He closed the book and set the document facedown on the table. He quickly pulled his notebook out of his backpack and flipped it open to a pocket divider. He slipped the codicil gently between the flaps and closed his notebook.
Then, looking toward the front desk once more, he slid the book back onto the shelf and sat down.
Done! The whole process had taken only a minute and a half.
He leaned back and took some deep breaths, trying to get his heart to slow down. After about thirty seconds, it did. This was going to be a good day—an excellent day. Now he could actually relax a little.
Except . . . since he had some extra time before homeroom? He should double-check the dates and titles on his sketch of the Jack London time line. As he thought that, he was struck with a horrible idea—I’m turning into Robert!
He found his language arts folder anyway and pulled out the time line. No way would he ever become a Robert—he just wanted a good grade. Like Robert . . . hmm.
He quickly forgot about all that as he gathered his pile of notes and articles. It took him awhile to get it all organized—but he knew he had to because Robert was sure to inspect his research materials.
The first on the literary time line was a story called “Typhoon off the Coast of Japan,” published when Jack London was only seventeen. Great title—probably a great story, too.
He had read The Call of the Wild, and he’d loved it. But this time line had made him realize how many sea stories the man had written—and he had never read any of them. . . .
Ben looked at the clock—only seven forty-five. Tons of time.
He got up, walked to the fiction shelves, found the L authors, and pulled out a book called Stories of Ships and the Sea. He checked the table of contents—yes! The typhoon story was at the top of the list.
Ben hurried back to his table, opened the book to page seven, and dove in.
After six or seven paragraphs, he was sort of disappointed. The language was old-fashioned, and there didn’t seem to be much plot. But the description was great, and the stuff about setting out in small boats to hunt for seals in foul weather was interesting, so he kept reading .
Then the typhoon struck, and belowdeck, one of the crew was dying. Ben was hooked now, totally into the story, leaning forward over the book.
Quite a sea was rolling by this time, occasionally breaking over the decks, flooding them and threatening to smash the boats. At six bells we were ordered to turn them over and put on storm lashings. This occupied us till eight bells, when we were relieved by the mid-watch. I was the last to go below, doing so just as the watch on deck . . .
“Hey—I was hoping you’d be here.”
Ben hated to leave the raging storm, but he blinked himself back to the library. It was Jill, and she sat down beside him. “Good book?”
“Yeah, Jack London. For that report I’m doing with Robert.” He closed the book and slid it to one side. If she saw he was reading ocean adventure stories, she’d probably make some wisecrack about him being the sailor boy.
She glanced around, then whispered, “Did you check on the codicil?”
Ben nodded. “Didn’t just check on it—I took it back.” He patted his notebook. “I got really worried about it last night. Safer to keep it hidden at my house, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely—that’s good,” she said.
Jill was still a moment. She put her hands on the table and looked at them, then picked a little at the edges of the Band-Aid on her right palm. “I . . . I wanted to ask you something. Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you think we might be making a big mistake here? Because stopping the theme park is also stopping the new middle school, and . . . the whole town voted on what it wanted. So it’s like we’re trying to turn everything around, all by ourselves. And all that stuff Mrs. Burgess said about the media? I mean, if we tried to use the codicil, could you deal with that, all the arguing, and tons of people in town hating you? I don’t think . . . I mean, the town voted. And the majority said, ‘Yes, we want to trade an old school for something new.’ And I just . . . I just want you to tell me how to think about it. Because I don’t know anymore.”
Ben stared at her, his jaw clenched so tight it felt he was going to pop the caps off his front teeth. But he wasn’t angry. And he didn’t know what to say.
“Um . . . I guess . . . I mean, I’m just . . . surprised by your question,” he stammered. “Because, it’s not like the kids in Edgeport got to vote about anything. And I thought . . . I thought we both thought it made sense, how someone needed to stand up for what Captain Oakes wanted to do, for his plan. He wanted kids to have a great school, right next to the ocean. And he knew that someday, somebody was going to think all this beautiful land was being wasted. On a school.”
Ben paused. Jill was still looking at her hands.
“I can’t tell you what to do, or how to think about this stuff. But it feels to me like the Glennley people didn’t play fair, waving all their money in front of everybody. And from what we’ve found out about the captain, it seems like he was a really good person. I think his plan for this town is better than Glennley’s plan. And all I know for sure is, if I don’t try my best to keep the school safe, I’m gonna feel bad about that.”
Jill turned to face him, but quickly shifted her eyes and looked past him. Her face went white.
Ben turned. It was Lyman, smiling down at them.
“Well, well, well . . . look who’s here, right next to everybody’s favorite reference book.”
Ben didn’t nod, didn’t smile. He just looked the man in the eye. And gulped.
“I had quite a run-in with that assistant librarian back on Monday,” Lyman said, still smiling. “She was upset with me for borrowing our special book all weekend—said that wasn’t allowed, not even for staff. But I apologized, and all was forgiven. And I was sorry to hear that you almost got in trouble about that on Monday. . . .”
Ben kept the emotion off his face, but his heart was pounding .
Lyman had crept up from their left, and while he talked, he rolled the trash cart around the other side of the table until it blocked the aisle. Table in front of them, cart to their right, shelf behind them, and Lyman to their left. They were boxed in.
Lyman was still talking. “Then late yesterday afternoon, outside in the parking lot? I saw Ms. Shubert, and I apologized again about causing a ruckus. And you know what? She got all friendly and chatty with me. And she told me how that book was still being a big problem, and how this picture had fallen out of it when a couple of kids were using it again the other day. And she thought it was so unusual, how that book had sat on the shelf for ten years, and suddenly everybody was looking at it. And she said she got some tape and put the picture back—made it all better. So I thought I’d stop in early this morning and take a look, make sure she did a good job. Because it’s such a good book—here, would you mind passing it to me?”
Ben knew he had to move. But Jill was in his way—along with the big trash cart.
He stood up anyway, but instead of reaching for the old book, he quickly gathered up his notebook and folders and tucked everything into his backpack. He picked up the Jack London stories.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to go check out this book.”
Lyman’s eyes narrowed, then he smiled slightly. “I don’t think I’m going to find anything taped inside that old book, am I? Maybe you should hand me your backpack instead . . . how about that?”
Ben shook his head. He pressed his tongue against his front teeth. Fear numbed his mind. He felt like a mouse staring at a coiled snake, unable to move.
Lyman looked past him and smiled at Jill. She was still sitting, and she stared up at him, looking even more scared than Ben.
“I’ve got an interesting bit of news you two might like to know. Guess who just bought two thousand shares of preferred stock in a little company called Glennley Entertainment Group? Any clues? Some guy named Carl Acton—lives right here in
Edgeport. Ever heard of him?”
Ben looked from Lyman’s face to Jill’s, then back again.
Lyman’s smile got wider. “It looks like the young lady already knew about this, doesn’t it? Seems like she’s in a pickle. Does she keep working for some old dead janitor who imagined he could stop progress and keep this school from being torn down . . . or does she help her daddy get very, very rich? Hmm . . . what will she do?”
The smile vanished as he shifted his gaze and locked eyes with Ben.
“Listen to me carefully, Benjamin Pratt.” His voice was low and harsh. “I don’t know what kind of crazy ideas Mr. Keane put into your head, and I don’t know what game you and your little friend Jill are playing, but it’s time for all of it to stop. Now. Do you understand?”
Staring up into Lyman’s face, Ben tried to remember how to look a tiger in the eye. He couldn’t do it. The fear paralyzed him.
He felt a movement to his right. Jill was on her feet.
“Mr. Lyman, thank you so much for your entertaining performance. But Ben and I aren’t afraid of you. We’re just not. You’re tall, and you’re unpleasant to look at, and you know how to make your voice sound all deep and creepy, but you are a fake—a fake janitor who doesn’t belong here. This is our real school. We are not fakes. Ben and I belong here. This is our school and our town, and this is the real beginning of our real school day.” She paused, frowning up at Lyman a moment. Then she said, “I have no idea how you learned about my father’s private business, but I bet it isn’t legal for you to know that. And whatever Ben or I do or don’t do has nothing to do with you, at all. And now, you’ll have to excuse us, because Ben and I are leaving for homeroom. In our school.”
Ben was stunned, but he managed to nod and say, “Yeah, we’re leaving .”
Lyman glared at Jill, furious, his lips pressed together. Then he slowly shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere till we’re done with our talk.”
“Oh yeah?” said Jill. “Watch.”
Turning away from Lyman, she drew her right leg back, and then drove her knee forward with all her might and slammed it into the plastic barrel on the trash cart. The cart jumped two feet as a huge boom filled the library, and at that same instant, Jill yelled, “OW!”
Mrs. Sinclair’s head jerked sideways, and she jumped up and trotted to the reference area.
“Jill! What happened? Are you all right?”
“That stupid trash cart, it was right in the way, and I banged my knee into it. . . . Owww.”
Mrs. Sinclair frowned at the trash cart, and then at Lyman. “You can’t block the aisles, not when students are here.”
Jill began limping toward the front desk, and Mrs. Sinclair held her right elbow. Ben followed close behind.
“Let’s go have the nurse look at that.”
Jill lifted her right foot high as they neared the desk, flexing her knee, and she seemed to limp less with each step. She was making a speedy recovery. “Thanks, but I think it’s okay—hardly hurts at all now.”
Ben had to hide a grin.
“Well,” said Mrs. Sinclair, “if it bothers you later, especially going up or down the stairs, you go straight to the nurse’s office, all right?”
“I will,” she said.
Ben put the Jack London book on the desk. His heart was beating so fast it was difficult to speak. “I need to check this out, please.”
“Of course.”
She opened the front cover and scanned the bar code, then slipped a date card into the pocket and handed Ben the book.
“Thanks, Mrs. Sinclair.”
“You’re welcome, Ben. And Jill, I’m so sorry you bumped your knee.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
They went out the door and turned left toward the office.
Ben almost started jumping up and down. He spun all the way around, then walked backward out in front of Jill, grinning at her. “Incredible!” he gasped. “That . . . was the most amazing . . . ! I—I don’t know what to say! Really—Jill! That was . . . amazing!”
Jill just walked. She shook her head. “Stop being so goofy—calm down. And stop walking back-ward.”
Ben fell in next to her, but he was still bouncing a little. “Really, though, that was really something, everything you said.”
Jill didn’t answer.
So Ben stopped talking and walked, trying to put it all together.
“So, that stuff about your dad . . . all that’s true?”
Ben had met Jill’s father. He was short and wide, a fast talker. He owned both of the Dunkin’ Donuts shops in town, and was half owner of Parson’s Marina too. A serious businessman.
“It’s all true,” Jill said. “Here I am, trying to stop the Glennley deal, and my dad wants it to happen right now, big-time. And all those months when my mom was trying to stop the project, going to those hearings and everything? They argued about it all the time, both of them yelling and stomping around the house—it was awful. But then the town voted, and it was settled, and everything went back to normal. And now . . .” She shrugged.
She didn’t have to finish.
Ben saw all the pieces drop into place. He knew why Jill had seemed so anxious all week. If she helped him, and somehow they were able to stop the new amusement park, her parents might start fighting again. And her dad would lose money, which would make things worse. And maybe her dad would get mad at her for being involved, and then her mom might get mad at her dad for being mad at Jill . . . on and on. Then, what if her parents split up because of this, because of her? Seeing Ben over the past couple of months, living one week with his mom and the next week with his dad? Jill didn’t want a mess like that in her family. And Ben didn’t blame her, not one bit. She had every right to feel upset!
But . . . then what just happened in the library?
“So,” Ben said cautiously, “what made you say all that just now?”
“Lyman. When he said that about my dad. My dad’s good at what he does, and he’s honest and he works hard, and buying that Glennley stock was a good move for him. Nothing wrong with it at all. But Lyman was using that, trying to keep me from doing something that I know is right. And I got mad.”
“And sarcastic,” said Ben, grinning. “Dramatic, too. Fantastic! Seriously, I wish I had it all on video—talk about an instant YouTube classic: Giant Janitor Smackdown!”
Jill smiled, but she wasn’t ready to laugh. Ben could see she was still working through what had happened, trying to understand it. And really, he was too.
As they passed the office, the first busloads of kids burst through the front doors behind them, and the hall filled with the sounds of tromping feet, laughing and yelling, lockers banging open and slamming shut, teachers trying to quiet things down and control traffic. The school day was off and running .
Jill looked down at the floor as they walked. “Everything I said to Lyman?” she said. “It’s true . . . just true. This is our school. And this is our time to be here, right now. And linking up with Captain Oakes and this whole Keepers thing? That’s part of it. What you said to me? That’s true too—the captain’s plan is better. It just is. And I’ve got to follow through and do my part. Right now, no matter what. We both have to, even though we’ll be going on to the junior high next year. We still have to do our best.”
“That’s right,” Ben said. “We have to.”
She looked over at him and smiled. For Ben, it was the best moment of the whole week.
Jill turned away, then nudged his arm. “Look, up ahead.”
It was Lyman, about twenty feet away, pushing the trash cart toward the custodian’s workroom. He hadn’t noticed them yet, but they were on a collision course.
Ben hesitated. “Let’s go back, go up the south stairs,” he said. “No tiger teasing, remember?”
Jill kept walking. She shook her head. “Nope. The rules have changed.”
Lyman saw them, and he stopped at his doorway, leaning forward o
n the gray container, his face expressionless as they approached.
Jill slowed down and smiled at him. She pointed at the trash bin. “I’m glad you’re being careful with that, Mr. Lyman. Don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
Ben expected an explosion, but it didn’t come.
Lyman scowled straight ahead, then muttered, “That was a cute trick back there.”
“Cute?” Jill said softly. “No—it was inventive and imaginative. Using a phony business card and pretending to be a yacht broker when you snooped around Ben’s boat last week? That was cute.”
Lyman turned and looked at her a long moment, but again, Ben saw no expression in the man’s eyes. Like a snake.
Then, angling his face away again, Lyman suddenly smiled. And when he spoke, his voice was low, but sharp and sardonic. “Well, whatever you’re trying to do, you kids go ahead and have fun, all right? Knock yourselves out. Because in three weeks, there’ll be nothing here—just a big hole filled in with rubble.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Jill.
Then, with a fierce little smile, she said, “Come on, Ben. We’ve got school today.”
Ben began walking away with Jill, when suddenly he turned and called, “Hey, Mr. Lyman, wait a second.” The man stopped in the doorway of the janitor’s workroom. Ben walked back, pulled the banana peel out of his jacket pocket, and dropped it into the trash barrel. Then he looked Lyman right in the eye, smiled, and said, “Thanks.”
CHAPTER 13
Duped
Some kind of brilliant recklessness had definitely gotten into Jill on Friday morning, and some of it must have rubbed off on Ben. Because shortly after Jill’s second run-in with Lyman, Ben was just about to walk into his homeroom . . . when he stopped.
A slightly crazy idea popped into his head, and he decided to go for it.
He walked right past the art room and ducked out a door onto the playground. He climbed up onto Captain Oakes’s gravestone—and waited. He sat still as the warning bell rang, still waiting. It wasn’t until after the final bell clanged that Ben climbed down and went into his homeroom.