The Detention Club (9 page)

* * *

On Friday I continued to secretly take digital pictures of the blackboard in my classes while my classmates feverishly took notes, and then spent the rest of the time writing in my inventor's notebook. At lunchtime Principal Curtis showed up and motioned for everyone to quiet down. “Listen up, everybody,” he said. “The Lost-and-Found Forum on the school website is absolutely stuffed, and after interviewing several of the students who have lost items in the last few weeks, we've come to the conclusion that either there is a thief in this school or stealing in general has risen abnormally this fall.”

The students started murmuring nervously.

“Now, there's no need for panic, but you really have to be diligent—not only about watching your own things, but also about keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. If you see anything suspicious, just tell a teacher or visit me at my office. That is all, for now. Enjoy the rest of your lunches.”

Principal Curtis exited the cafeteria, and everyone started chattering real loudly.

“I can't believe this is happening,” Drew said.

Surprisingly, some students didn't believe there really was a thief. Mrs. Farley, who had lunch-monitor duty that day, suggested to Carson at the next table over that there was no thief. “I've been teaching for twenty years, and the one thing middle schoolers have in common is that they all lose personal possessions constantly. It's just a bigger deal nowadays because they have more expensive things to lose.”

It seemed weird to me that everyone was so freaked out about this thief business. Me and Drew, we had worse things to worry about. These people had such easy lives, to worry about this thief when me and Drew were barely hanging on.

As the days passed, more students' things went missing:

Angie's favorite bracelet.

Carson's scientific calculator.

An eighth grader's wallet.

Sally's horseshoe key chain.

A seventh grader's earbuds.

It became a daily occurrence where in at least one of my classes someone would find out that they were missing something: a hoodie, a cell phone, a T-shirt, a textbook. In fact, Drew and I at one point realized that we were the only kids who hadn't gotten anything stolen, it seemed.

“Even the thief doesn't include us,” Drew said, and I nodded sadly.

Unluckily for us, our wish was granted, because when I went to my locker at the end of the day to get Drew's jacket, it was gone! Drew showed up a moment later, and I gritted my teeth. “Um, I have some not-so-great news that kind of involves you,” I said. “Your jacket's missing.”

“You lost my jacket?”

“Not necessarily, the thief might've stolen it,” I said.

“But you have a history of losing your jacket, so maybe the thief has nothing to do with it.”

“Either way I'm in the clear, right?”

“How so?”

“If the thief stole it, that's not my fault,” I said. “And if I really did lose your jacket, well, you already knew about this tendency of mine beforehand. So really, to be fair, in a way it's more your fault that you let me borrow it in the first place, because now I feel bad for losing it and it's not like I could help it.”

“That's not a good excuse.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“We're different people,” I said. “I guess I'm just the type of kid who, when I put a quarter in the claw machine at the arcade and fail to pick up a toy, I don't get angry because I know there was always that risk that I wouldn't succeed.”

“I guess you're right.”

He didn't say anything else, and this kinda annoyed me—I wanted to point out that if he was a bigger man he'd apologize for putting me in this situation in the first place, but this was one of those rare moments in life where I knew to quit while I was ahead. Then I thought of something.

“Hey—what if it
was
the thief?” I asked.

For the first time we really considered this possibility, and it gave us the chills.

By the end of the following week, more students had stuff go missing. Everyone was talking about it, because in any group of friends in any grade, at least one person had lost something at school, and there was no doubt about it at this point—there was definitely a thief at the school.

M
RS.
R
YDER HANDED BACK OUR
first pop quizzes in math class on Monday.

“To give you an idea of where you stand in class, the average score was 81 percent. That's not very high. It means some of you aren't paying enough attention. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. If you scored below a 65 percent, you received an F, which means you have to get your quiz signed by your parents tonight.”

I looked around to see who got F's, but nobody frowned or groaned when they got their quiz back. Either everyone had really good poker faces or Mrs. Ryder was exaggerating about the bad grades. She finally dropped off my quiz and patted it on the desk. “Make sure you get this back to me tomorrow,” she said out loud, and everyone in class went, “Oooooh!”

I looked down at the quiz, and on top it read:

 

14%. F–

 

An F–? I didn't even know that was possible. A 14 percent? How could I have scored so low? After class I pleaded my case with her. “I'll show my parents the quiz, but do they really have to sign it?” I asked. “They hate signing stuff. They're paranoid about having their identities stolen. We have an uncle who lost it all because he talked to a telemarketer one day. Now he's in a shelter, eating unlabeled cans of soup.”

“You also have to answer all the questions again, on a separate piece of paper.”

“You're giving me more homework?” I asked, although technically I hadn't done any of it all semester, but still.

That night I couldn't eat during dinner. Mom had made chicken potpie, which I can't stand to begin with, because the fact is, pies should always be filled with dessert. I do like the square-shaped carrots, though, because the shape makes them feel futuristic. I can't wait for the day when we just eat pills instead of food, but I'm getting off topic, and I have a feeling I wouldn't even think this way if I had a mother who could actually cook. The point is, my stomach was in knots, and I ended up nibbling on a couple of soupy square carrots.

“You have to eat more than that,” Dad said. “Your mom spent a long time defrosting this meal.”

Sunny ate heartily. She could afford to, since she had all A's.

“By the way, I have something you have to sign later,” I said real casually.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh—nothing important, just something for math class.”

“Are you going on a field trip?”

“Maybe, I don't even know, you just have to give me your signature on some silly piece of paper, it's nothing, really. Just let me know next time you're signing bills and checks, and I'll have you add your John Hancock to it. No biggy.”

“Nonsense, go run upstairs and get it.”

I exhaled softly. I trudged up to my room and took out my math folder. I turned the quiz upside down and slid the bottom of it out of the folder so you could only see blank white space. I went back downstairs.

“Okay, sign here,” I said.

“What is it? Let me see,” Dad said.

“He's hiding something,” Sunny said. “Make him show you the whole page.”

“Believe you me, it's just not worth your time,” I said, giving Sunny the evil eye. “I'm trying to save you from boredom. Just sign it, okay?”

Everyone stared at me. I sighed, and slid the folder over to my parents.

Dad took out the quiz and Mom cried, “Fourteen percent?”

Sunny's eyes got big. She scooted out of her seat and stood over Mom.

“You only answered one out of ten questions right,” Sunny said, and her forehead crinkled. “That means she gave you four bonus points for writing your name correctly.”

“How did you do so terribly on this quiz?” Dad asked.

“Well, for one thing, it was a pop quiz.”

“You just added and subtracted the numbers!” Sunny laughed.

“I know.” I jumped on this factoid. “So shouldn't I have gotten half credit on all the answers, then?”

“How are we possibly related?” she replied, staring at me.

“Sunny, you're going to have to teach your brother how to do this kind of math. I have to finish up some work tonight,” Dad said.

“I don't have time for this!” she cried.

“And I don't need her help!” I said.

“Yes, you do,” he replied.

“But it never works,” I complained. “You tried to get her to help me practice the recorder, remember?”

“Sunny said you refused to practice,” Mom pointed out.

“Exactly, some teacher, huh?” I replied. It suddenly dawned on me for the first time that maybe I intentionally didn't practice the recorder because I didn't want Sunny to ever be praised for rescuing me. I didn't mention this to them, though, because it would only get me in more trouble.

Dad turned to Sunny.

“Sit with your brother and teach him what he did wrong. I'll sign this once you figure out all the right answers.”

“This isn't fair!” Sunny groaned. “Why can't you just accept that he's hopeless? It'll make life easier for the rest of us.”

“You're referring to yourself as ‘us,' which is plural,” I said, winking at my dad. “See, I'm more of an English guy than a math guy, really.”

He stared at me like I was an alien with a solid grasp of the English language.

“No arguing,” he said. “That's final.”

After dinner I had to sit with Sunny in the dining room, and she tried to teach me how to do the math.

“So what do you actually know?” she asked.

I took out a piece of paper and wrote my name in big letters:

 

P E T E R

 

“That's not funny,” she said.

“I don't consider four points a laughing matter, either,” I replied.

She sighed, and pointed at the parentheses in the first problem. “What are these?”

“It means the numbers inside are secret?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Do you pay any attention in class?”

“I'm not being serious,” I pointed out to her.

“That's exactly your problem, you don't take it seriously, and that's why you're failing.”

“But I'm never going to use this math in real life, so what difference does it make?”

“It doesn't matter. If you don't do well, you won't get into college.”

“That's in, like, thirty years, and I'll be a millionaire by the time I graduate high school because of my inventions.”

“Thirty years?” she gaped at me. “You can't even do basic addition!”

“Again, I think you're not getting my humor,” I said.

“You don't get it. Plus, you'll get kicked out of the T.A.G. program if you don't maintain at least a B average.”

“That's ridiculous, what do my grades have to do with inventing?”

“It's called The Academically Gifted program, you idiot! Of course your grades matter,” she said. My stomach fell. “You don't belong in there, anyway.”

“Ms. Schoonmaker would never allow it,” I said softly, but I had a sinking feeling Sunny was right. “It's not fair, you're the one who thought the oval looked like a spider!”

“How's it going in here?” Mom asked, entering the room.

“He's hopeless, can I go now?” Sunny asked.

“Not until he figures it out.”

“But that'll take forever!” Sunny cried. Mom just ignored her and went back into the living room. My sister and I resumed glaring at each other.

“Look,” I finally said. “We both want to get out of here, and the only way is if you answer the questions correctly for me and say I learned it.”

She considered it for a couple of seconds.

“Fine,” she replied, and started filling in the answers.

I watched her race through the quiz. She kept shaking her head and rolling her eyes to show how easy it was for her, and I started daydreaming about one day having to tutor her for something and making a big fuss out of how dumb she was, just so she could see how lame it is for someone to do that. But then she'd probably point out that if I was the bigger man, I wouldn't have stooped to her level in the first place, in which case I'd have to explain that—

“It's really creepy when you just sit there with your mouth open, staring into space,” she said. “Now come on, just copy it over in your handwriting and we can be done here.”

I started copying her answers onto a fresh piece of paper, but then I got the feeling she was sabotaging me or something. “Are you sure these are all right?” I eyed her suspiciously.

“Most of them.”

“That's what I thought! Come on, they
all
have to be right.”

“Mrs. Ryder would never buy that you could go from getting a zero to a perfect score just like that. It has to be realistic.”

“Actually, it was a fourteen percent, remember?” I corrected her.

She rolled her eyes.

“Just hurry up and finish copying the answers, I have homework to do.”

When I was finished, I showed it to Dad, and he finally signed the quiz.

“I don't want to see another one of these again,” he said.

“I tried not to show you in the first place,” I said.

“This isn't a joke.”

“I wasn't joking.”

“Oh, Peter,” he said, and took off his reading glasses and started rubbing his eyes.

By the time he opened them, I was long gone. I went back to my room to call Drew, and told him what Sunny had said. “She's lying, right?”

“Your sister wouldn't lie,” he said. “You're going to have to pull up your grade in math class.”

“It's too late, I'm too far behind because I haven't been paying attention in class. What we need to do is make an amazing prototype for the invention contest.”

Drew sighed into the phone.

“I thought we were focusing on making people believe we're popular in other towns?” he asked.

“This is way easier, because I already know I'm the best inventor. We need to focus on the inventions contest. They wouldn't kick out the star of the class, right?”

“I guess not,” Drew said, but he didn't sound nearly as excited about my new plan as I figured he'd be.