The Fourth Stall Part II (12 page)

T
he next morning I woke up still feeling pretty good. When I got to school, all of the kids seemed to be in good spirits, too. As I headed to my office before class to write a few things in my Books, several kids stopped me to thank me for what I'd done. Spirits were high, that was obvious.

But that all came crashing down on me when I got to my office and found a visitor waiting for me. We hadn't been open for a few days now because of the threat of Dr. George busting us, so it was pretty surprising to have a visitor that morning. Especially when that visitor was a school employee.

“Mac, we need to talk,” the janitor said as I approached.

My first thought was panic. Someone had found out about our operation yesterday. But then I decided that wasn't possible, that we'd cleaned up after ourselves too well.

“Is this about Vince and me getting caught in Kjelson's room last week? You didn't get in trouble for loaning me the key did—”

“It's not that, Mac,” he interrupted. “It's Vice Principal George. I think he's on to you.”

I nodded and tried to ignore the sudden feeling of my guts churning and bubbling inside me like percolating hot coffee.

“Yeah, I thought so,” I said. “He's been on my case lately.”

“It's worse than that, though, Mac. He came to me yesterday and asked for the key to this bathroom. He said he's been trying to get in here, and he wanted me to unlock it for him. I told him it was closed for health reasons, and he said he didn't care.”

I shook my head. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not with all the business I had to take care of. I needed my office. I didn't think I could organize this size of operation anywhere else.

“What did you say? Did you give him the key?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I told him I hadn't been in here in a while and so didn't know where the key was. But he called me out. He said he saw some ‘troublemakers' in here the other day. He told me that I had to bring him every copy of the key that I could find by the end of school today or I'd be fired. I'm sorry, Mac . . . but I have to do it. My kids . . .”

“I know,” I said. “It's okay.”

But it wasn't okay. Not at all. I felt like dropping to the ground and crying. I wanted to kick and scream and throw a tantrum like I sometimes saw little kids do in grocery stores when their moms didn't buy them candy. But I knew that wouldn't get me anywhere. It never did when I was that age either.

“That's not all, though, Mac. That's not even the worst of it,” the janitor said.

“You're kidding, right? I just can't see how this can get worse.”

“He said he was going to change the lock on the bathroom. He said he had reason to believe that a student had a key.”

“But you'll get me a copy of the new key?”

The janitor smiled, but it was one of the saddest smiles I'd ever seen. “I'm afraid not, Mac. Dr. George said he was going to have a private locksmith make the change and that he'd be the only person with a key. No one is getting in and out of that bathroom except for Dr. George.”

Now I wasn't just upset—I was angry. I'd worked so hard for this office, and I wasn't about to let some crusty old Suit on a power trip take it away. Dr. George was going to be sorry he'd ever called me into his office and messed with my business.

“Sorry again, buddy. I just wanted you to know so you could get anything out of here that you don't want found. I'd try to do it before school ends today if at all possible, because after school I'm going to deliver the old keys to Dr. George.”

I nodded. But how could we even do that? We couldn't transport a desk and all the chairs and our Books and the cashbox and the DVRs and everything else while school was in session. Even in this wing of the school, we'd probably get caught. Besides, what would I do with my desk even if we got it out of the bathroom? Stash it in my locker? I almost grinned at the thought of all of us trying to slam the desk into my hopelessly tiny locker until it was nothing but a shattered mess of steel and wood.

Then I had an idea. Perhaps Victor, Vince's older brother, could park his truck outside the East Wing door after school. Then we could just pile up everything and haul it out and into the back of the truck in a few quick trips and take it to Vince's trailer until we figured out something else.

“Do you think you might be able to delay Dr. George in his office when you drop off the keys? Just for like fifteen minutes?”

“I can try, Mac, but I can't promise any specific amount of time. My job is really on the line here. Old Georgie is really angry about all of this.”

“We'll take whatever time we can get.”

“Ready, lift!”

Vince and I took deep breaths and lifted either side of my desk.

We stumbled along awkwardly toward the bathroom door. It was 3:04. We had no more than three minutes to get all our stuff out of here and into Victor's truck. Fred was posted at the end of the hallway as an advance lookout. He had Victor's cell phone just in case.

I was supposed to be in detention at that very minute, but I doubted that Mr. Daniels would even notice that I didn't show. Besides, any punishment I got from missing detention would definitely be better than George finding all of my business materials.

Joe opened the door for us, and we shuffled out. Victor held open the door to the school, and we moved into the entryway and set down the desk. Joe came in behind us with a stack of plastic chairs.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked, peering out through the glass doors.

“Victor, go make sure there's nobody around. Stealing school property is a pretty serious offense; we shouldn't take any chances.”

Victor ran outside and looked around the side of the building. He came back within view and gave us a thumbs-up.

“Let's go,” I said.

Vince and I carried the desk outside, and Joe followed with the chairs. We lifted it all quickly and carefully into the back of Victor's small pickup. One trip down, one to go.

“Okay, let's just go get the cashbox and my Books and stuff, and . . . Joe, what is it?” I asked.

In the middle of my sentence he'd pulled out his phone, and now he looked as if he was about to pass out.

He held out the phone so I could read the screen.

gorge comin rite now :O

The text was from Fred.

“What should we do, Mac?” Joe asked.

Victor strung together a list of words that would have gotten him expelled instantly if he still went to school there.

“We have time, let's go,” I said, and ran toward the bathroom.

The others followed. It never even entered my mind that we
didn't
have time to quickly grab all of our Books and my cashbox and the security camera DVR. I needed that stuff too badly. Without our Books we'd be lost. Plus, there was a pretty nice chunk of cash in the Tom Petty cashbox still hidden inside the trash can.

But we were too late.

As we entered the school, we practically ran right into Dr. George, his face so red and sweaty that it almost looked greasy instead of old and dry and crusty. A small man wearing black-framed glasses and a gray jumpsuit stood next to him. The guy had a tool belt strung with long thin metal rods, sticks, keys, locks, and other assorted tools that I didn't recognize.

The locksmith.

“Hey, look who's here?” Dr. George said. “I knew it.”

I turned just in time to see that Victor was already back outside, and Joe and Vince were right behind him. I joined in on the getaway.

I heard Dr. George blubbering behind me. “Hey, you can't . . . Get back here!”

I kept running.

When I got outside, Victor was already in the truck and Vince was getting into the passenger seat. In one high, graceful jump Joe hopped into the back of the truck's cab with the desk. I ran up behind the truck, jumped onto the bumper, and climbed into the cab just as Victor hit the gas pedal.

I looked back at the school in time to see Dr. George step outside. He stood calmly and watched us go. I saw him go back inside just before we turned the corner and drove out of view.

“W
hat are we going to do? What are we going to do?” Joe kept saying as he paced frantically back and forth across his backyard.

He was usually the calm one.

“But what if he finds the Books? We'll be expelled for sure, Mac,” Joe said. “I mean, the stuff we've done that's documented in those things, like selling test answers and completed homework and prewritten research papers? Oh jeez, and the whole SMART thing! Oh man, oh man, forget expulsion; we might go to juvie for this stuff!”

He was having a breakdown. It was hard to watch. I'd never even seen the guy break a sweat before, and now here he was pacing around, talking to himself like a crazy person. I kept expecting him to, like, strip off all his clothes and go running around the neighborhood yelling stuff like, “Don't feed the bison! Hey, you! I said don't feed the bison!”

The worst part was that he was right. We'd be expelled for sure once George found the contents of the trash can. And this couldn't have happened at a worse time. If all the other stuff in the books wasn't enough to get us expelled, the documentation about the SMART operation surely would.

We stored my desk and chairs in Joe's toolshed and then thanked Victor for his help with a ten-dollar bill. Then we sat in Joe's backyard trying to figure out what we were going to do. Well, I tried to think of what we were going to do, Joe freaked out, and Vince just kept rambling on and on about stuff his grandma might say at this moment. Which I wasn't really finding all that funny just then.

“Joe, calm down, okay?” I said. “He won't find the Books if they're not there to find.”

“Mac! They
are
there!”

“I know, I know. What I mean is they
won't
be. If he hasn't found them yet, which is a possibility, we'll just have to go in and get them.”

Vince was on his feet now, nodding. “Yeah, I like it.”

“How are we going to get in? Dr. George is the only one with a key,” Joe said.

“Come on, Joe. You sound like you're talking about one of those video games where you always need to find the red keycard to get through the red door or whatever. This is real life. There are other ways to get into places besides with keys,” I said. “We'll just get Tyrell's help again, like yesterday.”

That night Joe, Vince, and I broke into the school. Well, is it still considered breaking in if you have a key? The janitor may have had to turn in his key to the bathroom, but I still had my key to the East Wing entrance.

We brought Tyrell with us for help doing the rest.

The four of us grouped outside the bathroom door in the dark hallway. There was no moon; the only light at all was the starlight sneaking in through the East Wing entrance's windows. We whispered even though the school was most likely empty at this time of the evening.

“Do your thing,” I said to Tyrell.

He took out his lock-pick tool and unlocked the bathroom door. He gave a light push, and the door creaked open a few feet. I reached for the light switch as we walked in, but Tyrell grabbed my arm. He shook his head slowly and held up a flashlight. It clicked on and a pale orange beam hit the floor.

“This light will be very hard to notice through the window,” he said, nodding at the high window at the end of the bathroom.

This kid seriously thought of everything.

We grouped around the trash can as Tyrell carefully removed the lid. He shined the flashlight in first and then dug his arm inside. My throat locked up, and it felt like I was choking on my own tongue. I was so ready to breathe a sigh of relief. I was ready for him to remove the Books and the cashbox and return them safely to me, their rightful owner.

But then he removed his arm, empty handed, and turned to face me.

“Mac, it's empty,” he said.

I just about hit the floor. I swayed, and my vision glossed over like I was wearing dirty goggles. I finally remembered to breathe and regained my balance, but not passing out only made it worse, because then I had to face the truth: it was over. We'd all be expelled for sure.

I expected Joe to freak out again like he had earlier, but he didn't. Nobody did. We all just stood there staring at each other. It was as if we were all afraid to open our mouths for fear of puking all over the floor. I knew I probably would.

After confirming that the DVRs were gone, too, we slowly oozed out of the bathroom, not even trying to stay low anymore. The cameras were the only thing left, but without DVRs to transmit to, they were basically worthless.

Tyrell relocked the door with his gadget, and I plopped down with my back against the wall. The others joined me. I didn't have the energy to ride my bike home just yet. This was worse than my business being shut down. This was probably the worst thing that could ever have happened. I didn't know how I could even face my parents. Expulsion was like the mark of death on a school transcript, or so I'd been told all my life anyways. But even worse than getting expelled, it meant the end of my business here at this school. It would probably even be the end of my business altogether, because the thought of starting over from scratch at a new school made me ill.

How long would it be before Dr. George axed us? Tomorrow? Two days? A week?

“Anybody want to hear what my grandma might say right now if she were here?” Vince said, but that funny glow that was usually in his eyes was completely gone.

Nobody said anything.

“She'd say, ‘We're all really—'”

“Ahhh!” I yelled, cutting him off. “Screw this!”

I stood up and kicked the wall. I wasn't sure if I thought it would buckle and crumble like a cracker, but it didn't. My toes felt like they had just gotten run over by a steamroller. I grabbed my foot and hopped up and down on one leg. Vince actually managed to laugh a little bit.

I noticed they were all looking at me, expecting me to say something else. But the fact was right then I didn't know what else to say. Vince's grandma was probably right about our situation just then. We were all pretty much doomed. Well, I'm pretty sure that her saying had a lot more swearwords in it than mine, but it meant the same thing either way.