by Stuart Gibbs
“I’m right here!” Jim yelled, not realizing that she was joking.
“Jim?” Summer asked. “Are you wearing camouflage or something? Because I can’t see you anywhere!”
Tim and Jim shared a vacant look, trying to grasp whether Summer was making fun of them, or if their camo gear really was that amazing. Finally, after considering it for a few seconds longer than he should have, Tim seemed to figure out it was the former. “You’re making fun of us, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Tim?” Summer asked, still looking around blindly. “Is that you? Are you wearing camouflage too? You’re blending right in with your surroundings so well.” She looked to me. “Can you see them, Teddy?”
“I can’t,” I said, playing along. “It’s like they’re invisible.”
A lot of the kids who were hurrying to class laughed at Summer’s antics—although not too loud, as they didn’t want to get the Barksdales angry at them.
Tim and Jim turned red around the ears. Neither ever quite knew what to make of Summer, especially when she used humor against them.
“Ha ha,” Jim said sarcastically. “You both are hilarious.”
Summer squinted at him. “Wait! I think I can see you now! I can sort of make out your face. Yes, I’m sure it’s your face, because it makes me want to vomit.”
More kids stifled laughter.
Tim glared at Summer. “You’re lucky you’re a girl,” he threatened. “Otherwise I’d punch your face in.” Then he hurried off to class with Jim before Summer could tease him anymore.
I was about to head to class myself—it was awfully close to the first bell—when I noticed something across the parking lot.
There was another pickup truck, parked in the faculty area, and now that I saw it, it looked a lot more like the truck in the video than the Barksdales’ did. Almost exactly the same.
Summer was still staring after the Barksdales. I grabbed her arm and pointed. “Do you know whose truck that is?”
Summer looked that way. Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Only one way to find out,” she said, and started across the lot.
She moved quickly now, knowing we were racing the clock. Given who her father was, Summer never really got in trouble, but she didn’t want to tempt fate. I knew I should get to class myself, but it seemed wrong to let Summer do the investigating all by herself.
The last kids were arriving for school, leaping from their cars and hurrying up the steps. I noticed Xavier in the window of the science lab, watching us, obviously worried. He pointed to his watch and mouthed, What are you doing?
I held up a finger, indicating I’d be only one minute, which I hoped would be true.
Even though I had been at LBJ Middle School for over a year, I had never been in the faculty parking lot before. There hadn’t been any reason, really. As we crossed into it, I discovered that most of the spaces were unassigned, although the closest few to the school were reserved for the administrators. I was surprised to see this type of hierarchy, especially when the reserved spaces probably saved a minute of walking a day, tops. The spaces were marked with plastic signs mounted on spindly stakes; two had fallen over (or maybe had been driven over) at some point and simply lay on the ground at the front of the parking space, waiting for someone to erect them properly once again. This was the case with the one in front of the pickup; Summer and I had to stand over it to read it.
It said: RESERVED FOR VICE PRINCIPAL PUTTERMAN.
Summer and I shared a look of revelation. I thought back to the video, trying to recall if the Mystery Guest inside the truck had no neck. All I could remember about him was that his face had been shrouded in shadow, but that would have been the case for someone who perpetually wore a cowboy hat.
“Is it the same license plate?” I asked.
“I think so,” Summer said. “I only remember the first three numbers, though.”
So we circled around to the back of the truck. Sure enough, there was a dent in the rear bumper. In exactly the right place.
“Putterman’s the Mystery Guest?” I said. “How does he even know Lincoln Stone?”
“I don’t know,” Summer said, “but he was definitely there. And if anyone would kill a dog, it’s that sadistic jerk.”
The first school bell rang in the distance. We were tardy.
“C’mon,” I said. “We better get to class.”
Summer and I hurried around the truck, but someone was blocking our path.
Vice Principal Putterman stood there, legs splayed, arms on his hips, forming a human roadblock. “Oh, you’re not going to class,” he said, flashing a cruel smile. “You’re going to detention.”
17
PUNISHMENT
Putterman hustled me back across the parking lot to the school, seizing my arm in a vise grip. Even though he had also caught Summer, he wasn’t holding her arm. In fact, he didn’t seem interested in punishing her at all. I figured this was probably because he didn’t want to pick a fight with J.J. McCracken’s daughter; he might have simply had it in for me. He certainly seemed awfully pleased with himself for having nabbed me, even though I had always behaved at school.
“I always suspected you were trouble, Fitzroy,” Putterman said proudly. “You might have had all your teachers fooled, but not me. You’re getting three days of maximum detention, starting right now.”
I gaped at him. Putterman had invented two levels of detention. The first was regular detention, where you simply sat in a room all day, missing all your classes and “thinking about the error of your ways.” It was a bizarre punishment, as it removed you from class and gave you nothing to do, including studying, guaranteeing that you would fall behind in your lessons. And yet, because some students—like the Barksdales—wanted to use their brains as little as possible, they actually enjoyed regular detention.
So Putterman had created “Maximum Detention”—or “Max” as it was known—as extra punishment. For this, you didn’t merely miss your classes; you also had to stay after school. There were two bonus hours of doing nothing tacked on, and you would miss anything you had planned. Like the anniversary festivities for FunJungle.
“I’m getting three days of Max for being tardy?” I asked, incredulous. Putterman didn’t like it when kids talked back to him, but I couldn’t help it; I had to defend myself. “I would have only been a few minutes late, tops. The Barksdales skip school all the time. . . .”
“I caught you, not the Barksdales,” Putterman informed me. “And you’re not just getting detention for being tardy. You’re getting it for being up to no good.”
“All he was doing was looking at your truck,” Summer argued. “He didn’t even touch it. How is that ‘being up to no good’?”
Putterman shifted his angry gaze to her. “You’d best be on your way to class, Miss McCracken. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Teddy didn’t do anything wrong!” Summer said sharply. Although she usually didn’t like people to know her father was rich and powerful, she was aware that it gave her advantages. No other student could raise their voice to Putterman and get away with it.
Putterman simply ignored her. We reached the front steps of the school and he dragged me up them toward the doors.
I saw Xavier, along with most of my first-period science class, pressed up against the windows, watching me. Even though I was partly in trouble for being tardy, it didn’t appear that science had even started yet. Many of my classmates seemed to think it was funny that I’d been busted—or maybe they were simply relieved that someone had gotten in trouble besides them. Xavier appeared to be extremely upset on my behalf. He looked as though he felt he’d failed me somehow.
“Can I call my parents?” I asked. I knew they would never stand for me being treated like this.
“No.” Putterman pulled me roughly through the front doors. His tight grip on my arm was really starting to hurt.
“That’s ridiculous,” Summer said. “Everyone has the right to a phone call.”
“This is not a police station,” Putterman told her. “This is a school. I am the law here. I have been placed in charge of discipline, and what I say goes.”
The school’s administrative offices were just beyond the front doors, across the hall from the science lab. Putterman yanked me through the reception area. The school receptionist looked up from her desk as we barged in with Summer on our heels. “My goodness, Mr. Putterman, you’re working hard,” she observed. “The first bell just rang.”
“Mischief never sleeps,” Putterman said, then told her, “Make sure that Miss McCracken here gets to class.”
The receptionist dutifully stood in Summer’s path as she tried to follow us. Putterman shoved me into his office and slammed the door behind him.
The office was small. There was an ugly metal desk, facing two metal chairs. The dreaded wooden paddle hung directly on the wall behind the desk, the focus of the room. To the left of it was Putterman’s college diploma. To the right was a framed, personally signed photo of Lincoln Stone. It was far more prominently displayed than the photos of Putterman’s wife or children, which were relegated to tiny frames on the corner of his desk.
On the wall by the door was a shelf full of trophies for shooting, indicating Putterman was good with a gun. Alongside them sat a large jar full of contraband items Putterman had gleefully confiscated from students over the past few months: pocketknives, slingshots, gum, tins of chewing tobacco, fireworks, and the like.
Putterman pointed to one of the metal chairs and told me, “Sit.” Like I was a dog.
I didn’t like that, but I sat anyhow, trying not to annoy him even more. Then, I attempted to reason with him. “Mr. Putterman, I don’t know what you think I was doing out there, but—”
“Oh, I know what you were doing out there.” Putterman didn’t sit down himself. Instead, he strutted around his office with his hands behind his back, glaring at me imperiously. “Just like I know that you were at Lincoln Stone’s property the other day, snooping around without his permission.”
“I had permission from the Fish and Wildlife Service—” I began.
“You see,” Putterman interrupted, “Lincoln Stone is a good friend of mine. We met out at a shooting range a while back, before he built his own. He has me up to his place at least once a month. We play cards, shoot guns, have a good old time.” The way Putterman said this made it clear he thought I’d be impressed that he was friends with a celebrity. “So when Lincoln saw you on his property with that idiot from Fish and Wildlife the other day, he called me right up and asked if I knew who you might be. And of course, I did. I’m well aware of your reputation for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“I was trying to figure out who killed King,” I protested.
“We all know who killed that lousy mutt,” Putterman said. “It was a mountain lion, pure and simple . . .”
“Maybe not,” I said.
Putterman wheeled on me angrily. “Are you calling me a liar?”
I shrank in my chair under his gaze. “No.”
“It certainly seems like you are. And it seems like you think Lincoln Stone is a liar too. I mean, the man knows a mountain lion killed his dog. Now, that dog might have been a little pain in the rear, but Lincoln loved it, and he’s very upset about it. And yet, here you are, refusing to accept facts as facts, poking around where you shouldn’t be, claiming it wasn’t a mountain lion at all. Just to cause trouble.”
“That’s not why I’m doing it at all!” I insisted. “If Lincoln’s really upset about his dog, I’d think he would want to know who really killed it. . . .”
“Did I ask you a question?” Putterman demanded.
“No,” I said. “But—”
“Then you need to keep your mouth shut. You have a serious problem with authority, Fitzroy. You are insubordinate and disobedient and you do not know your place. So perhaps a little discipline is in order.” Putterman strode behind his desk, heading for his paddle.
“What?” I cried. “You can’t be serious!”
“You see? That sort of outburst is exactly what I’m talking about.” Putterman lifted the paddle off the wall, cradling it like a holy relic. “I’m tired of your lip, son. Now I want you to bend over that desk.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I couldn’t believe this could be happening to me in my own school. I wasn’t sure if Lincoln Stone had put Putterman up to this, or if Putterman was simply this cruel and misguided on his own, but I knew I didn’t deserve to get paddled. “No,” I said firmly. There didn’t seem to be any point to following Putterman’s rules any longer; it wasn’t like I could get into any more trouble.
Putterman’s eyes narrowed angrily. “What did you say to me?”
“I said no. I’m not getting paddled. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“If I say you did something wrong, then you did something wrong. Now assume the position!”
I sprang from the chair, heading for the door, but Putterman had predicted this. He leaped into my path, wielding the paddle like a baseball bat. There was rage in his eyes. For a moment, I thought he might attack me.
There was a sudden commotion outside the door. I heard the receptionist yell, “You can’t go in there!” followed by the sound of someone running toward the office.
I thought it might be Summer coming to my rescue. Or Dash or Ethan.
But it was Xavier who burst through the door. He looked nervous and desperate, like he was pretty sure what he was about to do was going to end in disaster—although he seemed relieved when he noticed I hadn’t been paddled yet. He held a large mason jar in his hands.
Putterman wheeled on him. “I do not want to be disturbed!” he roared.
“Sorry!” Xavier said. “But there’s been an emergency! Violet Grace just got attacked!”
Instead of being concerned, Putterman seemed annoyed that someone else’s misfortune had interrupted his torture session. “By what?”
“One of these.” Xavier held up the mason jar. The three tarantulas from the science lab were inside it. And there was no lid on the top.
I knew the spiders weren’t dangerous. So did every kid at school. Our teacher often let us hold them. But they looked scary, with bulbous bodies and bristly legs and rows of beady eyes.
Putterman yelped and leaped backward, confirming the rumors that he was afraid of animals. Or spiders, at least. “Why’d you bring them in here?” he squealed.
“I couldn’t leave them there,” Xavier said, doing an impressive job of selling the story. “They’re dangerous! One of them bit Violet’s hand and now her arm swelled up to the size of her leg!”
Putterman’s eyes went wide at the thought of this. He didn’t look tough anymore. Instead, he backed away from the jar, trembling with fear. “Get them out of here!” he yelped. “Get them out of here now!”
“But I . . . ,” Xavier began, and then pretended to trip on the carpet. “Whoops!” He made an excellent pratfall, stumbling forward, and in the same movement he shook the jar so the three tarantulas launched out of it. Two landed on Putterman’s desk.
And the third landed right on Putterman’s chest.
Putterman screamed in terror. “Get it off me!” he shrieked. “Get it off, get it off, get it off!” He danced around frantically, trying to shake the spider off himself so he wouldn’t have to touch it, knocking over his desk chair and a coatrack. His beloved framed photo of Lincoln Stone tumbled off the wall and broke on the floor.
“Careful!” I warned. “If they bite you, the venom is extremely painful. And toxic.”
Putterman screamed again. He somehow managed to knock the tarantula off himself. It landed on his computer screen. Putterman quickly swung at it with his paddle.
I was worried about the spider, but thankfully, in Putterman’s fear, he had completely lost his coordination. He missed the computer by a good two feet, connecting with his desk lamp instead. The lamp sailed right through his office window and shattered on the
front lawn.
Putterman didn’t seem to care. He was experiencing a full-blown case of arachnophobia, sweaty and hyperventilating in his panic. I almost felt bad for him.
But not quite enough to calm him.
Putterman swatted wildly at the tarantula on his computer once again. This time, his aim was better—although the spider seemed to have sensed danger and had already scrambled away. Putterman drove his paddle right through the computer screen, which exploded in a spray of sparks and crashed to the floor.
Putterman kept on swinging, taking out just about everything but the tarantulas. He flattened the photos of his family, destroyed his phone, and swatted a paperweight so hard that it embedded in the wall. On his next swing, he missed the desk entirely and took out his trophy shelf. The trophies came crashing down and busted apart. The jar full of contraband broke open, spilling everything across the carpet.
Finally, Putterman stopped to survey the damage he’d done, red-faced and panting. The spiders had now hidden for safety, so they were nowhere to be seen, which only increased Putterman’s sense of panic. “Where are they?” he asked, terrified.
For a moment, I thought about being honest. But then I remembered that, only a minute before, this man had been willing to paddle me for no good reason. “The biggest one’s on your back,” I said.
Putterman howled. It was almost inhuman. He spun around wildly, as if he could somehow create enough centrifugal force to fling the spider off his body.
One of the contraband objects that had spilled on the floor was a large rubber ball. Putterman had confiscated it from Dash a week before, because Dash and Ethan had been playing catch with it in the hallway during the changing period. As Putterman spun, he stepped on the ball and his feet flew out from under him. He landed flat on his back atop the array of busted trophies and let loose with another howl, only this one was in pain.
“My back!” he wailed. “I think I threw out my back!” Then, as Xavier and I almost began to feel sorry for him, he glared at us and said, “Don’t just sit there, you idiots! I need a doctor!”
