Keith crossed the atrium and entered the main office. Ignoring the two administrative assistants, he walked behind the counter to Dr. Kelsey’s door, peeked through the window, and knocked. Dr. Kelsey waved him in. “Keith. At least you knocked this time.” The principal removed his glasses and placed them on top of the draft of the first edition of the Maplewood Herald. The headline on the front page read, “Chicken Enchiladas: The New Phantom Menace.”
“I figured you’d want this,” Keith said, as he pulled a pink sheet from his folder and handed it to Dr. Kelsey.
“So all I have to do is fill this out, and your father will transfer the funds to my account?”
“You mean the school’s account?”
“Yes,” Dr. Kelsey said, squirming in his chair. “Of course.”
Keith grinned. “My dad will transfer the funds to whatever account you like … as soon as the election is over.” He leaned against the desk and looked down at Dr. Kelsey. “Have you figured out how you plan to — how should I say it — secure my win?”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Dr. Kelsey placed the form on his desk and rose from his chair, hoping that a subtle shift in height would remind Keith who was really in charge. He may have had to kiss up to Roderick Sinclair for donations and the occasional “favor,” but he refused to do it to Roderick’s son as well. “If that’s all …”
“One more thing. Have you read the Student Council bylaws lately? Dad had one of his lawyers go over them last year, when I was having all that trouble with the Tech Club.” Keith pulled a booklet from his backpack. “What if I told you I had a way to make some permanent changes to a few clubs — without you or any of the teachers getting involved?” He tossed the bylaws to Dr. Kelsey. “I tabbed it for you. Take a look.”
Dr. Kelsey read the highlighted passage, and then read it again. “Let me guess. The Botany Club?”
“And the Tech Club.”
Dr. Kelsey handed the bylaws back to Keith, thinking he certainly was a Sinclair, all right. No mercy.
“So what do you think?” Keith asked. “You get your money, I get the election, and a couple of clubs bite the dust in the process.”
“A couple?” Dr. Kelsey glanced at the school newspaper. “Why stop at two?”
When Hashemi Larijani wheeled his bike around his house, the last thing he expected to see was the metal door to his shed propped open.
Given that the shed housed all of his tech equipment and memorabilia, the open door would have been troubling in itself. However, the object keeping the door ajar was the MAPE, or Most Awesome Phone Ever — the cell phone he had built from scratch. It contained an Omnitask 3000 multicore processor, tri-band Wi-Fi technology, two GPS chips, a twenty-megapixel camera with zoom and flash, voice recognition software, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a slide-out keyboard. Its battery could last for a week on a single charge, and it could theoretically jump-start his mother’s minivan. Sure, it weighed a pound and was too big to hold in one hand, but it was still technological perfection.
And now someone was using it as a doorstop.
Hashemi parked his bike outside the shed, stepped inside, and picked up the phone, allowing the door to slowly close behind him. Everything looked untouched, from his piles of Popular Science magazines to the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy action figures lining one of his shelves. He crammed the phone into his pocket and picked up the closest weapon he could find — a replica of the Lirpa that Kirk and Spock had used in Star Trek episode 34, “Amok Time.”
He cleared his throat. “Hello? Anyone here?”
“Back here,” a familiar voice replied.
Hashemi rounded a workbench and found Jackson Greene at the back of the shed, kneeling in front of a wooden door propped against the wall. Everything about the door was old and rotten — everything except its shiny silver lock.
“Um … Hi?” Hashemi said.
“Sorry,” Jackson said, as he shimmied a long, metal pick into the deadbolt keyhole. “I got tired of being at home by myself. I figured I’d hang out here, but since you weren’t around …”
“You could have emailed me. You didn’t have to break into the shed.”
“I tried to text you using the MOPE —”
“MAPE!”
“— but it doesn’t work.”
Hashemi nodded. “It’s a beta version. I had to delete the dialing commands to make room for the gyroscope software.”
Jackson repositioned the pick and squinted at the lock. “Yeah. That makes perfect sense.”
“So how did you break into my shed, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Jackson glanced at the open padlock by his feet. “03-22-33. Captain Kirk’s birthday, right?”
Hashemi scratched his head. “How did —”
“Seriously? You’re carrying a Star Trek battle axe.”
“It’s called a Lirpa.”
“All I’m saying is, your lock combination is way too easy to crack.” Jackson removed the pick from the keyhole, grabbed a screwdriver, and began disassembling the deadbolt. “At least I got through one lock today.”
“Still can’t crack the Guttenbabel?”
Jackson shook his head as he wrapped the deadbolt in a thick shop rag and placed it by the base of the door. Pickable or not, the Guttenbabel 4200 was a thing of beauty, and he didn’t want to scuff it up. “So what else happened today?” he asked.
“Nothing — except Megan bailed on us right after the Tech Club meeting.” Hashemi brushed some loose green and red wires from a stool, then slumped onto the seat. “We were all supposed to hang out at Keno’s house to work on the robot for Regionals, but she had other plans.”
“She probably had to run off and share the latest gossip with the Drama Mafia.”
“Jackson …”
“What’s she doing helping you guys with the robot anyway? I thought she was a chemistry geek.”
“Chemistry, electronics, programming — she can do it all. She’s like the Thomas Edison of middle school. Except, you know, pretty. And not dead.”
Jackson dusted off his jeans, which were still speckled with bits of leaves, petals, and pollen. “So is that it? Nothing else crazy happened today?”
“Yeah. Why, what did I miss?”
“I’ll tell you later. Let’s play some Ultimate Fantasy III.”
“No!” Hashemi leapt from his chair. “Anything but that!”
“Oh-kay.” Jackson picked up the padlock and tossed it to Hashemi. “How about something to eat, then? My house or yours?”
Hashemi placed the lock on the table, then wiped his glasses. “What type of ice cream do you have?”
Jackson thought for a minute. “Vanilla.”
“My place,” Hashemi said. “I have chocolate chip.”
After a quick pit stop in the kitchen, they headed to Hashemi’s bedroom. It rivaled the size of most garages, yet it still overflowed with junk.
Or rather, memorabilia.
Hashemi took a bite of ice cream as Jackson flipped through his video game collection. “Sk8tr Boiz Dance Explosion?” Jackson asked. “Really? Do you have a set of Sk8tr Boiz dolls as well?”
“My doctor says it counts as exercise,” Hashemi said.
Jackson tossed Dance Explosion to the side and settled on Zombie Pirates. Ten minutes later, they had restarted the game four times, as they both kept making careless mistakes.
“Clearly, this hasn’t been a good day for either of us,” Jackson said after he accidentally sliced off Hashemi’s hand with a cutlass. He paused the game. “There’s something I should tell —”
“She has a boyfriend.”
“What?”
“Megan Feldman. She has a boyfriend. That’s why she bailed on us.” Hashemi stared into his half-full bowl of ice cream. “He has a copy of Ultimate Fantasy IV.”
“That’s not supposed to come out until Christmas!”
“I know,” Hashemi said. “Ultimate Fantasy IV! How am I supposed to compete with that?”
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“Do you know who has it? Is it a student at Maplewood?” Thanks to his father’s job, Keith often received new games before they were officially released. He had had an impressive collection until Jackson … liberated the games during Keith’s birthday party last year.
“Don’t worry. Megan promised us that it wasn’t Keith.” Hashemi scooped an extra-large chunk of ice cream. “I guess I thought, with the formal and all … If she were going and I were going, maybe I could ask …”
“You’re better off. Who wants to go to a stupid dance anyway? Especially with Megan Feldman. She’d just blab about it to the entire school.” Jackson looked out the window, toward the basketball hoop hanging above his garage next door.
“How many times does she have to apologize?” Hashemi asked. “She didn’t know her friends were going to tell Keith —”
“Forget it,” Jackson said. “It’s done. I’m over it.” He finished his ice cream and placed the bowl on the desk. “There’s something important I need to tell you. Just promise you won’t freak out.”
“Wait. You’re not Megan’s boyfriend, are you?”
“Of course not.” Jackson sighed. “Keith Sinclair is running for Student Council president.”
Hashemi’s entire body tensed. “Keith Sinclair? No! He’ll ruin us! He’ll make us quit the Tech Club and join his stupid Gamer Club!”
“You’re overreacting,” Jackson said.
“No, I’m not,” Hashemi said. “He’ll kill the club! He’ll cut our funding to nothing!”
“The entire Student Council, including classroom representatives, votes on the budget.”
Hashemi pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Not if they don’t reach quorum. In those instances, the Executive Council can pass rules on Student Council’s behalf. That includes budgets.” He placed his bowl on top of a stack of technical journals. “That’s exactly what happened last year.”
“You mean when Keith convinced Student Council to give the Gamer Club part of the Tech Club’s money?
“That’s how it ended up. But first Keith tried to get the Executive Council to move all the money over to the Gamer Club. He even showed them in the bylaws where they could do it. Lucky for us, Gaby made it to the meeting and stopped them. We still had to raise money for Nationals, but not as much as we would have if they had taken it all.”
Jackson reached for his jacket, which he had laid across Hashemi’s bed. Maplewood had some crazy rules when it came to the way student organizations were run — all designed to “empower students to make their own responsible choices” — but he had never heard of anyone actually using the Student Council bylaws to limit a club’s funding. “How many classroom reps have to be in attendance to meet quorum?” he asked as he fumbled through the pockets for his notebook.
“Seventy-five percent, I think.”
Jackson flipped open his notebook and did the math. “That’s what — twenty students? Twenty-five? There’s no way that many reps make it to every meeting.” He turned to a blank page and began listing the candidates running for office. “So are you really telling me that the five kids on the Executive Council can decide the budget for every student organization?”
“Not even that many. They just need a majority vote.”
Jackson stopped writing. He looked at Hashemi, but didn’t know what to say.
Hashemi frowned. “What is it?”
“Wilton’s running for treasurer, Naomi for secretary, and Keith for president.” He tapped his pencil against his leg. “That’s three out of five…. A majority vote.”
Hashemi groaned. “We’re dead!”
“Hash —”
“I’m telling you, Jackson. He did it before. He’ll do it again. And he won’t stop with the Tech Club.”
“Don’t worry. Gaby can beat him,” Jackson said. “But you should let the Tech Club know what’s going on. Gaby’ll need all the support she can get.”
Hashemi tugged at his collar. “Or maybe there’s another way….”
Jackson closed his notebook. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Jackson. You have a plan, right?” Hashemi clasped his hands together like he was praying for divine intervention. “Please tell me you have a plan.”
Jackson turned toward the still-paused video game. “You know I don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“But you can’t let Keith win! It was his fault you got caught during the Mid-Day PDA —”
“You’re calling it that too?”
“And now he’s going to beat your ex-friend, who happens to be a girl who wasn’t your girlfriend but who could have been your girlfriend if you hadn’t got caught kissing —”
“Land the plane, Hash.”
“I’m just wondering … I know he’s mad at the Tech Club, but he hates you one thousand times more. Do you think he’s doing this — trying to beat Gaby — just to get back at you?”
Jackson shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know why, though. Gaby doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“When’s the last time you tried to talk to her?”
“Fourth of July.”
“How did it go?”
“Other than the fact that she slammed the door in my face, it went great.”
Hashemi rose from his chair.
“Where are you going?” Jackson asked.
“To get more ice cream,” he said. “This is a two-bowl type of day.”
“Sorry for the late meal,” Jackson’s father said as he slid into his chair beside Jackson’s mother. “Crazy day at the office. Everyone dig in.”
Donald Greene, in an attempt to pitch in more around the house, had offered to take over the cooking duties once a week. Inspired by his own upbringing, he chose to cook traditional Southern soul food dishes — except, at the request of his wife, with less fat and more vegetables. So as Jackson hacked away at his “traditional but healthy” meal of “extra-blackened” fried catfish, soggy sweet peas, and mushy brown rice, he wondered if he would be better off with the Maplewood chicken enchiladas.
“I told your mother this earlier — I have to jet to DC to debrief HQ on the Bellingham case next week. Just a quick day trip.” As a special agent for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, Donald Greene often traveled, especially when he was working on a major case. “Turns out Bellingham used a network of pizza delivery boys to launder his drug money.”
“Donald, that sounds like that job your father pulled once, when he —”
“Allegedly,” Jackson and his father said at the same time.
Miranda Greene rolled her eyes. “A job he allegedly pulled, when he was trying to get an animal handler to train a …” She turned to Jackson. “What am I thinking? You do not need to hear another story about your grandfather’s life of crime.”
Donald Greene picked up his knife and went to work on his food. “Don’t worry. It’s not like Jackson has access to chimpanzees.” He paused. “Wait — when’s the circus coming into town again?”
Jackson’s mother speared a few peas, which deflated the instant she pierced them. “And as soon as your father gets back, I have to leave for a conference.”
“What’s your talk on this time?” his father asked.
She smiled. “‘The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Study of Water Diffusion in the Olfactory Nerve of Colorado River Cutthroat Trout.’”
Donald Greene winked as he nudged his son. “If Ohio State paid your mom by the syllable, we’d be rich.” After waiting for but not receiving a reply from Jackson, he asked, “And how was your day?”
“Fine. Nothing really happened. Not to me, anyway.” Jackson kept his face on his plate as he spoke.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Miranda Greene said. “A boring day is a good day.”
Donald Greene coughed. “There’s nothing wrong with a little excitement —”
“Jackson can be excited next year, once he’s in high school.”
His father took a drink of
his home-brewed unsweetened iced tea, which looked more like muddy water. “I was looking at the school schedule this morning and noticed that the Fall Formal is coming up. Are you thinking about going? I’ve got a killer powder-blue suit you can borrow. Dad passed it down to me. Butterfly collar, ruffles — I’m telling you, it’s a classic.”
Jackson reached for his water. “Um, no, thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” his father said, then chuckled at his own little joke. “But still, you should go to the dance.”
“Aren’t I still on punishment?”
Miranda Greene folded her napkin and dabbed at the corner of her mouth. “Your father thinks —”
Donald Greene cleared his throat.
“Your father and I both think you should socialize more with your friends. It’s been four months since that … unfortunate incident, and your behavior has been nothing but exemplary.”
Jackson put his fork down. “I don’t need to go to the formal to see my friends. I was just at Hash’s today, and Charlie was over here last week.”
Miranda Greene glanced at her husband. “We were thinking —”
“Not that we’re trying to dictate your love life —”
“This is, of course, your decision —”
“You should ask Gaby to the dance.”
Jackson felt his body slide a few inches lower in his chair.
“She’s smart,” his mother said. “She was just in the Dispatch last week for academic excellence. I used to have a copy around here….”
Jackson slid another inch. The newspaper now resided at the bottom of his desk drawer.
“She plays basketball,” his father said. “And she’s a looker.”
“Donald!”
His father shrugged. “Well, she is.”
“Jackson, we’re not trying to force you to date, nor are we trying to force you to date her,” his mother said. “But it’s clear she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She might be a good influence on you.”
Jackson studied his parents while he took another sip of water. His father’s face was a blank slate — he seemed to be too busy shoveling food into his mouth to be bothered with any other thoughts. His mother, on the other hand, kept looking at his father, her fingers spinning her plain gold wedding band.
The Great Greene Heist Page 2
