The Mystery of the Cyber Bully

by Marty Chan

  “Put my hands in there . . . how . . . maybe you should do it.” Remi steered her toward me.

  My face grew warm as I looked at the skinny pants, wondering how to get my hand inside without touching our suspect’s thigh.

  “Empty your pockets,” I said. “Or else we’ll get the police to do it.”

  She pouted, looking to the crowd for support, but they were as curious as I was to see what was in her pockets. We were an audience waiting for the magician to produce a rabbit out of her hat, or in this case, a bottle of nail polish from her pocket. Judging by Samantha’s frosty glare, she wanted to make us disappear.

  “Fine,” she said. “Let go of me.”

  Remi reluctantly loosened his grip. She reached into her front pockets and turned them inside out. Empty. The magic act was going down the tubes, but I wasn’t going to leave until Samantha produced something.

  “Back pockets,” I barked.

  She turned around, lifted the back of her T-shirt and showed me the butt of her dark jeans. No back pockets. Maybe she was a real magician. Remi nudged my ribs.

  “I bet she threw the bottle between the houses,” he suggested.

  I turned to the crowd. “Can you help us find a bottle of pink nail polish? It might be in your backyards.”

  The crowd split off to search for the stolen bottle, while Remi and I stood guard over our suspect in case she pulled a disappearing act. Samantha said nothing. If this were one of our favourite cop shows, she was exercising her right to remain silent.

  “We’re going to find the bottle,” I said. “You might as well confess now. We’ll go easier on you if you do.”

  Remi shook his head. “No way. We’re going to throw the book at her. Call her parents. Call the cops. Maybe even call the Bouvier Herald. I bet we could get a front-page story out of this.”

  Like the many police shows we watched, my friend was playing bad cop to my good cop.

  “Take it easy, Remi,” I said. “This is her first offense.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Your dad should make an example out of her.” He then launched into a talk about how shoplifting was going to lead to worse crimes and her life would be ruined. “It’s a bottle of nail polish today, but next thing you know, you’re stealing an iPod or a set of speakers. Then you’re breaking into old ladies’ homes so you can kidnap their cats and hold them for ransom.”

  Samantha folded her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes.

  I backed up my partner. “Doesn’t matter, Remi. She won’t get that far. When my dad presses charges, she’ll have a permanent police record. That means everyone will know she’s a criminal. She’ll never be able to live it down.”

  She looked down at the ground, refusing to make eye contact. We had her. It was just a matter of time before she talked.

  “Confess now and we’ll go easy on you,” I said.

  “Don’t talk and we’ll throw the book at you,” Remi threatened.

  “That’s enough!” boomed my dad. He stood behind us, his hands on his hips and the wisps of his remaining hair blowing in the breeze. “You two are supposed to be working.”

  “But she stole some nail polish,” I said.

  Remi nodded. “Are you going to press charges, Mr. Chan?”

  “You have no proof,” Samantha said, daring us with her narrow eyes.

  “Did anyone find the bottle?” I yelled.

  No one answered. Not a single spectator returned.

  “Let her go,” Dad said.

  “But she’s guilty,” I pleaded.

  Samantha shrugged. “All I wanted was to get some mashed-potato mix for my mom.”

  “I know she stole something,” I said. “I can prove she’s a thief.”

  “Me? I’m innocent.” She flashed a sweet smile that made me want to vomit.

  Dad turned to me. “Back to the store,” he said, his voice low and menacing. I knew he meant business.

  “Yes, Dad,” I said and started to turn toward the store.

  Just as I turned, I spotted Samantha’s smug grin, but I said nothing. Remi shuffled behind us. When we were out of earshot, he leaned forward. “Marty, are you sure she took the nail polish?”

  “I know when someone’s guilty,” I whispered.

  “Tell your friend to go home,” Dad barked. “We not need him.”

  “How about tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Not any more. He’s fired.”

  Remi started to say something, but Dad grabbed my arm and pulled me away like he was hauling a crying toddler away from a toy box. As I was being dragged away from my best friend, all I could think was that this was all Samantha’s fault.

  CHAPTER THREE

  All night, I tossed and turned thinking about how Samantha pulled off the theft, and I realized that the only person who could tell me was her. The trick was to get her to talk and I had a plan. In the morning, Remi was waiting for me by the school equipment shed, our detective office. He shot rocks at the wooden door with his hockey stick.

  “Sorry about my dad,” I said. “He kind of overreacted yesterday.”

  He took another shot. “No kidding. I was used to your mom yelling at me, but not him.”

  “I think we can get you back in the store.”

  He rested his hands on top of the hockey stick. “How?”

  “We need Samantha’s confession.”

  Remi sighed, and lined up another rock for a shot. “We’d have a better chance of getting you on the Oilers’ starting line.”

  “That’s why we need an undercover agent.”

  He lined up another shot. The rock pinged off the centre of the shed door, leaving a nick in the wood.

  “Remember how the Mounties went undercover to catch the accomplice to that bank robbery in Edmonton last year? They posed as criminals and infiltrated the bike gang. Then they got one of the real bikers to spill the beans. We need someone to trick Samantha into confessing.”

  Remi scooped a rock up on the end of his stick and balanced it in the air. “Good idea. Who do you have in mind?”

  “Follow me.”

  I headed toward the schoolyard. Grade three students were crawling over the bright green playground equipment like flies on mouldy bread. Near the school building, a grade five boy dangled a dead mouse in front of a group of grade five girls. He chased the girls around while he swung the mouse by the tail like a hypnotist’s watch. Their shrieks and his laughter filled the air until he lost the grip on the mouse’s tail and it smacked him in the face. Then, he started to shriek as shrilly as the girls he had chased. He ran into the school trying to brush the mouse germs off his cheeks.

  Meanwhile, the grade six students leaned against the school’s brick wall and acted too cool for kiddie games. A few of the girls texted on their cell phones — probably to each other since cell phones were not allowed in class. A couple of guys were playing Nintendo DS — another device not allowed in class. Our principal only wanted us to use the ancient machines in the library and the computer, most likely because he could monitor what we were doing on them, while he couldn’t see what kids did on their cell phones.

  A few guys snickered at mouse boy as he squealed past them. The dead mouse was most likely one of the family of mice that had taken over the school and fell victim to the custodian’s rat poison. Scrawny Ben Winston eyed another corpse on the cement pad, then glanced at the group of texting grade six girls and inched closer to the furry corpse.

  Away from the girls, Trina Brewster leaned against the wall, reading a thick book. It was probably something about vampires, her favourite subject. Her long blonde hair was pulled back with a black clip. She stood a head taller than most of the boys, which was not the case last year. Her growth spurt over the summer had made her a prime candidate to become a basketball star if it weren’t for the fact that she hated basketball. She liked the contact sport of hockey. I had the bruises from our street hockey games to prove it. She could take care of herself in any situation, and that made her the perf
ect undercover agent.

  As soon as she spotted us, her freckled face lit up. She broke away from the wall. The breeze swirled around her yellow dress, which fluttered up enough to show off the dirty jeans she wore underneath. I was pretty sure that by the end of the day, the dress would be just as messy as her pants. As I watched her walk toward me, the moisture left my mouth and found a new escape route in my armpits. I like-liked her and I knew she had like-liked me, but for the sake of our friendship with Remi, who also like-liked her, we agreed to just be friends. If only my heart went along with my head. I gulped, trying to force my feelings from hiccupping to the surface.

  “Trina, you’re never going to guess what happened,” I said.

  “I caught a shoplifter,” Remi blurted.

  “We caught a shoplifter,” I corrected.

  “But I did the hard part. She was a runner.”

  “I was the one who cut her off,” I argued. “And I almost got eaten by a rabid pit bull during the chase.”

  “Really? You didn’t tell me that.”

  “All true.”

  “Well, I was the one who tackled her and I have the scratches to prove it.”

  “You were too chicken to search her pockets,” I said.

  “I didn’t see you rushing to put your hand in her pants.”

  “I would have.”

  “Would not.”

  “Hel-lo,” Trina cut us off. “I’d like to hear the story sometime this week. Does one of you bubbleheads want to tell me, or do I have to read it in the Bouvier Herald?”

  I recounted the crime. Remi interjected with comments about how he tackled Samantha. I knew he was trying to impress Trina. I explained that we didn’t have evidence, and my dad fired Remi for fooling around on the job. She patted Remi’s arm in sympathy. A pang of jealousy jabbed beneath my ribs.

  “We’re pretty sure Samantha did it,” I said. “We just have to get her to confess. That’s where you come in, Trina.”

  She bit her lower lip and looked away.

  “What’s wrong?” Remi asked. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”

  “Samantha and I used to be friends,” she said. “Are you sure she stole the nail polish? Maybe she moved the bottle to a different shelf.”

  I shook my head. “She took off when we chased after her. If she didn’t take anything, why would she run?”

  “I feel like I’d be betraying a friend.”

  Remi moved closer. “You two haven’t talked in over a year.”

  “I didn’t say she was my best friend, but I still don’t like to rat out anyone.”

  He whispered. “I hate rats too, but she stole from Marty’s store.”

  I nodded. “No friend of yours would ever do that, Trina. You can’t let her get away with stealing from my dad.”

  Trina thought for a minute, then said, “She can’t know I had anything to do with it. You promise?”

  I nodded. “That’s why it’s called undercover work.”

  She scrunched her dress in her right hand as she looked at the two of us. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  “Okay, let’s get started,” Remi said, clapping his hands together.

  “Hel-lo, I can’t go up to her and say, ‘I know we haven’t said two words to each other in a year, but let’s be BFF’ I have to give her a reason to trust me.”

  “Trina’s right,” I said. “Start slow and work your way into her trust. That’s the way the cops do it on TV.”

  Remi grumbled, “Fine, fine, but let’s get started now.”

  “Where is she?” Trina asked.

  We scanned the wall where only scrawny Ben lingered near the dead mouse. Everyone else was gathered at the far end. There was no more interest in cell phones or Nintendo games.

  “I think I see her,” Remi said. “Other side of the crowd.”

  Trina walked toward the commotion. The last of the kids left the wall and joined the mob. Curiosity was like the flu — able to spread quickly. Remi and I caught the fever and headed over to see what the fuss was about. In the middle of the crowd, Nathan Black instructed Eric Johnson and Kennedy Anderson to hold a wooden board between them. The two boys pushed their bellies into the board and gripped the plank with their hands, while the curly haired Nathan made a slow-motion chop action at the board like he was practicing his aim. The kids were mesmerized as Nathan repeated the motion as if he were underwater.

  He was a new kid at school, but he didn’t suffer from any of the shyness that came with most new kids. He was always calling people by their last name as if he didn’t have time to learn their first names. His family moved to Bouvier at the start of school. He announced in the first day of class that he was a karate expert. Eric Johnson didn’t believe him, so the next day Nathan brought his black belt to class. To me, it looked like a bathrobe belt, but Nathan claimed the dark cloth made him a karate expert. The following week, he brought a trophy to school and claimed the silver-plated karate figurine on the top of the trophy should have been gold, because he won first place. There was no name on the trophy. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth. He assumed that I was also a master of the martial arts. When I told him I wasn’t, he refused to believe me, claiming martial arts were something in my genes.

  The stocky dark-haired boy surveyed his audience, then he raised his hand, showing off a white bandage wrapped around his palm. The crowd let out a collective “ooo.”

  “A word of warning to you all. I can do this because I trained at my father’s dojo. It takes normal people years of training to do this, but my dad said I’m special.”

  The kids oohed and aahed. At the other end of the group, Trina edged beside our suspect. She tugged on her earlobe, signalling she was about to make contact. I tugged on my earlobe and scratched my armpit, which meant go ahead.

  “Ahem . . . it seems the master has something to say,” Nathan said, who had spotted me in mid-scratch. “Do you have thoughts on how you would break the board?”

  Everyone gawked at me. Nathan narrowed his gaze. Behind him, beanpole Eric struggled to hold the board while pudgy Kennedy wheezed from the effort of holding his end.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I said, shrinking behind Remi.

  Trina piped up, “He was making fun of you. I overheard him earlier.”

  I gaped at her, my jaw dropping. Beside her, Samantha smirked. The kids let out a collective “ooo”. Nathan’s nostrils flared wide open.

  Remi rushed to my defence. “Marty was talking about my last hockey game.”

  Trina grimaced and then launched into another attack. “I heard Marty say that black belts are only good for holding your pants up.”

  The kids gasped. Nathan clenched his fists and took a step forward. Trina whispered in Samantha’s ear and got a harsh laugh in response. She was using me as a way to get closer to our suspect. I hadn’t expected her tactics would involve getting me beaten to a pulp.

  “Do you have any more words of wisdom for me, Chan?” he asked, gritting his teeth.

  “Ah . . . ah . . . a true warrior fights himself when he loses control of his feelings,” I said.

  I recalled a similar lesson being taught in a kung-fu movie I saw a few months ago. I hoped Nathan had seen the same movie. His eyes went wide with anger, but he stopped.

  “And when you fight yourself, you always lose,” Remi added, driving home the point.

  Nathan said, “If the master is done with his games, I’d like to continue.”

  I kept quiet.

  He returned to the board. He pressed his hands together in a praying position and closed his eyes. “One . . . two . . . three . . . the flower petals are opening in spring. Four . . . five . . . six . . . the caterpillar turns into a butterfly . . . seven . . . eight . . . kittens in a sunbeam . . . ”

  Trina interrupted, “Nathan, let Marty break the board if he thinks he’s so good.”

  Beside her, Samantha snickered and nudged Trina with her shoulder. Trina was making headway, and I had to help he
r get in tight with our suspect.

  “Why don’t you break the board, Trina?” I said. “All you’d have to do is step on it with your big clown feet.”

  Samantha looked down at Trina’s shoes. The kids snickered.

  Kennedy whined, “Will someone show us how to break this board so I don’t have to hold it any longer?” Behind his thick glasses, his green eyes were giant marbles. His spiky brown hair reminded me of a pudgy version of Sonic the Hedgehog.

  “I’m not breaking anything,” I said. “It’s just a stupid board.”

  Nathan opened his eyes. “Chan, please respect those of us who embrace your culture.”

  “Karate is Japanese,” Remi said, “and Marty is Chinese.”

  “Same difference.”

  Eric, still holding the board, shouted, “Yeah, they all look alike.”

  “No, they don’t,” Remi said, standing up for me.

  No one heard him over the kids’ laughter. I hated being the butt of jokes, because it reminded me of how hard it was to fit in. I fired back, “Nathan, everyone knows the only reason why you have a black belt is because your father owns the dojo.”

  The kids let out an eager gasp. He ground his foot into the pavement, grinding a few pebbles under his sneakers. “No one insults my father’s dojo. Apologize now.”

  A hush fell over everyone. Their waiting stares reminded me of basketball fans watching a free throw. The ball bounced off the rim and hit the backboard then circled the rim. Everyone waited for the ball to fall through the hoop and they waited for Nathan’s reaction. He headed toward me. I backpedalled until my back slammed against the wall. I pushed my back against the bricks, hoping the nuns who once used the school as their convent had built a secret entrance in the wall, but all I felt was the hard surface and some wads of gum. I was pretty sure I was going to become one of those crushed wads.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  According to my grade six teacher, Ms. Nolan, a Spanish matador tested his courage by facing down a bull in an arena. With only a bright red cape, the matador stood cape-to-horns against the snorting creature. The giant beast tried to rip the cape and the matador to shreds. Nathan was the bull and I was the matador.