I Am Fartacus

by Mark Maciejewski

  He runs toward the Arch and chucks a water balloon straight at him.

  Nate dives in front of the Arch at the last second, and the balloon hits him squarely in the chest. Marlon grabs the Arch and rushes him offstage to safety as the attacker sprints out the exit at the back of the gym.

  I barely have time to jump out of the way as the doors burst open and the entire student body floods out, bubbling with a mixture of glee and panic.

  I bolt out of the building to the safest spot I can think of. Shelby, Moby, and two hatless McQueens arrive panting less than a minute later. Shelby pulls out an old-fashioned fan and starts fanning herself like she’s having a hot flash. Moby looks totally confused. The two McQueens (Darwin and Darby, I think) just look at me and shake their heads. A second later the third McQueen sprints around the corner, holding the hat on his head to keep it from flying off as he runs.

  I’ve never seen Shelby so happy in her life. “That . . . was . . . amazing!”

  “You really outdid yourself, Chub,” the third McQueen says.

  It would be an amazing prank if I’d pulled it, but I didn’t. Whatever just happened in there, I’ve been set up to take the blame.

  “There’s only one problem,” I reply. “I didn’t do any of that.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “I lost the pictures in the stampede,” the hatted triplet says. The other two stuffed wads of toilet paper in the drain holes of the drinking fountains and duct-taped down the handles, turning the west stairwell into a makeshift waterfall, to get Mr. Kraley away from the projection booth. I agree to erase half their unexcused absences and we call it even.

  As soon as the deal with the McQueens is done, they disappear like a puff of smoke.

  “That was quite a production,” Shelby says.

  “I told you, I didn’t do it,” I say.

  Despite my denials, it’s obvious she thinks I pulled off the whole thing somehow and now I’m just being secretive about it. I consider wasting a bunch of time and energy trying to convince her it wasn’t me, but instead I decide it will just be easier to ditch her and go somewhere safe to sort out my thoughts.

  With everyone voting afterward, the speech assembly was my last chance to bring the Arch down before the election, and the McQueens never got the pictures up on the projector. I also need to plan for the heat that will come my way when I get framed for the riot. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to fall for the fake phone call. Everyone who saw me walk in also saw me walk out right before the whole thing started.

  The final bell rings while kids are still filtering through the lobby to cast their votes.

  When the bell fades and the coast is clear, Moby and I head for home. Shelby follows us. Mr. Hong owns a small market we pass every day on the walk to school. His bathrooms are for paying customers only, but he makes an exception for Moby. We tell Shelby we need to do a quick pit stop, then sneak out through the window and make our escape through the alley. I don’t need her trying to put in her two cents while I think.

  After the Gatorade incident there’s no way Mr. Mayer will let it slide if he believes I was the water balloon assassin. I can’t imagine him calling the dry cleaning shop, so I figure I have at least two and a half hours left before he can get hold of my parents and they can book my flight to Poland. I could go to the shop and answer the phone all afternoon in case he calls, but if I showed up for no good reason and asked to work, my dad would know something was up. He’d make me go work on my character by pressing the pile of clothes from the mortuary that no one wants to touch.

  Moby’s parents are still at work, giving us plenty of time with no nosy adults asking what we’re up to.

  As we walk to his place, the scene inside the gymnasium keeps replaying in my head.

  Like he’s reading my mind, Moby says, “Who do you think did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe there’s another kid at school who doesn’t want the Arch to be president.”

  It’s possible. I can’t be the only one who wants to take the kid down a peg or two. Still, I hope Moby’s wrong. When the Arch finally goes down, I want it to be my doing.

  By the time we get to the Dicks’ house, my mind is burning.

  A wall of blue smoke boils out when we open the front door. My first thought is that the house is on fire, but Moby casually fans the smoke away and steps inside. We find the Colonel sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigar the size of a Duraflame log. He throws us a lazy salute and stubs out the handheld brush fire.

  “Men,” he says.

  “Colonel,” we respond.

  “Probably best we keep the whole cigar-in-the-house thing between us, right?”

  There’s a smoldering tree stump in the ashtray. Mr. and Mrs. Dick would have to be wearing full scuba gear not to notice the smell.

  “They won’t hear it from us, sir,” I say.

  He nods and folds his arms over his barrel of a chest. “So what’s on your minds, boys?”

  I’m about to say, “Nothing,” when Moby pulls out a chair opposite the Colonel, flops himself down, and proceeds to tell him exactly what just happened in amazing detail.

  I don’t say a word, just watch the Colonel’s hard face as he takes in the story. His gigantic shaved head bobs in understanding the whole time. Moby wisely leaves out the part about us having our own plot we never got to execute.

  When he finishes, the Colonel takes a deep breath and rests one of his hairy, tattooed forearms on the table. With his other arm he scratches something below the table that I’m glad I can’t see. “And the assassin yelled, ‘Die, milk face’?”

  “It was pretty crazy in there, but I think that’s what he said,” Moby answers.

  “Probably some Communist code. I’ll ask your parents if they recognize it.” He leans back in his chair and it groans under his weight. “I’d say what you boys witnessed today was what we used to call a Shanghai sucker punch.”

  I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “Huh?”

  He puts his elbows on the table. “What I’m about to tell you men may still be classified, so this conversation never happened.” He waits for us to nod before he continues. “Back in—probably shouldn’t say what year, we had this General So-and-So in South—I probably shouldn’t say where. Anyway, he was running for president of that little armpit of a country, and well, let’s just say a certain country’s government felt it would be very bad if he got elected.”

  “He means the United States!” Moby whispers in my ear so loud I jump.

  The Colonel pretends not to hear his grandson’s deafening whisper, though I’m not sure what difference it makes, since this conversation isn’t officially happening.

  “So we did everything we could to make sure he didn’t get elected.”

  “And what happened?” I ask.

  “During one of his campaign speeches an assassin jumped out of the crowd and shot him.”

  Moby gasps. “What?”

  A gleam flashes in the Colonel’s eye. “Everyone assumed our government sent the assassin, and because his people felt so bad for him, he won the election in a landslide. But it turned out he’d hired the assassin himself, knowing we would get blamed, which would assure him victory.”

  When he’s done, I sit in silence, thinking about what I’ve just heard. Is it even possible? Were we really on the receiving end of the old Shanghai sucker punch?

  If he’s right, that means the Arch is now counterplotting against me. Though he doesn’t have anything to get back at me for. He still has all his hair.

  Then something else hits me. Why would he go through all that trouble when he knew he’d win anyway?

  A chill shoots through my core when I remember him pointing at me during the assembly on Monday and pledging to “clean up this school.” This is personal.

  “So what happened after the election?” I ask the Colonel. “Was the general as bad as the government feared?”

  A huge smile spreads across his face.
“That’s the best part. See, the assassin shot him in the arm so he wouldn’t kill him, but he hit an artery by mistake. Old General So-and-So didn’t live long enough to be sworn in. The old Shanghai sucker punch has a way of coming back to bite you.”

  I hope so, I think. I hope so.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mr. Mayer made it clear my free pass is over. If he believes I tried to hit the Arch with the balloon and caused the riot, it will only take one phone call to put the wheels of Polish justice in motion.

  My mother walks through the door first, rubbing her lower back. She kisses me on the head. “Hello, dynia,” she says. “How was school?”

  I’ve been preparing myself for a grilling all day. I’ve decided to play it cool and make them come after me if they know something. When I open my mouth to answer, though, nerves take over. “NOTHING!”

  “What this means, ‘nothing’?” My father is right behind her.

  My scalp flushes. Smooth, Chub, real smooth.

  “Nothing!” I yell again.

  “What is wrong with you?” My father sets down his lunchbox and looks at me.

  I try to look confused and then touch my ear. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

  My mother takes the bait. She puts her hand on my head, which is a few degrees warmer than normal because I’m so nervous. “You are warm. Maybe he has ear infection.”

  I do my best to look pitiful. Moms love that.

  My dad backs up a few feet and points upstairs. “We can’t afford to get sick.”

  This is better than I hoped. Now I get to sit in my room, do whatever I want, have dinner delivered, and figure out what I’m going to do when the poop hits the fan tomorrow.

  The next morning I wake up early. I lay awake most of the night waiting for the phone to ring, but it never did. That means something is going to happen at school, one way or another. When I finally dozed off, it was the worst sleep of my life. I kept dreaming it was raining potatoes and the whole school was laughing at me because I was the only one they would hit. I consider playing out the ear infection story to get out of school but decide against it for two reasons:

  1. I DON’T THINK I COULD SURVIVE THE WEEKEND NOT KNOWING WHAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL.

  2. LAST TIME I FAKED SICK TO GET OUT OF SCHOOL, MY DAD CAUGHT ME PLAYING TETHERBALL WITH MOBY THAT AFTERNOON AND MADE ME WORK A GARMENT PRESSER AT THE SHOP ALL WEEKEND.

  I need to go to school to find out if I’ve been framed for the assembly riot. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure my alibi was ruined. The robot voice from the phone still rings in my ears. Checkmate.

  Moby and I meet at our usual spot on the way to school. He looks worse for wear too. “You don’t look so good, Chub.”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “Me either.”

  Moby can fall asleep practically on command. Once, on a dare, he fell asleep while standing in line for a scoliosis check at school. He never wobbled or teetered or anything. It was kind of amazing.

  “What kept you awake?” I ask.

  “My parents went to their Self-Defense for Pacifists class, so the Colonel made me watch educational programming all night,” he said.

  “Civil War tactics again?”

  “Apocalypse Preppers.”

  We walk in silence for a while, both of us too frazzled from lack of sleep for small talk.

  We’re a half block from school when a shadow hits my shoulder. Shelby is wearing a wool cape over her shoulders. One gigantic button holds it in place around her noodle neck.

  We stop and face her stare. “Wow, you guys must’ve been pretty constipated!” She folds her arms. “Maybe you should put a little dish soap in your drinks to help move things along.”

  I forgot we told her we had to go to the bathroom before ditching her yesterday.

  “Shelby—” I start to say.

  She waves a finger in my face. “Friends don’t ditch friends.” Then she turns the finger around and pushes her glasses back up her nose.

  I consider explaining the whole thing about the Shanghai sucker punch and throwing in a line about my terrible ear infection to soften her up a little, but I can see in her eyes she’s really hurt.

  “And please don’t make any lame excuses.” Her lip quivers. “People always have reasons why they aren’t there when you need them, Maciek. I thought we were a cadre.”

  I come dangerously close to apologizing, when a better thought comes to me.

  I do my best to look embarrassed. “I probably should’ve told you about rule five,” I say.

  She puts a finger behind her glasses and wipes her eye. “What’s rule five?”

  “Rule five is our escape protocol. If we are ever in real trouble, we split up and don’t tell each other where we’re going,” I say.

  “Let me get this straight. You didn’t even have a name for the cadre until two days ago, but you have rules?”

  “It’s more of a guideline, really.”

  “Why don’t you tell each other?” she asks.

  I’m surprised at how easily the made-up explanation comes out of my mouth. “That way if one person gets caught by a teacher or something, he can’t turn in the other.”

  She thinks about it for a moment. “I don’t like that rule. Cadres are better off together, especially when they’re in trouble.”

  “The other rule is new members don’t get to vote on rules. Right, Moby?” I say, turning to him.

  I should’ve known Moby would be long gone.

  Hundred-year-old buildings are always creepy, but today, with no idea what’s waiting for me inside, Alanmoore looks downright scary. It looms over me, appearing way taller than just four stories.

  The chatter of kids is deafening as I push open the old wooden doors of the main entrance. In the halls, yesterday’s assembly is all anyone is talking about. I keep my head down as I push through a crowd of kids, managing to avoid my locker and make it to homeroom without running into Mr. Mayer. Mr. Funk comes into the room after the second bell rings.

  He gets to his desk and dumps an armload of books and loose papers on it. “All right, everyone, keep it down,” he says, despite the fact that nobody is even talking.

  At exactly 8:01 Mr. Mayer’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker. “Good morning, Alanmoore,” he says without his usual enthusiasm. “The chess team will be holding their annual blah . . . blah . . . blah . . .” I look over at Shelby. She still has her arms folded, and her glasses magnify her death-ray glare. I don’t think she bought the rule-five thing. Whatever her deal is, she’s not letting it go.

  Moby sneaks into the room after Mr. Funk is sitting at his desk. He avoids eye contact with both of us. What’s that about?

  “Blah . . . blah . . . election results . . . blah.” The words grab my attention and a hot rush goes through me. This is it—time to find out if the Shanghai sucker punch worked out better for the Arch than it did for ol’ General So-and-So.

  The two positions no one cares about are no surprise. Sam Hardwick is the new student body secretary, and Sherman Mills is our treasurer. If I ever need to dictate a letter or borrow a gold doubloon, I’ll know who to call.

  Then it’s time to hear the names of our new leaders. I flick my eyes at Rooney Filbert. She’s clutching her 104-point plan to her chest like a good-luck token.

  “C’mon, Rooney!” I say under my breath. Maybe, just maybe, enough kids decided to vote for someone who actually cares about real issues instead of just the most popular kid.

  “Your VP is Troy Gilder.”

  One kid in the back of the class tries to start a slow clap, but it doesn’t catch.

  Please, student body, don’t let me down.

  “And your student body president is . . . Archer Norris.”

  You know that thing in movies where somebody suddenly realizes something that changes the world as he knows it, and the background pulls away as the camera zooms in on him real fast?

  Well, that doesn’t happen to me.

&nbs
p; It doesn’t happen to you when middle school just keeps on disappointing you like it always has.

  Slow Clap tries again, and this time it catches on. Mr. Funk looks up over the edge of his newspaper, shakes his head, and goes back to reading.

  The hallways echo with applause from all over the school. Then it fades, and Mr. Mayer says, “Alanmoore Middle School, welcome your new student body president—Archer Norris.”

  “Friends, fellow students, Kangaroos.” The Arch sounds even more smug than normal. “You have spoken and I’ve heard your cries.”

  “Keep it short, Archer,” says Mr. Mayer in the background.

  “So in summaration, let me say this. Most of you will not regret voting for me, and let the Norristocracy begin!”

  There’s more applause, mostly from jocks, I assume. Everyone else is probably busy trying to figure out the meaning of the big words our illustrious leader just invented.

  Mr. Funk folds his paper and calls the class to order. I don’t hear a word he says as I stare out the window at the teachers’ parking lot. Outside, to my surprise, the world looks pretty much like it did yesterday. The only thing that’s new is Mr. Kraley talking to himself and wandering in big, random loops in the parking lot. The poor guy looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. Maybe I need to have the McQueens cool it for a while.

  At lunchtime I stop by my locker to grab the books I need for the rest of the day. A note falls to the ground when I open the door. I unfold it and catch a whiff of fried potatoes. There’s a smudge on one corner I can only hope is ketchup.

  Want the truth? Boys’ room, 4th floor, lunch.

  It could be a trap, but I smile at what it might mean if it isn’t.

  I quickly track down the McQueens and enlist them as security. They aren’t all muscly like the Arch, but together they aren’t scared of anyone, and I’m pretty sure the three of them can handle anybody at the school. I don’t want to scare away the potential informant, but I’m not going to walk into a trap without any backup, either. As the rest of the kids flood down the stairs to the cafeteria, we work our way upstream to the fourth floor.