The Scavengers Strike Back

by Marcus Emerson

  Wyatt had always refused to unmask me in front of anyone – it was some kind of ninja code for him.

  So why was he just standing there as his ninjas tried to take my mask off?

  Again, I felt fingers slide under the back of my mask.

  I dropped to the ground and rolled backwards, away from the three ninjas that were tripping over each other to get their hands on my mask.

  Room 801 was only one hallway down. All I had to do get there without being unmasked. I started running as fast as I could, not even caring that my feet were stomping on the tiles like a jackhammer.

  As I passed Wyatt, he stared daggers at me, but he didn’t try to stop me. Something was off about him though – his eyes looked … different.

  Once I got to the end of the hall, I tried to drop into another controlled slide, but the floor was too slick and I dropped like a ragdoll instead.

  Thankfully, a set of metal lockers tenderly caught me – by which I mean, I slammed into the wall.

  ‘Nailed it,’ I groaned, rolling to my knees.

  The sound of a door opening nearby shocked me back to reality, and I quickly sat up, pulling my mask off my face and stuffing it into the back of my hood.

  Dizzy and confused, I forced an awkward smile, trying my best to hide the fact that I had just got my butt kicked by a bunch of lockers.

  ‘Chase?’ a boy asked from the door that had opened.

  It was Brody Valentine.

  ‘Dude,’ he said. ‘Is that you makin’ all that noise out here?’

  I nodded as I painfully brought myself to my feet, grunting like an old man. I sounded like my grandpa.

  ‘Are you trying out for gymnastics or something?’ he joked.

  I nodded again, trying to be funny.

  Brody left the doorway and swiftly walked to the end of the hall, where the red ninjas had just been.

  ‘Brody, wait!’ I said, clutching a painful cramp in my side.

  He leaned over and peeked down the hallway, but didn’t act as if anything was wrong. ‘What?’ he asked.

  I stared at him. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Is there anyone there?’

  ‘Nope,’ Brody said, shaking his head. ‘Was there supposed to be?’

  ‘Uhhhhh, no,’ I replied. ‘I mean, like, why are you looking down there?’

  ‘I’m just making sure none of the teachers heard you banging around like a monkey with a new drum set,’ Brody said. He pointed at the room with the open door. ‘After you.’

  I wasn’t sure where the red ninjas had hidden themselves. Being a ninja myself, I knew they had to be in one of the empty classrooms nearby … or hiding in the ceiling tiles above us … or even squeezed into some lockers. They were watching us, and it made me uneasy, but I had to let it slide. I was with Brody now, and there was a case to be solved.

  Room 801 was dark, but I could make out monitors mounted to the wall in front of a keyboard and mouse.

  It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I saw that Brody and I weren’t alone. There were three other students sitting at a round table at the back of the room.

  I lifted my hand and waved. ‘Sup,’ I said.

  Brody let the door shut behind him. Taking a seat on a small stool with wheels on it, he rolled over to the screens on the wall and tapped at the keyboard.

  ‘Sooooo,’ he said softly. ‘Whassup?’

  ‘Y’know,’ I said. ‘Same stuff, different day.’

  ‘Same stuff?’ Brody asked. ‘What’s that mean? You deal with headless statues every day? Like, is that your job?’

  The kids at the back of the room laughed.

  ‘Don’t look at them,’ Brody said. ‘You’re not allowed to look at them.’

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking, so I stared at the floor.

  Brody laughed. ‘Dude, I’m messing with you!’

  Brody clicked the mouse, lighting up all the monitors at the same time. The bright screens lit up the dark room, and I was able to see the faces of the three other kids.

  I knew two of them from class – Linus and Maddie. I’d never seen the other girl before. Maddie was in my English class, and she was friends with Zoe.

  I knew Linus from science. He had a seat way in the back, and only showed up to class half the time. I had no idea where he was the rest of the time.

  The other girl was wearing super trendy clothing, thick-rimmed glasses, and a set of huge headphones. I could hear upbeat techno music coming from the headphones.

  ‘Hi,’ she said as she pulled her headphones off. The music filled the room. ‘I’m K-pop.’

  ‘Gidget’s friend!’ I said, pointing at the girl. ‘You like Korean pop music!’

  K-pop smirked, shrugging. ‘It’s like you’ve known me all your life,’ she joked.

  I wasn’t sure how much Gidget had told K-pop. I doubted that Gidget would’ve said anything about the ninja clan, but I’ve been wrong before.

  K-pop’s face stretched out a smile. ‘Soooo,’ she said. ‘How’s Faith?’

  Ugh … Gidget must’ve told her more than I thought. I’ve had a crush on Faith since the first week of school. We weren’t going out, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was too lame to officially ask her or if it was because of some other … better reason?

  ‘She’s good,’ I said, looking around the room, trying my best not to make eye contact.

  ‘Who’s Faith?’ Brody asked, faking a clueless look.

  ‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘Do you all know?’

  ‘The whole school knows, dude,’ Brody said. ‘Who cares though? So you like a girl. Whatever, right?’

  I smiled. ‘Right.’

  K-pop started making smooching sounds.

  Even though the room was dim, I’m pretty sure everyone could tell I was blushing.

  ‘I’m just playin’ with ya,’ K-pop laughed. ‘You can stop being all sweaty and stuff now.’

  Brody laughed. ‘Seriously,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about K-pop. She really is just messing with you.’ He turned to her. ‘K-pop, leave him alone!’

  Maddie slapped K-pop’s arm with the back of her hand. ‘Yeah, leave the boy alone!’

  I took a breath, wiping my forehead with the sleeve of my hoodie.

  ‘Are we allowed to be in here?’ I asked Brody as I glanced at the computer screens.

  Brody smirked, shooting a look back to his friends. ‘I think we’ll be fine.’

  I turned to the kids in the back. ‘I just don’t wanna get detention because of this. Seems like the kind of thing where you get in so much trouble that anyone within three metres of you also gets detention.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Linus said. ‘I promise it’s okay. We’re all allowed in here. You can even say that we sort of own this room.’

  I nodded. ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘Good,’ Linus said bluntly, but with a smile.

  ‘Chase, are you vegan?’ K-pop blurted out.

  ‘K-pop!’ Maddie said, laughing out loud. ‘Manners!’

  K-pop giggled and slapped the table. ‘Sorry! It’s just so easy when you first meet someone! You seem like a cool kid.’

  That time, I laughed too. K-pop wasn’t shy around new people at all, which was awesome. I wished I could be more like that. Even though she was giving me a hard time, I could tell it was in good fun.

  K-pop suddenly looked serious. ‘So, Chase, answer the question. Vegan or not?’

  I paused. ‘Um,’ I said, not sure what she wanted to hear. ‘I don’t know exactly what a vegan is …’

  Everyone in the room stared at me. And then at the same time, they all laughed. So did I. My group of friends would definitely have a good time with these kids.

  Brody spun around in his chair. ‘So Gidget only told K-pop a little bit about the problem,’ he said, sighing. ‘Why don’t you tell me the sitch.’

  I frowned. ‘Sitch?’

  Brody looked down, embarrassed. ‘Situation. Sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s cool,’ I chuckl
ed. I pointed at the monitors. ‘Why don’t you tell me about all this first? I didn’t know we had cameras in the school.’

  Brody looked at his friends like he wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Not a lot of people know about these,’ he explained. ‘Obviously the staff know, but only a handful of kids.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, and then joked, ‘Like a bunch of secret agent kids or something?’

  Brody let out a small laugh, but the others didn’t. They sat perfectly still, watching me.

  ‘So the sitch!’ I said, changing the subject quickly. ‘You guys probably already know, but the head of the James Buchanan statue was stolen yesterday.’

  ‘It was?’ Linus asked from the table.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘How have you not heard? It’s trending in the halls this week.’

  Brody answered for Linus. ‘We’ve got a million other things distracting us.

  ‘I heard about it,’ K-pop said. ‘I think Principal Davis is keeping the pieces in a box under his desk too. Kinda creepy, but whatever.’

  ‘Why do you care who stole it?’ Brody asked.

  I let out a sigh. ‘My friend is taking the heat for it, but he didn’t do it. He’s rotting away in detention right now because someone stashed it in his book bag.’

  ‘Got it,’ Brody said.

  ‘Gidget asked if you guys could see if the video cameras caught anything,’ K-pop added. ‘Brody, play the video feed.’

  ‘Right,’ Brody said, tapping away at the keyboard in front of him.

  The monitors all flashed as he punched in a code and moved the mouse around. Finally, he brought up the folder of videos from the day before. He clicked on a video file that was from the lobby.

  ‘What time did it happen?’ Brody asked.

  ‘Right after homeroom started,’ I said. ‘Like, within the first twenty minutes.’

  ‘Here we go,’ Brody said as he clicked play.

  The screens all showed the same video of an empty lobby. Nothing was happening.

  Brody grew impatient and clicked fast-forward. Through squiggly lines, we all watched, waiting for someone to show up in the video.

  Finally a figure appeared, walking through the lobby. Brody released the mouse and the video played at normal speed.

  ‘There,’ Brody said.

  I leaned closer to the screen. The kid on the screen was pushing a cart that was covered with a white sheet. He was moving carefully through the lobby, bobbing his body back and forth, making sure nobody else was coming before moving forwards and repeating the motion.

  ‘What’s on the cart?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It looks big though.’

  ‘Can you see his face?’ Linus said.

  ‘No,’ Brody answered. ‘The camera angle is too high up, and he’s keeping his face down whenever he looks behind him.’

  And then the boy in the video pushed the cart hard, accidentally making it swerve to the left, crashing into the statue of Buchanan. As soon as he did it, the base of the statue jerked, and rocked back and forwards. That’s when Buchanan’s head broke off from the statue’s neck, crashing to the floor and cracking into three pieces.

  ‘Boom,’ Brody said. ‘That’s your guy.’

  The boy in the video was clearly freaking out, spinning in circles. There wasn’t any sound in the video, but I’m sure the head would have hit the ground loudly.

  The boy scooped up the three pieces of the statue. Again, he looked back and forth, but stopped to stare down the hall. Someone must’ve been coming because he immediately ran to the side of the lobby with the pieces of the statue cradled in his arms.

  ‘When do you put it in Brayden’s book bag?’ I whispered to myself, watching the panicked kid in the video.

  What happened next confused me even more.

  The boy ran to the rubbish bin next to the nook – the same one I had thrown the paper aeroplane away in.

  Then he dumped the pieces of the statue into the bin.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘He didn’t keep the pieces of the statue? He just tossed them? What about Brayden? How’d they end up in his book bag?’

  The video feed cut out, playing static on the screen.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, feeling frantic. ‘Where’d the video go?’

  Maddie, Linus and K-pop were shuffling around in the back, just as surprised as I was.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Brody said, clicking the rewind button. The video scrolled back, but cut off at the same spot. ‘The video just stops there.’

  K-pop stood next to me, behind Brody’s chair. ‘Someone deleted the rest of the video,’ she whispered eagerly, like it was thrilling for her.

  ‘That’s not suspicious,’ Maddie said sarcastically. ‘Like, at all.’

  ‘Rewind it again,’ Linus commanded Brody.

  Brody rewound the video until Linus told him to stop. Then he paused it.

  Linus pointed at the boy on the screen. ‘We can’t tell you who it is, but look at his arms.’

  I squinted, studying the arms of the boy onscreen. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but the cuffs were pulled up to his elbows. There was a bunch of stuff on his forearms, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

  ‘Tattoos,’ Linus said. ‘Whoever you’re looking for has tats all over his arms.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ I said. ‘The dude in the video is obviously a kid! There’s no way any sixth grader has arms loaded with tattoos!’

  Linus rolled his eyes. ‘They could be drawn on with a pen or something.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right.’

  ‘Just find a dude with drawings all over his arms,’ K-pop said, ‘and you’ll have your guy.’

  ‘Unless he washed the drawings off,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t even get me my guy. That just gets me the guy who broke the statue … not the one who put it in Brayden’s book bag.’

  The bell rang in the hallway. The sound of students quickly filled the quiet air.

  ‘At least it’s a place to start,’ Brody said, clicking the mouse again.

  The picture on the screen switched to a live feed from the camera in the cafeteria. Something strange was happening near the stage, but it was difficult to see because the camera was too far away.

  Linus noticed it too. ‘Zoom in,’ he told Brody.

  Brody slid his finger up on the mouse, giving us a close-up shot of the commotion.

  A crowd of students were gathered around a spot, pointing at someone. Brody zoomed the camera in a little more, and the boy at the centre of the crowd filled the screen.

  It was Slug.

  Two hall monitors were leading him out as Principal Davis followed with another piece of the broken statue. Slug was getting taken away for having a piece of the statue!

  I didn’t waste a second, running out of the room. There was barely any time before class started, but I needed to get to the cafeteria.

  I ran downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. When I rounded the corner, I saw the broken statue of James Buchanan in the lobby. Gidget was standing in front of him with her arms crossed and a look on her face that said, ‘Don’t mess with me’.

  ‘Gidget!’ I said, slowing to a stop.

  She didn’t say anything. She was scowling at the door to the front office.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, waving my hand in front of her face.

  ‘Where were you?’ Gidget asked, annoyed.

  ‘I was upstairs talking to Brody!’ I said. ‘You’re the one who set up that meeting!’

  Gidget’s angry face softened. ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. ‘Well, now Brayden and Slug have been busted with pieces of the statue.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  Gidget shrugged her shoulders. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘We were finishing up lunch when Slug opened his backpack so he could save half his cheeseburger for later when—’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Slug was going to save half his cheeseburger for later? Like, in case he gets hungry in class or some
thing?’

  Gidget nodded.

  ‘That is the most …’ I said, taking a deep breath, ‘… awesome idea in the universe!’

  Gidget cringed. ‘Ugh … boys,’ she said. ‘Anyway, when he opened his bag, a piece of the statue fell out right in front of everyone.’

  ‘It must’ve been heavy!’ I said. ‘How did he not know it was in there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gidget said. ‘Someone must have snuck it in when we weren’t looking.’

  ‘That’s so coconuts,’ I said. ‘You gotta be real sneaky to pull that off.’

  ‘Slug will be in detention for sure,’ Gidget said. ‘Does that mean Brayden’s free?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ I said. ‘They both had part of the statue – they both could’ve been in on it.’

  ‘What’d you find out with Brody?’ Gidget asked.

  ‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘The video showed someone with a bunch of drawings on their arms, but after that, it cut out.’

  ‘It cut out,’ Gidget repeated.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Like someone deleted the rest of the footage.’

  ‘Nice,’ Gidget said with more than an ounce of sarcasm. ‘Looks like we got a good ol’ mystery on our hands.’

  ‘That’s not even the worst part,’ I said. ‘The kid who broke the statue threw the pieces in the bin. That means he’s not the one who framed Brayden and Slug!’

  ‘Victor?’ Gidget asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But I don’t even wanna go there before we know for sure if he’s the one behind it. The kid gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

  ‘Alright, boss,’ Gidget sighed. ‘Looks like we’re after a kid with drawings on his arms.’

  I nodded. ‘Looks like.’

  I had just finished the entryway that I was building for the Buchanan Bash. I felt this sense of pride because it was one of the first things I’d ever finished that wasn’t at the last second.

  Pushing the door to the storage garage shut, I took a breath of ice-cold air, filling my lungs. 8:30 a.m. is early for me, so anything that helps me wake up is a good thing. I’m pretty sure I’m doomed to be a coffee addict when I grew up.

  The ground even had a light dusting of frost – the kind you couldn’t see but could hear with every step taken. And at that moment, I could hear dozens of steps coming from behind the storage garage.