The Scavengers Strike Back

by Marcus Emerson

  The Scavengers were bad kids, and it turned out they had way more members that I thought. Naomi was their leader, but that was just for the sixth-grade Scavengers. There were seventh- and eighth-grade Scavengers too. And at the very top was a kid named Victor.

  I’ve never met Victor before, and I wanted to keep it that way. I don’t know what he had planned for me, but it couldn’t be good.

  ‘Have they tried talking to you again?’ Brayden asked. ‘The Scavengers, I mean.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But I wish they would. It’s like waiting for someone to make a move in checkers – just go already! Am I right?’ I joked.

  Brayden nodded, staring off into space like he’d just had a brilliant idea.

  ‘Hey,’ Naomi said as she walked by.

  Just then, Wyatt passed in the opposite direction. Surprisingly, he didn’t even say anything mean.

  Wyatt was the Lex Luthor to my Superman. (I’m Superman, duh.) He was the leader of the red ninja clan, and had been nothing but a fly in my soup since the beginning of the year. If something evil was being cooked up, you’d better believe Wyatt was the chef.

  ‘Hey!’ I called out to Wyatt, confused that he was just ignoring me like that. ‘What gives?’

  Why did I do that? He would’ve just walked by and everything would’ve been cool!

  Wyatt turned his towards me, and stared confused, like he wasn’t even sure who I was. His eyes darted back and forth like he was expecting a trap to come down on him.

  Then he just walked away.

  ‘That was weird,’ Gidget said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘Why didn’t he say anything?’

  Gidget jabbed my arm. ‘No,’ she said angrily. ‘You were being weird! Do you want him to mess with you?’

  Brayden and Slug laughed, and I shrugged.

  After we said our goodbyes, I headed down the hall. I didn’t want to be late to Zoe’s meeting, or I’d never hear the end of it.

  The student council headquarters was one of the home economics classrooms. It was one of the only rooms that didn’t have a class in it during homeroom. Zoe just called it the student council headquarters because it sounded better.

  The classroom had four kitchen islands, each with six stools at it, and a sink on one end. Zoe was leaning against the counter closest to the door. Dani, Colin and Bounty, the other three members of student council, were on stools on the other three sides of the island, scribbling notes. Last week, Dani helped Wyatt cheat in the Spirit Week games. She was almost suspended from the student council, but since she owned up and apologised, Zoe gave her a second chance. Zoe’s awesome like that.

  Principal Davis was there too, standing against one of the other islands.

  ‘Okay,’ Zoe said, glancing at me as I took a seat on one of the stools behind her. ‘So we’ve got an ice-cream guy, a pizza guy, a weird pretzel guy named Teddy, a funnel cake guy, and a guy who specialises in frying any kind of junk food you bring him. Are we good for food then?’

  ‘I think so,’ Dani said. ‘They’ll be here to set up after school on Friday.

  ‘Cool beans,’ Zoe said, and then she pointed at Bounty. ‘Where are we at with the games?’

  Bounty tapped his pencil and stuttered something nobody really understood.

  ‘Dude,’ Zoe said with a chill voice. She always used a calm tone when she was about to get serious. ‘The Buchanan Bash is this Friday. You knew this a couple of weeks ago and had plenty of time to plan. Please tell me you didn’t drop the ball on this, because that would literally stop my heart. Is that what you want, Bounty? Do you want me to die?’

  Bounty couldn’t hold it in anymore and laughed. ‘No, I’m kidding! We’re good. All the games are good to go for Friday. We have most of the stuff for the games in the school storage, we just need parents to volunteer to run them.’

  ‘Are you sure having a ‘fun fair’ isn’t just for first graders?’ Colin moaned.

  ‘It’s not a ‘fun fair’, it’s the Buchanan Bash,’ Zoe said firmly. ‘I’m not about to let my presidency be boring. The sixth graders have been through way too much to not throw them a huge party. You know you’re gonna love it, and what’s not to love? Games? Prizes? Music? Junk food? This party is gonna be face-meltingly good! At the end of the night, we’ll all be confused about who anyone is because our faces will have melted off, and— Nope, y’know what? Too far. Melting faces was too far.’

  Everyone laughed, including Principal Davis.

  Zoe turned to me. ‘How about you, Chase? How’s your thing coming along?’

  ‘Good! It’s good!’ I said.

  Zoe was letting me build a giant entrance to the Bash. It would be right inside the lobby, next to body-builder James Buchanan.

  I spent most of the weekend building the main part of it, but was going to use the rest of the week to add the final details. My dad helped me bring it to school earlier that morning, and at that moment, it was sitting in the storage garage that Bounty had talked about earlier.

  Zoe grinned. ‘Well, where is it? I wanna see!’

  I shook my head. ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘It’s not done yet! I said you can see it when it’s done!’

  ‘Okay,’ Zoe said, ‘but you know that the Bash is in five days, right? Like, your thing needs to be done before the end of the week.’

  ‘Yeeessss,’ I drawled, rolling my eyes. ‘I knowwwww.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I know how you misunderstand things sometimes.’

  ‘No, I don’t!’ I said defensively. ‘Oh, you’re talking about that one time, aren’t you? Okay fine, one time.’

  ‘Chase is doing a fine job with it, Zoe,’ Principal Davis said. ‘I’m so confident you’ll love it that we’ll unveil it to the entire school on Friday morning during the assembly for the Bash. Right there in the cafeteria.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I asked, feeling my blood pump faster.

  ‘Seriously,’ Principal Davis repeated.

  Zoe sighed. ‘As long as you—’

  The door swung open and slammed against the counter behind it. Jesse, the kitchen volunteer, stood there with sweat on his brow and grease on his sleeves.

  ‘Principal Davis!’ he shrieked as he leaned into the room. ‘Come quick! There’s been an incident!’

  Everyone in the room gasped. Zoe even choked on some spit. She clutched at her chest and coughed loudly.

  ‘An incident?’ Principal Davis said, concerned.

  ‘Yes!’ Jesse continued. ‘An incident so epic that our hearts will bleed! Someone’s taken James Buchanan’s head!’

  I looked at Zoe, who looked at me, and then the rest of the student council.

  ‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Principal Davis said, patting at the air in front of him. ‘Was anyone actually hurt?’

  Jesse grew frustrated. ‘Yes, Principal Davis! Our feelings were hurt by this horrible, awful crime!’

  The principal let his body rest against the counter, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Okay, so nobody actually got hurt. I swear you kids are going to give me a heart attack.’

  We all followed Principal Davis back to the school lobby – the scene of the crime.

  The new statue was headless.

  Principal Davis silently studied the broken statue. He was staring at the spot where the head had been cracked off.

  ‘Look at the floor,’ I said, pointing around my shoes. ‘There’s some white dust where the head must’ve landed, but … it’s gone.’

  ‘This is bad,’ Zoe said. ‘The Bash is on Friday. Parents are going to come with their kids, and when they see this …’

  Principal Davis finally spoke. ‘There’s no way we can get a replacement head for the statue in five days. It took months to get the last one.’

  After some more grumbling, Principal Davis headed to the front office saying something about making phone calls and how he’d rather be on a beach in Hawaii ‘swimming it up’.

  Bounty, Dani and Colin continued to study the powder
on the floor and give their two cents about the whole thing to each other. I took a seat on one of the benches by the front entrance to the school.

  ‘Who would do such an awful thing?’ Zoe asked, sitting next to me. ‘Pranks like this are so lame.’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe it was just an accident.’

  ‘Riiiiight,’ Zoe said. ‘Like anything at this school is ever just an accident. This school is cursed, and I bet in a hundred years when our great-great-grandkids go here, they’ll be dealing with their own set of ridiculous problems like this.’

  ‘You think our great-great-grandkids will go to this school?’ I said, excited at the thought.

  ‘Sure, why not?’ Zoe said nonchalantly.

  ‘You think this will even be a school still? In the year 2117?’ I asked.

  ‘This was a school a hundred years ago, why wouldn’t it be a school in another hundred?’ Zoe said.

  I scratched the back of my neck. ‘I should start leaving little clues around the building for my great-great-grandkid to find,’ I said. ‘How amazing would that be? Like, I can send him messages from the past!’

  Zoe gave me a look like I’d gone too far, even for me.

  ‘What?’ I laughed. ‘I’m just sayin’ that if I had to go around finding a bunch of stuff from our dead great-great-grandparents, it would rock my socks off!’

  ‘You’re such a weirdo sometimes,’ Zoe grinned with a half smile.

  ‘Hey, so uh…’ I coughed awkwardly. ‘Faith told me that you and Gavin broke up. Are you…I mean, do you…’ I trailed off.

  Zoe’s eyes looked sad but she gave me a quick smile. ‘I’m okay. It’s kind of a bummer.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, totes,’ I said. ‘Well if you wanna …you know, whatever.’

  Zoe laughed. ‘I know, thanks Chase. You’re the best cousin.’ She gave me a quick hug, then turned back to the statue. ‘You gonna look into this prank then? The case of the missing head?’

  I still had to finish my project for the Bash, and with it being only a few days away, I didn’t have much time to run around the halls questioning kids.

  And it sure didn’t seem like the prank had anything to do with my ninja clan, so I felt like things were safe there too. Best to keep things normal rather than stir up trouble where there wasn’t any.

  ‘Nah,’ I said at last. ‘I think I can pass on this one. A kid needs a break every now and then, right? Besides, I think Davis has it under control.’

  ‘Good,’ Zoe said. ‘For the record, I’m glad you’re letting the adults handle this. I think it’s time for you to just start enjoying sixth grade like a normal eleven-year old.’

  Yup, that was me … a normal eleven-year old.

  The rest of the morning went, as swimmers would say, swimmingly. Or maybe fish would say that. But do fish know that they’re swimming? Oh, man … do fish know that they’re swimming? That’s gonna bug me for the rest of my life.

  Most kids were upset that someone had stolen Buchanan’s head. Even though the statue was pretty goofy, it was our goofy statue.

  I was standing in the lunch line, waiting for my turn to pay for the pile of stuff on my tray that the school called food. Seriously, Salisbury steak is just chunks of meat slathered in ‘gravy’, which may or may not be mud, on a piece of bread. Urgh.

  Jesse was working the register when I got to the front of the line. He was wearing an apron that had a button on it that said, ‘Ask me about our tomatoes’.

  ‘What’s up with your tomatoes?’ I asked, handing Jesse my cash.

  ‘I wish people would stop asking me that,’ Jesse sighed as he jabbed at some of the buttons on the register. ‘Seriously, kids ask me that every single day, and it’s getting on my nerves.’

  ‘Maybe stop wearing the button?’ I suggested.

  Jesse fiddled some more with the register, looking around like he was nervous or something.

  ‘Oh, dude,’ I said, feeling bad. ‘I don’t really care about your tomatoes. It was a joke.’

  The lights on the cash register blipped, and then the small screen on top of it said, ‘FREE LUNCH’.

  Jesse groaned, tilting his head back.

  ‘Free lunch?’ I said.

  ‘The register’s been acting like this all day,’ Jesse said. ‘It’s some kind of glitch that keeps ringing up free lunches.’ He slammed his fist on top of the machine. ‘Bad register! No! Bad!’

  ‘Sweet!’ I said. ‘Can I get my money back?’

  Jesse barked out a sarcastic laugh. ‘Um, no,’ he said as he reached into his apron pocket. He pulled out a slip of purple paper and set it in one of the slots inside the cash drawer, on top of a pile of other slips of purple paper. ‘I gotta put one of these in each time the register glitches like this. Y’know, to keep track of how many times it’s happened.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, looking at the cash drawer full of purple paper. Then I noticed the end of Jesse’s sleeves. They were stretched out and stained with black. It had to have been from how much money he handled. The bottom of my piggy bank was always caked with black dirt too.

  I found Gidget and Slug sitting at a table near the front exit. Brayden wasn’t there though. He was still probably in line getting his meal.

  ‘How’s your project coming along?’ Slug asked, shovelling a scoop of meat and gravy into his mouth.

  ‘There’s still a lot to do,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got plenty of time before the Bash on Friday.’

  ‘You’ve got the whole thing built,’ Gidget said. ‘All you really need to do is add the finishing touches, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Some paint and extra little things to glue onto it.’

  ‘What is it again?’ Slug asked before shovelling another huge bite of food into his mouth. He had just about cleared his tray of food in the last twenty seconds.

  ‘It’s just an entryway,’ I explained. ‘It’ll stand in the lobby, next to the statue of Buchanan, who will hopefully find his head by then. It’s going to look like you’re walking into a circus with fake robots and electronics and tubing. It’s gonna be junky sci-fi stuff.’

  ‘Sounds cool,’ Gidget said. ‘But why?’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Zoe’s all about presentation, and I thought it’d be pretty cool if that was the first thing kids saw when walking through the doors on Friday night.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Gidget said, but I wasn’t sure if she was actually paying attention. She was back to tapping on her phone.

  ‘So hey,’ Slug said nervously. ‘I was thinking …’

  ‘Did it hurt?’ Gidget asked, and then clenched her fist, whispering to herself. ‘Oh, burn! Easy, Gidget, don’t celebrate yet. Wait until he’s begging for mercy. Only then can you gloat. That’s good sportsmanship.’

  For a second, I thought Slug was going to be serious … but he wasn’t.

  ‘Giraffes?’ Slug said, tilting his head. ‘Too tall? Or not tall enough?’

  ‘What kind of question is that?’ Gidget asked.

  ‘The kind of question a scientist asks,’ Slug said confidently. ‘How do you think scientists get so smart? It’s because they ask questions.’

  ‘But their questions aren’t about giraffes being too tall,’ Gidget said.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Slug might be onto something here.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Gidget sighed.

  ‘Are giraffes just horses with super long necks?’ I asked, looking at Slug.

  ‘No,’ Gidget said, letting her phone drop to the table.

  ‘And if they are, then why do they get the long necks?’ I continued.

  ‘Could you ride a giraffe?’ Slug said.

  I shrugged, looking at Gidget.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Y’know,’ she said honestly. ‘That’s a good question. I don’t think so … but … I don’t know.’

  ‘See?’ Slug said, sitting back and crossing his arms. ‘I’m askin’ all the important questions over here.’

  ‘Can you imagine riding an army
of giraffes into battle?’ Gidget said.

  I tried to imagine that. ‘It would either be the funniest thing ever, or the most terrifying thing ever. Either way, the army without the giraffes would lose.’

  ‘Dudes,’ Slug said, super seriously. He had the most intense look in his eyes. ‘What if the army riding the giraffes … was a ninja army?’

  I laughed, imagining a bunch of ninjas riding on the backs of giraffes.

  ‘This just in,’ I said, making my best radio DJ voice. ‘That idea is awesomesauce.’

  ‘You should put robot giraffes on your entryway,’ Slug suggested. ‘That would be epic.’

  For a moment, I seriously considered it, but then shook the idea out of my head. ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Besides, Brayden might get upset if I changed anything about it.’

  ‘Why?’ Gidget asked.

  ‘Because he helped me with it over the weekend,’ I said. ‘Speaking of Brayden, have you guys seen him?’

  As if to answer my question, Gidget gasped. A split-second later, I heard some other kids in the lunchroom do the same. Everyone was looking out of the tinted glass windows next to the table my friends and I were sitting at.

  Outside in the lobby, I saw Brayden, but he wasn’t alone. His head was down as he walked slowly in front of two hall monitors wearing suits that they probably didn’t need to be wearing.

  Following behind was Principal Davis, carrying a white object that looked familiar.

  ‘Whaaaat?’ I whispered.

  ‘Did Brayden take the head?’ Slug asked.

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘There’s no way!’

  ‘It’s not the whole head though,’ Gidget said, pressing her face against the glass wall of the cafeteria, staring out the window. ‘It’s just the hair. It looks like the rest broke off or something.’