We have a new student.
There’s Camille, getting a tour of the dojo from Ikeda-sensei while the rest of the class sizes her up. General consensus looks to be ‘I bet I could take her,’ ranging from completely innocent she’s-way-tiny to you-don’t-want-to-know lewd. I mean she’s super thin, you can tell, now that she’s in a gi instead of that baggy sweater, and she isn’t any taller than me. Goldilocks ringlets aside, though, she somehow looks...correct...in her gi. Maybe it’s her posture. I don’t remember her standing this straight before, or looking so formal.
Ikeda-sensei likes to start every lesson with an exhibition match. Most of the time this involves Hyde getting to beat on some poor sap with a full audience. I’m busy crossing my fingers that it’s not going to be me, and sparing a couple of crossed toes that it won’t be Destin.
But Ikeda clearly has something different in mind.
“Today’s exhibition match will be...” Ikeda’s gaze slides across the room, his lips curling. “Hyde and Teague.”
Hyde laughs and hoists his wooden sword onto his shoulder, shoving his way between Brandon and Destin to get to the front of the room. Camille merely walks around the edge of the group, coming to a stop in front of him, one hand resting on the identical practice sword at her waist.
“Everyone else have a seat,” Ikeda says, amusement coloring his voice. As the rest of the class sits where they were, placing their swords beside them on the mat, he steps back to lean against the wall. The two look totally mismatched – Hyde tall and sinewy with dark spiked hair and metal glittering from every facial feature, Camille tiny and golden, with the exception of that weird iron bracer on her left arm. You’d think she’d take that thing off for something like this.
Hyde holds his wooden sword out at arm’s length, pointing it at Camille. “This is your only warning,” he sneers at her. “I love fighting newbies, and I don’t care that you’re a girl.”
Camille merely inclines her head, and then dips into a perfect Japanese bow. Hyde just laughs again, a throaty cackle. I slip a glance at Destin. She’s in trouble.
When Camille straightens up, Ikeda says, “Begin.”
Hyde’s first move is a flurry of power. Camille doesn’t even draw her sword. She sidesteps and ducks. Hyde blows right past her. He cocks his head and straightens up as he turns.
“Dodgy,” he comments, and swings at her again with a yell.
I flinch. If he connects with her, she’ll definitely sustain a serious injury, like Poggio, wooden sword or no. But Camille still doesn’t draw. She merely spins where she stands. He oversteps, compensating for the lack of impact. Her foot catches his ankle. She hooks his leg out from under him. Hyde drops on the mat with a grunt of pain, but immediately scrambles to his feet.
“What the hell are you playing at?” he snaps, pointing his sword at her again.
“You, it looks like,” Jacques calls. Several chuckles rise from the class.
Hyde’s face flushes. “Use your freaking sword!” he growls at her.
“When I need it,” Camille says, sounding bored.
He comes at her a third time, wilder than ever. In a flash, Camille drops into a roll and pops back up behind him. She plants a foot in his back as he goes past. He stumbles, out of balance, and falls flat on his face. The entire class breaks into laughter.
“Settle down, settle down,” Ikeda holds up his hands, stepping forward to stand by Camille. “I think that’s enough for one day.”
“What? Sensei!” Hyde protests, rubbing his nose. “Come on! She didn’t use her sword! This isn’t karate class!”
“No, it’s not,” Ikeda says, the same amusement coloring his voice. “So you’d better hope I don’t ask you to fight her tomorrow.”
That’s when I notice her belt is black. Holy crap. She’s a black belt. How had I missed it?
Ikeda starts talking to Camille in Japanese, and she replies fluently, happily, and they share a laugh about something – but I have a feeling it’s at Hyde’s expense. So does Hyde, apparently, by the flush that creeps up his neck. Ikeda and Camille chatter back and forth unintelligibly, and it’s clear Ikeda has found a new favorite.
The sudden sense of admiration I feel for the foreign girl becomes tinged with concern as I see the way Hyde is looking at her. As she placidly puts away her sword in the rack against the far wall, I see the murder hatching in his eyes. I glance at Destin, and I can tell he’d seen it too.
I was right after all. Our new classmate has no idea what she’s just stepped into.
Destin and I catch up with her on the way out. “That was some awesome non-sword work there,” I tell her as we walk alongside her.
“Ari- Thank you,” she says, correcting herself.
“You uh, you may not have noticed, but I think you pissed off Hyde.”
Camille glances at me dismissively. “I noticed.”
“No, I mean, you’re new and all, so you might not be aware that he’s really not the kind of enemy you want to have.”
Camille snorts softly. “I’ll be fine.”
“He’ll try to fight you again,” Destin says.
“And not in class, either,” I add.
“Not a problem,” she says.
In my opinion, a day really ought to contain only a limited amount of disappointment. The universe apparently disagrees with me. When we get back to our lockers, Destin’s is empty. I can almost see his soul departing out his ears as he gazes forlornly at the slender metal void.
“I had four new releases in there...” he says hollowly.
This just doesn’t make any sense. Candy bars? Soda? Comics? I peer closely into his locker. There’s some kind of scratch on one wall...three thin, parallel lines...
“I hadn’t even read them yet,” Destin murmurs, still in shock.
A cackle behind us announces Hyde. “Is wittle baby Heron missing his woobie?”
Realization lights through me. “You!” I declare, pointing at him, “All this is your fault!”
“Me?” he sneers. “Well that would be convenient. Go ahead and try to pin it on me, midget, I dare you. I am untouchable.” He shoves me and I hit the lockers with a loud metallic rattle. “You on the other hand...” he chuckles, strolling away down the hall.
“Alright that is it!” I declare, turning to Destin. “This will not go unanswered! We are coming back here tonight and we are staking out this hall until we catch Hyde in the act!”
“We are?”
“We are.”
“And what happens when he turns around and kicks our asses?”
“We have a more credible story when we tell Principal Umino about it tomorrow.”
“I’m going to go on record as not liking this plan.”
“Mac.”
I try to ignore him. We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile. If anyone catches us in the school at night, we’re in for a heap of trouble. Also, there’s no way we can catch Hyde if he sees us first.
“Mac.”
“What?” I whisper.
“If this doesn’t work...” Destin trails off.
“It’ll work,” I insist.
“If it doesn’t work,” he says, “You owe me a new Sandman.”
“Your sacrifice will not be forgotten,” I assure him.
We had talked about this, but it obviously still bothers him. I had pointed out that the thief was only going for the good stuff - the food, the books, the comics. It’s the kind of stuff I would steal, honestly, if I had no sense of human property. Also I would get caught.
Like I expect that spiky-headed pincushion-face to. He’s finally going to get it, for once. Well, for twice. Camille had thrashed him good in kendo, undeniable. I grin at the remembrance. I’m going to keep that like a movie in my head, to play whenever I need cheering up.
Since Destin’s locker had already been cleaned out, we stuffed mine with chocolate, soda, and his comics. And a dozen mouse traps. It’s not so much that I expect Hyde to stick his fingers in one �
� it’s that I expect them to make a ton of noise when he opens the locker. It’s dark in the hall, after all, and we can’t see that well. So we need to know when to flip the lights and end that jerk’s locker spree.
No one pilfers my candy beans and gets away with it.
“Okay, here’s what I don’t get,” Destin says under his breath. “I get that Hyde would mess with us. But why the comics? He has zero interest in them. And why swipe from other people’s lockers too? You’d have to be insane to swipe from Chase.”
“Chase went straight to us,” I say. “It’s got to be about framing us. And you heard him, he thinks he’s untouchable. Freaking teacher’s pet. Principal’s pet? Is that the right term?”
“Maybe,” he says. “But here’s the thing...I put the comics in right before we went to kendo. Hyde was at class before us this afternoon, and left after us. How could he have stolen it while he was in a room with us on the other side of school?”
“That...he was...look, stop being logical. Hyde did it.”
“You have a vendetta.”
“Of course I do!” I hiss. “How could I not have a vendetta?”
“So you’re admitting that this Hyde conclusion could be born of bias.”
“Of course it is! What’s your point?”
Destin makes a motion for silence and points to the classroom window. I stand on tiptoe to peer over the edge. There’s...maybe...is it just a shadow? Branches waving across windows? It’s totally silent.
Then...the faintest metallic sound. I curse the janitor for keeping the hinges oiled. It isn’t enough to spring for.
I squint. There’s definitely a shadow hovering over my locker. Too small to be a person, it seems to cling to the grate. I hear a faint trilling noise - like a cat - and then the shadow melts into the locker door and vanishes.
“What the hell...?” I murmur.
Then the traps go off. The pops echo loudly in the empty hallway, along with a screech from inside the locker. If there’s anyone still in the building, they’ll definitely have heard the racket.
“Come on!” I tell Destin, shoving open the door we’re hiding behind. We burst into the hall. The shadow vaults out of the locker - candy bars and popped traps scattering everywhere - and zooms down the hall. Is that a...a tail? I take off after it. Destin follows, calling “Wait up!”
It turns a corner in the atrium. I skid on the tile floor, turning with it. By the light of the moon shining through the windows I’m only in time to see what is a tail, long and slender, as it leaps through one of the glass panes in the door. It shatters, the high crack resounding throughout the atrium. So the shadow is solid after all.
“What is going on out here?” I hear behind me.
Oh crap, I think. Principal Umino is in her office. But I keep going. I don’t want to lose this thing – it’s our ticket to innocence. If she’ll believe it. I push through the front doors even as I hear Destin behind me, “Um, good evening ma’am...”
Avoiding the broken glass, I leap over the stairs and take off running across the parking lot. The shadow is making for the tree line. I’ll definitely lose it if it gets into the forest. I speed up, sprinting between the only two cars in the lot.
Thwack. I collide with something, and fall on my back. Stars explode in front of my eyes. Hyde stands over me, grinning. “Never clotheslined someone before. First time for everything. Guess what I found, principal?” he yells up to the school.
I struggle to sit up, but the shadow has already vanished. Hyde hoists me to my feet by my collar. I shove him away, though I’m still a little unsteady. He keeps a grip on my shirt and pulls me toward the front doors. “This is a first,” he says. “Lots of firsts tonight. I’ve never busted someone else for vandalism before.”
“I didn’t do anything!” I snap.
“No?” he says, looking at the broken glass as we climb the stairs. “The evidence isn’t on your side, munchkin.”
“You set this up!” I accuse, as he pushes me through the door. “You sent that - that - ninja monkey thing just to get me in trouble!”
He laughs. “You clearly don’t need my help to get in trouble, Dupree.”
Principal Umino stands in the atrium, with Destin at her side looking sheepish. “Thank you Mr. Hyde,” she says, regarding me narrowly. “You’re free to go home now.”
“I don’t know, I think I’ll stick around for a minute,” he grins, leaning back against the stairwell.
The jackass just wants to stand there and gloat. My fingers curl into fists.
“Well?” the principal addresses me. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“We’re totally innocent,” I state fervently.
“Is that right? I’ve been receiving complaints about stolen items for the past week. Many of them suggesting you as the culprit.”
“Why would I steal from my own locker?” I protest. “And Destin’s was cleared out just this afternoon!”
“I’m sure it was,” she says dryly. “Tell me why. Are you looking for revenge on those who’ve wronged you? More importantly, how did you do it? Not a single lock showed signs of entry. If you tell me how you accomplished it, I may be more lenient.”
“I didn’t do it,” I state. “We were here tonight trying to catch the thing that did!”
“The thing?” she says, expressionless.
“He was making up something about - what was it Dupree - a ninja monkey?” Hyde chuckles. “Seriously, you can do better than that.”
“And I suppose you saw it too, Mr. Heron?”
Destin colors under his curtain of hair. “It was...a shadow...” he murmurs lamely.
“How helpful,” she says coldly. “I’ll tell the staff to beware a loose shadow.”
“It’s real, I swear!” I exclaim. “It set off all the mousetraps I stuffed in my locker and then it broke the window - ”
“Mr. Dupree,” she interrupts. “You and Mr. Heron are going to pay back the damages you have incurred. You will spend your free period assisting teachers with whatever odd tasks they assign you, until the end of the semester.”
“This is unfair!” I shout. “We didn’t do anything!”
“You broke into school after hours,” she states. “A transgression on its own. If you insist on continuing to protest, I will bring the matter before your parents.”
I swallow. Umino’s wrath was bad enough. My mom thinks I’m in my room doing homework right now. If she even heard I had snuck out of the house at night...
“Fine,” I grumble.
“If your...shadow turns up, your names will be cleared, of course,” she smiles condescendingly. “Until then, someone must pay the debt to society. You understand. Now go home, all of you,” she orders, with a glance at Hyde as well. She turns on her heel and strides back into her office.
“You’re a groveling kiss-up, is what you are,” I hiss at Hyde, the instant her door shuts.
“And you’ll be mopping the science lab for the next two months,” he leers. “You kids have fun with that.” He strides out the front doors, laughing.
“We’re doomed,” Destin sighs.
I’m inclined to agree with him. “Oh, come on, let’s at least take your comics home,” I grumble. This has not turned out well. This is the opposite of well.
I stuff a couple of the candy bars into my pocket. No sense in letting them go to waste. Destin picks up his comics. He frowns over one bent page but remains silent as we exit the school.
I’m lost in thought as we cross the parking lot. Which means I’m saying everything I’m thinking.
“This is hands down the weirdest thing that has ever happened to us,” I groan. “What kind of ninja monkey would break into a school to steal chocolate and books? Who would train it to do that? And what the hell is it?”
“Did you get a good look at it?” Destin asks.
“It was too dark. I mean I saw a tail, and I think there was fur...”
A light tug at my back pocket distracts me.
I spin, but a dark creature about the size of a cat is already sprinting for the trees with a candy bar in its mouth. It leaps for a high branch and disappears, gliding into the forest.
I stand with my mouth open. “Those were wings.”
“Underarm webbing, actually,” Destin says, with the kind of calm that only comes from being totally stunned.
“Like a bat. But it ran like a cat...”
“I thought you said it was a monkey!” He’s starting to freak out now.
“Well now I’m saying ninja catbat!” I return.
“Oh, that’ll go over well,” he says with sarcasm. “Hey, Principal Umino, sorry about earlier. It’s actually a ninja catbat that’s been stealing my comics. Why does it want my comics? Who could say! Maybe ninja catbats love a good illustrated plotline. How should I know? I’ve never heard of them before in my life!”
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry, look, calm down,” I say, gesturing at the ground. Downy grey feathers are sifting around his sneakers.
“Crap,” he says, taking a steadying breath.
“Look, let’s just go home,” I say. “Maybe just stop taking comics to school for awhile.”
“Yeah like that’s going to happen,” he grumbles.
“Then just don’t put them in your locker, alright?” I sigh. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this and clear our names. I am not cleaning Tailor’s chalkboard until Christmas.”
“Get to the bottom of it how?” Destin asks.
“It was headed right towards the old lumbermill,” I say. “So that’s where we’re going on Saturday.”
“It’s condemned for a reason,” he says nervously, pulling a feather out of his sleeve and tossing it aside.
“All the more reason it could hide there,” I state, starting the walk home.
Oh, right, Destin molts when he’s freaked out. I probably should have mentioned that sooner.
Chapter 7
Jul
The Thief Page 8
