Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol

by Jim Krieg

  “Whatever goes on in the rest of the school,” Kyoko jumped in, a bit defensively, “we don’t bother them, and they don’t bother us.”

  “For now,” I mumbled, but it was clear they were not going to be swayed by appeals on moral grounds.

  “Let’s go, Griff,” said Tommy. “These nimrods don’t care about anything but their test tubes.” It was time for the real thing. I had pretended to turn and follow Tommy out when I “spotted” something on the floor.

  “Hey,” I said to him. “You drop this, Tommy?”

  “Drop what?” he said, of course.

  “Right here,” I said, bending over. It was a simple enough sleight of hand. I wasn’t really trying to make it convincing. I “picked up” the card.

  “Looks like some kind of playing card,” I told him innocently. I showed it to him, pretending to be puzzled. “I don’t recognize the suit.”

  “That’s because it’s not from a regular deck of cards,” Tommy volunteered, very obligingly. “That’s from one of those CCG decks.”

  “From what?” I asked, all innocence.

  “A collectible card game!” Neal snorted, moving closer to examine the card. “Anaxagoras’s beard! That’s a Neptune’s Trident card!”

  His fleshy hands snatched at it in the dark, but I easily yanked it out of harm’s way. These guys weren’t known for their reflexes.

  “Oh,” I feigned new understanding, “you mean this is one of those Atlantis X cards. I don’t play myself, but I understand that some of these cards are a bit . . . hard to find.”

  Elias eyed me coldly. “What do you want for it?” Maybe it was a cliché that science dudes played CCGs, but in my experience it was 100 percent true.

  “Who says I want to trade it at all?” I asked. “Maybe I want to clothespin it to the frame of my Marley Carson and listen to the sound it makes against the spokes when I ride really fast.” I could hear the entire group make a collective wince. I was starting to enjoy this. Maybe too much.

  “Elias,” Kyoko chimed in, “maybe we could help him out. Just this once.”

  Elias was no dope. Clearly. And he didn’t like being played. But he also didn’t want to see that card walk out of his little fiefdom. Not with the Ultimate Gamemeister Tournament looming at the convention center next week. It pays to be prepared.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll do the analysis.”

  He reached for the card. I handed him the Ziploc baggie instead.

  “First things first.” I smiled at him.

  Elias took the Ziploc and his team sprang into action. It was actually pretty impressive. He divided the stuff up into three samples and handed it off to three teams: microscopic, spectroscopic, and chemical analysis. Bunsen burners were lit. Beakers bubbled. Noxious clouds filled the lab and were illuminated by the unearthly light of the spectroscope. The Omicrons discussed their findings among themselves in low tones. Finally, I could just make out nodding heads in the darkness. They’d reached a conclusion.

  “Nothing too exciting,” Elias said. “Wood shavings.”

  I try to keep my reactions to myself most of the time, a useful ability in poker and law enforcement.

  “If it was a snake, it woulda bit me!” I shouted, pounding my thick forehead.

  “What?” Tommy demanded. “What is it?”

  “Let me guess,” I said to Elias. “White oak.”

  Elias looked dumbfounded. Let me tell you, if you want a shot of undiluted ego in your arm, shocking a certified genius is a good way to go.

  “How’d you know?” Kyoko asked. Of course, Elias couldn’t ask. It would mean there was something he hadn’t guessed ahead of time. But I wasn’t about to answer no matter who asked. We’d gotten what we came for. I looked at Tommy and gestured toward the door.

  “Thanks, Omicron League,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that your help has been invaluable to the cause of justice.”

  Just as I was reaching for the door handle I heard a snort ring out followed by a wheezy voice. “Hey! What about the Neptune’s Trident card?”

  I slipped the card between my index and middle fingers. “Here,” I warned, then flipped it toward the irritating sound of Neal’s voice. The card soared like a Frisbee. A paper-thin Frisbee with four corners.

  “Ow!”

  I smiled. The allowance I’d spent on that card trick book in fourth grade was money well spent. Tommy and I were already back out in the hall when we heard Kyoko call after us.

  “Good luck!” Maybe, just maybe, there was a human heart beating in that room after all. But there was no time to dwell on that. I knew what we had to do, even if Tommy didn’t.

  “I don’t get it,” Tommy said. “How does knowing Belton had pencil shavings in his shoes help us?”

  “Not shavings,” I corrected. “Pencils are made from juniper or cedar. Besides, if there was any graphite, you can bet the Dork Society in there would’ve told us. Smugly.”

  “If that stuff didn’t come from a spilled pencil sharpener, then what . . .” Tommy’s voice trailed off. Then he suddenly snapped his fingers. “Sawdust!”

  “Bingo,” I congratulated him. “Now, why?”

  I could hear the gears turning in Tommy’s skull, but nothing was coming out.

  “Where do you think Volger’s gang got those phony hall passes?”

  “Hall passes?” Tommy repeated, stressing the s. “You think there’s more than the one Belton had?”

  “Lots,” I answered. “Some they sell, of course. But mostly they’re used to buy ‘favors’ from unsuspecting chumps. Anyway, where would you think they’d get these forgeries?”

  “Same place you get everything. From eBay, of course,” Tommy answered.

  “That’s what I thought. Or, more accurately, didn’t think. I just assumed the bogus passes were bought online. But think about it. Rampart’s hall passes have been around forever. They’re pretty unique. How would you go about ordering a copy?”

  “You wouldn’t,” concluded Tommy. “You’d have to make them yourself.”

  “How?” I asked him.

  “Well . . .” Tommy thought aloud. “You said these things were nearly perfect counterfeits. You’d need a table saw, belt sander, stain, varnish. There’re probably only a handful of students who have dads with basement workrooms like that. Should we check them out?”

  “Wait a minute,” I suggested. “How do you know about those workrooms? Those dads?”

  “Oh, you know,” said Tommy, “they’re the super-involved dads. They build the Rampart Middle’s Halloween Haunted Hovel, the theater sets, stuff like that.”

  “And the kids of those dads . . . would they be part of Volger’s operation? Do they fit the profile?”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “I think this is an inside operation,” I told him. “Entirely inside.”

  This time the hard drive in Tommy’s skull booted up. “Griff, are you telling me,” Tommy started incredulously, “that those forgeries are being made—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “—Right under our noses—”

  “You got it.”

  “—In Rampart Middle’s own—”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “—WOOD SHOP!?”

  They had guts. You had to give them that. But a tip of the hat was all they were going to get from Tommy and me. It was time to flush them out. It was going to take guile, guts, and a lot of luck. But only a sucker counts on luck. Better to have a plan. And one was starting to form, right in the back of my skull.

  “What are we going to do!?” Tommy wondered desperately. The depth of Rampart’s contamination was almost too much for him.

  “Right now,” I suggested, “you’re going to contact Our Lady of the Press with one of your famous ‘insider tips’ before the paper is put to bed.”

  “Huh?” cried Tommy defensively. “What makes you think I tell Verity anythi—”

  “Relax,” I told him before he could wig o
ut about it. “This is one story that needs to be told.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HELEN NUTTING GUIDANCE COUNSELOR RAMPART MIDDLE SCHOOL

  Continuation of the RECORDED INTERVIEW with seventh grader Griffin Carver.

  GRIFF: “No, you’re the Man!” he shouted. Undeserved laughter followed.

  The nauseating, unmistakable sounds of campaigning echoed down the east hallway, and that could mean only one thing.

  “He’s coming,” I said to Tommy. “Ready?”

  “I’m cool,” Tommy said.

  “Don’t be cool,” I told him. “Be yourself. That’s the only way this is going to work.” I folded the newspaper carefully.

  Tommy nodded while I checked around the corner with my dentist’s mirror.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked my partner, impressed.

  “Ninety-Nine Cent Store.”

  “Pretty cool,” he said. “How much did you pay for it?”

  I didn’t answer him. Instead, I watched in the tiny round mirror as Marcus Volger approached his locker and opened it. He smiled and nodded at a few passersby, but for once, he was alone. I gave Tommy the signal and he started out. I stopped him.

  “Don’t forget this,” I told him, handing him a copy of the Liberty Bell. He laughed sheepishly.

  Tommy leaned his back against the locker next to Volger. Mr. Cool, just like I told him not to be but knew he would anyway.

  “Why, Tommy!” Volger said welcomingly. “How’s Rampart Middle’s top cop?” He said all this without irony, like they were BFFs. I had to hand it to him, he doesn’t show his hand. “How many times are you going to vote for me, Tommy?” Volger asked, laughing at his own oily charm.

  Tommy wasn’t about to play along. “You’re not going to win, Marcus,” Tommy told him. And to prove his point, he showed Volger the Bell’s headline:

  POLLS SHOW CREELMAN & VOLGER NECK AND NECK

  “Your scare tactics are not the best, Tommy.” Volger smiled back at him. Of course, I couldn’t actually see the smile through Tommy’s Spy Bling earphone, but I could hear it. “You tell me I’m going to lose and then give me a newspaper that says I’ve got an even chance of winning. And let me tell you something. I will win, because I am a win—”

  Suddenly, something distracted him. And I was pretty sure I knew what that something was. I heard the newspaper rustle over the microphone hidden in Tommy’s badge. There was a long pause. I knew he was reading.

  “It doesn’t matter,” barked a desperate Tommy. “Even if you do win, you’ll be exposed sooner or later. You and your goons.”

  “What?” Volger responded, lost in thought. Finally, he seemed to come to himself. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you had some kind of misunderstanding with people I know, with Ben and Morgan, what’s that got to do with me? And let me just add this, Rodriguez, when I’m class president, I’ll have a lot of say over all aspects of Rampart Middle’s life . . . including who serves on Hall Patrol. And you’re one of the best. I’d hate for you to spend middle school wasting your talents sitting on the sidelines. Remember that.”

  I watched Volger as he slammed his locker and walked off. It was supposed to play like a threat. But it didn’t. He was rattled. Otherwise, he’d never have been so transparent with Tommy. He must have read the article. That was step one.

  I pulled back farther into the shadows of the side hall as Volger passed. It could blow everything if he saw me there and put two and two together. Whatever he is, Volger’s no dope.

  “I don’t get it,” Tommy said, joining me in the alcove. “What was all that about?”

  “Had to make sure he smelled the bait.” I showed him the front of the newspaper. He shrugged.

  “He knows where the polls stand,” Tommy observed, still in the dark. “And really, I don’t think Janet Creelman has personality to pull off an upse—”

  “Not the headline,” I told him, pointing to another article. “Here.”

  Tommy checked out the less-than-sensational piece.

  IA WING REVAMP RAMPING UP

  According to inside sources, the long-promised improvements to the Industrial Arts Building have finally moved off the drawing board and, shockingly, been swiftly put on the launchpad. The unsubstantiated rumor has it that the auto, metal, and wood shops could be shuttered as quickly as tomorrow in preparation for the sorely needed renovations. Questions linger as to why the school board would depart from its usual modus operandi of foot dragging and delay to move this project along so quickly, but reliable contacts report that . . .

  “It’s that story you told me to give Verity.” Tommy shrugged. “So what?”

  “So, everything. Your relationship with Rampart Middle’s top journalist just gave us a chance, a small chance, of maybe, just maybe, coming out of this mess in one piece. If you’ve got the guts.”

  “Relationship?” barked Tommy defensively. “Verity’s just a friend! I like her, but I don’t like her, like her. Come to think of it, I don’t even like her that much! Heh . . .” Then Tommy trailed off, suddenly hearing the rest of it. “What do you mean ‘in one piece’?”

  “Meet me back here at seven tonight and find out. Unless you’re scared.”

  “Scared?!” yelped Tommy. “Are you kidding?”

  Yeah. I was kidding. Actually, I was just making sure he’d show up. I didn’t think for a second that Tommy Rodriguez was scared. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. I just shrugged.

  “I’ll be here, Griff,” he said with attitude. “Count on it.” Then after a moment’s reflection he added, “What am I going to tell my ’rents?”

  I just shook my head like I couldn’t believe how lame he was for having to come up with an excuse for his folks.

  What I didn’t say is that I was already wondering the same thing. I wasn’t sure going back to the “extra band practice” well was a good idea. The Old Lady was going to realize that I wasn’t in the marching band at some point. Most likely at a football game. She was already asking too many questions. Why wasn’t I practicing? What songs would we be doing? Any eighties New Wave? I don’t like lying if I can avoid it. I’m sure even I’ve got a “tell,” some little mannerism that clues the Old Lady in on when I’m bluffing. And I’d rather not have her get too acquainted with it.

  I brainstormed excuses all the way home, and by the time I parked the Marley Carson, I had a nice selection of alibis to choose from. I can be pretty creative when I have to be. Not that you could tell from any of the macaroni mosaics I’ve done in art class. The last one was a representation of a crime scene. I used manicotti for the chalk outline of the body. Got a D+.

  Turns out I needn’t have bothered worrying about the alibi. Mom had left a note. She had some kind of meeting that night. I didn’t read the note in its entirety. I know how to defrost frozen pizza.

  Not that I was going to be dining at home anyway. I changed into my nocturnal ops gear and yes, by that I do mean black jeans and a dark hoodie. And no, I don’t wear a knit black hat or put football player war paint under my eyes.

  It’s not like the Old Lady just leaves me alone all the time. Don’t call social services or anything. First of all, I’m not a kid, and second, technically, I’m not alone. The Creature is right upstairs, barricaded in his room.

  I put the pizza in the oven before I left. Not 100 percent sure the Creature still has what it takes to feed itself.

  Tommy was right on time for the rendezvous at the flagpole. I cut him some slack and decided not to give him any flak for the head-to-toe camo ensemble. Just for the record, camouflage only works as camouflage when you’re surrounded by similar shapes and colors. Like trees or bushes or desert rocks or whatever. It does not blend in with linoleum.

  The door wasn’t locked. There’s always something going on at night. Play rehearsal or Math Club. Something.

  Inside, everything looked weird. The lights for the main hallway might have been on, but that was it. The classrooms were dark, as w
ere most of the side hallways. I wasn’t the only one to notice.

  “This is pretty creepy,” Tommy observed. “I mean, it would be . . . to someone prone to—”

  My hand clamped over Tommy’s mouth at the same time I slammed him against the wall in the unlit south hallway. I’d heard the unmistakable sound of high heels on a hard surface and acted instantly. Two sets of shoes. No, three. And approaching fast. Another second and they would’ve seen us.

  “What—?” Tommy started to ask when I’d released my grasp.

  “Mothers,” I said in a low voice, then gestured him to shush. The clacking heels were getting closer and we could hear their voices now. It was the conversation about how the teachers, as good as they were, just weren’t making us kids work up to our potential. A classic.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, I gave Tommy the signal and we stealth-walked across the main corridor toward another darkened wing. Then I heard laughing. Behind us. We only had seconds. I shoved Tommy ahead of me and did a shoulder roll into the shadows. We waited.

  Another pod of moms. I knew we hadn’t been spotted because the flow of their conversation didn’t change. It was about Mr. Knutz, the new math teacher. I don’t know who Colin Firth or Pierce Brosnan are, probably soap stars, but I doubt very much that Knutz looks anything like them. As their giggling receded down the hall, Tommy started to advance and I had to push him back against the wall to avoid another stream of parents. A few dads were along this time. They were comparing the warranties on their minivans.

  “Too many of them,” I whispered.

  “Where are they all coming from?” Tommy asked breathlessly.

  “The parking lot, probably,” I sniped. “Smells like a PTA meeting. Should’ve checked the school calendar. It’s right up on the fridge, too.”

  Tommy borrowed my dentist’s mirror to peer around the corner. “The hall’s full of ’rents now,” he said. “We’ll have to go around.”