by Kurt Dinan
“It looks great,” Becca says, holding up a hand to Benz.
He high-fives her and says, “The perfect way to end our time in Assville. Crap, that is a siren.”
The movie freezes on Becca and Benz staring at the camera, the whites of their eyes a creepy green.
Busted.
Somehow.
But the movie isn’t over, because as the picture of Becca and Benz slowly dissolves, a different picture—a much older photo—appears: Stranko getting shit on during his senior picnic.
The crowd’s laughter starts as a chuckle, then rises to full-on howling. I instinctively look to the soundboard and see Malone, Ellie, and Adleta now standing beside Wheeler. They’re all giving me sorry we just couldn’t resist shrugs.
Becca grabs Benz’s arm and starts for the parking lot.
“Let’s go,” she says.
“You’re dead, Cobb,” he says over his shoulder.
I don’t say anything.
Heist Rule #22: Gloating’s for amateurs.
Besides, with the Chaos Club exposed, it’s time for my entry in the prank off.
• • •
I kneel beside the base of the statue and slide open a small door. I quickly turn the red-handled valve and step away before anyone notices me. Seconds later, a loud hiss erupts from the statue. The noise stops Becca and Benz’s escape, and they come back to where I’m standing. People back away from the statue like this might somehow be part of the prank, as if the Chaos Club is now in the poisonous gas business.
They’re both right and wrong.
Right in that the hiss is a gas.
Wrong in that it’s not poisonous.
Because as even Wheeler can tell you, helium isn’t poisonous, but it is excellent for achieving liftoff.
The side panels of the statue’s base pop off as the weather balloons inside inflate and fight for room to expand. Then ten balloons permanently borrowed from Mrs. Hansen’s science room burst from the statue’s base and head for the sky. They lift ten feet into the air before the ropes attached to the statue’s base slow them down. Painted on each balloon for everyone in Asheville to see: The Water Tower 5.
At the foot of the stage, the members of my crew stand gaping at me. None of them knew about the weather balloons.
It’s Heist Rule # 23: Always know more than everyone else.
It takes less than a minute for the balloons to inflate to their maximum level, but then Zippy breaks from his base and rises into the air, first slowly, then more quickly, until he’s rocketing skyward.
Everyone—Stranko, Mrs. B, my crew, the hundreds of town citizens, even Benz and Becca—watches Zippy take flight, ridden by a naked Fake-Stranko.
It’s epic.
It’s art.
It’s glorious.
I step up to Becca and Benz, their heads staring skyward like everyone else here.
Screw no gloating.
“No, Jeff,” I say, “that’s how you write your name in the wet cement of the universe.”
Chapter 23
The school conference room is a circus car jammed floor to ceiling with clowns of all ages. Representing Asheville are Officer Hale, Mrs. B, Mayor Hite, and, with hate in his eyes, Stranko. Benz’s and Becca’s parents are seated beside their criminal children, and Ellie and I are here with our parents after voluntarily giving ourselves up. The only players not present are the three other members of the Water Tower Five, and I’m not about to pull them into this.
“Okay, Max,” Mrs. B says. “Let’s hear it.”
Look, I wholeheartedly believe there’s a time in your life when you have to tell the truth. This, however, is not one of those times.
“None of you believed me when I said I’d been set up,” I say. “I had to prove to everyone that I wasn’t in the Chaos Club, and the only way to do that was to expose them.”
“By taking part in felony vandalism?” Stranko says.
“Let Max speak, please,” Mrs. B says.
“Elaine, that statue was worth more than $25,000, and those kids—”
“It wasn’t the real statue,” I say.
Everyone’s mouths drop open like they’re on wires I just yanked.
“Boyd created a fake statue for me, identical to the first but hollow inside. The whole thing barely weighs thirty pounds.”
I hate not giving Malone credit for all her hard work in replicating the original statue, but something tells me she’ll be getting lots of recognition for her art in her lifetime.
“So where’s the real statue?” Mayor Hite asks.
Ellie’s standing near the window and taps the glass.
“It’s being installed right now,” she says.
Everyone crowds the window where, outside, hundreds of people are cheering Boyd and Mr. Jessup as they transfer Zippy to his rightful perch. The revelation that the actual Zippy statue isn’t halfway to Mars lightens the air in the room considerably, which is nice because I haven’t started lying yet.
“We installed a camera in the eagle’s eye, which directly transferred the video to my phone,” I say.
That’s Lie #1.
Because, yes, there was a camera in the statue, but Ellie turned it on when she entered the curtains and Wheeler removed the camera once Becca and Benz were gone. At least that was the original plan. I still have no idea what exactly happened after things fell apart last night.
“Then I added the footage of Jeff and Becca to the end of my movie,” Ellie says.
“And today I used a remote to turn the projector back on,” I say.
That’s Lie #2.
“A remote?” Stranko says skeptically.
“Well, if you want to be technical, a remote app.”
Which is Lie #3.
Here’s a quick tip: If you’re ever talking to an adult and need a fast explanation for something unexplainable, say you did it with an app. Adults are awesomely ignorant when it comes to technology.
“Really, we didn’t do anything special,” I say. “We set up a camera, filmed the Chaos Club, and showed it today. Simple.”
This Lie #4.
“That’s not true,” Benz says. “They were there at the school last night. We saw them.”
“Just a moment, Jeffrey. You’ll get a chance to speak,” Mrs. B says, then turns to me. “If what you’re saying is true, Max, why wouldn’t you come to us instead of going through with this elaborate display?”
Great question.
Time for my ace in the hole.
“I tried,” I say. “I went to Mr. Stranko’s office to tell him I was worried the Chaos Club was going to do something at the celebration, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Mrs. B looks up at a stunned Stranko.
“Is this true?”
“Well…” Stranko says stalling. “He did come by, but I thought he was setting me up somehow.”
“Setting you up how?” Dad says.
Stranko’s getting whiter by the second.
“I thought he was trying to trick me,” he says. “Don’t forget that someone did lock me in the loading dock. And on the water tower. If they didn’t do it, then who did?”
“Our son came to you with this concern beforehand and you ignored him?” Mom says.
“He screamed at me to get out,” I say. “I couldn’t get him to believe me, so I had to do something.”
Stranko’s on the ropes, but Mrs. B saves him.
“We’re getting off track,” she says. “What I was getting at before is this: Why would you have a fake statue installed and then launch it like that? Why not film the Chaos Club some other way that doesn’t involve breaking a dozen FAA laws?”
“We talked about that, Mrs. B,” Ellie says, “but we really didn’t know what the Chaos Club was going to do to the statue. You’ve seen their
pranks. We were afraid they would do permanent damage, and we didn’t want that to happen.”
By the way Stranko’s grinding his teeth, it’s clear he’s not believing any of this, but he has no ammo. Any suspicion he has can be explained away by Chaos Club involvement. He knows it, and I know it.
Mrs. B asks a few other detail-y questions that I answer mostly with lies to protect the others. Eventually, she says to Becca and Benz, “So now it’s your turn. What would you like to add to this?”
For the last ten minutes, Benz’s been squirming hard in his seat, his body twitching as he fought to keep quiet. Now that he’s allowed to tell his side, he vomits it all out in a shout while jabbing a finger at me.
“They’re both lying! We saw them last night! They trapped Hale in his car! And Stranko on the tower!”
“And there were others too,” Becca says, not as crazed but still as pointed. “It wasn’t just them. I don’t know who else, but I one hundred percent saw Ellie and Max there.”
“That’s not true, Mrs. B,” Ellie says.
“Which part?”
“Every part. None of it’s true. Max and I were nowhere near the school last night.”
“Didn’t you say you were going to a movie?” Ellie’s mom says.
“Yes,” Ellie says, her voice trembling a bit, “but that’s not what we did.”
“What do you mean?”
Ellie stares at her hands.
“Ellie?”
When she looks up, her eyes are wet, and she’s blushing. A baseball-sized knot forms in my throat. Ellie’s gone completely off script.
“I don’t want to say anything with all these people here, but we weren’t there. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t understand,” Ellie’s mom says.
Ellie looks around the room like she wants to run away. She lets out big deflating sigh.
“We were at the baseball fields having sex. We didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. So that’s how I know we weren’t at the school.”
Wait, what?
Tears trickle down Ellie’s cheeks. She turns away, wiping her eyes with her palms. The entire room is silent, and now it’s not just Ellie who’s feeling awkward—it’s every single one of us. I understand her reasoning, but did she really have to pull the Max and I had sex card? I mean, it certainly worked—no one would dare question her story after those dramatics—but it’s sure going to make for some awkward conversations with our parents later.
“Do you have anything else?” Mrs. B says to Becca and Benz. “Neither of you appear to deny vandalizing the statue.”
It’s one of those courtroom drama moments you see in movies where everyone is waiting for the defendant to lose control and confess his crimes. But neither Becca nor Benz is talking because they know they’re trapped. The video eliminates any realistic denial. They’re busted dead to rights. I wonder if there will be a school-wide field trip to attend their execution at the state penitentiary. The tension in the room continues to rise as everyone stares at Becca and Benz, waiting for some sort of response. Just as I don’t think the rising pressure will splinter the windows, there’s a knock at the door. Hale looks to Mrs. B for approval before opening it.
It’s Mr. Watson.
“I think I can be some help,” he says.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Stranko says. “If we need character witnesses, we’ll let you know.”
“Do yourself a favor and keep your mouth closed, Dwayne. I’m about to give you what you’ve wanted for years.”
Watson crosses the room and stands behind Becca and Benz, putting his hands on both of their shoulders.
He says, “I’ll save you lots of trouble here, Elaine. These students aren’t the Chaos Club. I am.”
• • •
Watson might as well have hit all of us with sledgehammers.
“I confess to all of it,” Watson says. “The statue, the cows on the roof, Stranko’s My Little Pony–pink office, everything going back all those years. If anyone is to be punished, it should be me. I’m the guilty one.”
“You want us to seriously believe you single-handedly carried out those pranks?” Stranko says.
“Well, of course not, Dwayne. Don’t be ridiculous. I have my soldiers, but they’re only following my orders. I suppose one could argue they have free will and could’ve chosen not to join when I invited them, but teenagers are rebellious by nature, and an opportunity like this is just too tempting. Trust me, I should know. I’ve been directing their pranks for almost forty years now, even back to when you were a student and you were one of the many victims covered in bird droppings.”
“Why would you do all that?” Hale asks.
“Let’s just say I believe the world is a much more interesting place with a little chaos thrown in. Admittedly though, things got out of control this year. I apologize for that.”
“You’re finished here,” Stranko says smugly. “I’m going to make sure you’re not only fired but also—”
Mrs. B holds up a hand.
“There will be plenty of time to discuss that later,” she says. “Right now, we need to deal with the issue at hand, these students.”
“Correct,” Mr. Watson says, “and I’m here to say they’re only guilty of following my directions.”
“And these are your only two”—and here Stranko makes quote fingers in the air—“soldiers this year?”
Watson nods.
“Not Max?” my mom says.
“No, not Max, although from what I’ve seen today, he would’ve been an excellent addition,” Watson says and smiles at me. “Mr. Benz and Ms. Yancey were my two club members this year, and they served me well. But I took advantage of their youth, and it’s brought them all this trouble. So if you’re going to blame anyone, Elaine, blame me. I talked them into it, and they couldn’t resist.”
Becca says, “That’s not true. We—”
Watson cuts her off. “You’re a kind soul, Becca, but there’s no need to defend me.”
Mrs. B says, “John, I think this is a discussion we should finish later, maybe when you have union representation with you.”
“I understand, Elaine. I apologize for the trouble I’ve helped cause today. But we certainly had some fun in our years, didn’t we?”
They exchange smiles before Watson leaves the room. He doesn’t walk like someone who’s probably just lost the job he’s had for the last thirty-whatever years, but he has, and I’m the reason for that. Way to go, Max.
• • •
“So what does this mean for the kids?” Becca’s mom says.
“Yeah, you heard that teacher,” Mrs. Benz says. “He manipulated those kids. They didn’t have a choice. Those were his words, not mine.”
“Mom, it wasn’t like that,” younger Benz says.
“Shut the hell up, Jeffrey.”
“But—”
“You heard your mother,” Mr. Benz says. “Keep quiet.”
Benz looks down at the table and doesn’t say anything else. I guess Adleta’s not the only kid in town with idiots for parents. I should consider myself lucky. Mrs. B sighs as she leans back in her chair. I’m pretty sure it’s dealing with moments like this that makes retirement pretty appealing.
She says, “I think that’s enough drama for one day. No actual harm’s been done, and considering Mr. Watson’s revelation, I see no point in furthering the bloodshed. So unless anyone has something to add, I think all of you can go.”
Wow.
Way to go, Mrs. B—a verdict that’s simple, to the point, and agreed upon by everyone in the room.
Minus Stranko.
“Typical,” he says.
“Excuse me?” Mrs. B says. There’s a dangerous edge to her voice that I’ve never heard before. It gives me actual goose bumps.
“I said it’s typical,” Stranko says. “I’ve watched it for years—the way we coddle these kids, excusing their bad behavior, which does nothing but lead to more bad behavior. We’ve fostered an environment here where a group like the Chaos Club is cheered for almost four decades, and the result is an embarrassment like what happened out there today.”
Mrs. B’s face doesn’t change, but she gives a slight nod.
“Thank you for your opinion, Mr. Stranko.”
“This is precisely why I accepted the principalship in St. Louis. Like I told you the other day, as much as I love this district, I can’t continue working in a building with such little discipline. It goes against everything I hold sacred.”
Holy shit! I want to open the window like Scrooge on Christmas morning and shout to everyone below that our long, school-wide nightmare is ending.
Mrs. B says, “Well, I’ll tell you now like I told you then, we wish you only the best of luck. You’ll be missed.”
By no one, I think.
Chapter 24
Okay, first off, what the hell just happened?” I say to my team. “We were all there last night when it fell apart. So how did it all magically work out? And why didn’t any of you tell me?”
The five of us are debriefing in the lobby while the adults mill around the conference room, where they’re likely blaming our unruliness on video games or the inability to legally pistol-whip students. The rest of the lobby is empty, and that’s a good thing because my questions are met with laughter. And not just laughter but the worst kind of laughter: mocking laughter.
“Oooh, can I tell him?” Ellie says to the others. “Please?”
“Absolutely,” Malone says. “It was your idea.”
Ellie takes my hand and goes all doe-eyed, her voice exaggeratingly sweet.
“Max, remember when we all agreed to the prank off rules?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember what I said would happen to the loser?”
My stomach sinks.
“Do you?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
