Don’t Get Caught

by Kurt Dinan

  He snorts and says to the guy next to him, “I knew it was all talk. No girl’s that good.”

  If he’s trying to push Malone’s buttons, he’s picked the right one. Without a word, she clips onto the wall and motions for a coworker, another girl who looks like she could snap me in half. Once the guy clips in, he and Malone stand waiting at the base of the wall.

  “Want a head start?” he says.

  Malone ignores him and asks the worker for a quick countdown.

  At zero, Malone is gone, a spider monkey climbing the wall. Her legs and arms flash this way and that as she rockets toward the ceiling. It takes her less than twenty seconds to climb fifty feet, and when she reaches the top, she clangs the cowbell at the ceiling’s base. Then Malone pushes off the wall and drops down, rappelling past the poor bastard who isn’t even three-quarters of the way up.

  As she unclips, she tells the guys, “Have your friend give Mia my ten bucks when he gets down. Whenever that is.”

  The girl who spotted Malone gives her a high five and says, “You’re so hot.”

  “Thanks, Mia,” Malone says. “I’ll see you later.”

  I follow Malone as she walks to another area of the building. She’s not even breathing heavy.

  “That was amazing,” I say.

  “I shouldn’t have let them get to me like that. But whatever,” she says. “So why are you here? Looking to lecture me again?”

  “No, I wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have said anything about Libby.”

  “But you still think I shouldn’t have done that to her?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t know.”

  I tell her about what Watson said about revenge and justice and how I feel like we’re confusing the two in our pursuit of exposing the Chaos Club.

  “So what if we are?” Malone says. “That’s not your problem. If Adleta wants to puke on Stranko and his dad, and I want Libby dead for what she did to me, then that’s on our consciences, not yours. I totally wish I could just forget what she did to me, let it go and pretend like it’s no big deal, but I can’t.”

  “I get it,” I say. “I just wanted to say I was sorry. I was an idiot. I’ll mind my business next time.”

  Malone softens, and her eyes drop for a second while she works something out.

  “Well, since you didn’t mind your business, I’ll be guilty of it too,” she says. “Ellie told me about you two at the radar dish.”

  My cheeks get so hot, my head may burst into flames.

  “Don’t get embarrassed,” she says. “I totally get it. Ellie’s cute and cool. You’d be crazy not to try to kiss her.”

  I don’t say anything because: (A) I don’t know how to respond, and (B) I’m hoping if I focus hard enough, I’ll teleport to another planet.

  “But, look, here’s the thing—and I feel like a bitch saying this, but you’re a good guy—I think you need to be careful around Ellie.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just…look, I like Ellie, I really do. She’s really nice, like scary nice, but I’ve heard things about her, Max. Like maybe she’s not as nice as she makes herself out to be.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Rumors mostly.”

  “About what?”

  “That she lies, Max. All the time. I admit I haven’t witnessed that, but I don’t know, I can see it somehow. She’s so good at acting. We’ve seen that firsthand. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. She blew me off.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best.”

  Getting rejected is “for the best”?

  Yeah right.

  • • •

  At home, I do two things:

  First, I delete the naked picture of Malone from my phone. It’s something I should’ve done months ago. But before you give me the Good Guy Award, know that my finger hovered over the Delete Photo button for a good two minutes. Still, I did push it.

  Dammit.

  Second, I google Chaos Club, and it takes digging through three pages of links to Wheeler’s fake site to get to the real one. On the real Chaos Club site, I hope to find a denial of the pranks we’ve pulled in their name, but there’s nothing. The only change I can see from the beginning of the year is a picture of the cows on the roof. They don’t even bother mentioning the water tower prank, almost like it wasn’t a big deal to them.

  Question: If we’re going to all this trouble to get back at a club who doesn’t care what we’re doing, aren’t we being laughed at all over again?

  Later that week, Ellie catches me on my way to lunch.

  “You need to get on board,” Ellie says. She’s doing that bouncing-on-her-toes thing she does when she’s excited. “I would’ve thought you’d be first to come up with a prank. Now you’re almost last.”

  “I will eventually.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  Fair question. Mostly, I haven’t thought of a prank yet, but a good part of it is the whole guilt thing.

  “I’ll come up with something soon,” I say.

  “Okay, but in the meantime…”

  Ellie pulls her phone out and moves in close.

  Would it be creepy of me if I sniffed her hair?

  “I need your help,” she says. “But you can’t tell anyone.” She unlocks her phone and shows me the picture on her wallpaper.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “Stealing isn’t very Christian-like, Ellie Wick.”

  “Neither is what I’m going to do with it,” she says.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I think it’s time the school got an image makeover. I can give you the details when there aren’t so many ears around, but it’s a two-person job. Are you in?”

  I hesitate just one second, but it’s one second too long.

  “What’s wrong?” Ellie says. Then her brow furrows. “Wait, you’re not thinking about quitting, are you?”

  “Huh? No.”

  “You are, aren’t you? It’s because of Tim’s and Kate’s pranks, right?”

  Man, I swear sometimes girls have ESP or something.

  “You can’t quit, Max. We need you. I need you.”

  I certainly like the sound of that.

  She says, “You may not like the last two pranks, but remember how you felt after the water tower? That’s why we’re doing this.”

  “You say that, but it’s become personal.”

  “But it is personal, Max. How can it not be? The Chaos Club embarrassed us and has gotten me twice now. People are still slipping Hitler pictures into my locker. The Chaos Club needs to pay for what they’ve done. It’s almost like none of this is real to you because it was a couple months ago.”

  “It’s still real,” I say but wonder if maybe she’s right. I can’t remember the last time someone called out, “Water Tower Five!” to me in the hall. And I’m sure not getting Hitler pictures in my locker.

  “I’m worried the others are losing interest too,” she says. “It’s like every club here in the school. Have you ever noticed they all sort of die off in the winter, once kids have gone long enough to put it on their college applications? But I think with us it’d be too bad if we gave up. We have something awesome here.”

  “Yeah, we should go into business.”

  “One step at a time, Mongoose. So come on, will you help me?”

  Guilty conscience versus time with Ellie?

  No contest.

  “I’m in,” I say.

  “You don’t sound fully committed.”

  “I’ll get there. It’s a good idea you have.”

  “Wrong,” Ellie says. “It’s a great idea.”

  “Right, a great idea. Let’s do it.”
>
  “Game on!”

  Ellie claps hard once and looks so happy I think she might kiss me. Call it horny-teenage-wishful-thinking.

  “It’s going to take me a bit to figure out exactly how I want to do this, but I’ll let you know,” Ellie says. “Thanks a ton, Max.”

  I figure I’ll just fake it until I feel it. It’s worked so far. Besides, it’s Heist Rule #17: Commit one hundred percent.

  But it turns out I don’t need to fake it at all. Commitment suddenly isn’t an issue.

  Not after I get to school the next morning.

  • • •

  Like most kids, once I get off the bus and enter the school, I go directly to my locker to get my books for the day. But today that’s easier said than done because Stranko’s standing at my locker bay in front of a line of yellow caution tape. A large group of students laugh and talk excitedly as I weave my way to the front to see what’s going on. It takes a few seconds to understand what I’m looking at. It’s like the Blob has swallowed one of the lockers. But not just any locker—it’s my locker. Yellowish, spongy dough, sticky and reeking of yeast, is bursting from the locker, spilling from the air vents, and dripping onto the floor.

  “That your locker, Cobb?” Stranko says.

  I’m speechless.

  “I should’ve guessed.”

  Mr. Jessup arrives and tiptoes to my locker, approaching it from the side. He wedges his hand into where he thinks the combination lock is and pulls away a handful of mucus-like dough. Then Jessup inserts a key into the middle of the combination dial and flattens himself against the lockers, backing away as far as he can and still reach the latch.

  When Jessup lifts the latch, the door bursts open. My folders and books and black hoodie slowly erupt from my locker in a mass of smothering dough, oozing onto the floor like beige lava. The final item to seep out is a dough-filled bucket along with dozens of black Chaos Club cards. Even from ten feet away, I can see none of them have the small water tower graphic on them.

  “How many other lockers are there like this?” Stranko says to Mr. Jessup.

  “Four,” he says.

  You can probably guess whose lockers those are.

  Chapter 15

  Ellie names it Operation Sex, Drugs, and Suicide.

  My code name is Weegee, “after the famous crime scene photographer, duh,” Ellie says.

  Her code name is Meryl, after actress Meryl Streep.

  “I’m not sure she ever played a role like this,” I say.

  “Because she couldn’t handle a role like this.”

  Ellie and I stand on the high school football field on the eighth and final night of our photo shoot. I haven’t seen any of the other Water Tower Fivers since winter break started a week ago. That’s not by design but simply the result of busy lives. Schoolwork, sports, jobs, family responsibilities, and whatnot get in the way of what we’d all really like to do, which is work on destroying the Chaos Club. But no, Wheeler’s at the local tutoring center full time now, Malone’s busy anchoring people at the rock wall, and Adleta is in Orlando for a lacrosse tournament. That leaves Ellie and me to pull her prank, to which I say—excellent.

  “Make sure you have the scoreboard in the background,” Ellie says, lying down on the fifty-yard line.

  “The scene of the notorious Hitler-moustache prank,” I say.

  “Exactly.”

  I stand over Ellie and dump out a garbage bag. Condom wrappers, Bud Light cans, and an empty Maker’s Mark bottle spill onto the frozen field. I arrange them artfully around Ellie, the evidence of a wild night I’m certain neither of us has ever really had.

  “Where did you get the alcohol?” I ask, shooting another picture.

  “Out of my neighbor’s recycling bin. He has a real problem.”

  “Like we’re ones to judge.”

  “Exactly,” Ellie says. “Guilty of trespassing and possession of stolen goods. We’re headed for eternal damnation.”

  I move to another angle and get low to the ground. Each camera flash is like a lightning strike.

  “That should do it,” I say. “Unless you have any others we need to take.”

  “No, we’re good. That’s the last one. No point in pushing our luck.”

  Back in Ellie’s car, she changes her outfit in the backseat, threatening to decapitate me if I sneak a look. I take my chances anyway. Even with the heater going full blast, it takes a couple minutes for the car to warm up.

  Ellie says, “So what about your prank?”

  “What about it?”

  “Have you thought of one yet?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You don’t seem at all interested in the guaranteed yes. I would’ve thought you’d jump all over that.”

  “I’m going to do something. I promise.”

  “If you’re not careful, you’ll run out of time.”

  “Schools not out until May.”

  “It’ll come faster than you expect.”

  “Like my balls. Unfortunately.”

  Ellie’s laugh is a sunshine-y sound I’ve come to depend on in the last week. It’s one of the few things giving me a break from my perpetual pissy-ness from the dough-in-the-locker prank. (Yeast, water, and dough in a bucket overnight, in case you were wondering.) Worse was that Stranko had the nerve to imply we’d played the prank on ourselves. Ellie’s crying at the suggestion put an end to that line of thought quickly, but it made me even madder than I already was.

  We pull into my driveway shortly before ten o’clock. Except for our Christmas tree lit in the family room window, the house is dark. I don’t want to go in yet. The more time I’ve spent with Ellie, the more comfortable I’ve gotten with her. And the more comfortable I’ve gotten with her, the more I joke-flirt with her in a not-so-subtle-yet-safe way.

  “Maybe we should celebrate the end of our photo shoot with a kiss,” I say.

  “Oh, you think, huh?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s bad luck not to.”

  “We’ll just have to risk it.”

  You can’t blame a guy for trying.

  “What did I tell you about us?” Ellie asks.

  “You said after.”

  “Maybe after, yeah. We have a lot to do still.”

  “But are my chances getting better?”

  “Oh, absolutely. With each passing moment.”

  “Then I’ll be strong and soldier on.”

  I go to get out of the car when Ellie says, “I do need one small favor on Monday.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A favor? It’s a small act of kindness. I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I want to see his look when it goes live. Can you make that happen?”

  “How in the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “You? Maxwell Cobb? The mastermind behind the Stranko Caper? I think you can come up with something.”

  Ellie does that bat-her-eyelashes thing that the female species has perfected through thousands of years of evolution. Like all males, I’m defenseless against it.

  When I think later about what Ellie wants, I realize the difficulty isn’t in the execution but in having the balls to do it. I will because Ellie’s the asker, but I keep thinking of a quote I once heard about how there’s a fine line between courage and stupidity. In this case, it’s a very, very fine line.

  • • •

  The rest of the week is spent suffering through exam prep and wondering just what sort of moron schedules semester exams for the three days following winter break. The only answer I can come up with is a moron who loves to ruin kids’ vacations. In this case, Stranko. He takes exams überserious, even sending out an email to every high school parent about how all classroom doors will be locked when the bell rings and how tardy
students will receive zeroes. So imagine Stranko’s irritation when Monday comes and students and teachers are milling in the halls, unable to enter any of the classrooms because none of the doors will open. Zero. Not a single one.

  We’re all loitering in the halls, watching teachers pointlessly enter and reenter keys in their locks while Stranko pushes his way through the crowds, yelling at Mr. Jessup over the walkie-talkie to “get these damn doors open.”

  “Wheeler?” Malone says to Ellie and me outside Watson’s room.

  “No chance,” I say.

  By some miracle of the universe—or, in reality, a combination of make-up work, extra credit, and much pleading by his mom and guidance counselor on the defendant’s behalf—Wheeler’s pulled his grades to within striking distance of passing. The looming reality couldn’t be more mathematically simple: Pass the exams, pass the classes. Fail the exams, fail the classes.

  “Maybe Tim?” Ellie asks.

  “Not me either,” Tim says, coming up behind us. “I’ve made my entry in the competition. Unlike some people.”

  “Mine’s coming,” Ellie says. “Sooner than you think, actually.”

  “What about you?” Adleta says to me.

  “Someday.”

  That’s when my phone buzzes.

  And Ellie’s.

  And Tim’s.

  And Malone’s.

  And everyone else’s around us until the entire hall is a sea of miscellaneous chimes, rings, and tones signaling arriving texts.

  We all receive the same message:

  Courtesy of the (Genuine) Chaos Club.

  “Wow,” Malone says. “As much as I hate them, I have to admit that’s impressive.”

  Word soon spreads that during the night, the Chaos Club took every door off its hinges and reinstalled it at another classroom. It’s takes the team of Mrs. B, Stranko, and Mr. Jessup the better part of a half hour to unlock every room with master keys.

  How am I supposed to think of a prank that competes with that?

  After Watson’s exam, which is easier than I expected, I say to Ellie, “Do you still need me to do it?”

  “Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, with the Chaos Club thing, I thought maybe you might want to have all the attention to yourself.”