Holly quit cleaning. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just do what you have to do.”
“We need some Neosporin and Band-Aids.”
The bell rang, which meant we had four minutes to get to homeroom. But the gouges in my hands were pretty deep, and I knew she was right. So I said, “I’ll go to the office and get some. You go to homeroom. No sense in us both getting detention for being tardy.”
“No one’s going to give us detention! Not for this. Besides, Mrs. Tweeter will give us a pass.”
I snort. “You want to risk it? This may not have happened at school, but it was close enough, and it sure qualifies as ‘brawling.’ ”
“You’re not going to report Heather?”
“And get you in trouble?”
“Me? I was just stopping her!”
I look at her a minute. “No … you were getting even. Which she totally deserved. But I think it’s better to just drop it.” I push her along. “So get to class!”
Now, I could have gone to class, too, but it was homeroom with the Vincenator, and it wasn’t like I was dying to see him. Besides, I was sore all over and probably couldn’t even have moved fast enough to make it to class on time. And I was hoping I could get a pass from Mrs. Tweeter. She’d slipped them to me before, and even though she would never come out and say it, I could tell she thought I was all right—and that Heather was a pill.
So I dragged myself up to the office and told Mrs. Tweeter I’d had a little accident on my skateboard and needed some Neosporin and maybe a Band-Aid or two, and after she saw my shoulder and hands and scolded me for “riding that thing without a helmet,” she got me a first aid kit and let me have at it.
So I’m off in a corner chair next to a big fake potted tree, patching myself up, when Cisco walks into the office and says to Mrs. Tweeter, “Does Bob know about his car?”
“Bob … Vince?” she asks, peering at him over the tops of her glasses.
He nods.
Mrs. Tweeter pulls her glasses off her nose and lets them dangle. “What about his car?”
Cisco takes a deep breath. “It’s been vandalized.”
Mrs. Tweeter snatches up her phone, and before you know it, Mr. Foxmore and Cisco are going out the way Cisco had come in, Mrs. Sanford is in the office warbling, “I’ll cover his class for him,” Miss Anderson is coming out of her counseling office asking, “What happened?” and Lars Teppler is walking in late with a note. “We had a flat,” he tells Mrs. Tweeter, who just scribbles off an admit for him and gets back to the phone.
Now, the whole time it’s like I’m invisible. I’m just sitting there watching people scurry around like mice let out of a cage. And part of me’s dying to go out and see what happened to Mr. Vince’s SUV, but a bigger part of me knows that I shouldn’t get anywhere near it.
And then Lars spots me.
He does a double take, then looks over his shoulder before coming over to ask, “What are you doing here?”
“Uh … had another scrape with the law?”
Now, I’m obviously joking, but he doesn’t seem to get that. He stares at me like he still can’t quite believe I’m just sitting there, then centrifuges his hair and says, “Well, I’m going to class,” like I’m a derelict and he’s some goody-goody swooshy-haired honor-roll boy or something.
“You do that,” I call after him.
Then the passing bell rings, and almost immediately the office is a cross-flow of people. So real quick I finish with the first aid kit, slip it back on the front counter, and hurry to first period.
And it’s weird. It’s like there’s a whole world of turmoil going on inside the universe of William Rose Junior High, but the turmoil is in the front office, which is light-years away from the little moons of learning.
All is quiet in the far reaches of the galaxy.
But by break, stealth probes have successfully infiltrated the Quiet Quadrants, and our little universe is once again waging a full-blown war against the Gossip Invaders.
At least I am.
“Who said it was me?” I ask Marissa after she tells me that that’s what she’d heard. I plop my backpack onto the lunch table. “I don’t even know what I supposedly did!”
“Scratched a huge DIE DUDE into Mr. Vince’s car!”
“Like keyed it into the paint?”
Marissa nods. “Across the driver’s door. It had to be done after he got to school or he would have seen it.”
Then Dot and Holly run up saying, “People think it was you.”
“Why do they think it was me?” But then I remember.
Lars Teppler.
“Oh, good grief.”
“What?” Marissa asks, because she can see the lightbulb over my head. And since she now also sees the state of my shirt and the Band-Aids on my hands, she adds, “And what happened to you?”
So Holly and I catch her up on our little before-school run-in with Heather, and then I tell them all about my crack to Lars when I saw him in the office.
“Another scrape with the law?” Dot asks, looking at me like I’ve lost my very last marble.
“It was a joke! How was I supposed to know someone had keyed Vince’s car!”
“Probably shouldn’t go for a career in comedy,” Marissa mutters. “You’ve got lousy timing.”
And that’s when it starts to sink in just how unfunny this really is. Mr. Vince knew I knew what his car looked like—he’d practically run over my best friend with it the day before.
And obviously I knew where he parked it.
Plus, where was I right before school when Vince’s car must’ve been getting keyed?
Holed up in a bathroom with only a friend as a witness. Not just any friend, either. A friend who’d stick up for me to the point where she’d punch out my archenemy—not exactly someone Mr. Foxmore would think was a “credible witness.”
“Oh, maaaaaan,” I said, crumpling onto the bench seat of the lunch table. “I can’t believe this!”
Then I closed my eyes and shook my head, wondering how long it would be before I got called back to the office.
TWENTY
I didn’t even want to go to third period, but what choice did I have?
Well, I suppose I could have gone to the office and turned myself in for something I didn’t do, but I wasn’t that desperate.
Anyway, who was the first person I saw when I trudged through the door?
Good ol’ Swooshy Head.
“Thanks a lot, Lars,” I snarled as I pushed past him.
“Hey, what did I do?”
“You told the whole world that I was the one who keyed Vince’s car!”
“I did not!”
“Yeah?” I turned to face him. “Well, did you tell anybody?”
He stared at me, then did a guilty little swoosh of the head.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I gave him an annoyed squint. “ ‘Scrape with the law’ was a joke, you dope. I was in the office for a first aid kit ’cause me and the sidewalk got a little too well acquainted this morning.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Oh, gee, let’s see. Me, blood, a mutilated shirt, a first aid kit …” I pull a face at him. “Yeah, you’re right—no clues at all.”
The tardy bell rings, so everyone shuffles to their seats, and that’s when I notice that some key players are missing.
Mr. Vince, for one, but that’s no big surprise.
What is a surprise, though, is that Miss Anderson is the substitute. “I’m not here as a counselor,” she announces. “We’re all filling in for Mr. Vince while this situation gets straightened out.” She gives me a keen look but then gets busy taking roll. “I show Heather Acosta, William Pratt, and Sasha Stamos as absent. Is that correct?” she asks.
Angie Johnson confirms that it is, but I can’t help wondering why they’re gone.
I mean, the Ambusher, the original Die Dude Dude, and the Cell Phone Destroyer, all absent?
It seemed l
ike too much of a coincidence.
So my mind kicks into hyper-scramble trying to figure it out. Maybe Heather didn’t come to school at all. Maybe Holly popping her little stomach balloon had sent her flying home. Or … maybe she was in the office now making up another one of her outrageous lies.
Or wait. Maybe Marissa had let it slip about Sasha and the phone. It wouldn’t be the first time she spilled a secret. So maybe Sasha was in the office with Heather? Maybe the whole Porta-Potty incident was hitting the fan!
But … did that mean Sasha was going to sic her twelve cats and six brothers on me ’cause I’d broken our little pinky swear?
Something about that seemed really scary.
Like there’d be pitchforks involved.
And what about Billy?
Where was he?
This whole Die Dude thing had gotten really vicious. Had Heather ratted on him for Die Duding the whiteboard? Was she pointing out what good friends Billy and I were and how we were obviously a duo of Die Duders?
Actually, I was pretty worried about Billy.
Especially after seeing him so … vulnerable yesterday.
So, yeah. I was kinda freaking out. And I knew—just knew—that any second the room would become even emptier ’cause I’d be summoned to the office, where Foxmore and ol’ Scratch ’n’ Spit would grill me over the Flames of Injustice until I was shriveled and charred and … and … and just plain dead, dude.
But I didn’t get called to the office.
Not that period.
Not during PE.
Not during lunch or science or drama.
And although rumors about Mr. Vince having a nervous breakdown and being hauled off in an ambulance buzzed through the halls like swarms of biting gnats, and even though people said that the police had been there, and that men in suits and sunglasses had been there, at the end of the day, I just walked off campus.
“Maybe they’re having me followed,” I whispered to Marissa on our way home.
“You are being so paranoid! And quit looking over your shoulder—it makes you seem guilty.”
“You know what’s so stupid? I feel guilty. Why do I feel guilty?”
“Maybe because you’ve been keeping guilty people’s secrets?”
I thought about that a minute. “Wow.”
“Tell the truth—do you think it’s Billy?”
“Doing the Die Dude stuff? No!”
She shakes her head. “Well, I’m not sure. He was absent all day today. Lacey Knotts is an office aide fourth period, and I heard her telling Hannah Loman that they were sending cops to his house.”
“No! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
She shrugs. “Because I don’t want to believe it, either.” She eyes me. “And because I knew you’d want to go over there and try and fix things.”
“I don’t even know where ‘over there’ is! I have no idea where Billy lives, do you?” And that’s when I really start getting all spun up. “I don’t actually know anything about him except he always makes me laugh and I think he’s got a really kind heart and his dad thinks he’s a screwup and—”
Marissa grabs my arm. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know!” I fling away a tear. “Billy is not doing this stuff, okay? It can’t be Billy.” I take a deep breath. “I wish I knew where he lived. I would go over there. I don’t even know his phone number.”
She walks beside me a minute, then says, “But we know someone who does.”
“Who?” But from the look on her face, I know who. “No way,” I tell her. “I can’t call him.”
She shrugs. “But I can.” And as soon as we get to Hudson’s, that’s exactly what she does.
Trouble is, it rolls over to voice mail. I shake my head at her like, Don’t leave a message! but she does anyway. “Hey, Casey, this is Marissa,” she says, all business-like. “Sammy and I are trying to track down Billy. It’s important. Please call me back at this number as soon as you can.” Then she hangs up.
“But you didn’t leave the number.”
“Hudson’s number will show up on his cell.”
I tell her, “Oh yeah,” but never having had a cell phone, it wasn’t something I was really on top of.
We tried calling a few other people, but they were all dead ends or not picking up. So finally I said what I’d been thinking but not wanting to say … even though I knew Marissa had been thinking it, too. “You want me to try Danny?”
She hands over the phone and tells me the number, and when I dial it, she stands up and does an extreme McKenze Dance, squirming side to side and gnawing on her thumbnail.
One ring.
Two rings.
Four rings.
I cover the receiver and whisper, “It’s going over to voice mail. Should I leave a message?”
Her head jackhammers on her neck, so I roll my eyes and wait. And then the recording kicks in. “You’ve reeeeeeeached Danny! If you’re a babe, I’ll call you back. If you’re not, you’re outta luck. Unless you’re one of my homies, of course. Here’s the beep!”
Well, I’m not about to leave a message after that. I hang up quick and squint at Marissa. “Have you heard his message?”
Her lips pinch and her nose wrinkles and her head bobs a little.
“How can you like him? He’s such a snake!”
“Yeah, I know,” she says, but it’s a real pathetic Yeah, I know.
Now, while I’d been calling Danny, Hudson had quietly come in and put something on the table in front of me, but I hadn’t noticed it was the phonebook until now.
I laugh and flip it open. “Boy, are we dumb.”
But it turns out there are twenty-two Pratts in Santa Martina, and hardly any of them have addresses listed.
Marissa shakes her head. “I sure don’t want to call all these people, and you’re not going to, either.” She takes the phonebook from me and closes it. “Everyone stays home from school once in a while. He was probably just not feeling well. Or up too late watching movies.”
I didn’t really want to give up, but then Mikey came in all excited that I was there and asked if he could do homework with us—not that we were doing homework, but I guess with the phonebook out and our backpacks on the table, it looked like it to him.
And since Marissa gave me an awww-that’s-so-sweet look, and since I knew homework wasn’t exactly something Mikey usually did without being nagged, I said, “Let me call Grams and see what’s up.”
So I did, and since nothing was up, I stayed at Hudson’s. And I did try to tackle my own homework, but Mikey wanted me to help him with his, so I wound up quizzing him on his spelling words and coaching him through his math instead.
Now, while we’re working, Hudson delivers snacks. Sliced pears. Almonds. Carrot sticks. Some kind of seedy cracker. It’s a lot different from the brownies and cakes he used to serve, but all of us munch away, and it really does taste good. Then when Mikey’s homework’s all done, Mikey asks, “Do you want to go on my power walk with me?” His face is totally lit up as he says, “Maybe we’ll see Captain Evil!”
“Gee, Mikey, I wish I could, but I still have my homework to do.”
Good ol’ Hudson to the rescue. He maneuvers Mikey away from the table, saying, “Why don’t you and I go scout around for Captain Evil and let the girls do their homework?”
“Uh, I can wait for them to finish,” Mikey says, looking back at us.
“It would be a long wait,” I tell him.
Marissa nods. “Go on, Mikey. We’ve got a lot of homework.”
So Mikey and Hudson take off, and while they’re gone, Marissa and I buckle down and get some serious work done. I write up my lab report for science, finish an English worksheet, and finally face off with my hardest subject—math.
And I’m actually making good progress on the math when Marissa says, “Wow. They’ve been gone a long time.”
I look up at her and say, “Maybe they’re hot on the trail o
f Captain Evil,” and that’s when I notice something outside move.
Something that was in the window a second ago but disappeared.
Something hairy.
Not a cat. Or a rat. Or any other windowsill-walking creature.
This hairy thing had gone straight down.
“What?” Marissa asks, looking over her shoulder. “What did you see?”
“I think someone’s spying on us.”
“Spying on us? Who?”
We give each other a quick look, then shove back from the table and charge for the door.
TWENTY-ONE
Marissa and I bolt out the front door, fly down the porch steps, and race across Hudson’s lawn to the side of the house where the window is.
And who do we trap in the shady strip that’s between the house and the side fence?
Nobody.
The fence divides Hudson’s property from his neighbor’s, and it cuts away as you get closer to the sidewalk. It’s lower. Something you could just jump over.
So I back up to the low section and look behind the neighbor’s side of the fencing.
Nobody there.
So I look this way and that, back and forth, all around, and so does Marissa.
“Are you sure you saw something?” she finally asks.
And I am starting to wonder if my eyes had been playing tricks on me, but when I go back to the window and start checking around, I discover prints.
Not footprints.
Fingerprints.
Well, not the kind you can dust for and then take into the lab to analyze. These were more like finger marks. And they were in the dust.
“Look!” I say, pointing to the eight smeared lines on the windowsill. “That’s where they held on when they were looking through the window.”
She thinks a minute, then says, “When you first said someone was spying on us, I thought it might be Mikey, since he’s into the whole spying thing now. But there’s no way he could move that fast.”
“And Hudson would be around here somewhere.”
She looks at me with wide eyes. “What if it was Danny?”
“Danny? Why Danny?”