Don't Get Caught (11 page)

On the way back to school, I use Stranko’s school map on my phone to find out exactly who Room 103 belongs to. It’s Mrs. Roberts’s art room, located in the back of the building. Twenty minutes later, I’m giving myself a hernia as I lug what’s essentially a box of water to the correct window. Already there, waiting in the darkness and holding their own boxes, are Wheeler and Adleta.

“Goldfish too?” Adleta asks.

“From Tremblay’s,” I say.

“I had to go to the PetSmart in Athens.”

“I was all the way over in Bakersfield,” Wheeler says. “We should demand gas money.”

“No sign of Ellie?” I ask.

“Ellie?” Adleta says. “My text was from Kate.”

“I got one from both of them, telling me to move my ass,” Wheeler says.

The window blind suddenly goes up, and standing there are both Ellie and Malone, dressed all in black and wearing ski caps. Malone opens the window, and Ellie leans out, saying, “Come on, there’s not a lot of time.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“I’ll explain later. Hurry.”

We begin handing bag after bag of goldfish through the window to Ellie and Malone. With each bag we pass through, the girls disappear into the dark art room. I can’t see where they’re going, but I can hear water running inside. After I hand Ellie my final bag, she starts to close the window.

“Wait a minute,” I say. “At least give us some clue.”

Ellie and Kate break into grins, and Malone says, “Operation Aquatic Art is under way.”

I have to wait until morning to see the final product. I show up to school early, but even then I have to fight my way through dozens of students already packed into Mrs. Roberts’s art room, where everyone is staring at the ten-foot-tall glass display case used to show off award-winning art. But it’s not the art that has their attention—it’s the six hundred goldfish swimming among the pottery and now-blurry charcoal drawings. Hanging from a paper clip chain attached to the case is one of Malone’s Chaos Club cards.

Both Malone and Ellie stand on chairs in the back of the room, and on my way, I kick a garden hose connected to the faucet on one of Roberts’s many paint-splattered sinks. I pull up a chair between the girls, both of whom are struggling not to smile.

“How’d you even get in here?” I whisper.

“We hid in the storage room until Mrs. Roberts left,” Malone said. “After that, the room was ours.”

“You guys waited here until we showed up at nine? That’s insane.”

“But worth it, right?”

There’s no denying that. The glass case is a massive pulsing orange cloud. In a day or two, it’ll be murky with fish crap, but for now—

“It’s a work of art,” Ellie says.

“Shoot, I had to make up for the hours I spent on Wheeler’s boner diagram,” Malone says. “That whole thing left me with a bad taste in my mouth.”

“That’s what she said,” I say.

“Funny guy.”

When Adleta and Wheeler enter the room, Adleta bulldozes a path for them to the front of the crowd. After seeing what Ellie and Malone have accomplished, they come our way.

Wow
, Adleta mouths to the girls.

Wheeler holds a thumbs-up close to his chest.

Soon, all five of us are on chairs, watching the revolving door of students enter and leave the room. Even teachers show up to see the school’s newest aquarium.

“Is that caulking?” Adleta asks.

“Yeah,” says Malone. “I ran strips around the edge of the case and where the doors normally open. I’m not sure how secure it is though. If it gives out—”

“We’ll have a goldfish holocaust,” Wheeler finishes.

“Why didn’t you take the art out first?” I ask. “Didn’t you have a piece in there?”

“Two, actually,” Malone says, “but to create, you must destroy.”

“That’s not the only reason,” Ellie says, and she and Malone start laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Adleta asks.

“Just wait,” Malone says, then looks to the doorway.

Oh no.

It’s Libby. It only takes her three steps into the room before she’s shouting, “Oh my God!” and shoving her way to the display case. When she gets a closer look, she goes full-on hysterical, pounding at the glass so hard we’re all probably seconds away from a goldfish tidal wave. Luckily for all of us, Mrs. Roberts steps out from the crowd and gently guides Libby into the hall. I’m not sure if it’s to calm her down or protect the rest of us from a Libby rampage.

“Oh man,” Malone says. “Libby’s charcoal self-portrait for the Scholastics Competition was in there. That’s a shame. And she was sure to get a Gold Key for it too. Maybe even a scholarship.”

“Wow, bummer,” Ellie deadpans.

Then they both start giggling, trying—and failing—to control their volume.

Wheeler and Adleta join in too, but I don’t. I can’t. I won’t. Of course, like an idiot, I say, “Man, that has to suck if you’re Libby.”

Malone’s eyes darken. “Are you purposely trying to sound like an asshole or are you actually showing sympathy for Libby Heckman?”

“No, but—”

“Good, because I’d hate to think you feel sorry for her. That would mean you’ve forgotten what she put me through last year. And what she did at the pep rally last week. Girls commit suicide over things like that, Max. Maybe some girls you know have actually even considered it.”

“I just meant—”

“So you don’t get to try to make me feel bad about this, you got it? You wanted us to pull a prank in the name of the Chaos Club, and that’s what I did. If I chose Libby as my target, that’s my decision, not yours.”

“But—”

Malone drops off the chair and walks through the jam-packed students still in the room.

Wheeler gives me a
yeeesh
look.

Adleta’s not even looking at me.

And Ellie says, “I’d think you of all people would be a little more supportive.”

“I’m just saying maybe that may have been a little much. You saw Libby, right? And that’s the drawing she’s been working on for weeks. It’s completely ruined.”

“So what? Maybe try to see it from Kate’s point of view next time and not just your own. I have to get to my locker before class.”

“Smooth, dude,” Wheeler says.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

• • •

For the rest of the day, I feel like shit, which is only compounded by Malone ignoring my apology texts. But am I wrong? Making a bunch of guys puke and destroying a girl’s art—how does it help us get back at the Chaos Club? What was business before is now personal, and I don’t like it. Or maybe I’m overreacting. Stranger things have happened. It’s really an ethics question, so I do the only thing I can think of: I stop by Watson’s room on the way out of the building.

“What can I do for you, Max?” Watson asks. He’s at his desk in the back of the room with his feet up, an
Existential Dread Is My Copilot
coffee cup resting on a pile of today’s pop quizzes.

“I have a philosophy question,” I say.

“Then you came to the right place. Fire away.”

“Is revenge ethical?”

Watson raises his eyebrows.

“Now that is an excellent question. Maybe it should be this week’s Big Questions of Existence topic.”

“I’d rather hear what you have to say on it.”

“Well, not to be evasive, but it doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what you think. All questions of ethics are like that. The answer depends on what you believe in—your religion, if you have one; your upbringing; your environment. You have to set your own parameters for what’s acceptable. If you don’t, someone else will do it for you.”

“I should’ve known better than to come here looking for a straight answer.”

Watson laughs and says, “I’m not one to give answers. I’m more interested in giving you the tools to come up with the answers yourself.”

“And in this case?”

“That means thinking about what you believe in and why—the why is the important part—then making decisions based on that. It’s the only honest way to do things.”

“You’re like the illegitimate child of Yoda and Socrates,” I say.

“That might just be the best compliment I’ve ever received,” Watson says. “However, I will say that revenge and justice aren’t the same thing. Most people make the mistake of confusing the two.”

• • •

I wish I could report the clouds parting and a rainbow of understanding shining down on me, but no, two weeks later, I’m as confused as I was before. I do know that I hate having people mad at me though, and Malone’s cold-shouldering me gets to be too much to take, so one night, I drive to the Asheville Climbing Center, where she works. Just the sight of those walls with their tiny handholds is enough to make my stomach do somersaults. I find Malone at the base of the expert wall with a group of college-y-looking guys in a semicircle in front of her. Kate’s wearing black soccer shorts and an employee shirt with the sleeves cut off. She looks absolutely badass.

“I can’t,” she’s saying to one of the guys. “I’m not allowed to climb during work hours.”

He says, “Come on, I’ll even make it easier for you. I put up ten bucks and you put up nothing. Just race me.”

“Like I said—”

He snorts and says to the guy next to him, “I knew it was all talk. No girl’s that good.”

If he’s trying to push Malone’s buttons, he’s picked the right one. Without a word, she clips onto the wall and motions for a coworker, another girl who looks like she could snap me in half. Once the guy clips in, he and Malone stand waiting at the base of the wall.

“Want a head start?” he says.

Malone ignores him and asks the worker for a quick countdown.

At zero, Malone is gone, a spider monkey climbing the wall. Her legs and arms flash this way and that as she rockets toward the ceiling. It takes her less than twenty seconds to climb fifty feet, and when she reaches the top, she clangs the cowbell at the ceiling’s base. Then Malone pushes off the wall and drops down, rappelling past the poor bastard who isn’t even three-quarters of the way up.

As she unclips, she tells the guys, “Have your friend give Mia my ten bucks when he gets down. Whenever that is.”

The girl who spotted Malone gives her a high five and says, “You’re so hot.”

“Thanks, Mia,” Malone says. “I’ll see you later.”

I follow Malone as she walks to another area of the building. She’s not even breathing heavy.

“That was amazing,” I say.

“I shouldn’t have let them get to me like that. But whatever,” she says. “So why are you here? Looking to lecture me again?”

“No, I wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have said anything about Libby.”

“But you still think I shouldn’t have done that to her?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t know.”

I tell her about what Watson said about revenge and justice and how I feel like we’re confusing the two in our pursuit of exposing the Chaos Club.

“So what if we are?” Malone says. “That’s not your problem. If Adleta wants to puke on Stranko and his dad, and I want Libby dead for what she did to me, then that’s on our consciences, not yours. I totally wish I could just forget what she did to me, let it go and pretend like it’s no big deal, but I can’t.”

“I get it,” I say. “I just wanted to say I was sorry. I was an idiot. I’ll mind my business next time.”

Malone softens, and her eyes drop for a second while she works something out.

“Well, since you didn’t mind your business, I’ll be guilty of it too,” she says. “Ellie told me about you two at the radar dish.”

My cheeks get so hot, my head may burst into flames.

“Don’t get embarrassed,” she says. “I totally get it. Ellie’s cute and cool. You’d be crazy not to try to kiss her.”

I don’t say anything because: (A) I don’t know how to respond, and (B) I’m hoping if I focus hard enough, I’ll teleport to another planet.

“But, look, here’s the thing—and I feel like a bitch saying this, but you’re a good guy—I think you need to be careful around Ellie.”

“What?”

“It’s just…look, I like Ellie, I really do. She’s really nice, like scary nice, but I’ve heard things about her, Max. Like maybe she’s not as nice as she makes herself out to be.”

“What have you heard?”

“Rumors mostly.”

“About what?”

“That she lies, Max. All the time. I admit I haven’t witnessed that, but I don’t know, I can see it somehow. She’s so good at acting. We’ve seen that firsthand. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. She blew me off.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

Getting rejected is “for the best”?

Yeah right.

• • •

At home, I do two things:

First, I delete the naked picture of Malone from my phone. It’s something I should’ve done months ago. But before you give me the Good Guy Award, know that my finger hovered over the Delete Photo button for a good two minutes. Still, I did push it.

Dammit.

Second, I google
Chaos Club
, and it takes digging through three pages of links to Wheeler’s fake site to get to the real one. On the real Chaos Club site, I hope to find a denial of the pranks we’ve pulled in their name, but there’s nothing. The only change I can see from the beginning of the year is a picture of the cows on the roof. They don’t even bother mentioning the water tower prank, almost like it wasn’t a big deal to them.

Question: If we’re going to all this trouble to get back at a club who doesn’t care what we’re doing, aren’t we being laughed at all over again?

Later that week, Ellie catches me on my way to lunch.

“You need to get on board,” Ellie says. She’s doing that bouncing-on-her-toes thing she does when she’s excited. “I would’ve thought you’d be first to come up with a prank. Now you’re almost last.”

“I will eventually.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Fair question. Mostly, I haven’t thought of a prank yet, but a good part of it is the whole guilt thing.

“I’ll come up with something soon,” I say.

“Okay, but in the meantime…”

Ellie pulls her phone out and moves in close.

Would it be creepy of me if I sniffed her hair?

“I need your help,” she says. “But you can’t tell anyone.” She unlocks her phone and shows me the picture on her wallpaper.

“Oh my God,” I say. “Stealing isn’t very Christian-like, Ellie Wick.”

“Neither is what I’m going to do with it,” she says.

“What’s the plan?”

“I think it’s time the school got an image makeover. I can give you the details when there aren’t so many ears around, but it’s a two-person job. Are you in?”

I hesitate just one second, but it’s one second too long.

“What’s wrong?” Ellie says. Then her brow furrows. “Wait, you’re not thinking about quitting, are you?”

“Huh? No.”

“You are, aren’t you? It’s because of Tim’s and Kate’s pranks, right?”

Man, I swear sometimes girls have ESP or something.

“You can’t quit, Max. We need you. I need you.”

I certainly like the sound of that.

She says, “You may not like the last two pranks, but remember how you felt after the water tower? That’s why we’re doing this.”

“You say that, but it’s become personal.”

“But it
is
personal, Max. How can it not be? The Chaos Club embarrassed us and has gotten me twice now. People are still slipping Hitler pictures into my locker. The Chaos Club needs to pay for what they’ve done. It’s almost like none of this is real to you because it was a couple months ago.”

“It’s still real,” I say but wonder if maybe she’s right. I can’t remember the last time someone called out, “Water Tower Five!” to me in the hall. And I’m sure not getting Hitler pictures in my locker.