Five Times Revenge

by Lindsay Eland

  She blushed and clicked her flashlight twice in reply.

  It was a funny thing—how people she’d only known for a month could feel so close to her, and other people that she’d known since she was born could feel like she’d never known them at all.

  Pearl grabbed her backpack and flicked off her closet light. Then she lifted the window and crawled out. Once she’d dropped the few feet to the ground, she ran to meet up with her friends waiting by the streetlamp.

  CHAPTER 85

  Dutch

  He wiped his hands on his pants as Pearl ran up to where he and the others stood on the sidewalk.

  Tonight was the night they were finally going to pull off the prank.

  Dutch’s heart pounded in his chest, much like how it did when Hill grabbed him from behind and hauled him into the bathroom or shoved him into a closet.

  But there was no toilet bowl or closet rushing to meet him this time.

  This was their night, his night.

  They moved in the grass along the sidewalk, hoping to keep out of the light from the streetlamps.

  “It’s the third one on the left, right?” Ray whispered.

  “Yeah, that one right there.”

  A fat tree stood in the yard, and the small porch light cast a shadow of the tree onto the road. “All right, guys,” Adam said. “One more time.”

  He and Perk gave everyone the rundown of the night, even though they’d gone through it a zillion times already. They finished each other’s sentences, just like they’d done that first day in detention.

  Dutch grinned.

  And as they stood in the dark, ready to go, Dutch’s heart in his throat with excitement and nervousness and hoping that it would turn out right, he felt for Pearl’s hand and held it.

  He looked at her and squinted.

  She squeezed his hand.

  “All right. We’re ready,” Adam said. “Let’s do this.”

  And when Pearl let go, Dutch knew that things had already turned out right.

  CHAPTER 86

  Adam

  While Ray waited at the front of the house and Pearl and Dutch hid in the bushes in case something went wrong, Adam and Perk removed the spare key from underneath the mat on the back porch.

  “You ready?” Adam asked. He slipped off his shoes and wiggled his toes. His fingers were shaking and even though he could feel a line of sweat trickle down his back, he shivered.

  Perk nodded.

  Summer was almost upon them, but the night air was still cool and Perk’s breaths came out in small cloudy bursts in the darkness.

  What were they doing? This was crazy.

  “You okay?” Perk asked.

  “Sure … yeah. It’s bigger than anything we’ve ever done.”

  “I know.” He took a deep breath in and Adam watched it puff out. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Adam gripped the key in his slippery fingers and slid it into the lock. He turned it slowly, easing the door open. His heart slammed against his chest and he motioned Perk inside.

  “Pearl said the kitchen was on the right?” Perk whispered.

  Adam pulled out a piece of notebook paper with a drawing on the front. Pearl was a violinist, definitely not an artist. “No, from her drawing, it should be on the left. I’ll check by the front door and you check in the kitchen.”

  “Got it.”

  After clicking on his headlamp, Adam tiptoed across the kitchen in his bare feet to the small hallway by the front door. Coats hung right where Pearl had said they’d be, and there was the hook … with no car keys.

  Adam sighed and searched each coat pocket for any sign of them.

  Nothing. He had been afraid of this.

  Adam met up with Perk at the back door. “Did you get them?” Perk asked.

  “No,” he whispered. He clicked off his headlamp. “They weren’t there.”

  “Did you check the pockets in all the coats?”

  Adam nodded. “Yeah, nothing in those, either.” He paused, knowing what he had to do. “I’m going to have to go in his office.”

  “Really?”

  “If they aren’t here, then they must be there. Why don’t you check in the coats again to make sure I didn’t miss anything?”

  “I’ll search the office if you want?” Perk said. “Or I can go with you.”

  “No, I got it. But where did Pearl say it was?”

  “She said it was down the hallway on the right.”

  “All right. Here goes nothing.” He made his way through the hallway, found the first door on the right and pushed it open. He went to the desk and rifled through the drawers, finally finding a set of keys that were labeled “Spares.” A keychain from Ray’s father’s shop hung off one key.

  “Bingo,” Adam said, and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he tiptoed out to meet Perk.

  CHAPTER 87

  Perk

  Perk was hungry.

  He usually was. But not necessarily in the middle of the night.

  But now that he was up, walking around in the dark in Parmar’s house, his stomach rumbled angrily.

  Perk walked over to the refrigerator. A picture of a younger Hill and an old dog, gray around the muzzle—hung on the refrigerator. They had a dog?

  He looked around. No food bowl or water dish.

  The dog must’ve died. Why was Hill such a jerk about Nish’s dog then?

  Perk opened the refrigerator and squinted at the sudden burst of light.

  Cheese. Leftovers. Milk. Eggs. A few apples rolled around, a container of yogurt, and a head of lettuce.

  Perk smiled and grabbed an apple. “Don’t mind if I do,” he whispered.

  “Perk,” Adam whispered.

  Perk closed the refrigerator door, looking down the hall, his eyes not quite adjusted to the darkness. “Adam?”

  “Come on!” He stepped lightly along the floor until he reached the kitchen.

  “Did you get them?”

  Adam smiled and dangled the keys in front of him.

  “Awesome.” The first part of the plan was done.

  Almost. They had the keys now, but they still needed to get the car out of the garage.

  Perk followed Adam out of the house, careful to lock the door again behind him. Then they rounded the corner and met up with the rest of the crew, still melted in with the darkness.

  “You got the car keys?” Ray asked.

  “Yep. Now for the garage door.”

  “You’re sure they won’t wake up when it opens?” Pearl asked.

  “No,” Perk said. “Not entirely.” There were no guarantees. He watched the windows, his heart speeding up as he waited for a light to flick on.

  They had to hurry.

  Ray piped in and held up Perk’s iPhone, “I looked up their garage door, and it’s a Whisper Genie Silent Max Two Thousand with a DC motor and a belt drive. It’s pretty quiet. We’ll have to do it manually.”

  “How?”

  “We can get in by that door.” He pointed to a door on the side of the garage. “Then there should be a red handle that hangs down from the top. You have to grab that and pull down. I can pull down while you guys lift the door from the outside.”

  Perk watched Ray disappear into the garage, the light of his headlamp bobbing through the little windows on the garage door. He bent down and gripped the garage door alongside Adam, Pearl, and Dutch.

  Please don’t be loud. Please don’t be loud.

  Ray’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “I’ve got the lever.”

  Perk lifted, feeling the door move up a little. “Here goes nothing.”

  CHAPTER 88

  Ray

  They stood silent for a few moments when the garage door was all the way open, staring into the windows of the house for any sign of lights being flipped on.

  Nothing.

  Ray let out his breath and caught the keys that Perk tossed to him.

  “Ready?”

  Ray grinned and inserte
d the key and unlocked the door.

  It felt good to ease into the car, to shift the gear into neutral and steer it as everyone pushed it silently down the driveway away from the Parmars’ two other cars and onto the street.

  During the summers, when he spent most of his days doing whatever his dad asked him to do, Ray sat behind the wheel of the company truck grabbing lunch for everyone, picking up a part, dropping off a part, stuff like that. His dad made Ray promise that he’d go the speed limit and wouldn’t bring any attention to himself. “And if you get caught,” he’d say every time, “I’ll pretend like I don’t know anything about it. You hear me?”

  He’d heard.

  And now it was paying off. Maybe there was a reason for everything, or at least most things.

  When they’d pushed the car down the road far enough, and the garage door was shut and still no lights came on in the house, Ray started the engine, feeling the rumble and roar underneath his feet.

  They’d done it. Or at least part of it. Ray grinned. The car was one step closer to being auctioned off.

  Pearl hopped into the front seat with Ray and shut the door while the others squeezed in the backseat.

  “Are we ready?” Ray asked.

  But he didn’t need to hear their answer, even if he could’ve over the roar of the engine as he pressed the gas.

  They were ready.

  CHAPTER 89

  Pearl

  It was funny.

  They’d been planning and talking about getting back at the Parmars for what seemed like forever. Now they were actually parked behind the school in front of the double gym doors and Perk was punching in the numbers to the alarm system and she and Dutch were holding them open and Ray was driving inside the school, and Pearl could hardly believe they were actually pulling it off.

  Pearl grabbed a nearby rock and propped open one door and Dutch did the other, then Ray cut the engine of the Shelby Cobra and they all pushed it across the clean cafeteria floor, their sneakers squeaking.

  She glanced at them and almost felt like crying.

  But in a happy way. A “Hobo’s Blues” sort of way.

  A wow-we’re-really-doing-this-and-thank-you-for-being-my-friends sort of way.

  Dutch turned and squinted at her, maybe because of the headlamp light shining in his face, or maybe because of his tic.

  Either way, it didn’t matter.

  CHAPTER 90

  Dutch

  1. Be quiet

  2. Don’t get caught

  The school was quiet at night and Pearl was all smiles and excitement and he found it hard to breathe when he looked at her.

  After they moved the cafeteria tables aside so that the car could be pushed into place, Adam handed him the banner and he and Pearl attached it to the car. Then they stood back and Pearl grabbed a hold of his hand. Again.

  In huge letters the sign read: “AUCTION OF 1966 SHELBY COBRA! All proceeds to benefit the special education department of the Anderson School District. Starting bid: $400,000.” Underneath that was the website Perk would make live when they got home.

  It was beautiful.

  Dutch remembered when Adam and Perk had first helped him pick up all his books and papers that Hill had dumped on the ground. He’d thought of them as his best friends then.

  Now they really were.

  It almost made him want to cry, though he squinted the tears away.

  Sometimes, in certain situations, having a facial tic helped.

  “What do you guys think?” Adam asked. He stood back with his hands behind his head.

  “It’s perfect,” Dutch said.

  CHAPTER 91

  Adam

  The next order of business was to get the application to Fort Hemsworth Youth Military Boot Camp onto Principal Parmar’s desk

  The five of them made their way to the main hallway and then into Mr. Parmar’s office, where they placed the new application and a pen on his desk.

  They all stood around the desk and looked at the application and then at each other. They’d done it.

  All the other pranks he and Perk had pulled were thrilling, but nothing compared to this one. This one was actually going to make a difference.

  He glanced down at his watch. It wouldn’t be a good idea to hang around any longer than necessary. “All right,” he said, “let’s get out of here. We’ll meet up in the morning and finish it off.”

  They slapped hands and were exchanging high fives on their way out of Parmar’s office when a voice called out in the silence, “Hello? Who’s there?”

  “Get back in the office,” Adam whispered, and pushed Dutch back until they were all hunkered down behind Ms. Gingko’s desk—which was difficult, considering how big Ray was.

  “Who is it?” Perk whispered.

  “I don’t know? Mr. Jelepy?”

  “What’s the janitor doing here at three in the morning?” Perk whispered again.

  Adam’s heart slammed inside his chest. He had to do something.

  He crawled from behind the desk and made his way to the door.

  Shoes squeaked down the hallway toward them. Any second the person would turn the corner and they would be trapped in Parmar’s office. Adam looked out the door and into the hallway, rifling through his brain for something—anything—that could get them out of this.

  His gaze landed on Mr. Berry’s room across the hall and slightly to the right. It was as good a plan as any. Adam had to keep whoever it was away from the cafeteria, which was also their escape route, and out of the hallway so they could make a run for it.

  He crawled back to the desk. “Take everyone back the way we came,” he whispered to Perk. “And be as quiet as you can. Look for me by the parking lot, okay?”

  He made to move, but Perk grabbed his arm and held him back. “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Adam said, grinning. “Just visit me in juvie, okay?”

  And he ran.

  CHAPTER 92

  Perk

  Perk’s breath caught in his throat when Adam dove into the hallway.

  What was he doing?

  Two seconds after Adam disappeared, Mr. Jelepy came around the corner, flashlight bobbing.

  Perk ducked his head back behind the desk. How was that supposed to help them get away?

  Unless he was only saving himself.

  “What are we doing? Where’s Adam?”

  Perk had opened his mouth to answer, even though he didn’t know what he was going to say, when the sound of a classroom chair scraping across the floor echoed through the silence.

  “Who’s there?” Mr. Jelepy called out.

  More scraping.

  Perk risked crawling to the doorway and looking out into the hallway just as Mr. Jelepy pointed his flashlight into Mr. Berry’s room and stepped inside.

  More squeaking of desks and chairs across the tile.

  He smiled. Adam was risking his neck so they could get away. “Awesome,” he whispered. Then he turned to everyone still huddled behind the desk. “Okay, guys, let’s go. Hurry!”

  Everyone slipped out the door and down the hallway, weaving through the tables in the cafeteria, and then dashed into the gym and out the two double doors. When they were all out, Perk let the doors click shut, never more proud of his best friend. He turned toward everyone bent over their knees, trying to catch their breath in the early morning.

  “Where’s Adam?” Dutch asked.

  “He said to meet him by the windows,” Perk said through panted breaths. Which windows again?

  “Give me your cell phone,” Dutch said.

  “What?”

  “Just give it to me.”

  Perk handed it over.

  “Pearl, the cell phone numbers,” Dutch said. “Did you memorize Mr. Jelepy’s?”

  “Uh.” Pearl looked confused for a moment, then said, “Right” and closed her eyes. Perk watched her eyes flutter under her lids. “Nine-two-one, four-five-two-five.”

  “You
’re sure?”

  “I think. Mr. Smith asked me to call him when Markus threw up a few months ago.”

  “What are you going to do?” Perk asked.

  Dutch ignored him and dialed the number. “Hello, Jelepy?” Dutch said. “This is Principal Parmar. I know … I’m calling from my … wife’s phone. Uh, I know it seems idiotic to call you at this hour, but I woke up and realized I forgot to tell you something yesterday. Are you at the school tonight? Well, don’t go into the cafeteria … there’s a little surprise that I don’t want ruined. Also, it seems like a mouse or gerbil got loose in Mr. Berry’s room. I’m having someone come tomorrow.” Pause. “Oh, okay. Thank you. See you tomorrow.”

  Click.

  “That was brilliant!” said Perk. He stood up and started around the front of the building. Hopefully Adam was already there. “Come on.” They ran, careful to stay in the dark pockets of shadow, until they reached the parking lot.

  Perk glanced around. “Adam? Hey, it’s us.” His stomach twisted. “He said he’d be over here.”

  “Did he get caught?” Pearl asked. Perk could hear the panic in her voice.

  Perk put his hands behind his head, dread filling him. Was Mr. Jelepy the only other person in the school right now? There was a helper that tagged along with Mr. Jelepy sometimes. “No, Adam doesn’t get caught. Come on,” he whispered, more to himself than anyone. “I don’t want to visit you in juvie.”

  Then there was a rustle of leaves by a nearby window and Adam stood up. “Looks like you won’t have to.”

  CHAPTER 93

  Adam

  Not many eighth graders arrive early to their middle school in the morning, at least not on purpose. They usually spill out of squeaky bus doors, or dash down the sidewalk with only minutes to spare, hoping to avoid the secretary and her tapping foot and waiting red pen. They slip into chairs just as the bell rings or hand over the late notice. They’re never early.

  Then again, you only pull a prank like this once in a century.