League of Strays

by Schulman, L. B.

  “I’m asking for your help. If anyone has heard or seen anything suspicious, please report it to me at once. For those responsible, I urge you to turn yourselves in.” He gestured toward the back of the room.

  Everyone twisted in their seats to gape at the two policemen looking back. Someone dropped a pen. It gathered speed as it rolled down the sloped auditorium. I tried to focus on my breathing. In-out. In-out. In-out. Now would be a bad time to pass out.

  “The extent of your punishment will increase with each hour that Officer Price and Officer Henderson spend on this crime.” Each cop waved stiffly when Mr. Reid mentioned his name.

  Seniors were supposed to do these kinds of things before graduation, I told myself. It was a prank. This would all blow over by the afternoon.

  Mr. Reid muttered “Thank you,” walked up the aisle, and exited the auditorium, the cops behind him. The noise swelled to a roar as kids pushed out of their rows.

  What kind of punishment was he talking about, anyway? Suspension? Payment for damages? Would the cops actually arrest us?

  Stupid people get caught, Kade had said.

  We aren’t stupid, I thought to myself, repeating it like a mantra.

  A few heads in front of me, slick black spikes bobbed up and down. I wanted to push everyone aside to get to Kade. His disregard for Mr. Reid’s dramatics might help me get some perspective.

  Behind me, Greg Jacobs, football god of Kennedy High, said, “If I get my hands on those jerks, I’ll kick them right through the goalposts.”

  I tried to muster some anger. If the orchestra room had been vandalized, the jocks would have yawned.

  But it was a lot more than a few footballs. I couldn’t kid myself.

  Greg’s sneakers scraped against the back of my heels. I twisted around. “Stop it!”

  He and his jock friends looked at me like I’d materialized out of nowhere.

  Behind them, Zoe moved up the aisle, her face three shades lighter than the honey-colored skin on her arms.

  One thing was certain: we’d found something in common besides our loneliness. The fear of getting caught.

  EXCEPT FOR THE OCCASIONAL COP IN THE HALLWAY AND jocks grumbling because they had nothing to do, life returned to normal. Or at least I hoped so.

  Mr. Reid said that the punishment would increase with each hour, and now days had gone by since the assembly. My fear festered and spread, invading my brain. I couldn’t think of anything else. If the police questioned us, who would dissolve under pressure and start talking? Not me, that much I knew. My parents would go ballistic if they found out. Kade wasn’t going to spill anything; the League had been his brainchild in the first place. Richie didn’t sneeze without Kade’s permission. But what about Nora? Miss Perfect might crawl into her parents’ arms to dump her guilt. She seemed desperate for their attention. Zoe was an unknown, too. She might have a hard outer shell, but inside I suspected she was soft as room-temperature butter.

  When the last bell rang, I dumped the contents of my locker into my backpack and flew out the door. Nora had a tutoring job on Thursdays, so by default, I decided to find Zoe. I needed to know how committed she was to the League.

  Slow down, Charlotte. People will stare.

  I spotted the yellow dumpster stuffed with tar paper at the end of the block. I ducked behind it and took out my phone.

  “Hello?” Mom answered.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, hon! How was school? Are you calling me from there? You know they don’t allow cell phones on campus.”

  I sighed. “Not in class, but we can use them everywhere else. Anyway, listen, I’m waiting for this girl to help me with calculus.”

  “Oh, really? Who is she?”

  “Just a girl. Anyway, I’ll be home in an hour.”

  “No. No,” she said. “Don’t rush. Dinner won’t be ready for a while. Maybe you can become friends? See if you have any interests in common—does she play an instrument?”

  A parade of kids walked past the dumpster. Still no sign of Zoe.

  “Oh, there she is! Gotta go, Mom. Bye.” I disconnected the call.

  I didn’t need intricate lies to get out of the house. All I had to do was say the word “friend” and Mom would boot me out the door.

  My skinned knee throbbed as I waited, and now my foot had fallen asleep. As I stomped it on the ground, I caught a blur of military green out of the corner of my eye. I dropped to a crouch and peered around the dumpster.

  Zoe was walking down the middle of the street, kicking a soda can. When she passed by, I flicked the grimy pebbles from my jeans and trailed behind her. I felt like a TV cop, darting behind cars in pursuit of an armed criminal. The ambiguous boundaries of Kade’s “no talking” rule kept me at a distance.

  Zoe slowed in front of a mustard-colored house. Cracked cement scarred the short driveway. Old paint curled from the garage door like banana peels. She stepped over a picket fence that was missing a post and ran up the porch steps. As she fumbled through her backpack for a key, I made my move.

  “Um, Zoe?”

  She whirled around. “Jesus, Charlotte. You almost gave me a heart attack!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Were you following me?”

  “I was on my way to a babysitting job,” I lied.

  “In West Glenwood? Give me a break. People on this street can’t afford babysitters.”

  I tried to laugh, but it came out like a pig squeal. “It’s a few blocks from here.”

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  I shrugged.

  “Come on in.” She disappeared into the house.

  The living room was dark. Shades were drawn over every window. Zoe zigzagged through the room, snapping each one up. I followed her into the world’s smallest kitchen. Dirty dishes filled every inch of counter space. She glanced around, then dove for the empty vodka bottle, stuffing it down into an already full trash can.

  I tried to sound casual. “So, what did you think about that assembly?”

  She opened the refrigerator. “You mean the one a few days ago?”

  As if there’d been another.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  “Do you think Mr. Reid was serious, you know, about hunting us down?”

  “Are you kidding? He’ll be on to something else soon enough.” She held up a yogurt, examined its expiration date, and chucked it into the trash. “Like the cleavage on display with the new cheerleader uniforms. Did you see June Martin today?”

  I shook my head.

  Zoe burst into a song from Carousel, a musical the drama department had performed in the fall. “June is bustin’ out all over!” Her arms swayed in the air. She looked pleased when I laughed.

  “Why didn’t you try out for it?” I asked. “The musical, I mean.”

  She smirked. “Yeah, right. Do you think they’d let me wear combat boots under my petticoat?”

  I shrugged.

  “Hey, what kind of host am I? You must want something to drink. We have wine, vodka, or gin and tonic.” She laughed at my expression. “Never mind. How about some milk and cookies?”

  “Um, no thanks.”

  “No wonder Kade’s got a thing for you. Boys like him get off on your type.”

  My ears perked up. “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the way he keeps touching you. Boys are such idiots. They want the virginal ones, and when they get them, they realize that’s not what they want after all. What they really crave is my type.”

  I frowned, not sure which part irked me more—that my inexperience was as obvious as my height, or that Zoe believed I couldn’t keep Kade’s interest.

  “What makes you think I’m still a virgin?” Had I really just said that?

  She grabbed hold of my shoulders, shaking me like a rattle. “Are you messing with me?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Yeah.”

  She tromped down the hall to a room that looked more like a barracks than a bedr
oom. She was the only person I knew who had khaki and green accent colors.

  “What’s with the army motif?” I asked.

  She flung herself onto the bed and walked her feet up the wall. “I have to protect myself. Zoe Carpenter: one-woman unit.”

  She reached over her head to turn on her iPod. Gospel came out of a pair of cheap blue speakers. Zoe added her own line of harmony. I couldn’t believe it; she sounded great. Soulful, actually.

  “Wow, you’re really good. Have you thought about voice lessons?”

  “YouTube is my teacher,” she said pointedly. “The price is right.”

  I nodded, suddenly embarrassed. Having a conversation with Zoe was like wandering through a minefield.

  “What were you saying about Kade?” I asked.

  “About him liking the innocent type?”

  “No, about him liking me.”

  She grabbed my hand, pulling it to her chest. “I want your body, Charlie!”

  I yanked my hand back, then scooped up the basketball on the floor and threw it at her. It bounced against the wall, rebounding into a picture frame on the bookshelf. I held my breath as the frame clattered to the floor. Luckily, it didn’t break. I picked it up and looked at the couple in the photograph: a black man hung an arm across the bare shoulders of a pretty woman with long blond hair.

  “Um, are they your parents?” I asked.

  Zoe found a handful of darts inside a coffee mug. She hurled them across the room, where they stuck in the wood paneling. “So they tell me. He doesn’t even know I exist.”

  I look at her, confused.

  “Mom never informed him that she was knocked up.”

  Zoe’s dad had a perfect, straight nose, a pouty lower lip, and dark eyebrows with a high arch. I could tell that the photo was really old. “You look like him,” I said.

  “Well, you know what they say. We all look the same.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She rolled onto her side and extended a hand. “Sorry, Charlotte. Seriously.”

  “I’m not like that, Zoe.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” she said. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  From somewhere in the house, a door slammed. “I’m home!”

  “Oh, shit.” Zoe pulled a blanket over her eyes, then yanked it down again. “Leave through the back door.”

  I was confused. “Shouldn’t I be here?”

  Her mom threw the door open and leaned against the door frame. The cascading blond hair was gone, shorn above the ears. “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d bring a little pal home from school.” She drawled out the word “pal,” holding it like a half note.

  “She was just leaving.” Zoe dragged me toward the door.

  The woman’s arm swung down like a gate, a smile pasted to her face. “Why the hurry?”

  A sweet-and-sour stench hit me in the face. It seemed to be coming right through her skin. I thought about the bottles of alcohol Zoe had confiscated in the kitchen.

  “She has to babysit, and I have to make dinner.” Zoe hoisted her mom’s arm up, giving us room to wiggle under. At the end of the hallway, she said, “Mom goes drinking with the girls once a week. They get kind of sloshed every now and then.”

  I gave her a sympathetic smile. I was halfway out the door when she jerked me back and threw her arms around me, crushing me in a bear hug. Caught off guard, I let go after a few seconds, but she held on tight.

  “Don’t tell Kade this, but I’m glad I joined the League. It’s a nice diversion from real life,” she said.

  “I know what you mean.” For the first time, I looked at Zoe and saw a potential friend.

  She pulled back. “I’ve got to go now. I’m really the one with the babysitting job.”

  With an apologetic glance, she closed the door between us.

  AS I SAT IN KADE’S APARTMENT, I WONDERED WHAT IT WAS like to live mostly on your own, without a mother around to nag you about picking up your junk. Did Kade’s uncle even know he had visitors?

  As Kade and Richie threw together snacks in the kitchen, I peeked into the hamper by the bathroom door. Sure enough, not only were his clothes in there, they weren’t inside out. My own dirty clothes seemed to land everywhere but the hamper.

  Over in the lone chair beside the window, Zoe flipped through magazines. When she went to use the bathroom, she left them in a pile on the floor. Within seconds Kade swooped down and returned them to the bookshelf.

  Nora was the last to arrive. Apparently she wasn’t used to doing her homework as fast as the rest of us. Kicking off her shoes, she plopped down in the middle of Kade’s bed. Zoe and Richie joined her. Personally, I didn’t want to sit where Kade slept—and did who knows what else. But the only other choice was the floor. So I parked myself on the edge of the bed and leaned forward like a sprinter waiting for the starting gun.

  Kade brought over a plate of homemade heart-shaped cookies. He circled the bed like a buzzard eyeing his prey, then descended beside me. The hairs on my arms tingled. I reached for a cookie before the sparks set off an explosion.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said.

  I’d forgotten all about it. No reason to remember. Mom and Dad hadn’t mentioned it, maybe because they didn’t want to draw attention to my seriously deficient social life. Or so they thought. I looked around the room at my new friends, my eyes lingering on Kade, the best Valentine’s Day treat I’d had in a long time.

  “They fixed the window in the back of the school,” Richie reported. “All ground-level ones have new locks.”

  “That was fast,” Zoe said.

  “I think we should stay away from the school,” Nora said. “Finish our plans somewhere else.”

  “Good point.” Kade tapped her on the ankle, then left his hand beside her foot. I forced myself to look away. “For now, future plans will take place somewhere else.”

  I hated the way he looked at Nora. Beyond her eyes, into her, like he understood everything about her.

  Kade hooked his elbow around Richie’s neck. “This is your night, my friend. Dave Harper’s next.”

  Richie’s eyes widened. “For real?”

  I heard someone exhale. Was Zoe disappointed that it wasn’t her turn?

  “Any ideas?” Kade asked.

  “Maybe we could steal his clothes during practice,” Nora offered.

  “Are they practicing right now?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kade said. “Dave and those jocks are obsessed.”

  “What if we take their uniforms before they hit the field?” Richie said. “That would be hilarious.”

  Richie Morris had simple needs. That would be enough for him. But Kade said, “Think bigger.”

  “Maybe it should be more like a natural consequence,” I said. My parents liked to throw that term around. It annoyed me to hear it on my own lips, but it did seem to fit the situation.

  Kade raised an eyebrow. “Tell me more, Charlie.”

  The heat of his gaze melted my thoughts into a puddle. I struggled to re-form them. “Oh, um, well, it seems the reason he picked on Richie in the first place was …” I didn’t know how to say it.

  Kade helped. “Because he’s gay. And?”

  “So, maybe we could put a dent in Dave’s lady-killer reputation.”

  Had I just said that? Was it really me coming up with the plan?

  Before I could freak out at having an alter ego, Kade smiled. My reward.

  “You’d better be in a different country when this happens,” Nora warned Richie. “The first person Dave will point to is you.”

  Richie turned to Kade, panic flashing in his eyes. I figured he was upset about being on the receiving end of Dave’s potential wrath, but Kade answered, “Don’t worry. We’ll find a good hiding spot. I won’t let you miss this.”

  Richie broke into a grin.

  For the next half hour, we refined the second revenge plot.

  “How’s this sound?” Nora asked. She held u
p a letter. “Hey, Dave—”

  “His friends call him Big D,” Richie interjected.

  “Hey, Big D,” Nora corrected. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day. What happened between us was incredible. It was my first time. I know I’m not experienced, but I hope it was still good for you. I’ll see you at nine tonight at the post office parking lot …”

  “Put in ‘like we talked about,’” Kade said. “The people who get this letter aren’t going to show it to Dave. They have to think that he knows to show up.”

  I was impressed. Kade, the master of details. It was a good thing he wasn’t a criminal, because he had a real mind for this stuff.

  “Got it,” Nora said. “So now it goes, ‘I’ll see you at nine tonight at the post office parking lot, like we talked about. Wear black. Until then, Michael.’”

  “Did you put tomorrow’s date on it?” Zoe asked.

  “Of course,” Nora said.

  Because Dave Harper didn’t know my voice, I was nominated to perform the next part. I wasn’t sure I could pull off the seductive act, but here was my chance to show Kade a more enticing side of me.

  “What about Caller ID?” asked Zoe.

  “I’m unlisted,” Kade said. “Comes up as ‘Unknown.’”

  My finger trembled as I punched in the number from the school directory.

  “Hello?” He sounded half asleep.

  “Hi,” I whispered. “Is this Dave?”

  “Yeah, who’s this?”

  “If you’d like to know, you’ll have to meet me in the parking lot behind the post office at nine tomorrow night.” I tried not to laugh. It was all so corny. Not to mention embarrassing.

  “Oh, and wear black,” I added.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why?” I mouthed to Nora.

  She rolled her eyes and whispered: “No one can see what you’re doing in the dark!”

  “So no one can see what we’re doing in the dark,” I told him.

  Nora pressed her mouth against Kade’s chest, stifling a laugh. I stared at her, hoping she’d pull away, but she just turned her head, avoiding my eyes.