I found Ashley Applewhite standing in front of her locker. Ashley Applewhite, ninth-grade class representative, treasurer of the Key Club, deputy editor of the student newspaper, daughter of the school superintendent, and next-door neighbor of Mary Zelinsky. She was gabbing with three of her girlfriends but they all saw me coming and stopped talking.
“What do you want?” said Ashley.
I held up the Impossible Fortress disk. “I got your message.”
“It’s some kind of game,” she explained. “You’re supposed to put that inside a computer.” Then she turned back to her entourage, forcing me to interrupt their conversation.
“I know what it is,” I said. “I need to send a message back.”
I held out my letter, a single sheet of paper that I’d folded and taped shut. Ashley sprang back like it was radioactive.
“No way,” she said. “Mary wants nothing to do with you.”
Again she turned to her entourage, and again I interrupted them. “Please,” I said. “It’s important.”
The other girls huffed and sighed. They were the closest thing to royalty in our ninth grade, and I was testing their patience. Ashley snatched the letter from my fingers, then ripped it into halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. She threw the pieces back in my face, a quick poof of confetti that clung to my head and shoulders. Suddenly we had the attention of everyone in the hallway.
“Stay away from her,” she said. “Mary doesn’t want to hear from you, ever. And if you try to give me another note, I’ll take it straight to the police.”
2800 REM *** START BONUS LEVEL ***
2810 PRINT "{CLR}{12 CSR DWN}"
2820 PRINT "{5 SPACES}YOU HAVE ENTERED"
2830 PRINT "{6 SPACES}THE BONUS ROUND."
2840 PRINT "{5 SPACES}FATE HAS GIVEN YOU"
2850 PRINT "{7 SPACES}ONE LAST CHANCE."
2860 PRINT "{2 CSR DWN}"
2870 PRINT "{5 SPACES}DON´T SCREW IT UP!"
2880 FOR DELAY = 1 TO 1000:NEXT DELAY
2890 RETURN
THAT NIGHT, I REASSEMBLED the scraps and copied the letter onto a clean sheet of paper. Then I carried it with me for days, trying to think of ways to get it to Mary.
“What’s the letter say?” Alf kept asking.
“None of your business,” I told him.
This was maybe a week after our arrest, and any notoriety we’d earned among our classmates was almost gone. Now everyone was buzzing about the tenth grader caught masturbating in the library to Volume K of the World Book Encyclopedia. (“Why Volume K?” Alf kept wondering aloud. “Where’s the good stuff in Volume K?”)
Me and Alf and Clark were sitting at our little table in the back of the cafeteria, finishing our sloppy joes and french fries. No one else was sitting within twenty feet of us, as if our pervert-loser genes were contagious. I was staring at the envelope and turning it around in my hand, trying to brainstorm solutions to my dilemma.
“Can’t you CompuServe it to her?” Clark asked. “Do that electronic mail thing?”
“My mom sold the computer,” I reminded him.
“Then regular-mail it,” he said. “Leave off the return address and send it to the store.”
“Her dad will intercept it,” I said. “I need to make sure Mary gets it.”
“Why? What’s the letter say?” Alf asked again.
“None of your business,” I repeated.
A few moments later, I made the mistake of looking around the cafeteria, searching the tables for someone, anyone, who might be able to help me. While I had my back turned, Alf reached across my lunch tray and snatched the envelope. I nearly dove across the table to get it back. The only thing keeping me in check was the stern presence of Mr. Hibble, standing at the entrance of the cafeteria, proudly overseeing his domain.
“Give it back,” I warned Alf.
“Take it easy. I won’t open it, I promise. I’ll just use my psychic powers, all right?”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He held the envelope to his forehead like Carnac the Magnificent, the fake mystic played by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and feigned tremendous concentration. “I’m sensing the word sorry. It’s very strong. This is an apology?”
I decided the easiest way to get my letter back was to endure the stupid game. “Yes.”
Alf closed his eyes and resumed his mystic performance. He was a terrible actor; his attempts at concentration looked like constipation. “You feel bad about what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Because we trashed the store?”
“Yes.”
“We ruined everything?”
“Yes.”
“And now Mary hates you.”
“Yes.”
“And her father hates you.”
“Yes.”
“And you like this girl.”
“Shut up,” I told him.
“You like this girl,” Alf repeated, more confidently. “It’s cool, Billy. I see it all right here in the letter. You were never trying to get the alarm code. You were hanging around the store because you like Mary for real.”
I was so startled to hear Alf speaking the truth, I didn’t even try to deny it.
Clark’s eyes went wide. “Wait, seriously?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Definitely,” Alf insisted. “Come on, Billy. Stop playing dumb. It’s so obvious.”
“Fine,” I said. “It’s true.”
“But she doesn’t know!” Clark said.
“Right.”
“You told the cops you faked everything!”
“Right.”
“Oh my God!” Clark said, falling back in his chair and holding the Claw to his forehead, reeling from the news. “This changes everything, Billy! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
“Exactly!” Alf said. “If you told us, we could have helped you.”
“You’ve already helped me plenty,” I said. “Thanks to you guys, Mary and her dad hate my guts. They think I’m this giant spectacular asshole.” I figured “giant spectacular asshole” was pretty strong, but I was desperate for reassurance; I needed my friends to tell me that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
“I guess you’re right,” Clark sighed.
“Thanks,” I said, pushing away my tray because I’d lost my appetite. “Does anybody want my food?”
Alf plucked a handful of french fries from my tray and dragged them through a smear of ketchup. “Listen, we can make this right,” he said. “This letter will clear up everything. We just need to make sure Mary gets it.”
He proposed a dozen different scenarios, but none of them were truly viable. I couldn’t go to Mary’s house. I was forbidden by law to go anywhere near the store. I couldn’t count on any classmates to help me. I wasn’t even allowed on Market Street anymore.
As we pondered all of the different scenarios, Clark didn’t say a word. He just chewed thoughtfully on his sloppy joe, like he was turning around an idea. “There is one thing you could do,” he finally said. “It’s super risky. There’s an excellent chance you’ll get caught. But I guarantee you won’t see Zelinsky. He’ll be miles away.”
We waited for him to elaborate, but he suggested we meet in the library after school.
“Just tell us your stupid idea,” Alf said. “Why are you being so mysterious?”
Clark refused to spill. “I need to research a few things. Make sure it’s really possible. I don’t want Billy getting busted again.”
When Alf and I reached the library, we found Clark in the reference section, sitting at one of the long tables near all of the college brochures. He was reading a map, but it was upside down, so I couldn’t make sense of it. At the table next to ours, a group of fifth-grade girls were pretending to study. But every so often they’d steal glances at Clark and squeal with laught
er. This seemed to be happening more and more lately—girls would see him and just lose their minds. Even with the Claw right in plain view.
“Well?” I asked. “Are you ready to tell us the master plan?”
“Let me make sure I have her schedule right,” Clark said. “Every morning, Zelinsky drives Mary to Market Street. They open the store together, and then she boards the bus to St. Agatha’s?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“And then every afternoon, the bus brings her back to Market Street, and she stays at the store until closing. Then Dad brings her home?”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
Clark shook his head. “No, I just told you the solution. This is how you reach her.” He spun the map right-side-up so we could read the headline at the top of the page: Mount St. Agatha’s Preparatory School for Girls.
“Impossible!” Alf said. “No one climbs that mountain.”
“Why not?” Clark asked.
“They’ve got guards and fences. Electric fences.”
Clark shook his head. “It’s a convent, not a James Bond movie.”
“You’re Presbyterian, so how would you know?” Alf asked. “I’m an altar boy, and I’m telling you nobody gets into St. Agatha’s. It’s like Fort Knox for Catholic girls.”
“It’s a school,” Clark insisted. “They have visitors. Deliveries. Lots of people coming and going.”
The map was part of an admissions application describing the school’s remarkable mountaintop campus. One hundred years ago, St. Agatha’s was a monastery with a chapel and a simple dormitory. Since evolving into an all-girls’ prep school, the campus had expanded to feature a classroom building, a cafeteria, and athletic fields. Everything was bordered by a “verdant forest landscape” rich with the “abundant wildlife” of northern New Jersey.
“They don’t show the fences on this map,” Alf said, “but they’re there.” He leaned across the table and scrawled a crazy jagged circle around the map. “These things will fry you like a grilled cheese.”
For once, I actually agreed with Alf. I’d heard so many crazy stories about St. Agatha’s, the idea of infiltrating the campus seemed ridiculous.
“Zelinsky won’t be anywhere near it,” Clark reminded me. “He works miles away.”
“Fine, walk me through it,” I told Clark. “Once I get up the mountain, how do I find Mary?”
“You don’t need to find Mary,” Clark said. “That’s the beauty of this plan. You just need to find any girl and ask her to deliver the note.”
“How do I know she will?”
“Because you had the guts to get there! No one’s ever done it before. Girls will respect that. She’ll know it must be important, and she’ll make sure Mary gets it.”
When he put it that way, the plan almost sounded easy. I didn’t need to search an entire mountain looking for Mary. I just needed to find one Catholic schoolgirl on a mountain filled with Catholic schoolgirls.
Alf just shook his head. “You’ll never pull it off,” he said. “If you bike up that mountain, I promise you’ll come down in the back of a police car.”
I knew he was right. But I also knew I couldn’t live with the guilt another day. Mary was out in the world, thinking terrible things about me, and it was driving me crazy.
“I’ll have to leave early,” I said. “If I’m out the door by seven, I can make it to the school before noon.”
“And she’ll have the letter before lunchtime,” Clark said.
“And we’ll visit you in jail,” Alf promised.
2900 REM *** DRAW NEW GUARDS ***
2910 FOR X=0 TO 62
2920 READ A
2930 POKE 12608+X,A
2940 NEXT X
2950 POKE 2045,197
2960 POKE V+21,32
2970 POKE V+44,2
2980 POKE V+10,GX: POKE V+11,GY
2990 RETURN
WHEN I GOT HOME from the library, Tack was standing on my front steps, talking to my mother through the screen door. By the time I saw him, it was too late to turn back. He saw me coming and waved hello. It seemed like he had somehow developed ESP. He was coming to bust me for the letter before I even tried to deliver it.
“There he is,” Mom said, and there was a cheerful lilt in her voice, like everything in our lives was sunshine and roses.
“How are you, Billy?” Tack asked.
I shrugged but didn’t say anything. It seemed that any possible answer was likely to get me into trouble:
“I’m fine.”
How can you be fine? You were nearly arrested this weekend! You should be miserable!
“I’m miserable.”
Why are you miserable? You could have gone to prison! You should be the happiest kid on earth!
“I’m the happiest kid on earth.”
You self-centered little creep! Don’t you feel any guilt at all?
“Officer Blaszkiewicz wanted to see how you were doing,” Mom explained. A strand of hair fell over her face and she pulled it back, tucking it behind her ear. “He wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“Everything’s okay,” I told him.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “You were lucky to get a second chance, you know.” He went on for several minutes about the beauty of second chances. He spoke of clean slates and fresh starts and the turning over of new leaves. The moment he stopped to catch a breath, I thanked him for coming and ducked inside the house.
I sat at the kitchen table and waited for Tack to go away, but he and my mother kept talking and talking. Eventually I went out the back door and crept around the side of the house to eavesdrop on their conversation. To my astonishment, I discovered they weren’t even talking about me! They were discussing the season finale of Dallas. The show’s heroine, Pamela Ewing, had just smashed her car into an oil tanker. Mom was convinced that no one could survive the fiery explosion; Tack insisted it was just a ratings stunt and the producers would bring her back, bandaged and bruised, in September. I was pretty sure that my mother and Tack were the only two people in 1987 who were still watching Dallas.
“That was weird,” I said to Mom, later, after Tack got in his squad car and drove away.
She remained at the front door, looking out at the lawn. “I’m going to stop by the garden store tomorrow,” she said. “Maybe pick up some perennials. Our front yard looks so dreary.”
Our front yard looked the way it always did. Our postage-stamp lawn was speckled with dandelions and ringed by a thin ribbon of white gravel that we replenished every spring.
“I said that was weird,” I repeated. “Tack coming to our house.”
Mom shrugged. “I thought it was a nice gesture. He’s taken an interest in you. He wants to make sure you’re not doing anything stupid.”
“I’m not,” I lied.
Then I went to my bedroom, opened a road atlas of New Jersey, and charted the most direct route from Wetbridge to Mount St. Agatha’s Preparatory School for Girls.
3000 REM *** DRAW NEW ENVIRONMENT ***
3010 FOR J=6 TO 14
3020 FOR I=1030+J*40 TO 1036+J*40
3030 POKE I,35:POKE I+SO,9
3040 NEXT I
3050 FOR I=1044+J*40 TO 1056+J*40
3060 POKE I,35
3070 POKE I+BG, 9
3080 NEXT I:NEXT J
3090 RETURN
THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up early, scarfed down a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and dressed in the same khakis and button-down shirt that I’d worn to the movie theater. I didn’t think I’d actually see Mary—but if I did, I wanted to look my best. I placed the letter in my back pocket and headed out the front door.
Alf and Clark were waiting in my driveway. They were dressed up, too. Alf had ditched his usual Hawaiian shirt for a pristine white Hard Rock Cafe button-down, and Clark was wearing the nicest hand- me-downs of his Georgia relatives—a lime-green short-sleeved button-down shirt and black wool pants.
“We’re coming with,�
� Alf said.
“Alf’s worried you’ll mess up,” Clark said.
“I never said that,” Alf insisted.
“You said he’d get fried on the electric fence,” Clark said. “Those were your exact words.”
Alf shrugged, looking sheepish. “You gotta understand, Billy. These nuns mean business. If they catch you on their mountain, they will kick your ass.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, irritated. “Go to school.” If I somehow had the chance to speak with Mary, I didn’t want Alf and Clark hanging around, making stupid wisecracks.
“We’re coming with,” Alf repeated. “You’ll need a diversion to get through the security gates. Clark and I can draw attention away from you.”
“And then you’ll get caught,” I told him. “You’ve still got bruises from Saturday. Imagine what your dad will do if you’re busted again.”
“If I can see St. Agatha’s firsthand, it’ll be worth it,” Alf said. “I’ve been hearing about this place my whole life. It’s legendary. Did you know there’s a swimming pool? They say the girls lie around on giant pillows. Sunning themselves, like housecats.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Clark said.
“I’ve brought everything we need,” Alf said. He unzipped his backpack to show us its contents: binoculars, walkie-talkies, wire cutters, and a solar-powered calculator.
“What’s the calculator for?” I asked.
“Math problems,” he said. “I forgot to take it out of my bag.”
I realized there was no talking them out of it, so we pedaled off down the street. It felt good to be moving, good to have the plan in motion—but after just five minutes of pedaling, I wished I’d worn shorts. The day was warm and muggy, eighty degrees and still early. I was already sweating, and I still had to pedal fifteen miles on a single-gear dirt bike.
Wetbridge sat at the intersection of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, and it was ringed by six-lane highways. None of these roads were designed for bike traffic, but we squeezed into the shoulder lanes anyway, pedaling furiously as Greyhound buses and tractor trailers thundered past, spraying our faces with gravel and exhaust. I kept my mouth shut, but somehow it filled with a grit that tasted like charcoal. By the time we exited onto a smaller two-lane road, I was dripping with sweat—and filthier than I’d been in my entire life.
The Impossible Fortress Page 18
