Homeroom Headhunters (11 page)

I flipped over onto my back—and what did I find?

A jump rope with each end tied to a hacky sack for extra weight.

I kept kicking until the homemade bola started to slacken. Then I pulled my left foot out and stumbled back up.

This is all about pushing me down the hall. They're trying to cor
ral me.

But to where?

Just get out of the building now, Spencer. Go, go, go!

I made a mad dash to the exit, and a wave of relief washed over me as I pushed the door.…

Only it wouldn't open.

The handle was padlocked and wrapped in chains.

I pushed again, harder. The chains rattled, but the door wouldn't budge.

I should have known: run down either wing and you hit an exit.

But if the exit is chained, you're trapped.

Like a rat.

Somebody blasted a whistle, but it was impossible to tell who it was or from where. It was immediately answered by a warble in the hall. That had to have been Sporkboy.

He was joined by another call, sounding like it had come from my left.

They were communicating with one another, telling each other where they were.

Then another call from behind…I think.

Three of them, and they were getting louder.

No. Not louder.

Nearer
.

They were closing in.

“Kill the pig!”

“Cut his throat!”

“Spill his blood!”

I had to get past them.

I pressed my back against a row of lockers and started sidling along. I had only gone a few steps before the lockers ended and I bumped into a water fountain. I quickly ducked, balling myself up directly next to it, and prayed the Tribe hadn't noticed.

Maybe they hadn't seen me.

Maybe
.

I heard the soft slap of footsteps patter by.

“Which way did he go?” one of them whispered.

“He was just here!”

“Well, find him!”

I waited until I knew they had walked a few steps past, then gave myself another second before bolting.

“There he goes!”

I picked up speed. They were right behind me—Yardstick and Compass. Sporkboy, too. His panting had a slight whistle to it.

If I could make it back to the main body of the building without getting speared, I could reach the front entrance.

One by one, the charge of bare feet behind me dwindled. I must have put some distance between me and the rest.

The central hallway was just ahead. All I had to do was take a quick turn and…

I skidded to a halt.

I was suddenly staring through the Y-shaped barrel of Sully's slingshot, aimed straight at my nose. She was biting down on the mouthpiece of her silver-rimmed whistle.

The air emptied from my lungs.

“That was close,” I whispered. “I thought I was goner. We've got to get to the front entrance before—”

Sully didn't lower her arm.

“Sully…?”

Her slingshot remained trained on me.

“Please?”

Sully blew into her whistle.

I was on my own.

I darted past her before she could fire. I heard the
CLINK!
of a coin hitting the wall just to my right, quickly followed by another.

There was no way I'd make it to the front entrance now.

I had to hide.

Somewhere no one would think to look for me. Somewhere nobody would be crazy enough to go.

A place so out there, no one would even conceive of it as a hiding spot.

There was only one place I could think of.

• • •

“Spencer.” Sully's voice crackled over the intercom. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.…”

At least I knew she was in the main office.

Where the boys were—that was a totally different question.

Where was I?

Outside the cafeteria with a cluster of industrial-size rubber trash cans. Even when empty they smelled worse than death. We're talking half-eaten spaghetti that looked like shriveled earthworms, and coagulated soda cans with chunks of chewing gum stuck to the rims.

No one would ever,
ever
get inside one of these trash cans if they had the choice. The smell instantly set off my gag reflex, and I dry-heaved,
hee-hawing
like some colicky donkey.

It was too late to turn back now. I took another puff from My Little Friend, jumped in, and kneeled down.

Something runny started seeping into the knees of my jeans.

Please let that be soda.

I tried to hold my breath, but the smell was so strong. I didn't need to inhale for the nastiness to crawl inside my nostrils. It wriggled up my nose all on its own.

My asthma was eating away at my chest. No matter how many hits off my inhaler I took, I couldn't keep my lungs from burning.

Footsteps. I heard footsteps. They'd be right beside me any second now.

If I breathed through my mouth, my rasp would give me away—but if I breathed through my nose, I'd have to contend with an olfactory onslaught of rotten food.

“Where is he?” I heard one of them whisper.

“He's gotta be around here somewhere.”

The longer I struggled to hold my breath, the more my lungs felt like they were flooding with battery acid. I'd black out before long.

Hold. Wait for it. Don't move until you know they're here.

Count of three:

One…

Two…

Three!

I jack-in-the-boxed out of the trash can and came face-to-face with Compass and Yardstick. I must've brought a waft of noxious aroma along with me, because both boys winced for a millisecond.

That was all I needed.

I grabbed the closest trash can and lifted it over my head and dumped it on Compass. The bin swallowed him up to his waist, and he started to shriek.

I quickly kicked the can, sending him toppling onto Yardstick. Both went down.

Run, Spencer. Run!

I had a good head start. I could make it to the front entrance. Sprinting down the hall, I nearly tripped over my own feet.

Almost there…

My rib cage had become a bony fist, tightening its grip around my lungs and squeezing.

So close. I could see the doors now.
So close so close so close.

Another whistle. It sounded only a few steps away.

How could that be? How could they have caught up to me that quick?

Turning around, I found out.

The ergonomic swivel chairs from the administrative office were the only chairs in the building that had wheels. Spin the padded back of the chair to the front—and voilà: instant
chair
-iot.

The adjustable backrest becomes a defensive fortification. The metal legs branch out like a five-pointed starfish, so it's easy to plant your feet on the base and kick off—like a scooter.

It's one thing to see sweet apple-cheeked Mrs. Jarrow and a mothball-perfumed Mrs. Worsham pivoting behind the front desk in their chairs—answering phones, writing late passes, and typing up memos—but seeing the Tribe barrel down on me was something totally different.

Peashooter and Sporkboy piloted one chair-iot, while a pretty ticked off Compass and Yardstick shared their own. Peashooter and Yardstick were steering.

Sporkboy and Compass held separate ends of a volleyball net between them.

That net was meant for me.

“Take him down!” Peashooter shouted. “Throw it—
now
!”

Up ahead, I caught sight of Mr. Simms's mop and bucket. He had left it leaning against the wall just next to the entrance to the boys' bathroom.

If I could just…

I only have one chance.

Have to make it count.

I could sense Sporkboy and Compass reeling back—just a breath away from tossing the net. I leaned to my right, extending my hand as far as I could reach.

My fingers grazed the mop's handle. I could feel the coarse grain of the wood against my skin as it slid into the palm of my hand. I tightened my grip and yanked—only, the mop didn't leave the bucket.

Instead, it tipped over. Dirty, soapy water went cascading across the floor.

Yardstick didn't have enough time to steer clear of the bucket. Just as he brought his foot down for another kick, he stomped on the container, throwing him off-balance. Without anything else to hold on to, Yardstick grabbed Compass, sending the two toppling.

Their vacated chair-iot rolled down the hallway, completely empty.

Bingo. Free ride.

I launched the mop at Peashooter's head. He slammed on the brakes with his feet and ducked. That gave me just enough time to hop on board the chair-iot and shift gears.

“Get him! Get him!”

I turned to see Sporkboy and Peashooter behind me, spitting into their whistles.

“Kill the pig!”
Sporkboy screamed.

“Cut his throat!”
Peashooter yelled.

“Spill his blood!”
they hollered together.

At the very end of the main hallway, right at the front entrance, stood Greenfield Middle School's glass-encased trophy shelf—filled with an entire league of brass-cast athletes frozen in playing positions. Even at night, the school left its lights on, to illuminate the lineup of miniature metal men perched on their pedestals.

Soccer players stuck mid-kick.

Baseball players fixed mid-swing.

As we barreled toward that shiny glass case, I couldn't help but imagine those miniature sluggers tightening their little fists around their tiny baseball bats, ready to defend themselves against our charge.

Or, at least, Sporkboy's and Peashooter's.

I leapt off my chair and fell, rolling across the floor.

“Watch out,” Sporkboy squealed. “We're heading right for the—”

But it was too late.

Peashooter jumped off at the very last second. He tumbled onto the floor just a few feet away from me, leaving Sporkboy to careen into the case alone.

Glass shattered.

Trophies toppled.

Metallic athletes and shards showered Sporkboy. Most bounced off his belly, but a few fragments sank into his skin, bringing up blood in thin dribbles.

“Man down!” I yelled. “Man down!”

Peashooter rushed over and kneeled beside Sporkboy, who laid there, dazed, surrounded by little brass men with no faces.

“Did I…win a trophy?”

“Don't move him,” I said, running up to them. From this close, I could see that Sporkboy's arms were laced in red ribbons. “We've got to take him to a doctor.”

“No we don't,” Peashooter countered.

“But he's bleeding!”

“Couple nicks,” he insisted. “Take him to the nurse's office. Sully can patch him up.”

“What about all that glass?”

“Just leave it.”

“But they'll know we were here!”

By then, Yardstick and Compass had caught up to us.

“You okay?” Yardstick asked, his voice permeated with concern.

Peashooter motioned for the two of them to each grab an arm while he lifted a leg.

“Simms will clean it up,” he said to me. “Now grab his other leg and help us get him to the nurse's.”

“You can't expect Simms to pick up after you every time you leave a mess.”

“Says who?
You?
”

“Um—can we discuss this some other time?” Sporkboy piped up. “I'm losing some blood here.…”

pencer?” Mom's voice struggled through the gelatinous muck of my sleep. “
Wake up, Spencer.
Don't make me drag you out of bed.…”

I had slipped back through the kitchen window less than an hour ago.

I could have slept for the next thirty days straight.

I had barely dozed for thirty minutes.

My body ached. Every muscle felt like moldy cold cuts left out in the sun. My bones may as well have been used matchsticks, burned to flimsy cinders.

“Please,” I moaned from beneath the bedspread. “Just let me die in peace.…”

“You're leaving me with no choice here, hon.”

Mom yanked the covers off and got her first whiff of me—“Spencer!
What is that smell?
Have you been sleeping in a garbage can?”

Close.

• • •

Three scorching-hot showers later and still I smelled like a Dumpster dweller. I felt as if I had peeled the outer two layers of my skin clear off, rinsing and scrubbing under a stream of blistering water. Now that I was rubbed raw, I looked like a piglet. Completely pink.

And yet the decrepit bouquet from that trash can insisted on clinging to me.

The warning bell to first period had already rung by the time Mom dropped me off at school, the car windows rolled down for the whole ride.

I shuffled into the boys' room for one last rinse before subjecting my fellow classmates to my special brand of B.O., praying I could at least eradicate the soda scum from under my fingernails.

“There he is.” Leaning against the sink, as if he'd been waiting for me, was none other than Riley Callahan. “We were getting worried you were skipping.”

I turned around, ready to book it out of the bathroom—only to find two of his cloned cronies popping out of the stalls. Each grabbed an arm. One lifted his foot and drove his heel into my knee pit. My leg abruptly flexed forward, sending me down to the floor. Both knees slammed against the tiles. The pain rang through my body. It felt like my patellas had exploded.

With both arms still in their grip, I must've looked like a bird trying to flap away.

“Riley,” I managed to say, “haven't you learned anything from our last few run-ins?”

“What can you do to me? Sure seems like I've got the upper hand now.”

“Don't you get it? You've got to stop.…”

“Or else—what? You're going to mousetrap me in the mouth again?”

“I'm just trying to protect you!”

“You call squirting me in the face with pepper spray
protection
?”

“It was asthma medicine, but whatever…”

“You always have an answer for everything, don't you?” Riley muttered. “You just have to get the last word in?”

“Never been a big believer in the whole
silence is golden
thing.…”

“Since you don't know how to shut up, I think it's time someone taught you.”

The second bell rang.

“Hurry!” Cro-Magnon Crony #1 said. “I can't be late for class.…”

“Can it,” Riley said as he reached into the urinal with his
bare hand
, pulled out the toilet cake, and held the pink puck up to my face.

I tried to free myself, yanking both arms until I thought they'd pop from their sockets—but it was no use.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Me?
I'm
not doing anything.” He brought the puck up even closer. “
You
, on the other hand, missed breakfast.”

Cro-Magnon Crony #2 chuckled.

“
Wait
,” I yelled. “Can't we just settle this like mature young adults? You stay on your side of the hallway from now on and I'll stay on mine?”

“Open wide.…”

I cricked my neck back as far as I could, facing the ceiling.
“Heeeeeeelp!”

Cro-Magnon Crony #1 wrapped his sweaty palm across my mouth.

“Move your hand,” Riley ordered.

“But what if somebody hears him?” Cro-Mag asked.

“This will shut him up.…”

As soon as my mouth was free, I started pleading with the ceiling again. “I could use a little help here!”

“You don't have any friends at this school,” Riley snorted. “Unless you've made up some imaginary pals to play with?”

“Something like that…”

“So where are they now?”

“That's a very good question.”

I knew this was a long shot, but either the Tribe would come to my rescue, or I was chowing down on a urinal cake.

“Somebody! Anybody?
Pleeeeaaase!
”

I'm going to take the next three seconds of my life and press the
SLOW-MO
button for a little play-by-play:

SECOND ONE:

Cro-Mag Crony #1 was airborne in a breath. Just when he was about to fall face-forward—his feet flipped, turning his entire body upside down.

SECOND TWO:

Cro-Mag Crony #2 let go of my arm. He was about to make a break for the door, but suddenly he found himself flopping through the air alongside his friend.

SECOND THREE:

I saw Riley look down at his feet.

So I looked down at Riley's feet.

A lasso of jump ropes lay open and loose around his tennis shoes. Riley didn't have enough time to turn and see where the other end of the tether went, but I could make out the length of yellow cord reaching up into the rafters of the bathroom ceiling.

Yardstick is one heck of an engineer.

In one swift
swish
, the jump rope cinched itself around Riley's ankles and launched him off the floor.

He let go of the urinal cake, and it splattered across the floor.

“It's been good hanging out with you guys,” I said, pinching the puck between my fingers. “We should do this again.”

I leaned into Riley's face and brought the cake up to his lips. “Now
you
open wide.…”

Just as I was about to score a goal and ram that pink puck past his teeth, Riley shut his eyes. “Please,” he whimpered. “Don't!”

Wait a minute. What am I doing?

I took a step back, dropping the urinal cake to the floor.

Just who is the bully here?

“Let's get you down before somebody—”

Peashooter dropped from the ceiling.

Yardstick and Compass followed, climbing down into the stalls.

Before Riley or either of his clones could spin around and see who had just joined us, Compass and Yardstick slipped sweaty headbands over their eyes, blindfolding them.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Peashooter stormed up to me. “Unfinished business.”

• • •

Riley made his grand entrance into the girls' locker room strapped to one of the office rolling chairs. He had been stripped down and blindfolded. His mouth was covered with duct tape, and he was now wearing nothing but a pair of girl's underwear.

Written in Sharpie marker across his chest, along his arms and legs, was:
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will
always hurt me.

A knot had formed in my stomach before Peashooter and Yardstick gave Riley the ol' heave-ho into the locker room.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“This is how we deal with bullies,” Peashooter whispered. “After this, Riley won't be bothering you—or anyone else—ever again.”

Bullying the bullies.

Interesting tactic.

On a silently mouthed count of three, Peashooter and Yardstick shoved Riley inside. The two slipped under the bleachers before the first cry of surprise.

“Oh my God—
look!
”

Why it hadn't dawned on me to bolt is beyond me.

“Is that…
Riley Callahan
?”

The moment his name was uttered out loud, the stunned silence that had overtaken the girls quickly shifted into something much more malevolent.

“It is! It
totally
is!”

One girl laughed. Then another. The more voices that added to the cackling, the louder the sound intensified—until it sounded wretched.

Inhuman
.

Those girls transformed into a horde of werekids, turning on one of their own.

That's when I ran.

As much as I thought I wouldn't mind Riley getting a little taste of tribal comeuppance, I felt like I had abandoned him to be torn to pieces by that rabid pack.

• • •

My name was on the lips of a few too many students that day.

Boy, were my ears burning.

When Coach Calhoon pulled the gag out from Riley's mouth, the finger-pointing commenced: “It was Spencer Pendleton!” Riley cried. “He did this!”

When Mr. Simms was called to fix a “busted pipe” in the boys' bathroom, he discovered Callahan's cronies dangling from the ceiling instead: “Spencer Pendleton sneak-attacked us!”

When Pritchard called me into his office to hear my side of the story, he didn't say anything for the longest time. Jaw clenched.

I couldn't tell if he expected me to speak first, so I kept quiet.

He finally broke the silence. “You're here so much I should start charging you rent.”

“Maybe you just enjoy my company, sir?”

“Do you always have a witty comeback? Or do you ever bite your tongue?”

“I've bitten my tongue plenty of times. You'd think I wouldn't have any tongue left by now.…”

“Greenfield has gone through an earthquake since you arrived,” he said. “Damaged property. Broken trophy case. Stolen school supplies. Misplaced equipment. Smoke bombs.
Vandalism
. And now this incident with Riley and his friends!”

“But I haven't done anything!”

Technically speaking, it was the truth.

“I'm not an idiot, Spencer. I know it's you. I may not be able to prove every single last act of sabotage yet, but a student saw you running from the gym today.”

“Okay, yes, I was there. But it wasn't me, I swear.”

“Then who was it?”

I stopped myself from saying anything more. The walls had eyes.

More like the ceiling had ears.

“Consider this strike one.” Pritchard sighed. “Three strikes and you're out, Spencer—and I do mean
out
. Out of my school. For good.”

I looked up at him, locking on to his eyes.

“You're staying after school today for detention.”

“What if I'm already serving a detention for Mr. Rorshuck?”

“We'll just have to add on another one,” he said, shaking his head. “But from the moment you step into this building, there will be eyes on you.
Twenty-four/seven!
”

His weren't the only ones.…

“It's a deal, Jim,” I said. “You won't be sorry, I promise.”

“Please don't call me Jim.”