There were some smart members of my clan, and one of them spoke up, understanding immediately. ‘So that wasn’t you in the school photo!’
I nodded.
Everyone sighed with relief at the same time. I’m pretty sure the leaves on the trees rustled because of the sudden gust of breath.
‘Then we must find this thief,’ said the short ninja. His voice suddenly grew raspy as he clenched his fists. ‘And we must make him cry like a little baby.’
‘No,’ I said immediately. ‘Remember? We don’t hurt people.’
The short ninja lowered his head, embarrassed. ‘You’re right. I am sorry.’
One of the taller ninjas stepped forward and removed his mask. It was Brayden. After defeating Carlyle last month, I told him he could join my ninja clan if he still wanted to. He jumped at the chance. ‘So what can we do then?’ he asked.
I sighed, placing my hands on my hips. ‘The rest of you are going to lay low for the week. No training or anything. Don’t change into your outfits and don’t try to find the other kid who has my outfit.’
‘But that’s crazy,’ Brayden said boldly.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘It’s for the best. Things are just too hot right now.’
‘Like your crush on Faith?’ one of the ninjas in the back giggled.
I remained silent, allowing the ninja time to laugh at their own joke. I can’t believe the teasing had even made it into my clan. I didn’t want to yell at the ninja though because if I were him, I probably would’ve made the same comment.
Discouraged, the other ninjas changed back into their street clothes behind the trees. Not another word was said as they left the hideout. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I felt excited about investigating on my own. Like I’d become a superhero detective, just without the ‘superhero’.
Brayden switched back into his street clothes and stayed behind as the last of my ninja clan left.
‘You know I can’t let you do this on your own, right?’ Brayden asked.
He really was a good friend. ‘I know.’
Brayden took a seat on the trunk of a fallen tree. ‘How ’bout that Gavin kid? Somethin’s a little off about him, right?’
I laughed.
‘It’s like he was plucked straight from one of my dad’s cowboy movies!’ Brayden said.
I sat on the log next to my friend, the werewolf hunter. ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s not good at what he does.’
‘He’s got the school president’s approval to do whatever it takes to find the ninja,’ Brayden sighed. ‘It’s a short list of suspects that’s eventually going to end with you.’
I nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘So if this kid is pretending to be a ninja, then the question is …’ Brayden paused. ‘How do we catch a ninja?’
‘A ninja only gets caught if they want to get caught,’ I replied. ‘Otherwise they’re not very good.’
‘Here’s a thought – we’re assuming this kid in the red hoodie isn’t a ninja,’ Brayden said. ‘But what if he is?’
‘I trust every single kid in my ninja clan,’ I said, slightly upset. ‘None of them would try to frame me like that.’
‘Sure, the ninjas in your clan would never betray you,’ Brayden explained. ‘But what about the ninjas from when Wyatt was in charge?’
Immediately, I felt like an idiot. It was possible that Brayden was right.
‘A lot of those ninjas probably didn’t stay in the clan after you had him booted from the school, right?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘The ones who left were mostly the tough ones who just wanted to fight and stuff.’
‘Exactly,’ Brayden said, pointing at me. ‘So it’s a possibility.’
I hopped on top of the log. With the other ninjas gone from the hideout, it was easier to train since I wasn’t worried about slipping up in front of them.
Brayden stood and stepped aside, allowing me the entire log to train on. ‘Still have problems with balance?’
It wasn’t a secret that my balance was terrible. For some reason I just can’t stand on one foot for too long. Maybe it has something to do with my low centre of gravity, or maybe I’m cursed.
My dad made me watch one of his super boring ancient karate movies once where this kid was taught martial arts by a short handy man or something. The kid in the movie had to practise the crane stance, which was standing on one leg while keeping the other one propped in the air. Then he would raise his hands over his head like they were the crane’s wings or something, I dunno. I’ve been using that technique in my ninja training to get better at balancing. So far, it hasn’t been working.
‘I think I’m destined to stand on two feet forever,’ I sighed.
‘Could be worse,’ Brayden replied.
We spent the rest of gym class showing each other new sweet ninja moves we learned on the Internet.
I entered the lunchroom and it was obvious that everyone was staring and making fun of me.
Copies of my note to Faith were hanging all over the cafeteria walls. The teachers did their best to remove them, but whoever was putting them up moved faster than they did.
It was really awful. I found the only empty table at the far end of the room and took a seat, realising it was empty for a reason. The wood on the seat was warped and felt wet. The surface of the table was cracked and coming apart. Why they hadn’t thrown the table away was beyond me.
Have you ever had to eat lunch by yourself in a roomful of kids as they talked about you? It’s not something I would wish upon my worst enemy, which was the kid in red at the moment.
Seriously, you’re at a huge table in the corner by yourself, and whether people are looking at you or not, you think they are. So that makes you aware of every single move you make. Am I chewing my food weird? Is my shirt bunching up in the back? Am I blinking too fast? It’s maddening!
With five minutes left on the clock, I decided to stand out in the lobby and wait for the bell to ring. The cafeteria walls were tinted glass so it wasn’t like I was hiding or anything, but I still did my best to ignore everyone, turning towards the doors of the school and staring outside.
And then I saw him out of the corner of my eye. It was the kid in the red hoodie, standing in the middle of the hallway that led to the east end of the school. He was taping another copy of my note to the lockers, but hadn’t noticed me yet.
‘Hey!’ I shouted without thinking.
The kid looked at me, but his hood was over his face so I still couldn’t see who it was. He sprang back from the locker and sprinted down the hall.
I immediately started chasing after him. Pulling my book bag tighter around my shoulders, I ran as fast as I could.
‘Stop!’ I cried. ‘You’re finished! I saw you put that poster up! You’re probably the same guy that caused trouble while wearing my ninja outfit!’
The thief looked over his shoulder at me, and then started running even faster. It took all my speed to keep up. As long as I kept him in my sight, I knew it was only a matter of time before he ran into a teacher walking the halls.
He turned the corner and fled down the same corridor he disappeared in the day before. Without any students, he moved like a bullet. I was still a good ten metres behind him, but I could see him reach into his sweatshirt pocket and pull out a small bag. Then he threw it at his feet as hard as he could.
There was a small ‘poof ’ sound as the hallway filled with chalk dust. The kid had used some sort of diversion tactic! The dust was thick enough that it was difficult to see through, but I still went in at full speed.
When I emerged from the cloud on the other side, the kid in the red hoodie had disappeared.
‘Crumb!’ I shouted, shaking the white dust off my clothing.
I knelt on the floor to inspect the smoke bomb he threw. It was crudely built, but clever – just a small mesh sack with a string around the top, probably loose enough that when it was thrown at the ground, the whole thing would blast
out into a cloud. It was the sort of thing a ninja would carry around with them.
Sighing, I stood up and looked at the classroom doors down the hall. They were all shut, and probably locked since it was lunchtime. The chase had led me to the science wing of the school, where my next class was going to be.
Suddenly, I heard the click of a door shutting. I snapped my attention at each door down the hallway, watching carefully for any kind of movement. The click sound came again, this time of someone turning a lock. I instantly knew which door it was and ran to it.
Turning the handle, I shouted, ‘I know you’re in there! You’re trapped now, so there’s nothing you can do!’
The rectangular glass on the door was dark because the lights in the room were off.
I tried the handle again. ‘Open the door! There’s nowhere to—’
The bell rang over my shouting. Students began filling the hallway as I stood in place in front of the locked door. That’s fine, I thought. I’ll just wait until the teacher came and unlocked it, which happened to be at that exact moment.
‘Good afternoon, Chase,’ said Mr Lien. ‘Ya little heartbreaker.’
Really? Even Mr Lien was going to poke fun at me?
I nodded once and stepped out of the way. ‘Mr Lien.’
The teacher slid his key into the door and turned the lock. ‘Something I can help you with, son?’
I hated when adults called me ‘son’. I shook my head. ‘No, I just thought I saw something weird in the window of your classroom. I thought I’d wait until you unlocked it to see what it was.’
‘Oh,’ Mr Lien replied as he swung the door open and flipped the light switch. ‘Well, have a look around. Let me know if what you find is as weird as you thought it was!’
I gave him a thumbs-up and replied, ‘Roger, roger!’
I jumped into the room, ready to confront the kid in the red hoodie, but to my surprise, he wasn’t there. In fact, there wasn’t a single other person in the room when I looked around.
This kid … no, this ninja … had skills.
At this point in the day, I wasn’t really surprised that things kept getting worse…
‘I want a new lab partner’ was the first thing Faith said when she sat down.
I had done a good job of avoiding her out of embarrassment the entire day up until now, but she was my lab partner, so there was no getting around that. I wasn’t sure what her reaction to my note was going to be, but I guess I hoped it was going to be good.
‘What?’ I asked, confused.
She looked at me with puffy eyes. I think she had been crying. ‘I want a new lab partner,’ she repeated.
I sighed, nodding. ‘Because of that stupid note?’
‘Yeah,’ she whispered. ‘Because of that stupid note.’
I made eye contact with Zoe, who was sitting behind us. She gave me a sad smile, but said nothing.
Raising my eyebrows, I spoke. ‘You have no idea how hard today has been for me. It’s like a gauntlet of insults every time I go anywhere in this school.’
‘How hard it’s been for you?’ she whispered, harsher than I expected.
‘Yeah,’ I replied, offended. ‘It was a note from me. If anything, I just gave you ammunition to poke fun at me with your friends!’
‘You think this has been a good time for me?’ Faith sneered. ‘That little love note was from you to me. There are like, five other girls named Faith in this school, and if you had just signed the name ‘Chase’, then nobody would know for sure who you were referring to, but thank god you added ‘your science lab partner’ so there wasn’t any doubt about who the note was for! Pretty sure I’m the only Faith at Buchanan with a science lab partner named Chase.’
In situations like this, I get defensive rather than apologetic. ‘What’s your point? I’m the one getting made fun of, not you! ’
Faith’s jaw dropped in shock. Then she spoke loudly. ‘You think you’re the only one affected?’
‘Oh yeah, well—,’ I started to answer with a witty comeback that would completely shut her down, but she interrupted me.
‘Kids are calling me your wife,’ she snipped. ‘They ask how our relationship is going, and when our wedding date is. They ask if we have names chosen for our kids yet and if I’ve been practicing my signature with ‘Cooper’ as my last name! They suggest things like starting a joint bank account with you, but not before getting you to sign a prenuptial agreement!’ She threw her hands out, and yelled, ‘I don’t even know what that means! ’
My brain froze up, and like the stupid boy I am, I said, ‘So?’
She replied instantly, ‘I hate you!’
And there it was. The circuits in my brain completely fried and I stared at her, doing my best to show no emotion. Ninjas probably never showed emotion, but that was really difficult for this ninja.
Finally, I blinked and looked around the room. Everyone, including the teacher, was staring at us. Our conversation had started with whispers, but ended with all-out shouting.
Someone from the back of the class broke the silence. ‘Looks like they might break up, you guys!’
Everyone laughed, but I think that was the last straw for Faith. She grabbed her book bag and ran out the door. I stayed in my seat, knowing that if I ran after her, the kids would probably shout about that too. How badly I wished I actually knew how to vanish like a ninja at that moment.
I don’t know where Faith went, but she didn’t return to class that day. In fact, I didn’t see her at all for the rest of the school day.
When I got to school the next morning, I was back to my normal ‘ kind-of-late-for-school’ routine. I’m happy to say that there weren’t copies of my note in every single hallway like they had been for the last day and a half, but a few of them still lingered. Earlier, when I opened my locker, some even fell out. Apparently somebody thought it would be funny to slip them in there.
Zoe hadn’t said much during science the day before, but given the night to think it over, she did her typical ‘I’m-just-trying-to-help’ thing.
‘I talked to Faith last night,’ she said as she took her seat.
I didn’t look at her. ‘I don’t care.’
‘That’s the problem, isn’t it?’ she asked.
The bell rang and Mrs Robinson stood at the front of the class and performed the daily ritual of spouting off announcements. I zoned out for half of them up until she mentioned the skate party.
‘… and don’t forget the skate party on Friday. It goes from five ’til seven p.m., and if you’ve got your own skates, you can bring those too. Since it’s an all-school skate party, Buchanan is providing pizza for dinner, so don’t forget that you’ll need an extra two dollars if you’d like to eat.’
My attention shifted back to Zoe. ‘Why’s that the problem?’
‘Because you think you’re the only one affected by this whole thing,’ Zoe whispered without turning around.
‘If I remember correctly, you were the one that convinced me to write the note in the first place,’ I replied.
‘Yes, and I’ve already apologised for that,’ Zoe said. ‘What’s done is done. But you didn’t have to talk to Faith like that yesterday.’
‘I didn’t talk to her like anything,’ I snipped. Zoe grunted. ‘You’re such a boy! I called her last night to see if she was alright.’
I paused. ‘What’d she say?’
‘Oh, so now you care?’ Zoe asked.
When I didn’t answer, she turned around. ‘Faith isn’t as angry as you think she is. She’s more upset with everyone making fun of her.’
‘If I could stop it, I would,’ I said.
Zoe shook her head. ‘It didn’t sound like she cared though. She knows this will all blow over, and I think you should know that too.’
Easy for Zoe to say since it wasn’t happening to her, right? I just nodded. She turned around and didn’t say anything for the rest of homeroom.
Standing against the brick wall, I waited for B
rayden to exit the locker room. Zoe was already talking with her group of friends as they tossed a volleyball around. Mr Cooper was taking attendance in his usual uncaring way, checking names off on his clipboard.
‘What’s up, man?’ Brayden asked as he joined me on the wall.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Can’t wait to get outside and work on my balance. All this stress over the past couple of days really has me in a twist. Maybe standing on one leg for an hour will help me work it off.’
‘Right?’ Brayden said. ‘Isn’t it ironic that we’re getting real exercise during gym class?’
I laughed. Ah, how it felt good to laugh again.
Brayden pointed at the gym teacher. ‘You know I just realised you have the same last name as Mr Cooper.’
I nodded. ‘Yeah. Cooper is a pretty common last name. What would be crazy would be if he had the same first name as me too!’
Brayden looked like a confused dog. ‘What name would that be?’
I stared at my friend, waiting for him to catch up.
Finally, he slapped his forehead. ‘Oh right. Chase.’
I patted him on the shoulder and looked at the other students in the gym.
‘At least nobody’s making fun of you in here about that note,’ Brayden said, reminding me that I should feel terrible.
‘Give it time. At some point in class, someone will say something.’
As if to prove me right, I heard someone shout loud enough that it echoed off the walls. ‘They name you Chase because you’re always chasing after girls?’
Mr Cooper lowered the clipboard, and pointed at the student who shouted. ‘That’s it. Get your stuff out of the locker room and walk directly to detention!’ he said angrily. ‘Do not pass ‘go’. Do not collect two hundred dollars!’
I smiled as I watched the kid get flustered. He didn’t argue with Mr Cooper though. Nobody ever did. The gym teacher looked back at me and nodded once. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to.
Mr Cooper turned to the centre of the gym and spoke. ‘Volleyball inside, flag football outside. To anyone walking the track; do it carefully! Maintenance is clearing out the wooded area down there so there’s some heavy machinery driving around. Stay on the track, and you’ll be fine.’
Rise of the Red Ninjas Page 3
