The Girl Who Knew Even More

by Commander S. T. Bolivar, III

  “Yeah,” Carter admitted. “It’s just a nice add-on. They’ll evacuate the inventions when the crickets start falling through the ductwork and into the new heater Dad had installed. Remember when he showed us the plans?”

  Mattie didn’t, actually, because whenever Mr. Larimore pulled out Munchem’s building plans, Mattie tended to zone out. In fact, the only thing Mattie remembered from their discussion about kitchen improvements was “blah blah blah Mattie blah blah blah.”

  Carter sighed. “He gives you an excellent opportunity like that and you don’t pay attention?”

  “I didn’t realize it was a great opportunity.”

  His brother loosed another sigh. “When the crickets hit the heater, they’ll start to burn.” Carter spoke very slowly. “Burning equals smoke. Smoke equals sensors going off. Sensors go off? The alarms will sound. It’s foolproof.”

  Mattie wasn’t so sure about foolproof, but he liked the idea. “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s do it. We’ll have to be fast though, before Hoo starts making more crystals. When can you get the crickets?”

  Carter made a face. “Couple of days? Depends on how quickly the clones get to the tackle shop.”

  Mattie started to nod, and stopped. “The clones you’re feeding, right?”

  Carter heaved a tremendous sigh. “Yes, the clones I’m feeding. We good?”

  They were not even the farthest thing from good, but Mattie shrugged. “Yeah.”

  Carter stretched his arms above his head. “Now who wants fortified fish fingers? You better eat while you can, Mattie.”

  Mattie’s stomach churned. Some of this was due to the fact that Dr. Hoo was out to get him and fortified fish fingers might be his last meal, but more of it was due to anticipation. Whenever Mattie was about to pull off a plan, he lost his appetite. In later years, he would know this was just part of who he was, like having brown eyes and a soap-opera-actress mother. Then again, there was always the fact that fortified fish fingers never sounded particularly good. Even so, he followed Eliot and Carter out of the dorm and down the stairs.

  “Hey, Mattie,” Eliot said when they reached the bottom step.

  “Yeah?”

  “For someone who can’t think like a bad guy, you came up with the idea to steal the crystal core awfully fast.”

  “It’s thanks to me,” Carter told him. “I’m a great role model.” Carter thought for a moment, one corner of his mouth turned up in concentration. “To pull this off, we’re going to need a distraction.”

  Mattie nodded. “Yep.”

  “So we need an idea.”

  “Nope,” Mattie said. “We just need Caroline.”

  “IT’S TRUE,” CAROLINE SAID THE next morning. “They always need me. It’s because I’m usually right about everything.”

  Carter rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue, and for that, Mattie was grateful. Caroline had missed breakfast, and after some searching, they’d found her in the Student Laboratory—a very official-sounding name for a converted sunroom that smelled like cheese.

  Or maybe that was just Doyle. Mattie’s roommate was two tables over, snickering with Maxwell. Being around the bigger kid was always risky. Toilet swirlies, noogies, being spit on—in many ways Doyle’s imagination was limitless—but now that he’d joined forces with Delia, Mattie was even more nervous around him.

  “What are you doing anyway?” Mattie asked Caroline.

  She looked down at the cluttered table. It was covered in dead computer parts. “Detention. I asked Delia if she used Elmer’s Glue or rubber glue to style her hair. She told on me. Now I have to do an extra questionnaire for Professor Shelley’s new toy.”

  Caroline held up an electrical board of some sort. It didn’t look like a toy at all. It had sharp edges and a rusty middle. “Do you think this would be fun for all ages?”

  Mattie thought for a moment. “It looks like something that would give you tetanus.”

  Caroline flipped the electrical board back onto the table. “I think so too. So what’s the deal? What are we doing?”

  Mattie glanced around. The Student Laboratory was never as full as Mr. Larimore had anticipated. Some of that might have been due to the cheese smell. More often it was due to the fact that Munchem students didn’t really care about discovering things. They were more interested in stealing, lying, and making the scientists-turned-teachers cry.

  “We need to get the Weather-matic out of the gym,” Mattie told Caroline. “And to do that we have to get close to the air-conditioning units.”

  Caroline tapped her pencil against her lower lip. “Why the air conditioner?”

  “We’re going to overheat it. It will set off the fire alarm and the inventions will be evacuated.”

  “Oh. Good idea—wait.” Caroline’s expression turned suspicious. “How are you going to overheat it?”

  “Well, you know how these things go.” Carter scratched the back of his head until his dark hair stood up in spikes. “We’ll put crickets in the air vent and let nature take its course.”

  “Crickets?” Caroline whispered, face flushing purple. “That’s horrible!”

  “But effective.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  Carter smiled. “Thank you.”

  Caroline clenched her pencil as if she were thinking about stabbing him. She faced Mattie instead. “What about the gym’s security cameras? They’re still active.”

  “That’s why we’re asking you—maybe we could throw something at them? Is there a way to block the lenses?”

  Carter made a scoffing noise. “That won’t work.”

  Caroline nodded. “I agree with the cricket killer.”

  “Hey!”

  “I said I agreed with you.” She twirled her pen around her fingers and Carter eyed it nervously. “Honestly. So touchy. Eliot?”

  Her brother tensed. “What?”

  “Remember when the Castevets got that security system to keep you away from their electric sports car?”

  Eliot frowned. “I remember it differently.”

  “How can you remember sneaking into their garage repeatedly to play with the car’s wiring any differently than how it was?”

  “Whatever. What’s your point?”

  “Didn’t you do something to their security system? You made it sick or something?”

  Eliot’s eye roll was almost as impressive as his sister’s. “I overloaded the operating system. It thought it had a virus and shut down. Honestly, if they’d wanted to keep me out, they should’ve tried harder.”

  “No doubt,” Caroline said. “Could you do it again?”

  Eliot frowned. “Of course I could. What do I look like? An Apple genius?”

  Caroline paused as if she were thinking exactly about what her brother looked like, but she declined to share. She turned to Mattie. “If Eliot shuts down the gym’s security cameras, you could get to the air-conditioning unit without anyone seeing you.”

  Mattie perked up. “How long would it be down?”

  Eliot thought. “Either twenty minutes or permanently. It could go either way really.”

  Mattie went quiet. You could fit quite a lot in “twenty minutes or permanently.” You could fit things like “That would be perfect,” “That isn’t long enough,” and “I let my best friend hack into my father’s security system.” Mattie particularly didn’t like the last one.

  “Actually.” Eliot paused, studying the other students like they held answers. Sunlight streamed through the huge banks of windows, making the students look like they belonged in a boarding school for good children. “It could not go down at all too. There’s always that.”

  Mattie glared at him. “I thought you said you could do this.”

  “I can! I think. I’m almost positive. Just, you know, look for the green light to shut off.”

  “It’s a red light,” Mattie said.

  Eliot waved one hand. “You say tomato. I say potato.”

  Mattie chewed his thumbnail. Elio
t made the whole thing sound easy, which considering Mattie would be the one sabotaging the air-conditioning unit and Eliot would be the one sitting in the attic with Marilyn, it probably did look awfully easy to him.

  “Anything else that could happen?” Mattie whispered to Eliot.

  “No.” Eliot shook his head. “It’ll either go down for twenty minutes, it’ll go down permanently, or it won’t go down at all. Those are your options.”

  Some options, Mattie thought. “How do we know there aren’t cameras inside the gym?” he asked as the other students cheered. “There could be a layer of security we don’t know about.”

  “What about a disguise?” Caroline asked.

  Mattie eyed her. “What kind of disguise?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Something good. Something they would never suspect you in.”

  Mattie started to say he had no idea what that would be and stopped. Twelve years living with Carter Larimore had taught Mattie a lot of things: how Play-Doh ripped out nose hairs when stuffed up your nostrils, how you should never ever sniff Carter’s finger, and how, sometimes, the best hiding spots were the most obvious ones.

  “I need to look like everyone else,” Mattie said, straightening. The Spencers and Carter stared at him as if he were nuts. “Think about it: there are so many of us. If I look like a generic student, they’ll never be able to tell which one of us it is.”

  “Not bad.” Carter actually sounded impressed. He rubbed his chin, thinking. “But I’d take it one step further.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Carter’s eyes gleamed. “Use Doyle’s baseball jersey. His name’s on the back. If the cameras record you, they’ll think he was behind it.”

  “No way,” Caroline said, shaking her head so hard Beezus was slung side to side. “No one would ever confuse someone as short as Mattie with someone as huge as Doyle.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the point,” Mattie said eagerly. “Up close, no one would mistake us, but from a distance? If the security footage isn’t that clear? If I have Doyle’s shirt on, it’ll confuse them.”

  “Until they look at your face,” Caroline retorted.

  Mattie thought for a beat. “I’ll use his hat too. If I pull it down low enough, it could work.”

  “It’ll at least give you some wiggle room if you do get caught,” Carter added. He looked at his brother. “And if you do, remind the teachers this is America and you’re innocent until proven guilty. And if that doesn’t work, cry. Hard.”

  Mattie swallowed.

  “Don’t worry.” Carter slapped him on the shoulder. “Dad would never expect you to screw up his expensive new vent system. You’re the good son.”

  Mattie tried to smile. He was pretty sure his brother was being supportive, but it wasn’t exactly working. There was a scuffle behind them, and Mattie looked up in time to see Dr. Hoo entering the Student Lab. His gaze swept the room, landed on Mattie, and stuck. Mattie turned his attention to the tabletop, but somehow he knew Hoo was still watching him. It made his scalp prickle.

  “So are we doing this or what?” Carter whispered.

  Mattie picked at his sweater, the uncomfortable feeling threading through him growing even bigger. That’s the weird thing about emotions—they’re never quite what you think they should be.

  For example, anger feels big and round and like something you could chew on, but guilt? Guilt chews on you and, in the end, guilt will eat you alive. I like to think of it as the gift that just keeps on giving—like poison ivy or ringworm.

  Anyway, the point is right now, Mattie felt guilty. He didn’t want to damage the security system, but he didn’t want Dr. Hoo to blast unsuspecting people into little bitty bits either.

  Mattie took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said at last. “We’re doing it.”

  The Student Lab door opened again, and Delia glided through. The sunlight caught behind her, turning her face into shadows and her body dark. It was only for a second though, and Delia was back to being Delia when she joined Doyle at his table.

  “You know,” Caroline muttered, suddenly becoming very interested in her would-be toy, “the cameras aren’t your only problem. It’s Delia’s fault you’re even on Dr. Hoo’s radar. She’s obsessed with taking you down. You need to do something about that. Distract her, or something.”

  Caroline was right. Mattie thought for a moment, and then turned to his brother. “What else do you have for sale?”

  “Nothing really. Some powdered milk the clones thought I could use. No clue why.”

  Mattie perked up. “Powdered milk?”

  “Yeah…why?”

  Mattie smiled.

  AN EVIL SCIENTIST, A DEADLY weather machine, and fried crickets? Frankly, it was a lot to take in—so much so, in fact, it would be entirely understandable if Mattie forgot about his promise to get revenge on Delia.

  But he hadn’t.

  Not that Mattie revealed anything as they left Professor Shelley’s class that afternoon. Eliot stayed behind to argue the merits of self-destructing viruses while Mattie and Caroline went on to American History. Ahead of them, Doyle and Maxwell shoved fifth and sixth graders aside so Delia could pass. Mattie could hear kids crashing into lockers as they walked down the hallway.

  “I see Doyle and Maxwell have found their purpose,” Carter said, sliding between Mattie and Caroline. “Check it.” Carter passed Mattie a handheld video game. “Business is good. Just got this one in for one of the seniors.”

  “We’re not supposed to have those things,” Mattie reminded him as they turned for the front of the school.

  “Technically, I don’t have it—only looks like the real thing. Serves that tool right.”

  Mattie tilted the handset back and forth. “It doesn’t work?”

  “Nope, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell him it worked fine for me.”

  “And he’ll believe the lie?”

  “If people believe it, it’s not a lie.”

  Mattie followed Carter down the hall and out the heavy double doors into the sunshine. “That’s not how lies work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Well, whatever, I got your powdered milk too.” Carter jammed one arm into his backpack and pulled out a tin can. He tossed it to Mattie. “Enjoy.”

  Oh, I will, Mattie thought. He followed Caroline down the stairs and to the right. To the casual observer, it looked as if they were taking the long way to American History. Mattie tried to walk along as if he were filled with thoughts on the Civil War rather than straining for one last glimpse of the gymnasium air vents he was about to fill with crickets, one last look at the—

  “So what’s the deal?” Caroline demanded.

  Mattie blinked. “What’s what deal?”

  “Are you seriously not going to explain what you’re doing with a can of powdered milk?”

  “Oh.” He glanced around. “Revenge.”

  Caroline brightened. “Do tell.”

  “Here.” As they turned toward American History, Mattie popped the top off and waved the can under Caroline’s nose. She gagged. “Exactly,” he said, screwing the lid back on. “It’s not pleasant, and you know what it would smell like if you rolled in it?”

  Caroline pawed at her nose. “Like garbage.”

  “Worse.” Mattie gave her a satisfied smile. “Delia will roll around in it and stink for days.”

  “How are you going to manage that?”

  “I’m not. She’s going to do it for me.”

  Caroline paused. “Go on.”

  “I’m going to sprinkle it in her sheets, and then when she goes to sleep, she’ll roll around in it.” Caroline still looked confused, so Mattie explained: “You sweat when you sleep. It’ll get in her pores.”

  Her eyes bugged. “Remind me never to make you mad.”

  “I’m not just doing this for me. I’m doing this for us.”

  “And Beezus?” Caroline added.

  Mattie sighed
. He pocketed the can again. “And Beezus—but I’m doing it tonight and you’re going to help.”

  Caroline was only too happy to help Mattie with his plan. In later years, she would go on record saying revenge was not a dish best served cold. It was best served hot and steamy and not really served so much as thrown in the person’s face.

  Unfortunately, however you decide to serve your revenge, there’s always a period of waiting. Sometimes, you wait in a plushy lounge filled with leather chairs and sofas. Sometimes, you wait in a swamp filled with snakes and mosquitoes. And, sometimes, you wait in the perpetually broken girls’ toilet with your knees drawn up so no one sees your dangling sneakers.

  Which was exactly what Mattie had been doing for the past hour and a half.

  His butt had gone numb by the time Caroline finally came to get him. She checked the other stalls to make sure they were alone and then tapped Mattie’s stall door three times with her knuckles. “Everyone’s gone downstairs for dinner,” she whispered. “Now’s your chance.”

  Mattie lowered his feet to the white tile floor and stretched his back. Hiding isn’t so bad, he thought, but he only thought this because he hadn’t spent two days stuck under an oil tycoon’s desk yet. After that fiasco, Mattie wasn’t a fan of hiding or people who liked to take their shoes off under their desks.

  Caroline opened the bathroom door and stuck her head into the hallway. She motioned for Mattie to follow her. “Hurry up.”

  Mattie hurried, or rather, he tried to hurry. His knees kept popping like plastic bubble wrap and his feet had gone to sleep. It felt like his socks were stuffed with needles. He shuffled after Caroline.

  She held open the door. “I’ll keep watch.”

  “Good idea. Which bed is Delia’s?”

  “The bottom one in the corner.”

  Caroline’s dorm was almost exactly like Mattie’s. Bunk beds lined either side of the room and trunks sat next to each bed. Mattie’s dorm had dirty brown carpet, but Caroline’s had scarred wooden floors. Mattie’s sneakers clattered against them.

  “Could you be any louder?” Caroline asked without taking her eyes from the staircase.