still killing me,” I say.

“Sorry,” Adleta says.

“No, I just wish I could’ve seen what happened after you took me out.”

“Yeah, you missed Wheeler gank the phone,” Malone says. “I swear he could be a professional thief, the pickup was so smooth.”

“Because he threw me right into it,” Wheeler says.

“Again, sorry,” Adleta says.

Malone continues, “When Wheeler dropped the phone in my lap, I got so paranoid, I put it up my shirt so no one would see it.”

“That’s so hot,” Wheeler says.

Malone laughs and hands him a small black box the size of a deck of cards, the phone-cloning device he borrowed from a friend on H8box.

“And this thing is great. Dangerous but great. It downloaded everything in about a minute,” Malone says.

“So no problems?” I say.

“No problems.”

“And no problems getting the phone back to the stage?” I ask Wheeler.

“Nope.”

“Aww, I feel like I missed all the fun,” Ellie says.

“No, you were great,” Adleta says. “I watched you crying at your table and really thought you were upset. If you hadn’t pulled that off, the plan wouldn’t have worked.”

“Thanks, but next time I want to do something more dangerous.”

“No problem,” I say. “Adleta can Hulk-smash you, and I’ll get to stay in one piece.”

“Deal,” Ellie says.

Having everyone here has calmed me down. From the moment I got home, I’ve imagined answering the front door and Stranko Tasering me before hauling me off to jail, where real criminals perform unspeakable acts on me. Of course, if Stranko does show up, he’ll have to get in line behind my parents, who have grounded me for a week after talking to Mrs. B. I didn’t argue the punishment and kept quiet throughout the
you’ve got to use your head better
lecture. The only reason they let me have the others over tonight is that I used the magic words: class project. If you haven’t learned yet, starting a sentence with “I have this big class project…” hypnotizes parents to immediately let you do whatever you ask—break curfew, fire a bazooka, buy a monkey online, you name it.

And a quick word on my parents: If you’re hoping for
A Child Called “It”
–like abuse or emotional scars that’ll have me seeing a team of psychiatrists through adulthood, you’ll be disappointed. My parents are smart, mostly calm, and—I say this with some guilt—trusting. Dad’s a news producer at Channel 4 (“Your home for hometown news!”), and Mom works for an agency finding jobs for people who don’t have them. The worst thing I can say about them is they’ve raised a revenge-driven teenager who’s secretly plotting to ruin lives. But isn’t everyone doing that?

“Did you guys bring what I asked?” Malone says.

We all fish into our pockets for flash drives while on the couch Malone fires up her laptop. Her wallpaper is a girl in black boots, black-and-white striped tights, and a black dress who’s spray-painting “Riots, Not Diets” on a brick wall. All of us, even Adleta, crowd around her.

“Okay, so there’s good news and bad news,” Malone says. “The bad news is there really wasn’t anything helpful in the phone’s memory. A bunch of sports news apps, all the Angry Birds games—which, weird, right?—and zero photos. He’s completely boring.”

“But we saw him take pictures,” Ellie says.

“And he’s on that phone all the time,” Adleta adds.

“Which leads me to the good news,” Malone says. “There’s nothing on his phone because he stores everything in his cloud, and I downloaded everything in there.”

“Have you looked through it yet?” I ask.

“I skimmed it, but I didn’t have the time to read it all. It would take a week.”

“That long?”

“
Obsesssive
’s the word I’d use to describe it.”

Once the files are transferred, I see what Malone means. On my laptop, the folder labeled Chaos Club expands into five subfolders: History, Evidence, Witnesses, Suspects, and Pictures. A quick scroll through each reveals at least seven hundred files total.

“See what I mean?” Malone says. “It’s way too much for any one person to sift through.”

“I’ll do it,” Ellie says. “I don’t really have the time, but I’ll make it. I want the Chaos Club dead.”

It’s the harshest I’ve ever heard Ellie sound. She must see the look I give her because she says, “No, it’s true. And not just for the water tower, but for last year. I couldn’t care less about them calling my dad a Nazi. I might even agree with them. But kids are still doing that whole
Seig Heil
thing to me in the hall. Someone even keyed a swastika into my car door last week. We had it buffed out, but the outline is still there. I mean, it’s bad enough being known as a goody-goody, there’s not much I can do about that, but I’m being blamed for something I wasn’t a part of. No one hears the fights I get into with my dad about censorship or how the earth isn’t only six thousand years old or how we should be teaching more than abstinence in health class, but I also have to deal with finding pictures of Hitler in my locker. I blame the Chaos Club for all that.”

An awkward silence falls on the room until Malone says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“None of you would,” Ellie says. “You’re not people who would do that. But the ones who would and do need to pay.”

A moment later, a muffled ring tone sounds out. Wheeler fishes into his jacket pocket with his left hand and the ringing stops.

But in his right hand, Wheeler’s still holding his cell phone.

So two phones?

Malone and I understand at the same time.

She grabs Wheeler’s left hand before he can pull it from his pocket.

“Hey, wait,” he says.

Malone goes into attack mode, practically climbing onto Wheeler to get at his jacket pocket. He struggles, pinning his hand against the opening, but Malone pinches his earlobe between two fingernails. Wheeler lets out a shriek that would make a six-year-old girl proud and jerks his hand from his pocket to cover his ear.

Malone thrusts her hand into his pocket, and a second later she’s holding up the hidden phone.

Stranko’s phone.

“You idiot,” Malone says.

“Look, I know it looks bad, but there were too many teachers around, and I got to thinking about the damage we could do, so…” Wheeler trails off.

“So you kept it,” Malone finishes, pissed.

“We’re screwed,” Adleta says.

“Look, it wasn’t my plan to keep the phone, but I couldn’t get it back to the table and thought about leaving it in the bathroom or something, but then I got to thinking—”

“Which is never a good sign,” I say.

“—that everything’s on here,” Wheeler says. “Malone’s right—there’s nothing about the Chaos Club on the phone, but his contact list is a gold mine. It’s all here—Stranko’s home phone number, address, teacher’s numbers, people he emails, everything.”

“I downloaded all that too,” Malone says.

“Yeah, but this is his
phone
. We can call from it or send texts; they’ll all look like they’re coming from Stranko.”

“Until he has his service discontinued,” I say.

“But until then, think of the havoc we could unleash. You don’t blow an opportunity like this. That guy’s been a pain in the ass for years. We have an obligation to every kid he’s terrorized. His balls are ours now. We need to squeeze them until they explode.”

“Ewww,” Ellie says.

“You have to get rid of that,” I say. “If you get caught with it, you’ll get expelled. And once he figures out how you got it, we’ll be expelled too.”

“Dude, he’s not going to find out. I disabled Find My Phone and turned off the location services. I’m not dumb enough to bring it to school either.”

“But you are dumb enough to walk around with it,” Malone says.

“That was just for tonight. I was going to show all of you that I had it. Seriously, I’m going to hide it in my house tonight. Come on, trust me. We might need it later. Besides, he uses a cloud app for storage. If he discovers anything new about the Chaos Club, it’ll upload into the cloud. It’s like having access to his brain.”

“And if he changes the password?” Adleta asks.

“Then the phone is useless and I get rid of it. But that’s a big
if
. I doubt Stranko thinks someone stole his phone. He probably just thinks he left it somewhere.”

“He’s not stupid,” Adleta warns. “An asshole, yes, but not stupid. I’ve known him too long. We can’t underestimate him.”

“Tim’s right,” Malone says. “We need to be careful with Stranko. Ever since this started, I’ve been thinking a lot about him. I don’t think he knows how awful he is. In his mind, I’ll bet he believes he’s helping the school by being such a tight ass that discipline keeps things under control. It’s like when we read
The Lord of the Flies
our freshman year; none of those kids thought they were doing the wrong thing, even though they were. I think Stranko’s just doing what he thinks is best for the school.”

“Like that’s an excuse for being a prick,” Wheeler says.

“It’s not, but it explains him maybe.”

Ellie looks up from my laptop which she’s been reading something on and says, “Did you see this other subfolder hidden in Pictures? It has all the school’s information. It has the administrative handbook, security codes, emergency procedures, even an insanely detailed map. This could come in handy.”

“I’ll take a handy,” Wheeler says.

“Again, ewww.”

I look over Ellie’s shoulder at the file she’s talking about. She’s right—it has everything you could want to know about the inner workings of Asheville High School. And to think we didn’t even have to break into an architect’s office to steal the original blueprints. God bless technology.

“Holy shit!” Wheeler says, leaping to his feet a couple minutes later. “You’re not going to believe this one. History, 1989. Oh man.”

“That’s when my parents graduated,” I say.

“Well, wait till you see.”

My fingers fly over the screen until I come across the 1989 folder. The print is so small I have to squint:

Friday, May 19th

Senior Picnic Bird Attack

During tug-of-war on the all-purpose field, a whistle sounded and a flock of birds flew out of Johnson's Woods and descended on the picnic, flying everywhere and relieving themselves on everyone.

“Yuck,” Ellie says.

“No, it’s get better,” Wheeler says. “Open the picture.”

Thirty seconds later, all of us are laughing as hard as Wheeler. A blur of birds fills the screen, their white bird shit streaking down the kids’ shirts and matting their hair. Students run around as if caught in the middle of a bombing run. But it’s the guy standing in the middle of the photo with his head shit splattered as he swings at passing birds that make this the single greatest photo in the history of mankind.

Stranko.

“T-shirts,” Wheeler says, borderline hyperventilating. “We need to make T-shirts.”

“And rent a billboard,” Adleta adds.

It’s not a bad idea. What I really want to know though is how they pulled off a prank like that. And I have a good idea who to ask. Uncle Boyd.

“So where do we go from here?” Malone soon asks. “How does this help us find the Chaos Club?”

“Because it’s information. And yeah, the Chaos Club is anonymous. We know that. But what if we make them find us instead?” I say.

“I think they already did that, dude,” Wheeler says.

“That’s not what I mean. What’s cool about the Chaos Club is you never know when they’re going to strike next. That’s probably why they’ve never been caught. They’re usually good for a few pranks a year and always one at the end of the year, but what if they suddenly started doing more?”

“Why would they do that?” Adleta said.

“They wouldn’t.”

“So then what’s your point?”

“The five of us pretend to be the Chaos Club,” Malone says, sitting up. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? You want us to pull pranks too.”

“That’s the idea.”

“What will pulling pranks help?” Wheeler asks. “The goal is to find out who they are and destroy them, not do their work for them. Why make them even bigger heroes than they already are?”

Adleta gets it now too.

“Oh, you don’t want us to just pull pranks—you want us to pull bad pranks, ones that would make the administration have to act. Is that it?”

“Yeah, I got the idea in Watson’s class the other day when he said sometimes it’s good for symbols to be torn down. I started thinking, what if we hijack the Chaos Club—their ideas, their websites, even their cards—until they finally have to show themselves? They’ve lived in the shadows for almost forty years. There’s no way they’re going to sit by and let us pretend we
are
the Chaos Club. They’ll be forced to respond too, like the administration. Either way, it’ll make things happen.”

Everyone goes quiet thinking this over. I’ll admit the plan’s not foolproof—the Chaos Club could just ignore us and then we’re putting ourselves at risk for no reason—but it’s not an awful plan either.

“I like it,” Wheeler says. “Destruction for a good cause. I’m in.”

“What sort of pranks do you have in mind?” Adleta asks.

“Whatever gets their attention, especially anything dumb, elaborate, or over the top. The Chaos Club prides itself on quality. I’m sure the five of us can come up with some stupid pranks to draw them out or pranks where the administration would have to act.”