You (9 page)

“Right, I gotta go,” she says, checking the time on the cell phone she's not supposed to have in school. “Let me know the next time Zack's having a party. I'll give you a lift.”

She walks off and naturally you watch her go. That's perfect too.

You turn back to your open locker and Max is staring at you, his eyes wide at first, then they narrow and you can guess what he's thinking.

One word from you and it'd be okay, everything back to normal, back to the way it was.

But you just look at him and smile.

No, not smile.

You smirk.

 

I
t makes no sense kicking a kid out of class for not doing his homework.

Maybe he was busy actually doing in-class work when the assignment was supposedly given, or maybe the teacher wasn't as clear as she claims she was. There's the chance that he heard the assignment and chose not to do it and take the zero, but a better chance that
if
he heard it he just forgot about it, that he doesn't want the zero and certainly doesn't need it. But he'll get one anyway. So now the kid's behind, but if he pays attention in class he might be able to piece it together and catch up. After all, it's only one fill-in-the-blank worksheet. It would make sense to keep him in there. The
teacher could give him detention, or better yet, give him a break for once, let it slide, but that never happens and the kid gets kicked out of class, sent to see the vice principal. And when he comes to class the next day, guess what? He won't have
that
day's homework.

In any case, it makes no sense. And this is what you're thinking as you hand the preprinted form to the vice principal's secretary and she tells you to take a seat in the long row of empty chairs that line one wall of the office.

Like you haven't done it a thousand times before.

The VP's door is shut, but you don't think there's anyone in there. She may not even be in the building and you may end up sitting here for the whole morning, forced to listen to the secretary's radio, set to a station the DJ calls “adult contemporary.” Maybe that's the punishment. You've heard that the secretary can write a pass, get you out of seeing the
VP and send you off to your next class, but out of all your trips to this office—and there've been a lot of them—it hasn't happened yet. And you don't think it's going to start today. You put your head back and slouch down in the seat and settle in for a nap, but your eyes aren't closed ten seconds before three sharp raps on the outer office door let you know that you have company.

“Zachary McDade, reporting as ordered.”

It figures.

You glance over and he's standing with his back to you, facing the secretary's desk, his right arm sweeping up in a theatrical military salute. The secretary laughs—why, you don't know. “Zachary,
what
are we going to do with you?” She's said the same thing to you before, but she wasn't laughing when she said it.

“Oh, Mrs. Clevenger. You
know
I'm your favorite.” You can hear the wink in his voice and you can't believe she'd buy it, but she does. She says something
witty to him and he says something back, and then she says something else and they both laugh, and you're wondering where he learned to talk to adults. A simple conversation, nobody yelling, just talking. If an adult talked to you like that, you wouldn't know what to say. But that's all right, adults don't talk to you. They talk at you.

He says one last line that you don't catch but that the secretary thinks is hilarious, then turns to take a seat and spots you. He looks surprised and, if you didn't know better, happy to see you.

“Chase, my good man. Fancy meeting you here.” He makes his way down the row of empty chairs, and as he leaves an open chair between you when he sits, you realize that there are some unwritten rules that even he won't break. “So,” he says, “what mortal sin did you commit?”

“I didn't do my homework.”

“Horrors!” he says, louder than he should have, one hand on his chest, the other covering his eyes,
and…you laugh. You didn't mean to, it's not that funny, it just happened. You make a mental note not to let it happen again.

“My sins are not as horrific,” he says, “but I'll still have to talk to a counselor. She'll ask me the same questions they always do—why must I be so disruptive, why must I be the center of attention, why must I be so controlling. And I'll tell her what I always tell them—broken home, absent father, drunken mother, inferiority issues, loneliness, fear of the dark….”

You have to ask. “How much is true?”

“Do you really care?”

You say no—and you don't—but admit it, you
are
curious.

He sighs a loud, dramatic sigh and looks over to see if the secretary notices. She doesn't, too busy shuffling papers as she talks on the phone, a one-sided conversation about her husband's cholesterol that doesn't sound like school business.

“If I told them the truth, the real reason I am the wonderful way that I am, they wouldn't believe me.”

You know he wants you to ask, so you don't. He tells you anyway.

“I'm bored out of my mind, Chase. Do you understand? Out of my mind. And why? Because it's all so mindlessly, ridiculously, insultingly,
painfully
easy. All of it. Easy.”

For him. Acing tests, getting girls, punking jocks, conning adults. No sweat. Nothing is easy to you, but you'd never tell him that. And he's not really talking to you, anyway. He's talking at you.

“It's a game, Chase. A big boring game. If you play by the rules like they tell you, you win. But who wants to play a game that
everybody
wins? It's more of a challenge to make them play
my
game. Teachers, parents, counselors, girls who should know better, and guys who never do. Everybody. They play my game. And that's why we win.”

We?

“That's my story, Chase. Bored Teen Struggles to Stay Sane. What I don't understand is what you're doing here.”

“I told you. I didn't do the homework.”

“Not here in this
room
, Chase, here in this
school
. Mediocre Midlands High. It makes no sense.”

Yes it does. It's the only thing that makes sense. But now he's got you wondering what he means. Not that you'd ask. Instead, you shrug. Let him guess what you mean.

“I fear it's only a matter of time until you are as bored with it all as I am,” he says, watching the secretary out of the corner of his eye as she gathers up some papers and heads out the door, leaving you two alone in the room. “By then I will have worn out my Midlands welcome and will have been shipped off to another school. Yes, young Chase, one day all this will be yours. Now, if you'll be so kind as to watch the hallway…”

He moves quickly to the secretary's desk, waving you up with him as he goes. You know what he's doing and you follow, taking position by the door.

“Whistle if you see anything,” he says, riffling through a stack of folders.

You look down the hall. It's empty, but you can hear the sound of clicking heels echoing around the corner. “Make it quick,” you say without turning.

“Here we go. The
official
detention list.” He takes a black pen from the desk and scribbles something on the page. “And now we are
officially
pardoned.”

You step back from the door and look at the paper, a passable copy of the principal's signature after your name, releasing you from a week's worth of detention. Out in the hall, the clicking heels move closer. You head for your seat, but Zack catches your arm.

“Oh look—one day of detention for my
dear
friend Jessica Savage. You don't know her. A senior. Invited to my party, did not show.” He taps the list in time with the approaching steps.

“You can't sign us all out,” you tell him as you lean away. You don't want to be found anywhere near the secretary's desk.

“I have no intention of pardoning Miss Savage. In fact, I think she needs to be taught a lesson.” He makes a quick mark, changing the one to a four.

Ten seconds later the secretary returns and you're back in your seats. When the bell rings, Zack asks politely, and she writes you both passes to your next class.

 

Y
our uncle Kevin bows his head. “Lord, You have given us so much to be thankful for….”

 

Five things you are thankful for:

1. Online gaming
   
2. Ways around the lame porn filter your father put on your computer
   
3. Ultimate Fighting marathons on Spike TV
   
4. Ashley
   
5.  
   

“
Y
ou're probably wondering how long we have before the alarm goes off.”

You're standing next to Zack in front of a beeping keypad mounted on the wall inside the maintenance entrance of Midlands High School, and that's exactly what you're wondering.

The beeping started when you came out of the dark classroom, the motion detectors picking you up with your first step into the empty corridor where the foreign-language classes are all clustered together. During the three days of school that led up to Thanksgiving break, the French teacher focused on conjugating verbs while Zack concentrated on disabling the window's locks.
“You'd think the tricky part would be to make it look as if it's locked when it's not,” he had pointed out after you had both slipped through the window and pulled it shut behind you, careful not to drop the tire iron. “But the fact is, people don't expect things to change. If it was locked last week, it'll be locked today. It's an assumption that makes my life so much easier.”

You stayed low, letting your heartbeat slow back down, quieting your breathing, certain that someone would come busting into the room. But no one did and after five minutes you were ready to move on.

Now, just seconds later, Zack has you standing in front of the keypad. He's got a hold of your elbow, keeping you centered, but you're not trying to get away. Not yet anyway.

“You see, Mr. Chase, this alarm, like most entry alarms you'll encounter, has a delay before it triggers the main alarm. That's the beeping you hear. It gives you time to punch in the code number to
deactivate the alarm. And notice that the small red LED at the top is now on.”

“Turn it off.”

“Well, that requires the code. Without the code the main alarm will sound, the emergency lights will go on, and the police will be here in seconds.” He gives a nod in the direction of the keypad. “It's
very
efficient.”

“Turn it off.” You raise your voice to be heard over the beeps.

“Notice anything unusual about the keypad?”

“Don't be an ass. Turn it off.” The beeps are getting louder and faster, or does it just seem that way?

Zack ignores you. “There are twelve keys, arranged like a phone. Most codes for alarms are four digits. But which four?”

You feel your teeth grinding together, the beeps definitely louder. “Turn it off. Now.”

“In the light of day I noticed that five of the keys are smudged—the four, the six, the eight, and the
zero, along with the star key. Obviously, these are the keys most often pushed. Star will be the last key, but what is the
order
of the rest? Had me puzzled all through physics class.”

The red LED starts flashing. You pull your elbow free and glare at him in the dim light.

“Simple logic tells us that the code would have to be something that everyone authorized to enter the building could easily remember. If you haven't noticed, teachers are not an overly bright lot.”

You can feel your fist tighten and you know what's coming.

“But then I realized where I had seen the numbers—the last four digits of the school's phone number. Eight, six, zero, four.” He punches the keys as he says the numbers. “And then star and,
voilà
!”

The beeping stops, the red LED goes off.

Your teeth are still clenched.

“Well, Mr. Chase, that was close.”

Yes, it was.

“Come,” he says, swinging the tire iron up on his shoulder. “On with the mission.”

 

T
here's something different about the school at midnight. The fluorescent lights are on during the day, but they only add to the natural light that floods through the windows. At night they give the hallways an eerie glow. The windows on the classroom doors are black, hiding everything inside. The only sound is the rush of air from the vents overhead. It's a different building at night.

You notice it because, for the first time, you feel welcome here.

You're surprised at how little noise you make walking down the hall. Even Zack is quiet, both of you listening for a door to open or a distant footfall. You take the stairs to the second floor, Zack leaning forward to scope out the hallway before you
continue. You come around the corner and freeze, a square-jawed Marine in dress blues saluting you from behind a glass door.

“It scares me, too,” Zack says, pointing the tire iron at the life-size cardboard cutout in the career center. “I think it's the two different blues. Not natural.”

It's stupid, but you laugh and the tension is broken. You start walking and there's a lightness to your step. You're still alert—maybe more so—but now you're not nervous. Now you're having fun.

“Here we are, Mr. Chase. Locker one seventy-four.”

It looks like any other locker in the row—lime green, five feet tall, ten inches wide, a built-in combination lock next to the chrome latch. No decals on the front, no graffiti. Nothing that says
THIS LOCKER BELONGS TO JAKE THE JOCK
.

“Are you—”