Pickle (8 page)

“Monday's gonna rock. Even if the new girl doesn't like it, it will still be fun,” I said, but I hoped she would.

 

18

Sienna's Surprise

Oliver and I carried four beer boxes full of chips, grapes, and three-dozen chocolate chip cupcakes with vanilla frosting and sprinkles to school on Monday morning. I snagged the boxes from the restaurant to be covert and disguise the party supplies. You couldn't tell what we had inside the boxes at all. I couldn't wait to tell Frank about my smooth undercover moves, until we got to the steps of the school and I realized that a couple of kids carrying boxes of beer into the school looked way more suspicious than cupcakes.

Bean sat cross-legged in the hall in her red “Stand Back” overalls waiting for us. She had a couple of big blue plastic bags that said Lee's Costume & Party in swirly letters on the side and the official party policy notice from Frank. It said student birthdays were “occasions to celebrate developing maturity” and that teachers should allow enough time before class to enjoy the “celebratory atmosphere provided by a carefully selected party-planning committee.” It was signed by Principal Lebonsky at the bottom, but I think the smiley face over the first
i
was pushing our luck. Frank added a P.S. that the new policy was not open to discussion, which was a nice touch. Less chance that Ms. Ruiz would call the office.

“Is the door locked?” I whispered.

“I don't know, I didn't try it,” Bean whispered back.

“What do we tell Ms. Ruiz, if she's in there?”

“She won't be in there,” Bean said.

“You don't know.”

Bean reached for the door. I noticed some fresh scratches on her arm that were probably courtesy of Catboy.

“Eager beavers, early birds!” Pat the secretary's voice echoed through the empty hall and all three of us spun around like disco dancers at a club called Panic. Cold sweat popped out of my forehead. I could not have been more freaked out if she had a ski mask and said it was a stickup.

She stood smiling behind us holding a purple purse and a box of file folders. “Good morning, you three! Whatcha got there?” She nodded toward the boxes Oliver and I still held. Bean had Principal Lebonsky's “memo” behind her back.

“Um, costumes? We're doing a skit based on a Greek myth,” Oliver said. I held back a groan. What if she asked to see the costumes? He could have just said decorations and she probably wouldn't have asked any more questions. I wondered if she could see my heart beating.

“Ben is the kraken,” Bean said. “I'm Aphrodite. And Oliver is, um, a hippocampus.”

“Hippo what?” Oliver said, and Bean elbowed him.

“I don't think I know that one,” Pat said. “Anyway, it's nice to see students eager to entertain their classmates.”

“That we are,” Oliver said. “We even made a little dance number.” Pat's eyebrows went up.
Too much
, I thought.
He better have some
Hello, Dolly!
dance ready because I am a boy without rhythm.

“I'll let you get to it. Have fun, kiddos!” She continued down the hall to the office. I leaned my head on the door and took a deep breath. I balanced the boxes on my knee and pulled on the door handle. It opened without any resistance. The classroom was dark and empty. Bean opened and closed the door a couple more times and bent over to inspect the doorknob.

“Clever Agent Fix-it,” she said. Frank had taped the latch down with clear packing tape. The door closed and looked normal, but even with the lock button pushed in the latch was stuck in the door and all you had to do was pull. He was good.

We peeled the tape off and ducked into the classroom, locking the door behind us. I closed the blinds over the windows, so nobody outside could see what we were doing. Bean cleared off some books in the middle of Ms. Ruiz's desk and propped the memo up where she would see it first thing. I hoped they'd never dust it for fingerprints.

“Check it out,” Bean said, and took the party loot out of the bags.

“Huh,” Oliver said.

“What's wrong?” Bean asked.

“I didn't know they made brown streamers,” Oliver said.

“They make all colors. The brown was on sale.”

“No kidding,” he said. Bean stopped taking things out of the bags and crossed her arms.

“Did you actually pay for these?” he asked.

“No, I don't buy things from our own store. But I don't want to steal the best stuff. They can sell it. And they'd notice,” Bean said.

“What else do you have?”

“There are some green streamers, too. And plates and napkins and stuff,” she said.

“Fine, where are the balloons?”

“In the bag.”

“We have to blow them up? Why didn't you do it with the machine?”

“Oh, I don't know. I thought a bunch of balloons might be a little conspicuous. Besides, the store doesn't open until nine, and the tank is noisy.”

“All right, I'm sorry,” Oliver said. “Wait—the plates say Year of the Pig! We can't use these. She'll think we're calling her a pig!” I grabbed a pack of balloons and started blowing.

“They're from Chinese New Year, goober. I had to get stuff from the clearance bins. I can't just grab
anything
.” Oliver complained again until Bean pushed him away. “Don't use the plates then. Cupcakes don't need plates anyway.”

Oliver shook his head and grabbed streamers and tape. He wound two streamers together and climbed over desks to hang them every which way. Bean wrote “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIENNA!” in big puffy letters on the whiteboard. I threw some Class of 2011 confetti over the desks and set the cupcakes out on a half-squished cardboard tray shaped like a pink Easter bunny. Then I blew up balloons until I made myself dizzy. Bean and Oliver took over. We finished with time to spare.

“It might look better if we aren't the first ones here,” Oliver said. We locked the door behind us and took the empty boxes and pig plates out to the recycling bin. Bean walked one way, and we walked another. We looped around back to our block so we could walk to school all over again, looking like we did not expect to find a classroom decorated like a party store threw up in it.

Frank was standing there with most of the other kids waiting for Ms. Ruiz to open the door by the time we got back. He looked cool. Bean touched her nose and pulled on her earlobe, and Frank nodded. If those guys were going to use secret hand signals, they should teach us, too. I glanced over at Oliver. He had a weird look on his face like he felt happy and confused all at once, even though nothing was really happening. I think he was trying to look innocent, but if you ask me, it made him look suspicious. I went to stand by Hector.

“Who's that?” he nodded down the hallway. Sienna stood back away from the others against the lockers. She held on to her backpack like someone would try to yank it off. It looked new. Her clothes looked new, too.

“Dunno, a new girl, I guess,” I said. “She's kind of pretty, don't you think?” Hector looked like I'd suggested he use his skateboard for firewood.

Ms. Ruiz moseyed over with her coat on and car keys still in her hand.

“I'm not in the mood for a Monday,” she announced to anybody close enough to hear, and opened the door.

The classroom looked kind of fantastic. Even better than it had looked with the balls. Oliver had twisted up the brown and green streamers and attached them all to the fluorescent lights that hung down the middle of the ceiling. It looked like a giant octopus. Red and silver balloons were everywhere, and applause broke out when the class spotted the tray of cupcakes and other snacks. Ms. Ruiz set her purse down on her desk and picked up the memo. She didn't look freaked out, just kind of dazed. Leo Saylor stuffed a cupcake in his mouth and read the whiteboard. “Who's Sienna?” Sprinkles sprayed out of his mouth and onto my shirt.

Sienna was the girl standing by the door, still holding her backpack straps. She didn't raise her hand or anything, but she smiled just a little bit. It wasn't an “I just found $100!” smile, but it was there.

About half of the kids asked who Sienna was before chowing down on cupcakes, and half waited until afterward. Ms. Ruiz seemed confused by the whole thing, but she said okay when someone asked if they could turn some music on. She talked to Sienna for a couple of minutes, and then she yelled over the music for everyone to welcome our new classmate. Everybody yelled hi and toasted her with cupcakes. Some kids yelled thanks. Sienna sat down at a desk and Bean brought her a cupcake. I wished I had thought to bring sodas or at least juice boxes. Some of the other girls started talking to her, too, and asking if she'd made the cupcakes. I watched her shake her head no, but she didn't elaborate. She just smiled and picked the crumbs and sprinkles off of her cupcake paper. Oliver looked proud—like he might tell the class that
he
made the cupcakes. He was smiling really big and standing up straight enough to puff his chest out. I shook my head when I caught his eye and his shoulders slumped, but he nodded.

After the cupcakes, everyone ate the chips and grapes. Even those were gone in less than five minutes. Ms. Ruiz turned the music off after only two songs and said we needed to start class, but we could leave the decorations up. I think she just didn't want the hassle of having to take them down. She read the
Ramayana
to calm us down, but it didn't really work since it's full of fighting monkeys and stuff. Frank threw me a note folded into a star.

They don't know it was us. They think Principal Lebonsky threw the new girl a party!

I shrugged. I felt happy that it worked and we didn't get caught. Ms. Ruiz never even called the office. It felt like a freebie. Frank shook his head and scribbled a new note.

We need people to know it's us.

We need to have a name so we can take the credit.

Like Zorro!

Frank was right again.

 

19

Reward

From: Agent Fix-it

To: Oliver Swanson

Cc: Agent Queso; Agent Super

Subject: Initiation

Let me show you how it's done. —AF

I knew what Frank's message was about as soon as I got to school. Green flyers hung everywhere. On the front doors, through the halls, on the bulletin boards. There were even a couple on the office door. He'd beaten Oliver to the punch.

MISSING!

Sense of humor.

If found, please return to the office ASAP.

Reward!

The flyers were up for the first two classes until somebody with no sense of humor took them down. Is that irony? I don't know, but check it out: I heard a kid telling his dad about it that night at Lupe's. I needed to come up with something really good so I could be a member of my own club.

 

20

Suspects

“Ms. Ruiz said that the new girl got a party because of a new school rule, but none of my other teachers know anything about it. I asked,” Maggie said. “Why would anybody throw a party for a kid they hadn't met yet?”

“I don't know,” I said. It wasn't a whole lie.

“Wait a minute…” She sat there with her mouth open, just squinting at the ceiling. “Do you think it was the same people who filled the class with balls? Why would somebody keep sneaking into our classroom?” Maggie chewed her thumbnail.

“I don't know,” I said.

Kids were talking about what would happen next. The leading theory going around was that the balls and the party were from someone inside our homeroom class. Their powers of deduction amazed me. And made me want to throw up a little bit. Leo Saylor wrote everyone's name on a long list labeled “Suspects.” We were pretty much all on it. Except Leo. He didn't put his own name down. He said he didn't have time to do goofy stuff like that, and everybody believed him. My name was near the top. Frank, Bean, and Oliver were on there, too. The pressure was on.