Bound for Danger (5 page)

He frowned. “Kind of? I got sucked into this conversation about
The Walking Dead
, so I know a lot about zombies now. Did I learn anything about the case? No. You?”

I shook my head. But just at that moment, Gabe scooted past me, quickly reaching out for my hand and pressing a small piece of paper into it. I grabbed it, and he headed past me into the gym without even making eye contact.

I grabbed Frank's elbow and pulled him to the outskirts of the crowd, where I unfolded the note and showed it to him.

I CAN'T TALK NOW. E-MAIL ME:

[email protected]

T
HE GAME WAS A REAL
nail-biter. Nonstop action, with lots of interceptions, complicated plays, three-point throws. . . . I mean, you had to be a pretty amazing athlete to hold your own in this game.

Which is why Joe and I spent the entire game on the bench. Okay, not the entire game. When Jayden Speck fell and twisted his ankle, Joe was put in for, like, forty-five seconds. Then he missed an easy pass, and Jayden told Coach Perotta through gritted teeth, “I feel better.” Soon Joe was riding the pine again and Jayden hobbled back into the action.

That was Joe, though, not me. For the entire game, my backside might as well have been Krazy-glued to the bench.

At one point I caught Coach Noonan watching me with
sympathy. “You'll play soon,” he mouthed. But the truth was,
not
playing was kind of a relief. It gave me no chance to mess up, to make the team members who didn't want me there even angrier.

And it gave me the opportunity to watch and listen.

Jason Bound was really an amazing player. There were other good athletes on the team, but Jason was in another league entirely. Dorian Marte seemed to be his second-in-command, setting him up for layups and stuff like that. He was fast and strong too, but nowhere near as good as Jason. Dorian was only a junior, though, so I figured he would be the star of the team next year.

You could tell that the whole team had been practicing together for a long time, though. They had a chemistry that only comes with months and months of work. Watching them play, I could understand how a lot of the team members weren't happy we'd just shown up at practice one day. There
wasn't
time to get us up to speed with the rest of the team. We were just going to hold them back.

Near the end of the game, another junior named Steve O'Brien was called out and settled on the bench next to me. For a few minutes he was totally silent, watching the game intently, so I didn't try to make conversation. But after two or three minutes he suddenly turned to me and asked, “So why didn't you guys show up last night?”

“Sorry?” I asked, startled. I'd been watching Dorian intercept one of Mill Valley's strongest players.

“DEFENSE!” the Mill Valley coach was yelling.

“At Paco's,” Steve said, looking at me with genuine disappointment. “We were there to celebrate my birthday. Jason said he'd invited you and Joe.”

I stared at Steve. Was he being serious right now? Did that mean he
wasn't
involved with the weird masked guys, or maybe didn't even know that was happening?

Or was he playing a part now? If so, he was doing a great job.

Is the hazing problem something just a few team members are involved in? Or is everyone on this team an Academy Award–caliber actor?

“Um, we actually did show up,” I said honestly. “But we didn't see anyone inside, so we . . . didn't stay.”

“You didn't see anyone inside?” Steve looked confused. “I was there, like, right at seven.”

Ahhhh.
“Jason told us six thirty,” I explained. “That's when we got there.”

Recognition dawned in Steve's eyes. “Oh, that blockhead,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Jason is the
worst
with time. He should never be left in charge of invitations.”

Something was still bothering me, though. “Um, the weird thing is, we did go back,” I said, wondering if this would trigger any recognition on Steve's part. “Like, at eight thirtyish? And no one was there then, either.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, we didn't end up staying long,” he said. “We
had our pizza, but then Doug mentioned he had the new Call of Duty game. We all went to his house and played for, like, four hours.” He chuckled. “My
mom
ended up calling me, dude. We totally lost track of time.”

I frowned, still stuck on his first point. “What time did you leave?” I asked. “Jason said you were there for two hours, at least.”

Steve groaned and shook his head. “See my previous comment about Jason and time,” he said. “We were there for an hour, maybe. We must've gotten there after you left, and left before you came back. I'm sorry, dude. Next time we get together,
I'll
give you the deets, all right?”

I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “Hey, was Jason there the whole time? I mean, maybe that's why he was totally off on his times.”

Steve laughed. “Oh, he was there,” he said. “I beat him senseless at Call of Duty. He's just an idiot.”

I glanced back up at the game. Jason was, right at that moment, making a three-point shot from the middle of the court. “A talented idiot,” I said.

Steve looked at Jason without a trace of jealousy. “You can say that again.”

I studied Steve's contented face, wondering if I'd be pushing my luck with another question. “Who else was there?”

He glanced at me, surprised. “Pretty much the whole team? It was a lot of guys.”

“Just tell me who you remember,” I said.

Steve sighed. “Okay, um, Jason,” he said, counting off on his fingers. “Ty, Gabe, Quentin, Juan . . .”

“Was Dorian there?” I asked suddenly. The voice of the masked leader had sounded familiar. And there were only so many voices I'd heard up to that point. Dorian's was one of them.

Steve shook his head. “Dorian never comes out on weeknights,” he said. “His mom is, like, super strict.”

“Got it,” I said, nodding slowly. “Well . . . I'm really sorry we missed it. I hope you had a happy birthday, anyway.”

He shrugged. “Pizza and video games. It's the simple things, right?”

“Right.” We both turned back to the game. We were up by twelve points. Things were looking good for the Bayport Tigers, and for Jason Bound.

Pizza and video games definitely beats
our
night.

• • •

“So you think Jason intentionally gave us the wrong time?” Joe asked as I drove us to school the next morning. I'd told him what I learned from Steve after the game, and we'd been thinking on it ever since.

“It's definitely possible,” I said. “He was with them all night, so he couldn't have been one of the masked guys, but that doesn't mean he can't know it's happening. Of all the guys, he has the most to gain if the team stays strong . . . and the most to lose if they don't.”

Joe looked thoughtful. “If he has a serious shot at a
basketball career ahead of him, maybe he's trying to keep his hands clean. You know, letting other guys carry out the hazing, in case they get caught, but pulling the strings from a distance.”

“Stranger things have happened,” I agreed.

Suddenly Joe's phone dinged with an incoming e-mail. He grabbed it from the center console and checked it.

“Want me to read this email from Gabe out loud?” he asked.

“Please,” I said.

He read, “‘Hey, Joe. Look, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I would
let go
of this. This may seem like a weird little game to you, but these guys are
dangerous
. If you defy them, they will
end
you. I was harassed by those guys for a whole month, but I've been playing better and I'm finally past it. I would never wish what I went through on anyone. There is a rumor that they did something so horrible to Diego Lopez that he quit the team and won't talk about it with anybody. If you guys really want to play basketball, then focus on getting better so they won't target you anymore. If you don't really want to play . . . take their advice and quit. It's not worth it! Don't be a hero. Get out while you can. Gabe.'”

I had pulled into the school parking lot while Joe was reading and now swung the car into a spot. “Wow,” Joe said, as I put the car in park and stared out the windshield.

I was quiet for a moment, considering Gabe's words. “Do
you really think they're that dangerous?” I asked. “They're just kids playing games. Aren't they?”

Joe looked at me. “They wanted to
brand me,
bro.”

I shook my head. “I still don't think they would have gone through with it.”

“For someone who's so sure of that,” Joe said, “you told them everything they wanted to know at just the right time.”

I frowned. I mean, I couldn't risk it. I still didn't think they would have done it.

Would they?

“Let's think on this,” I said after a minute or two. “We can talk about our next steps at lunch. Cool?”

“Cool,” Joe agreed, and we got out of the car and headed for our first classes.

For me, this was English with Ms. Kowalski. I'm usually more of a science guy, but I was really enjoying English so far this year. Ms. Kowalski believed in lots of class participation and always came up with the best questions to ask to get the conversation going. Books and plays that seemed dry and uninteresting came alive in our discussions, opening a whole new understanding of what the author was trying to say.

Ms. Kowalski was waiting at the classroom door this morning. I smiled as I walked by her into class. “Good morning, Ms. Kowalski.”

But she looked notably unhappy to see me. “Stop right there, Frank.”

I stopped.

Up to that point, I had never heard Ms. Kowalski use a tone stronger than “mildly annoyed.” But this morning, she sounded
mad
.

At
me
.

“What's up?” I asked.

She held up a sheaf of papers in her hand. “You're not coming to class this morning. You're going with Mr. Porter here—”

She nodded behind me, and that's when I noticed my guidance counselor, Mr. Porter, approaching from the bank of lockers.
Was he waiting there for me?
I'd met with Mr. Porter exactly once, at the start of the year, to talk about preparing for college applications. Interestingly, he'd found no cause for concern in my lack of extracurricular activities.

“—to talk about
this paper
.”

She held up the papers again. She said
this paper
like she was saying
this piece of dog poop
or
this snot-crusted used tissue
.

“Um,” I said, trying to stay calm, “what paper is that?”

“The paper you turned in
last night
, Frank.” This time she held up the paper long enough for me to read the cover page.

BLOOD ON MY HANDS: LADY MACBETH AND THE PROBLEM WITH WOMEN IN POWER. BY FRANK HARDY

“Ah—um—”

I had never seen this paper before in my life. Also, I mean,
come on
. “The Problem with Women in Power”? I wasn't some kind of raging, misogynist.

“But I didn't write that!”

Ms. Kowalski sighed and looked at Mr. Porter as though she had expected exactly this reaction.

“It was turned in over our server using your username and password, Frank,” Mr. Porter said calmly. “I think we'd better go to the office and talk about this.”

We were starting to attract some attention. A small crowd of my classmates was watching, both inside and outside the classroom.

“Dude,” Nate Jefferson said, glancing at the paper, “did you seriously
write
that?”

“No!” I said helplessly. “I wrote a paper about the sleepwalking scene! I spent
weeks
on it!”

Ms. Kowalski turned and stomped into the classroom, clearly disgusted with me. I felt horrible. I really
liked
Ms. Kowalski. Now she thought I was some kind of girl-hating monster!

Mr. Porter clamped his hand down on my shoulder. “Let's go discuss this in my office, Frank.”

• • •

“The thing is, Frank,” Mr. Porter said, leaning back in his chair, “even if what you're saying is correct, and this is some kind of setup, it's hard to imagine anyone having the
technical skill to pull it off. This paper was turned in at eight forty-five last night, under your name, from a computer at the town library.”

“Aha!” I cried. “See, right there, that's wrong! I turned in my paper from home!”

Mr. Porter looked at me skeptically. “Frank, there is no record of you turning in anything from home. There is no record of you turning in anything else, at all.”

I tapped my toe nervously. This had to be the work of the masked people. But it was so unexpected. I'd predicted they'd ambush me and bash me over the head, not mess with my schoolwork. Who knew they had a hacker among them? And the school server was notoriously hard to hack into. But clearly, someone had done it. All to target me.

Mr. Porter gave me a quizzical look. “Do you want to tell me more about who might set you up?” he asked. “Is this a problem we can discuss?”

Oh sure. Well, Principal Gerther made my brother and me join the basketball team for some reason we can't figure out, and then these masked people put bags over our heads and drove us to someone's basement, where they tried to brand my brother and promised to ruin our lives if we didn't quit the team. So we didn't, which is a decision I'm starting to rethink, and it looks like they wrote a fake woman-hating paper about
Macbeth,
hacked into the school server, and submitted it in my name. And somehow scuttled the actual, amazing paper I spent three weeks writing about the sleepwalking scene.