The Fourth Stall Part II (11 page)

I could see that she was close to tears now. And even I had to admit that things must've been pretty bad if she transferred schools to get away from this guy. She had even gone to Dickerson and George for help. I'd never have done that no matter how bad things got.

Then Hannah removed a twenty-dollar bill from her pocket and held it out to me. It fluttered between her index and middle fingers.

“I'll pay you now. Full asking price. Then you'll take care of Kjelson? You'll just get him out of here so he can't keep making my life miserable?”

I hesitated. But my business ethics got the better of me. I took the money. Never turn down a customer when they're offering cash up front. And never give up on a customer. Plus, if she was telling the truth, then Kjelson had to be stopped. Nobody deserved that kind of teacher. Also, there was Vince's new theory that perhaps Kjelson was somehow a part of all the school's other problems as well, considering that they started up shortly after he started teaching here. I had to admit that there was at least a chance that Hannah was right about him.

“Okay, deal. I'll get him off your back. No more questions. No more lies, though, okay?”

She nodded and smiled. Once again, like this morning in gym, she looked like a normal girl and not someone who'd just as soon grind you up to make fertilizer as she would be nice to you.

“Thanks, Mac,” she said sweetly.

B
efore heading home that day after school, I stopped by Vince's trailer for a while. I told him about my exchange with Hannah, and after that he was even more convinced that Kjelson was up to no good. But he was also more confused than ever. Why would a new teacher be so obsessed with getting a school in trouble with the higher-up Suits? I wished I had an answer for him, but I was probably even more confused than he was so we left it at that.

When I got home, I went straight up to my room. I had just about an hour before dinner would be ready, and I wanted to make some notes in my Books, which I had brought home for the night, before I ate. It's always best to take care of any business you have before eating. Because after eating one of my mom's dinners, all you'll want to do is lie on the couch while a cheesy game show plays on the TV and wonder why you ate so much.

I flipped on the lights, closed the door, and turned to face my desk. And then I almost let out an embarrassing yell that would have shattered all the windows in the house.

“Hi, Mac.”

Tyrell was sitting in the chair by my desk.

“You have to stop doing that to me,” I said. “Do my parents even know you're here?”

He looked a little taken aback. “No, why would they?”

You just had to love this kid. He didn't understand the concept of lawful entry. To him the only way to enter or exit a location was undetected, and I didn't think using a front door or a doorbell was a thought that ever crossed his mind.

“So you've been just sitting here in the dark waiting for me to get home like some kind of serial killer or something?”

Tyrell grinned. “No, of course not. I knew right about what time you'd get here. So no worries, I haven't been waiting long.”

I chuckled. “I hope this means you have good news for me?”

“That depends. I have a lot of information for you, but it will be up to you to decide whether it's good or bad.”

“Is it about the SMARTs?”

Tyrell nodded.

“Well, let me get Vince and Joe over here, then, because if we're going to plan something, we'll have to do it tonight since the school is taking the test tomorrow.”

I called Joe and Vince and invited them over for dinner. My mom had an open-table policy for dinner. Which meant I never even had to get her permission. I could basically just invite over whoever I wanted for dinner. Which, of course, was awesome.

After dinner I told my mom we were headed to the school to play football. And, well, we were headed to the school, just not to play football. Tyrell, Joe, Vince, and I all went to my office in the fourth stall to discuss the SMARTs.

Meeting there during school hours had been dangerous because of George's recent suspicion, but it was now seven thirty at night, so we figured there was no chance anybody would be around. Which is why it was the perfect—no,
the only
safe place to meet to discuss a possible plan that involved cheating on a state administered test—something that I didn't think had ever been attempted on such a large scale before in history.

“Okay, Tyrell,” I said once we were all grouped inside my office. “What do you have for us?”

Now, I'd like to say that what he found out was pretty good, considering he had only half a day to do it, but that would be a lie. The truth was he'd found out so much information that it was close to a miracle. It wasn't just pretty good; it was better than was humanly possible. Tyrell would put CIA agents to shame. He could out-cool and out-spy James Bond with nothing but a used toothbrush and seventeen cents.

Tyrell had discovered that the SMARTs were administered via those sheets that just had circles all over them. The kind where you fill in A, B, C, D, or E with a pencil for hundreds of questions. The questions came in a separate packet. After the test Dr. George and his secretaries would go around to each classroom and collect all of the answer sheets for the entire school. Then they would go back to his office and put them all together in one large security envelope and seal it. At six thirty the next morning a few guys from the State Testing Bureau, or STB, would arrive and take the test results back to their local facility. The answer sheets were fed into a large machine, and because of some new software they got recently, the scores could be generated and delivered back to the school within a day or two.

Also, one last thing Tyrell discovered was that each school that gave the test got one master copy of the test booklet that contained all of the correct test answers for all grades. Tyrell said our school's copy of the master booklet had been hand delivered to Dr. George (Tyrell witnessed this exchange happen), and since that time, it has been sitting in Dr. George's office in a locked drawer in his desk, third down on the right side.

I shook my head and looked at Vince after Tyrell had finished. The kid was amazing.

“How did you possibly find out all of this?” I asked.

Tyrell smiled. “Mac, you know I can't tell you that.”

I nodded. Tyrell was more open with me than anyone, but he was still pretty secretive about his methods. He always said it was more for our own protection than for his that he did not tell us, but either way he was probably right: I almost didn't even want to know.

“Well, the problem is that sounds pretty airtight,” I said. “The answers go from the classroom right to Dr. George right to a sealed security envelope. And even if we did get the master booklet somehow, there's likely not enough time anymore to get a copy of it to every kid in the school. Plus, then we'd have to deal with possible narks, and that's not even mentioning how bush league that would be. I mean, if one kid gets caught with a copy of the master booklet, then the whole operation would backfire worse than when the Yankees gave Jeter a huge contract extension when he was already well past his prime.”

Joe and Vince agreed. Despite all of Tyrell's great work it still seemed like there wouldn't be much we could do at this point.

“Well, maybe that's okay,” Vince said. “I mean, do you really think everyone is going to fail?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But more than that, think about the money behind this, Vince.” I reached into my backpack and took out my Books, flipped through them, and did a quick tally. “I mean, if you add up all the offers we've gotten from kids who want help cheating on the SMARTs, then we'll make over one thousand dollars! That's more than we've ever made from one single operation, by a ton. Can you imagine?”

Vince nodded. He knew it, too—that was a lot of bread. Plus, then we'd also have peace of mind knowing that our school would pass with flying colors, teachers and students would be happy, and so on.

“Okay, sure, but that still doesn't help us figure out how we'll pull this off,” Vince said.

“What about, like, intercepting the test scores on their way to the testing facility?” Joe said. “We'll just need to take out the STB guys and grab the tests from them.”

I assumed he was joking, so I laughed. “Right, well, I haven't quite moved up to armed robbery just yet, Joe.”

“If only Joe Blanton was here,” Vince said. “He'd know what to do.”

“Yeah, he'd probably just bribe the STB office,” I said. “And then he'd let them score eight runs in one inning of bribery.”

Vince scoffed. “That one doesn't even make sense, Mac.”

“Guys!” Joe said. “Focus.”

He was right; we needed to figure this out.

“Well,” I began, “this would be no small job . . . but we could break into the administration offices at five o'clock, after practice, and after everyone else has gone home, and change all of the answers ourselves.”

Everyone stared at me for a moment. They could tell I was serious, and maybe that's what scared them most.

Vince was the first to speak. “Mac, if you're even suggesting this, I'm assuming you know how much of a risk this is, so I won't even go into that. But even then, how do we get the answer sheets out of the security envelope without it being obvious that they were tampered with?”

Then Tyrell, who had been pretty quiet since sharing all of his research with us, said, “Oh, that's not a problem. While doing my investigation, I was able to lift a couple SMART security envelopes off of one of the STB administrators I'd been tailing.”

He pulled out a few large, sturdy yellow envelopes from his bag.

“Nice,” Joe said. Vince nodded.

“We'll just need to switch the school bar code and stuff off of the real envelopes to these when we're all done. Which I think I can do pretty easily with an X-acto knife and some Gorilla glue.”

“That just leaves the question of how we'll break in to get both the answer sheets and the master booklet,” I said.

Tyrell grinned. “Guys, I've got you covered there, too.”

T
he SMART testing started pretty much right away Tuesday morning. Apparently the tests were so long and hard that they lasted all day. Mr. Skari started out with a lecture about the importance of using a number two pencil—seriously, I half expected them to wheel in a rickety, rusty guillotine for those of us who dared use a pen or mythical number three lead pencil. Then we began the first part of the test.

I wasn't too nervous, really, even after all I'd heard about how hard it was,
and
even after Skari went on and on about how failing this test could result in being held back a year. Because I'm usually pretty good at tests. After dealing with the sort of crap I do each day, who wouldn't be good at a simple school test?

But the SMART was not just another simple test. It was actually a lot harder than I expected it to be.

No fewer than four kids in my class broke down crying right in the middle of it, and the sound of snapping pencils clicked throughout the room like a miniature Fourth of July celebration. The test was definitely hard. Which drove out any last-second thoughts about ditching our plan, because if we wanted to make sure the school passed, the plan would need to be put into effect.

The first part of the test ended just before morning recess. Joe, Vince, and Fred met up with me outside the East Wing boys' bathroom. We didn't open up the office that day because we were still wary of George lurking in the area. But I did hand each of them a list of kids.

“These are the kids who paid for help with the SMART. Let's use recesses and lunch periods today to track down the kids on your list and let them know not to worry about the test too much, that we've got it all taken care of.”

The truth was I was going to doctor everybody's answers, not just the kids who had paid me. That way we could be sure the school would pass. But I still needed to tell only a few kids. I mean, once a few kids know something, everyone will know within an hour usually. That's how schools work.

The rest of the test that day was about the same, but as the day went on, kids seemed less and less stressed. It was pretty clear that word was getting around. In fact, during afternoon recess the last few kids on my list already knew about what I was going to do by the time I went to go see them. And in the halls I got a lot of kids patting me on the back and thanking me, and one cute seventh-grade girl even wanted to give me a hug, which was kind of embarrassing but I let her anyway.

After school Vince and I went to baseball tryouts. Once again I'm pretty sure Vince made quite the impression. I noticed that Kjelson spent a lot of time watching kids chase after Vince's filthy breaking pitches. The best part about Vince's arm was that his pitches were so clean. A lot of his movement was generated by his grip, so his throwing motion stayed really sound; there was hardly any extra strain on his elbow. And that also meant that it was going to be near impossible for batters to get tipped off by his delivery because it was identical every time, no matter what he was throwing.

I know Vince is only a sixth grader, but in my opinion it wasn't too early to already be thinking about the majors. I mean, he could definitely already strike out Joe Blanton, even as a sixth grader, so I couldn't even imagine how good he'd be by the time he graduated high school.

Practice ended a little early that day because Kjelson said he had some “important matters to attend to,” which was actually great. We were going to need all the time we could get to execute our plan before the janitors made their final sweep of the school at six. I've said that the janitor and I had an understanding, and that was true, but he'd always been pretty clear to me that he still had to do his job, part of which was making sure that all kids were out of the building when he locked up and left at six.

Vince and I changed as quickly as we could and then headed down toward the south side of the school, where the administration offices were located. It was 4:15 already, so chances were that the secretaries and principals would either be gone or leaving soon. They were almost always gone by four thirty.

Vince and I walked by the admin offices and saw that one secretary and Dr. George were still there so we just kept on walking by. We veered into the school library, which stayed open until four thirty.

We normally liked to avoid the library at all costs. Not because we hated books or anything, but because it was Snitch Town. If you needed a snitch or squealer, the library was the place to go. And you know how I feel about snitches, so it should be obvious why we avoided the library much the same way the entire student body avoided Chet, the kid with head lice.

But we were there because from the table nearest the door we could see the administration offices. We could keep watch without looking too suspicious. Normally kids hanging around the school hallways until four thirty wasn't a big deal, but normally we didn't have Dr. George after us. All we needed was to get caught loitering in the hallways and our whole operation would be ruined.

We sat across from each other at one of the small reading tables, sitting in silence for about fifteen minutes or so. Vince pretended to read a book, and I tried to ignore the sniveling stares of a few rats seated at the tables around us. I could feel their predatory eyes on me, waiting, desperate to tattle on me to the librarian for something or another.

As the minutes passed, more and more of them got up to leave. Then it was just Vince and I left. I'd seen the secretary leave, but Dr. George still hadn't walked out of the big wooden administration offices door. I guessed he was still getting all the SMART stuff ready to go for tomorrow morning, which is why he was still here later than usual.

Then finally, just as the clock hit 4:30 and the librarian started to kick us out, I saw Dr. George come striding out of his office. He flipped off the lights behind him and then headed for the south exit, away from the library.

“Bye, Mrs. Hunter,” I said to the librarian as Vince and I pretended to head back toward the gym. After we were sure that Mrs. Hunter had also left the building, we circled back around to the administration offices.

I took out a digital walkie-talkie that Tyrell had given me the night before and switched it on.

“The Bacon has been fully smoked,” I said into it, signaling Tyrell to head to the north school entrance.

Then Vince and I headed there ourselves. The doors all locked on the outside at four o'clock, so we had to go down and let Tyrell and our hired help inside. Changing the answers to several hundred tests in less than two hours would take more than just a few kids, so I'd hired some help.

Tyrell came inside, followed by Joe, Kitten, Fred, Great White, the Hutt, and several other bullies I'd hired in the past: Little Paul, Nubby, Kevin, and PrepSchool. Hiring bullies to help you with a delicate operation like this might seem like a stupid thing to do, but in actuality a lot of bullies are pros at cheating and breaking rules, so I thought they seemed like a natural choice. Plus, I know for certain that the last thing any of these bullies would do is squeal. If you want to stay on top at our school as a bully, then you can't be a squealer; it's that simple.

Plus, these bullies had helped a lot with a huge problem I'd faced down just a few months ago, so I knew I could trust them . . . well, as much as you could really trust any bully, that is.

“Okay, Tyrell, after you,” I said, pointing toward the door to the administration offices.

We moved down the hall and stopped in front of the big wooden door. Tyrell took off his backpack, dug inside it, and removed a small metal object.

“What is that?” Joe asked.

Tyrell didn't answer. He stood up just enough to reach the lock. The small metal object in his hand looked kind of like a gun. It had two thin, curved pieces of metal that squeezed together, like a curved pair of scissors. He then took out a small black pouch and removed a thin, flat metal rod about five inches long. He stuck it into the end of the gunlike object. Then he removed another small metal rod; this one was shaped like an L but with a few flat notches on the end. He stuck the ends of both rods into the door's lock. He squeezed the “trigger,” and several loud clicking sounds echoed through the hallway. Tyrell didn't react to my sharp inhale, and he twisted the metal object sharply as he squeezed the trigger. It turned, and I heard the distinct click of the dead bolt sliding into the door.

He turned the handle and pushed the door open a few feet.

“Okay, okay, wait,” Vince said. “What is that, and where the heck did you get it?”

Tyrell shrugged. “The internet.”

He held the door open as we filed inside the administration office area. It was still barely light enough outside that we could see where we were going, since the whole back wall was lined with windows.

Fred stayed right near the door to keep watch as we'd all discussed earlier. Just in case a teacher came by or something, we would hopefully have enough warning to get out of sight.

We crouched to stay lower than the windows as we shuffled over to the door to Dr. George's office. We'd decided that for this part of the plan, Tyrell should go in alone. He knew where everything would be, and we didn't really think that having eleven kids, including several bullies, tromping through Dr. George's office was a particularly good idea, since it would be more likely that he'd notice someone had been in his office.

Tyrell worked his lock-pick magic on George's office and disappeared inside behind the door. It only took him a few minutes before he returned with the security envelopes full of answer sheets and the master booklet. I grinned at him, and he merely nodded back.

We carefully extracted the answer sheets from a cut Tyrell had made in the side of the envelopes while Joe made copies of the master booklet at a nearby copy machine. The copy machine seemed so loud in the quiet office that I half expected it to just explode and cover us all in ink and paper shreds while simultaneously setting off an alarm of some kind.

Then we passed out the copied master answer keys, and Joe dumped out a pile of erasers and number two pencils onto the floor. Tyrell and I put the stack of student answer sheets, which seemed like it was two stories high, on a side table sitting against the wall. I went over the instructions again: answer most of the questions right but leave a couple wrong. If the whole school scored one hundred percent, it would look suspicious.

Then we got started. At first it wasn't so bad. Go through the answer sheet, erase any wrong responses, and fill in the circles for correct answers. Simple. And as I went along, I was even more sure this arrangement was the right move. The kids seemed to have done a lot worse than I'd expected. It was definitely as hard as advertised.

But after like forty-five minutes and fifty or so tests each, our wrists were aching. I could barely feel my fingers anymore, and the pile of eraser shavings around us looked like some dude with really dry skin had just got done running a cheese grater all over himself. And all of our fingers were coated in black graphite from the pencils. The only one of us not whining after an hour was Kitten, who just sat there calmly erasing and filling in circles.

While we worked on the tests, Tyrell was carefully cutting off the school bar code and labels applied to the security envelope, and then after that he'd use the glue to apply everything onto the envelope we'd brought with us.

It felt like we were in there forever, erasing and filling circles. Erasing and filling. Erase. Fill. Erase. Fill. It was incredibly boring, and like I said, hand cramps were killing me. But by the time we finished the last answer sheet and stacked them back into one neat pile, it was only 5:40. We'd done pretty well; we still had twenty minutes to spare.

I paid all of the bullies their hard-earned ten dollars, and then they split. I also told Joe and Fred, who looked like he'd fallen asleep while he was supposed to have been looking out, that they could go home as well.

Vince and I helped Tyrell get all of the tests into the new envelopes, and then we sealed them up. Tyrell planted them and the original master booklet back inside Dr. George's office. Then we all left, making sure to pick up as many of the eraser shavings as we could. Tyrell disappeared like he always seems to, and then Vince and I started down the hall toward the exit nearest our bike rack.

And then Kjelson came around the corner.

We stopped walking, and so did he. No one talked for a few moments—as if we'd both just caught each other in the act of doing something we weren't supposed to be doing.

“What are you two still doing here?” he asked finally. “Practice ended well over an hour ago.”

Kids were typically allowed to remain inside the school until five thirty because of sports practices and play rehearsals and stuff like that, but since Mr. Kjelson was our coach and knew our practice had ended a while ago, it was a little unusual that we were still there.

“Nothing. We were just helping a friend with some project he's working on in one of the science labs,” Vince said.

Vince always had been the better on-the-spot liar.

Mr. Kjelson nodded and said, “Okay, you were on your way out, though, right? The janitor will be locking up soon.”

We nodded.

“Okay, see you both Thursday at tryouts, then,” he said, and then continued down the hall toward the administration area.

It seemed like he had bought it.

“Well, that was close, but we did it, Vince!” I said as we exited the building.

Vince grinned at me. It had been one of the biggest single operations in school history. I'd just successfully cheated for the entire school on a state administered test. I'd probably just saved the school, based on how many answers we'd had to change, and also had made over a thousand dollars in the process. We were feeling pretty good, and that left just two major problems: finding a way to get George off of our case and figuring out who was messing with the school.