by Kurt Dinan
“I could’ve been killed!”
“But you weren’t, so shut up.”
This has to be why most heist crews don’t have many girls on them.
Stranko continues yelling from the top of the tower, his voice echoing across the parking lot. Minus Ellie’s quick kiss back in the trees minutes ago, it’s the highlight of my entire school year.
“What should we do now?” Malone asks.
I look toward the statue, wondering if the Chaos Club made their move and if we missed it.
“I guess we need to find out from Wheeler if—”
The next two things happen simultaneously.
1. My phone vibrates with a message from Adleta: They split.
2. And in the distance, an approaching police siren wails.
The three of us exchange panicked looks, and this time, I don’t text. I call Wheeler directly.
He answers on the first ring.
“The Chaos Club hasn’t showed up yet.”
“Get out of there,” I say. “The cops are coming.”
“But—”
“I said get out. It’s over. We failed.”
Chapter 22
Life sucks.
At noon the next day, I’m still in bed with the shades drawn. Since sneaking back in last night, I’ve barely moved or spoken, and if I have it my way, I won’t until I’m thirty. Unfortunately, Mom won’t shut up about me going with them to the Asheville Celebration.
“Are you sure?” she says. “From what I saw driving by this morning, it looks like a great time.”
And return to the scene of my greatest failure? Why would I do that? Did the guy who captained the Titanic ever sail another ship? Of course not. Okay, so yeah, he was among the fifteen hundred plus who drowned that night, but if he’d lived he wouldn’t have stepped foot on another boat. Shit, I doubt he’d even want ice in his drink ever again. Failing sucks that much.
“I’ll be okay,” I say to Mom. “You guys go. I just want to sleep.”
That’s me—Max Cobb, sore loser.
Of course, Ellie, who pulls up out front ten minutes later, proves to be more of a motivator than Mom.
“Oh, you’re going,” she says on the phone. “Get out here.”
“I don’t want to. Why should I?”
“Two reasons. Number one, I look supercute today. And number two, if you don’t go, Wheeler said he’ll help me ruin your life on H8box.”
“How will you do that?”
“Let’s just say whatever I do will guarantee you never get any action with the opposite sex ever again.”
“Ever again? I haven’t had any action.”
“And you won’t for your entire life unless you get out here. So stop being a sourpuss and let’s go.”
The transformation the school property has undergone since last night is amazing. The once-empty booths are now filled with local food vendors, stuffed animals likely made in Thai sweatshops, and students from clubs like National Honor Society who will paint your face for a dollar. The rides are up and running, the two most popular being a Ferris wheel–like contraption with flipping cages that’s pretty much guaranteed to make you puke (no ipecac required) and the Scrambler, which looks like it was designed by chiropractors hoping to induce whiplash.
Ellie and I stand near the front of the stage with the growing crowd. My parents are around here somewhere, which doesn’t matter anymore now that we have zero chance of exposing the Chaos Club in public. We spot a few teachers around, and like always, it’s weird seeing them out of the classroom. Seeing them in shorts is even weirder—even wrong in Watson’s case, with his aqua-blue shorts, sandals, and pasty legs. I love the guy, but, man, there ought to be a law.
“I can’t believe how many people are here,” I tell Ellie. “There have to be a couple thousand.”
“The goal’s five thousand over the course of the day,” Ellie says.
“Yeah, and just imagine the show we could’ve given them.”
“Oh, cheer up. What’s done is done. Besides, in a few minutes, I’ll be on stage and you can ogle me with the rest of the men in Asheville.”
At least there’s that.
From where we stand, we have a clear sightline to Malone at the LGBT booth, where they have a long line of people waiting to get rainbow braids in their hair. Malone’s with some of her friends from the art department wearing orange “Some People Are Gay, Get Over It” T-shirts. She waves to us, not looking at all like someone who was part of a failed operation last night.
“So is Malone gay?” I say to Ellie.
“I don’t think so. She’s just very pro-people. Why? Would it matter?”
“Of course not.”
“Right answer,” Ellie says.
Nearby, two cameramen shoot footage of the crowd while another has her camera trained on the statue or, more accurately, the curtained tower hiding the statue.
Oh, what might have been.
Or still could be.
Because here’s the thing, my prank is still set up and ready to go. I don’t see the point though, especially since the Chaos Club didn’t vandalize the statue as expected. Finishing my prank now would not only get the five of us in übertrouble but would also leave Boyd with a lot of explaining to do.
At two o’clock, the town dignitaries make their way through the crowd and take the stage. Most of them I don’t recognize, but Mrs. B’s up there, wearing a bright-blue dress and looking like she’s had her hair done for the occasion. Stranko is in an Asheville button-up but is probably dying to get into the yellow-and-black Asheville lacrosse shirt he always wears while coaching. Tonight’s the state semifinal, and he has to view this public relations event as a massive inconvenience. Not as inconvenient as being trapped on the water tower, but I doubt much trumps that. I wonder how long he was trapped on the tower. Hours, I hope.
Once everyone is in place, Mayor Hite comes to the front of the stage and taps the microphone.
“Hello, everyone!” she says. “I’d like to welcome all of you to the first annual Celebrate Asheville Festival!”
People applaud, and I roll my eyes. What are they applauding? The festival itself? The mayor? Themselves for showing up? And before you say it, yes, I’m bitter. Sue me.
Mayor Hite drones on about how wonderful Asheville is, what a wonderful history it has, blah, blah, blah. It might as well be a campaign speech. Get to the statue already and put me out of my misery. She welcomes a kids’ choir from the elementary school to the stage, and they sing a couple songs that has the crowd aww-ing their heads off. Stranko is smiling behind them, but like all his smiles, it’s forced. Off to the side of the stage, Officer Hale is in full security-guard gear. I was hoping Hale had to gnaw off some fingers to survive in the back of his cruiser, but all ten are there. Life’s just one disappointment after another.
Once the kids finish singing, Mayor Hite calls Mrs. B to come stand beside her. The mayor puts an arm around Mrs. B and says, “The humble person she is, Mrs. Barber has asked I keep this short. As most of you may have heard, Mrs. Barber just completed her fortieth year in the Asheville school district. That’s twenty-two years in the classroom and eighteen as an administrator. Any celebration of Asheville wouldn’t be complete without a few words from one of its most dedicated and beloved servants.”
More applause—aren’t people’s palms getting numb?—and Mrs. B smiles and waves, waiting for the noise to die down. Then she starts thanking people for coming, and that’s when I stop paying attention and instead scan the crowd, wondering if the Chaos Club is nearby. It’s frustrating, thinking they’re possibly within spitting distance, probably laughing at me at this very minute. One of these days, I’ll learn to be strong in defeat, but today is not that day.
Mrs. B tells a quick anecdote about her first day as a teacher at AHS and talks about all t
he fantastic people she’s had the pleasure of teaching and working with. It’s a nice, short speech that she ends by saying, “And with all of you here, I’d like to announce that next year will be my last as principal.”
Even my mouth drops at that.
“Forty years is a long time, and I’d like to retire while I still have the energy and health to do some traveling. It’s time someone else takes over and leads this school and these wonderful students.”
I immediately look to Stranko, who’s as stunned as the rest of us. I’d have thought he’d be doing backflips at Mrs. B announced retirement. Instead, he’s slack jawed. When the applause begins, it takes him a few seconds to join in, and even then it’s halfhearted.
“Now enough about me,” Mrs. B says. “Before we unveil the renovated statue, we’d like to show you a fantastic short documentary about our beloved Zippy made by one of our students, Ellie Wick.”
Mrs. B motions to Ellie, who squeezes my arm before stepping onto the stage and waving. She looks great up there, and as instructed, I ogle appropriately. Ellie then motions to a table off to the side, and unexpectedly, there’s Wheeler, sitting with one of his stage crew friends at the soundboard. I guess with everything going to shit last night, he still wants a good seat in the house for the unveiling.
Ellie’s documentary is shown on the screen behind the stage, and the speakers on both sides boom the sound. Ellie and Wheeler did a private screening for all of us when it was completed. Coming in at just over seven minutes, the film interviews the widow of the eagle’s creator, Gregor Hitchens, about the statue’s production and gives a detailed travelogue of the various display sites the eagle had before the school was chosen as its permanent location. The video ends with a montage of different Asheville citizens, from the mayor to a local sportscaster to Mrs. B herself, all saying, “We love Zippy!”
We’re nearing the start of this montage when I sense movement behind me. Someone’s so close I can hear breathing, and I turn, expecting to see some dope crowding me for a better view of the movie. But no, it’s not just any random dope.
It’s Jeff Benz and Becca Yancey.
And unlike everyone else, they’re not looking at the movie.
They’re looking at me.
My body goes cold.
“Hi, Max,” Becca says. “Can we ask you a question?”
“Um, sure.”
Benz leans in with a professional-grade shit-eating grin.
“What’s it like to fail?”
• • •
My brain tries to wrap itself around the revelation, looking for clues in the school year that I should’ve picked up on or some forgotten history with either of these two that would have led to the water tower setup, but there’s nothing.
Benz says, “I mean, you, or whoever, makes that announcement at the assembly, promising to expose us, and now here we are at the celebration, and you can’t deliver. That either makes you a failure or a liar. Which is it?”
Becca gives Benz a little shove.
“Knock it off,” she says. “Max is a good guy.”
“A good guy you got suspended,” I say.
“We gave you a choice,” Benz says. “Remember that.”
The anger I feel is a different, deeper kind of anger—an I would blow up the world if I could anger. I’ve waited nine months to discover who was in the Chaos Club, focused an unhealthy amount of time and thought on the question, and now that I know the answer, I really just want to see the world burn—with Benz as kindling and Becca as the match.
“Why are you revealing yourself to me now?” I say.
“Because it’s over,” Becca says. “You can’t pin anything we’ve done on us.”
“You don’t mess with the Chaos Club, Max,” Benz adds. “We’re too smart to get caught. Why do you think we’ve lasted this long?”
“Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it now. Jeff graduates tomorrow, and I’m moving next month,” Becca says. “He didn’t want to tell you, just have it be a mystery you go your entire life without solving, but I thought we should put you out of your misery.”
“Wow, thanks. That’s really kind of you.”
“No, it’s us who should be thanking you for getting Stranko and Hale out of our way,” Benz says. “If you hadn’t, we couldn’t have pulled our final prank. But I have to say, I’m a little disappointed in you. You went to those lengths to clear them out, and the best you could do, or whoever that was who cut the curtain, is to drape a ‘Chaos Club Sucks’ sign over Zippy? That’s pretty embarrassing, man. But don’t worry, we took yours down and did a prank a bit more memorable for the day.”
“But you didn’t pull your prank,” I say.
“Exactly what world do you live in, Max?” Becca says.
Loud applause erupts from the crowd as The End appears on the video screen. Mrs. B pushes Ellie to the front of the stage for a bow, then returns to the microphone.
“No one except our local resident artist and former Asheville High graduate Boyd Phillips has seen the Zippy statue in four months—”
“Not true,” Benz whispers, laughing.
“—so without further delay, let’s welcome back Zippy, the Asheville Eagle!”
All eyes turn toward the curtains. The media moves in, their cameras ready for the unveiling. Mrs. B pulls a ceremonial rope on stage, and all four curtains hiding the statue simultaneously drop.
It’s pretty much one giant, collective gasp from the crowd after that.
Me included.
Parents cover their children’s faces and cameras start snapping pictures. Heads turn from the statue to Stranko and back again, laughing harder and harder by the second.
Why?
Because straddling Zippy’s back is a naked and anatomically correct mannequin with Stranko’s face superimposed on its head. Fake-Stranko’s wearing a red-lettered Chaos Club cape and grips Zippy’s soaring wings like something out of a dumb kids movie. If I weren’t so busy wondering how Becca and Benz pulled it off, I’d probably be impressed.
“Just in case you didn’t know,” Benz says, “that’s what’s called writing your name in the wet cement of the universe.”
“And to think you could’ve been a part of this, Max,” Becca says. “It would’ve saved a lot of hassle.”
I have regrets, yeah, but not joining the Chaos Club isn’t one of them. What I do regret is that this fell apart, because right now, at this very moment, is when we were going to reveal who they were. And now that’s not going to happen. I regret not getting to see the looks on their faces the moment they realized they’d been tricked, when all eyes in the crowd fell on them once people discovered the Chaos Club members were right here—and best of all, when Stranko came to take them away. Missing all of that is what I regret. So much potential unrealized. It’s enough to make a sixteen-year-old boy tear up like a little girl.
Then a voice thunders from the speakers.
“Citizens of Asheville, this is Captain Calamity!”
• • •
Stranko and the others on stage look to Wheeler and his friend at the soundboard, but both are pantomiming confusion, frantically twisting knobs and flicking switches like they have no control over what’s happening.
“For too long, this school has been the victim of the evil Chaos Club. Today, their reign of terror comes to an end. Please direct your attention to the movie screen.”
Without anyone at the soundboard doing anything, the documentary picks up where it left off, with The End on the screen. Those words then fade.
Last Night.
“What’s this shit, Max?”
Benz wants to sound menacing, but his voice is way too shaky. Beside him, Becca is wide-eyed and openmouthed.
The truth is I have no answer for him, but I know to play it cool.
“Shh,” I sa
y. “You’re going to miss the big twist ending.”
The screen fills with the eerie green glow of a recording made with the night vision camera Boyd helped Malone place in Zippy’s eye. All anyone can see at the moment is the white curtain shot from inside the statue. Although most people don’t know what they’re looking at, Becca and Benz figure it out.
“You set us up?” Benz asks.
“Just like you did with the water tower,” I say. “And Stranko’s office.”
“We need to get out of here,” Becca says.
“Sure, leave. It’s not going to help though.”
At least I don’t think it will. I’m still not exactly sure what’s going on. Ellie’s real job last night was to turn the camera on. The stupid “Chaos Club Sucks” banner was just a diversion. She succeed in her part, but Wheeler never got to fulfill his role, which was to squeeze out of the base and remove the camera, then edit the footage into the end of the documentary. But he never got to do that because the cops showed before Becca and Benz could appear. So if we failed, what exactly are we about to see?
We don’t have to wait long for the answer. After a few seconds of nothing on the screen, the curtain suddenly ripples, and we hear a rushed, “Come on, hurry up.”
Benz.
“I’m going up,” Becca’s voice says. “Hand me your pieces.”
The camera jiggles a bit as Becca climbs onto the statue’s base.
“Weird,” she says.
“What?”
“This thing isn’t as stable as I thought it’d be.”
No one in the crowd moves for the next two minutes as we hear whispered instructions. Stranko seems the most hypnotized, unblinkingly watching the movie. What’s funny is that nothing is happening on screen—we’re all just looking at the curtain. And while it’s good to hear Benz and Becca’s voices, I need them to step in front of the camera at some point.
“I think I hear a siren,” Benz says after a minute. “Are we good?”
“Yeah,” Becca says. “Let me make sure.”
The camera shakes again, and then, for the first time since the film began, there’s actually something to look at besides the curtain. Becca and Benz, neither of them in masks, step in front of the camera to admire their work.
