Her dad closing the trunk and driving away.
CHAPTER 75
Dutch
1. Get up
2. Go to school
3. Hope that he and his friends—that was still how he thought of them—would make up
4. If they didn’t, he would say something to them. He could do that now
“How did everything go with your friends last night?” Gramps asked at the kitchen table. He poured water into the jug of milk to make it last longer. “Did anyone come?”
Dutch tried to ignore the fact that his grandpa had asked him all of this in the car last night after the art show. “It went fine, I guess,” Dutch repeated. “We actually didn’t talk much, but it seems better.”
He hoped so.
They hadn’t really gotten the chance to talk at all. But some things, he was coming to think, didn’t need to be said out loud.
Still, Dutch wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry,” Gramps said, interrupting his thoughts. “Good old-fashioned conflict is good for you. It’ll make you all closer. Just give it time.”
“Thanks, Gramps.”
His grandpa sat down across from him at the table and sighed. “I already told you that, didn’t I?”
Dutch nodded and smiled. “Yep, but that’s all right. It’s good to hear things more than once.”
“And I already talked to you about fighting? About how I’m proud you stood up for someone but be smart about things like that?”
“Yeah.”
Dutch shrugged into his coat and looked at the clock on the stove. He still had some time, but maybe he’d go to the bus stop a little early. He stood up. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Gramps. The doctor said there would be good days and bad, remember.”
His grandpa gave him a smile. “Yeah, I remember that much.” He stood up and wrapped Dutch in a hug. “Well, I’m proud of you, Dutch. And I love you. Remember that, okay?”
Dutch nodded. “I will. I love you, too.”
And then he stepped outside and walked to the bus.
But things between he and his friends didn’t seem better when he got to school. He didn’t see Adam or Perk, but the others moved through the sea of kids opening and closing lockers like they had before. No one looked up at him. No one noticed. They all acted in an “I’m fine” sort of way.
In homeroom, he sat still, looking straight ahead.
But when the morning announcements crackled over the loudspeaker, things changed.
“Good morning, Anderson Middle School,” Hill said too-loud over the loudspeaker.
Dutch wished that Jared was still in charge of morning announcements—everyone liked his corny jokes, music, and top ten lists every Friday. But when he had got too popular, Hill had taken over.
Hill blathered on and on, reading off the announcements of lost and found and after-school activities in his monotone, stilted sort of way.
“One last thing: to the students involved in the incident at the garage—and you know who you are.”
What?
Dutch sat up, his heart racing. His face squinted up a few times in a row—he couldn’t help it.
“Uh, to those students, we want to apologize for the incident and say that we hope you will all continue to be involved in the project. Friends stick together. And see, we can even make this egotistical Neanderthal say whatever we want. Hill eats poop for breakfast.” There was a pause, then Hill continued, not realizing what he had just said. “Have a great day of learning.”
The loudspeaker clicked off.
Everyone in Dutch’s homeroom burst into laughter. His teacher called down to the office.
Dutch looked around and chuckled.
They were ready to go.
CHAPTER 76
Adam
Adam had never sat with Ray or Pearl or Dutch at lunch before.
Until today.
Dutch was the first to walk over and set down his tray. Then Pearl with her bag lunch and chocolate milk, and finally Ray stood by them, lunch tray in hand.
“Take a seat, Ray,” Adam said.
Pearl stuck the straw in her milk container. “So what’s the plan?”
Adam leaned forward, and wiped his palms on his jeans. He needed to say it. “Before we get into all that, I just want to say … I was a pretty big jerk the other night. I guess I just—” He shrugged. “I don’t know, so yeah, sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Pearl said. She smiled. “You were being a jerk, but I know I was out of it, too. I’m not sure if you heard Hill say something about my parents splitting up. Well, they did. My dad moved out. So, I guess you could say I wasn’t really in the best mood.” She let out a shaky breath, then took a long sip on her straw.
“Whoa, that’s rough. I’m … really sorry.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, Pearl.”
“Hill’s such a jerk.”
She nodded. “Thanks, guys.”
Dutch squinted. “Pearl’s right. I was sort of out of it, too. I told Pearl, but you guys were busy with the lifts. My grandpa has the beginnings of dementia, so he’s forgetting things a lot.”
Adam remembered talking with Dutch’s grandpa that night. He seemed perfectly normal. But obviously he wasn’t. That was a scary thought.
“Well,” Perk said. He smiled and gave a chuckle, but Adam watched as his face grew serious. “Since we’re all baring our souls here, I forgot Tommy after school the other day. I hate that I did. I hate myself that I did.”
“Perk, I’m sure he forgives you. It was a mistake,” Pearl said.
He ate a salt and vinegar chip. “Yeah. Still.”
“Ray,” Adam said, saving Perk from the attention. “Do you want to bare your soul at all?”
“No, I’m good. I just want to figure out what to do to get the Parmars back.”
Adam leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. “So you wouldn’t believe what we found on Parmar’s computer. It’s bad. We need ideas and we need them fast.”
CHAPTER 77
Perk
“What did you find out?” Ray asked.
Perk looked over at Adam. “Do you want to tell them?”
“After you.” Adam gestured for him to go ahead.
He smiled and sighed, feeling as if he’d been holding his breath for too long. He was surrounded by his friends again. “Well, it turns out that Parmar and some other guy have been taking money out of the budget for the special ed program. A little here, a little there.”
“What?” Pearl said. “You mean stealing money?”
Perk grimaced. “I think he’d probably call it ‘moving things around.’ But yes, stealing.”
No one continued to eat and no one spoke.
That was the reaction he had hoped for—three other people, besides he and Adam, who were close to boiling over.
“Well, we need to tell someone,” Dutch said.
Adam nodded. “We could. Or—”
Perk broke in. “We get creative and find a way to get the money back.”
CHAPTER 78
Ray
Ray couldn’t believe it.
Parmar was low, he’d known that for a while.
But this took low and gave it a new definition.
Still, besides telling someone about it, what were they going to do and how would that involve his car?
Ray took a bite of his sandwich. Parmar’s car. His 1966 Shelby Cobra. Think. Think. Parmar’s car.
And then he had it.
“We sell his car,” Ray said.
Everyone turned to him.
“What do you mean?” Dutch asked. “Do you know what it’s worth?”
Adam grinned. “I’m sure he does. Keep going, Ray.”
Ray nodded. “We’ve seen his car a lot in the shop for waxing or other fix-ups. My dad was talking about it once. If I remember it right, it’s worth about six hundred thousand dollars.”
Perk dropped his fork. “What? Are you serious?”
>
“Six hundred thousand dollars?” Pearl echoed.
“Yeah. They’re vintage cars and his is in really good condition.” He stopped. “But how could we do it?”
“He could say it was a mistake and the whole thing will backfire.”
“We could threaten him?” Dutch said. “Sort of like blackmail.”
Adam shook his head. “That’s good, but it leaves too much of a trail back to us.” He tapped a carrot stick on the table. “Keep thinking, guys. This is good.”
What would possibly make Parmar want to sell or give up his car? Nothing. He practically worshipped that car. “The main thing is that we’re able to get the money to the special ed. program,” Ray said aloud. “So Parmar needs to be involved for it to work.”
CHAPTER 79
Pearl
“Wait,” Pearl said. She smiled. Resting her mind on something other than her mom and dad, her two houses, two bedrooms, two lives, was a welcome relief. And the idea playing on repeat in her head just might work. “What if we—or Parmar—auction off his car?”
“How would that be different?” Dutch asked. “And why would Parmar auction off his own car?”
But Perk nodded. “Keep going.”
“Well, Ray’s right. The only way it’s going to work is if he’s in on it, but”—this was the part that she wanted to make sure she explained the right way—“he doesn’t know that he’s in on it until it happens.”
“Huh?” This was from Ray.
“So you’re saying—” Adam began.
Pearl cut him off. “If we auction off his car for charity—for Tommy’s school—it would seem like his idea.”
“But then he’d be the hero?” Dutch squinted. “We don’t want that, right?”
“For a little while,” Perk said, “but we could send the suspicious files and emails off to someone so it wouldn’t stay secret for long.”
“Yeah,” Ray said. “We could tell the newspapers about it.”
“I get it. So the special ed. program would have the money, and Parmar would be without his car. But he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—have the guts to take the money away from the special ed. program because everyone would think he was a horrible person.” Dutch looked over at Pearl. “That’s really good.”
Pearl’s heart did a staccato beat inside her chest. “Thanks.”
CHAPTER 80
Dutch
The way Pearl smiled back at him flipped his stomach on end. There was no use in trying to keep his mouth and cheeks and eyes from squinting.
But he wasn’t embarrassed and Pearl didn’t seem to mind his tic.
But that was impossible, right?
So was standing up to Hill until a few days ago.
Ray opened his chocolate milk. “So who should call the newspapers? Wouldn’t they be able to trace it to one of us or maybe treat it like a joke?”
Adam knocked him with his elbow. “Hey, Dutch. Can you do Hill’s voice?”
Dutch swallowed a bite of his sandwich, closed his eyes, and tried to hear Hill’s voice in his head. “Hey Dork, what do you think you’re doing with my homework in your backpack?” The words came out easy. He’d heard them enough. “How does that sound?”
Adam shook his head. “That was perfect. Pearl, do you think you could memorize some of the teacher’s cell phone numbers?”
“Sure, why?”
“Just in case we need an out.”
“All right.”
Adam turned back to Dutch. “So what do you think of Hill calling the newspapers? You know, brag about his dad doing something really generous, blah, blah, blah.”
“I’m in.”
“That’s good,” Ray said. “He’ll get in so much trouble with his dad. He probably won’t even be allowed to go to that camp.”
“True.” Perk looked disappointed. “But maybe Parmar can put him in a different camp?”
“Remember Ray’s idea about the military camp,” Dutch said. This just kept getting better and better. “We could leave an application on his desk for him to find?”
“And Dutch could call and pretend to be Parmar,” Adam suggested.
“He could,” Perk said. “Though I don’t think he’ll have to.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Dutch said, “once Parmar thinks that Hill told the media about his car, we could have an application to a Russian gulag and Parmar would gladly sign the papers.”
CHAPTER 81
Adam
Adam glanced at his clock.
Two-thirty a.m., Friday morning.
It had been a busy few days, and he should’ve crashed into sleep, but all the what-ifs had made it impossible. He was still leaning against the headboard of his bed like he’d been doing since ten o’clock. Now it was time to get moving.
He sat up and grabbed his phone, then texted Perk and Pearl.
It’s go time
He hit Send.
It was a chain reaction.
Perk was going to call Ray. One ring. And Pearl was going to call Dutch. One ring.
He doubted any of them would forget, but they couldn’t take chances.
Adam felt the zing of adrenaline through his veins. He stuffed his bed to look as if he was nestled under the covers, though he couldn’t see either of his parents waking up—they slept like rocks. After dropping a flashlight, the walkie-talkies, plans, his cell phone, some candy, and a few other supplies into his backpack, Adam slipped his black hat on his head and lifted the window. He turned and took one last look to see if he had forgotten anything, then crawled out the window.
The sidewalks and streets were empty, illuminated by the circles of glowing light from the streetlamps.
His heart thudded inside his chest—a feeling which was relatively unfamiliar to him. He didn’t get nervous about much, but it was different right now.
He was different right now.
He and Perk might have started this whole thing, but all five of them were going to finish it.
Picking up his pace, he started to jog.
CHAPTER 82
Perk
Tommy was asleep. His shoulders were rising and falling underneath his blankets, and his breathing was heavy. Perk’s parents were upstairs on the second floor by the library. They wouldn’t hear a thing.
Perk glanced down at his watch. He had fifteen minutes, plenty of time to get to Pearl’s dad’s apartment and meet up. He hoped the one ring was enough to wake Ray.
Perk had gotten everything ready before bed and had double-triple-quadruple-checked everything, so he slung his backpack over his shoulder and popped a piece of gum in his mouth—gum always kept him awake.
“We’re going to make everything right,” he whispered to Tommy’s sleeping form. He thought of Nish and Dutch and William Bubert and Pearl and Ray, too.
This was their revenge.
Then he closed the door most of the way, just how Tommy liked it.
It was going to be awesome.
He wasn’t worried at all.
Not really.
CHAPTER 83
Ray
The sky was a thick black when Ray opened his window and dropped to the ground. The TV was still blaring from the living room, but that’s how his brother fell asleep most nights. Besides, he locked his bedroom door so no one could see that he was gone.
His heart was hammering and his mind and arms and legs were wired with energy. Everything had seemed so simple when they were planning it around the lunch table. Now, he was on his way to help break into Parmar’s house and then the school.
They were crazy.
Ray stopped on the sidewalk and leaned his hands on his knees. He might throw up.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
They couldn’t get caught.
He stood, took another breath in, and kept walking.
A month ago he wouldn’t have cared. A month ago he didn’t have friends and he was going to be a mechanic.
Now, who knew?
But the
possibilities were exciting.
More than that, it excited him to know that there were possibilities.
CHAPTER 84
Pearl
It was weird to say good-bye to her mom at the door earlier that night.
That was probably the weirdest thing so far. Sort of like the violin piece that her teacher had her play called “Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saëns.
It was creepy, and weird, and strangely beautiful, and completely confusing all at once.
That was definitely how she felt.
“I’ll pick you up after school on Tuesday, okay?”
Pearl leaned into her mother’s hug. “Okay.”
Her dad’s silhouette filled the doorway, blocking out some of the light that lit up the small, dark porch. “It was good to see you, Mary,” he said.
She smiled and nodded. “You, too. And let me know if plans change, okay?”
Pearl let her dad answer.
“We will.”
The door closed and Pearl turned around to go to her other home. She had two homes, now. Did anyone ever really get used to that?
Her room was small, but neat, with a window that faced the parking lot and a big tree right out front. She needed to bring some stuff over to make it feel more like her room, though. But what stuff?
How do you divide your room up between two homes? Clothes, pictures, memories?
Could memories be divided?
Or does one place become your real home and the other is a sort of vacation home?
Now, she shook her head and glanced out the window into the dark.
Two flashes.
“We should all meet at Pearl’s house,” Dutch had said yesterday.
“I’ll be at my dad’s apartment actually. I’m not that far. I can just meet you guys at the Parmars.’”
“No, we’ll meet at the apartment,” Adam said.
She’d never had any siblings, and now, she had four brothers who watched out for her.
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