Gotcha

by Shelley Hrdlitschka

  “Then think about it. I’m calling another grade twelve assembly for tomorrow morning, and I want you to tell everyone there exactly what you’ve just told me. The rumors are buzzing around this community, and I want the story set straight by someone who was there. Perhaps you can even give us some insights on how it ever got to the point it did.”

  He started to leave again, but turned back once more. “And maybe your grad class can come up with a way to redeem yourselves. In a few weeks you’ll be leaving Slippery Rock, and on a very sour note I’m afraid.”

  Now Fetterly taps on the mike, hushing the noisy gym. “As you all know,” he says to the assembled crowd, “an... an incident occurred this past Monday night.” The flexing jaw muscles are at it again. “As a result, thirty-five of your classmates have received one-week suspensions and will not be attending the grad dinner and dance. I dislike having to enforce this punishment, especially at this point in your year, but you were all told what would happen if you continued to play the game. And I believe that everyone who was at the park on Monday night was still involved. Not directly perhaps, but enough that they need to suffer the consequences.” He waits while the sudden chatter dies down. “Katie is going to speak to you today and explain exactly what happened on Monday night so that we can bring a stop to the rumors.” When he continues, he sounds completely exasperated. “I have fielded dozens of phone calls and e-mails from your parents, so I expect you to go home later today and tell them what Katie is about to tell you.”

  He hands me the mike and moves away from the podium. I walk behind it, needing something to lean on.

  I hadn’t realized the mike was so heavy. I raise it to my mouth with no idea of what I am about to say. Then I find my mouth has gone completely dry. There’s a glass of water on the podium, but when I try to sip from it, I find my hands are shaking so hard that I can’t hold it steady enough.

  “You’ll all remember,” I say, testing out the mike and finding that it works, “that Gotcha was banned as a school activity this year.”

  The gym has become completely still. I’m tempted to look up, check to see that everyone is still there, but I decide to keep my eyes firmly glued to the glass of water.

  “A lot of people felt ripped off, so the grad council decided to run the game outside of school. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but I went along with it because it seemed like the majority of people wanted that. I collected the money and put it in my bank account for safekeeping.”

  Deep breath.

  “I guess things started off okay, but personally, I managed to trip and sprain my ankle the first weekend of Gotcha while trying to beat my mother to the front door in case... well, you know. Then there was that party at Tyson’s, and for those of you who attended, you’ll remember that there was an incident...not as serious as the one this past Monday, but serious enough in my mind. It was bizarre, and I decided to drop out of the game.”

  I pause for a moment, trying to remember what happened next in the chain of events. I glance up at the bleachers, and instantly my eyes connect with Joel’s. The hurt in them is too much, and I return my gaze to the water glass. Sighing, I carry on. “In hindsight, I really should have followed through and quit right then and there. Instead, I figured out another way to get even with everyone.”

  The gym is still quiet. I continue. “My dad, who isn’t living with us, e-mailed me and asked if I had any money to invest. He swore that he could triple my investment almost immediately.”

  I wonder, now, why I never questioned that. I also remember how quickly he was there to collect the money from me.

  “So...I...I lent him the Gotcha money.”

  Now the gym comes alive. I can hear the outrage, but it gives me a chance to take some more deep breaths. I go back to staring at the vent.

  Eventually the gym grows quiet again and I continue.

  “As you know, Mr. Fetterly decided to stop the game. He said the money was to be returned. I thought that was going to be a problem for me, but fortunately,” I pause, “well, maybe not so fortunately as it turns out, the game continued underground. But then I got caught playing, and I was suspended.”

  The murmuring increases again. “I did not want to turn everyone else in,” I tell the crowd, “but I did want to graduate, obviously, and...” I sigh, “my dad had disappeared with the money.”

  The trembling in my hands has increased to the point where I can hardly hold the mike still. “You see,” I say, clearing my throat, “what I didn’t know until just recently was that...” I have to stop. The words won’t come out. I look helplessly at Fetterly.

  “Carry on, Katie,” he encourages.

  I swallow and stare hard at the glass. “What I didn’t know was that...that my dad has a gambling addiction.”

  The gym erupts, but I hardly notice. I feel myself crumple inward, and I can’t stop sobbing. I feel, rather than see, someone take the mike from my hand. It’s Fetterly. He shuts off the switch and speaks to me quietly. “You’re doing a great job, Katie. And this is very important. Take your time, and when you’re ready, carry on.”

  When the sobbing finally stops, someone passes me some tissue. I mop up my face and find myself staring at the floor, trying to sort things out. My head is aching, but I know I need to finish. I suck in deep, ragged breaths, pick up the mike and switch it back on.

  I speak over the noise. “Warren came to me then and I broke down and told him the whole truth. He seemed to think it was funny and assured me that he could help me win the game so that I wouldn’t be expected to pay out any money to anyone else. He also led me to believe that I’d be able to return to school if the game was over.”

  I pause, thinking about that. Did I really believe it would be that simple?

  “Warren proceeded to trick seven of the remaining eight people out of their beads,” I say quietly. “Then we only had to capture Tyson’s to win, and he had a plan to do that. What I didn’t know was that Warren had also formed an alliance with Tyson. Tyson thought he and Warren had set me up, and they were going to win and could then split the money.”

  The crowd has become completely still again. I’ve reached the part of the story that they are probably most curious about.

  “In the end, Warren had set us all up. He won, even though he knew there was no money. He said he just wanted to prove that he could do it, but when people started talking and realized how he’d won, they got angry.”

  I consider telling them that Warren and I call the source of that anger the Gotcha Gods but decide against it. I’m looking stupid enough right now.

  I force myself to finish the story. “Warren was taken to the park, where he was stripped and dragged through the pond several times.” I pause and close my eyes, not wanting to relive that night. “At first I got right into the spirit of it. I wanted retaliation too. But when people started...started peeing on him...” I shake my head. “I called the police, and they came and broke up the mobbing. Warren is going to be okay. Fortunately, it didn’t get any worse than it did.”

  I could stop here. I’ve done what I was told to do, but I find myself still talking. “The weirdest thing about it, for me, is that I became one of the mob. Possessed. I never thought that could happen. It was like...me, the real me, got lost inside somewhere. And all for a stupid game.”

  Mr. Fetterly starts toward me, clearly thinking I’m done, but I shake my head and continue, even though my voice becomes increasingly shaky again. “I’ve learned a lot about myself, and it’s not good stuff.” My eyes are burning and I close them for a moment. Then I continue. “I was not a good leader for our grade, for you.” I look over to Mr. Bell, who nods. Then I look back at the water glass. “I’m sorry I let you down. I also learned...I learned that I’m just like my dad. I gambled, and lost. I took advantage of my best friends the same way he took advantage of me. I didn’t know how he could do that to me, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.” I find Joel’s eyes again. “I don’t expect my friends
to be able to forgive me either, for the same reason.” Joel looks away.

  The gym is still.

  “I promise to return your Gotcha money to each of you.”

  I shut off the mike and Fetterly takes it from me. “Thank you, Katie, for clearing it all up for us.”

  I walk away, toward the door, ready to start my week of suspension, but I hear him say, “Fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes. We don’t have to make the same ones twice.” I keep walking. “And the human species has a huge capacity for forgiveness. Class dismissed.”

  Seventeen

  I can feel my ankle ache as I count the money I made in tips tonight. Another twenty dollars for the Gotcha fund. I’ve been back at work at the restaurant for three weeks, and I have enough money to repay exactly twelve Gotcha players. Only two hundred more players to go. At this rate, I’ll be out of debt to them about the time I’m being hauled off to an old-age home. Oh well. Anything to appease the Gotcha Gods.

  After tipping out and saying good night, I push through the doors into the warm spring night.

  The headlights of a car in the lot blink on and I hear the engine start up. It’s been five weeks since the Gotcha game ended, but I still feel my stomach knot up when I’m alone— which is most of the time. For a moment I envision Tyson in that car, with his goon friends, stalking me...but this time it’s not my beads they’re after...

  I shake off the feeling and start walking home, but then I feel the car pull up alongside me. I take a closer look and recognize it as Joel’s mom’s car. The window rolls down. “Need a lift?” he asks.

  I haven’t spoken to Joel since the night Warren tagged him. We’ve all become masters of avoidance. Seeing him now, with a shy smile, I feel the walls caving inside me. I have missed him so much. I look past him into the car. Mariah is sitting in the passenger seat, and she’s smiling shyly too. I haven’t spoken with her for five weeks either.

  I shrug. “Thanks,” I say and slide into the backseat.

  “We’re thinking of getting a couple of nonfat, double-espresso, sugar-free vanilla lattes,” Joel says, his eyes briefly meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “Are you in?”

  I smile, appreciating the effort he’s making to put me at ease. The last time he’d said he wanted one of those, it was only so my mom would let us out of the house. “Sure.”

  When we arrive at the coffeehouse, we order our drinks and sit in a booth, Joel and Mariah across from me. I study their faces, wondering what the reason is for this sudden friendliness, but their faces don’t offer any clues. I take a sip of my latte and ask, “So how have you guys been?”

  “Pretty good,” Mariah nods, glancing at Joel.

  “Yep,” he agrees. “Can’t complain.”

  “Got your grad dress?” I ask Mariah.

  “Actually,” Mariah says, “I’m not going to grad.”

  I’m stunned. “How come?”

  “Well, to be honest, our hearts aren’t really into it, with everything that’s happened, you know.”

  “Are you serious, ‘Riah? You were all about grad a few months ago.”

  “Yeah, but that was before. So many people can’t go now, because of...of the incident, and, well, we thought we’d skip it too.”

  “You’re not going either?” I ask Joel.

  He just shakes his head.

  I stare at them, amazed, and wonder what I would do, given a choice...”So what’s happening with all those expensive dresses that won’t be getting used now?”

  Mariah just shakes her head. “There was an uproar about that,” she says. “But you know Fetterly. He won’t back down.”

  “We’ll go to the valedictory ceremony,” Joel says. “And wear the gowns and caps and hopefully get some scholarships and all that.”

  I nod. Scholarships. I’m back to earning a small wage, but all my tip money is being used to repay the Gotcha players, so my bank account is still looking pathetically empty. I’m beyond hopeful about scholarships. I’m counting on them.

  “Thank God everyone’s still allowed to go to that,” Mariah adds.

  As we sip our drinks I remember how anxious I was a few months ago about getting a nice grad dress. Now it’s hard to believe I thought a stupid dress was so all-important.

  Joel clears his throat and fiddles with a stir stick. Then he says, “Katie, I really...really admired how brave you were to tell your story at that assembly after the Warren incident, especially the personal stuff, about the money, and your dad...”

  “Fetterly made me do that.”

  “I know, but still, you made us all realize that it takes just one bad choice and things can change,” he snaps his fingers, “just like that.”

  Mariah nods.

  “It made me think,” he says, “that for us it was Gotcha, but for someone else it could be drugs or crime...”

  “Or gambling,” I add.

  “Yeah,” Joel says. “I won’t judge people so quickly anymore.”

  We sit and think about that.

  “So, if we’ve become so understanding,” Mariah asks, “how come the spirit has been sucked out of our class?”

  I look at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Take us, for example. We don’t want to go to grad.”

  “Why not?” I still don’t really get that. Especially from Mariah, who loved the idea of dressing like a princess.

  She hesitates and blushes. Then she studies the foam in the bottom of her cup. “So many friendships ruined because of that game. It just won’t be the same.”

  The silence becomes incredibly awkward. I study the bottom of my cup too, but finally decide to ask the question that can’t be ignored any longer. “Why did you guys pick me up tonight?”

  Neither of them says anything for a moment. Then Mariah speaks. “We’ve decided we need to put the game behind us before the year is over and everyone has moved on.” She looks directly at me. “We don’t want to remember our grad year this way. It’s our last chance to make things right.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  “We’re not sure,” she says. “But we’ve got to start by talking about it.”

  So we sit for another minute, still not talking. I try to lighten the mood. “How about a healing circle, the kind the Tlingit people do?” I tease, recalling the project that the two of us worked on together.

  Mariah smiles back at me. “Wouldn’t that be hilarious? All two hundred plus of us in a circle, passing the talking stick and getting everything off our chests.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Joel asks.

  Mariah explains. “In the Tlingit culture, everyone who is affected by a crime is brought together and sits in a circle.”

  I’m impressed that she remembers this. It was covered in my part of the project.

  “They have a stick,” she continues, “and only the person holding the stick can talk. Each person gets a chance to speak, and you only get a second chance after everyone has had a turn.”

  “The point of it,” I add, “is that the victim gets to tell the person who harmed them how it felt, and the person who did the harm gets to explain why they did it. In our system, everyone is protected from one another by lawyers. In the Tlingit way, more understanding and healing supposedly occurs.”

  Joel is nodding. “I can see that. When you have to look directly in the eyes of someone you’ve hurt, you start to really understand what you’ve done.”

  I look at Joel, not believing that he could ever hurt anyone.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” he adds.

  “What is?” Mariah asks.

  “The healing circle.”

  “But there’s way too many of us,” Mariah says, laughing.

  “But we could start right here, with just us.”

  Mariah and I study him, wondering if he’s serious. His eyes have lost their twinkle, so apparently he is. Then Mariah looks at me, her head tipped.

  “Could we wait until Paige and Tanysha can joi
n us?” I ask, panicky. Clearly I’m the one who’s going to get dumped on here.

  “You can have another one with them,” Joel says. “I think we should have our own, right now, while we’re here together.”

  Mariah and I look at each other. Her eyebrows arch. “Well?” she asks me.

  I shrug. “Okay.” I must be nuts. “But we need a talking stick.”

  Joel grabs a knife lying on the table in the next booth. “Here it is.”

  “I said stick, Joel, not weapon.”

  “It will do,” he says, clearly impatient to get on with this. “Who goes first?”

  Mariah and I look at each other. “I don’t remember that part,” she says. “The person with the knife, I mean stick, I guess.”

  Joel nods, grasps the knife, point up, and rests his fists on the table. He thinks about what he’s going to say and then clears his throat. He talks directly to the knife. “I’d like to tell Katie how it felt to be betrayed by her.” He pauses, and I hold my breath, waiting for his words. “It totally sucked.” I let my breath escape. “I thought things were going really well between us,” he continues, “and me and Mariah would’ve done anything to help her out, but instead of trusting us, she turned to Warren, who was not her friend. She pushed me away again, after promising not to. I couldn’t forgive her for that.”

  My face burns. Joel’s right about how this works. I do totally get what I did and how he felt.

  Mariah places her hand over Joel’s and says gently, “Joel, I think you’re supposed to speak directly to Katie, not to the talking stick.”

  He nods, briefly makes eye contact with me and passes the knife to Mariah. “I was finished anyway,” he says.

  I slump down in the booth, feeling terrible. I wish I could change what I did, but I can’t. A lump develops in my throat. I look around the coffee shop to see who might be watching our little healing circle, but no one is paying any attention to us.

  “Katie, you and I have been friends for a long time,” Mariah says, holding the knife out in front of her. “I always... admired and respected you. You were, like, so cool. Brainy, but not weird brainy, you know? You fit in everywhere. Then I watched as you became unraveled by a stupid game. You set up Joel and snubbed me for Warren. I couldn’t believe you’d do those things. You didn’t seem like the same person to me anymore, and now I don’t know how to be with you.” Mariah places the knife on the table, takes a ragged breath and wipes a tear off her cheek. Joel puts his arm around her shoulder and gives her a squeeze. She presses her face into his arm.