A Game of Chase

by Marcus Emerson

  The light from the locker room created a perfect rectangle on the tiled flooring. I watched the boys’ shadowy figures fill the entrance.

  Please walk away. There’s nothing in here! Just get to class!

  The boys stopped outside the entrance, less than half a metre away from me. ‘I thought I saw somethin’ moving in here,’ one of them said.

  His friend answered, ‘C’mon man, I’ve seen scary movies that start like this.’

  ‘But I swear…’ he trailed off.

  Backed into a corner, a kid is capable of doing some pretty strange things … like attempting a mind control trick. I lifted my fingers slowly and whispered so softly there was hardly a sound, ‘I must’ve been seeing things.’

  The boy put his hand on the open doorway and paused. ‘I must’ve been seeing things,’ he said.

  It worked! It was everything I could do to keep myself from squealing. I waved my fingers again, and said, ‘Chase Cooper is the coolest.’

  As the boys walked away, one of them said, ‘So that Zoe girl is pretty cute, right?’

  Well, that mind trick obviously didn’t work. And he better stay away from my cousin if he knows what’s good for him!

  I exhaled, relieved to hear the guys walking away. I poked my head out, making sure the coast was clear. There weren’t any students left in the locker room, but I saw Mr Cooper stride toward the exit. He spun in place just as he got to the wooden door, and looked over the room one last time, probably making sure everyone was out. And then he pushed open the door and disappeared.

  Instantly, I jumped out of the showers, keeping low to the ground. The long fluorescent light bulbs in the locker room were only at about half-power, and by that I mean most of them were burnt out.

  I moved along the shadows as if they were my friends. Like sailing on a river of darkness, I coasted by unguarded book bags that leaned against wooden benches. Carlyle’s bag was easy enough to spot since he had an ugly skull and crossbones painted on it.

  Suddenly Mr Cooper pushed opened the door and stepped back into the locker room. I immediately leapt onto one of the benches and launched myself through the air, landing on top of the lockers. It wasn’t exactly the quietest thing I’ve ever done.

  Mr Cooper stopped. ‘Hello?’ he asked loudly.

  I straightened my body and kept as still as possible.

  ‘Is there anyone in here?’ Mr Cooper asked as he checked each aisle. ‘Class is about to start, so you best get out to the gym floor!’

  I slowed my breathing as he walked down the aisle right below me. Stopping in front of the lockers I was hiding on, he glanced over his shoulder. I could feel a bead of sweat drip down the bridge of my nose between my eyes. I crinkled my nose, trying to get the bead to stop moving, but instead I made it jump into my eye.

  A drop of warm salty sweat right onto my eyeball.

  I don’t think I have to tell you how much it burned. I had to bite my lip to keep from squirming in pain.

  Finally, Mr Cooper turned around and staggered towards one of the desks up the front. Grabbing his attendance clipboard, he scanned the room one more time like he was some kind of robot. He shook his head, and disappeared through the door to the gym.

  I smashed my open palm into my eyeball and rolled around. Slipping off the top of the lockers, I fell hard on the wooden bench and bounced onto the cold concrete floor.

  In a stroke of good luck, I landed only a metre away from Carlyle’s book bag. I crawled along the ground until it was right in front of me. Part of me felt weird about having to dig through his bag, but the second I lifted it off the ground, I could tell there wasn’t anything inside. It was empty.

  Confused, I rose to my feet with his bag in my hand. I shook it gently, listening for the sound of anything, but it never came. I wasn’t sure whether Carlyle had forgotten to visit his locker before school or if he was just didn’t care about school supplies. I grunted, partially impressed. This kid went through the day without his textbooks or pencils? Carlyle really did like to live dangerously.

  I flipped his bag over, ready to open it to make sure it actually was empty, but something on the bottom of it caught my eye. It was another photo, taped to the canvas on the bottom part of the bag.

  As I lifted it higher, I saw what looked like a set of numbers from a locker. It was a crusty metal sliver with the digits one, zero, and…eight.

  Holy oak trees!

  Locker 108!

  Did your head just explode? Because it felt like mine did.

  It was a picture of my locker, lucky number one-oh-eight! I even recognised the shape of the nasty crust on the thin metal sliver!

  I dropped Carlyle’s bag but held onto the photo. As quickly as I could, I threw my street clothes over my ninja outfit and snuck out of the side door of the locker room.

  First period had only just begun so I had plenty of time to try and figure out what to do before Faith met me back at … my locker! She was going to meet me back at my locker after class!

  What was I going to tell her? That Carlyle’s bag only had another photo attached to it, and that it was a photo of my locker? If Faith’s project was inside there, I had to get it out before anyone saw. Brayden’s project was destroyed late in the day on Monday, and Zoe’s was found completely untouched at the beginning of Tuesday. Since it was only Wednesday morning, I hoped it was still safe.

  Sprinting through the lobby, I didn’t even check to see if there were any teachers or hall monitors walking around. Wyatt was probably somewhere in the halls with his goons, but I couldn’t worry about them at the moment. I had to get to Faith’s project as fast as I could.

  I turned the last corner and saw my locker. Skidding to a stop directly in front of it, I rested my hands on my knees, taking a second to catch my breath. I was running so hard that my mouth felt dry, and every breath I took hurt.

  I glanced at the combination dial. It was set to twenty-four, not zero like I had left it. Sometime between the beginning of school and before first period, someone had broken into my locker.

  I gulped hard, straightening my posture. I wanted to turn the dial, but I couldn’t bring myself to move my hands. I was too afraid of what was inside.

  At last, I took a deep breath and reached forward. My hand shook as I entered my combination. When the last number was set, I gripped the cold handle but couldn’t find the nerve to pull up.

  ‘Okay,’ I said to myself. ‘This is nothing. Faith’s project will be in here and everything will be alright. I’ll get it out and take it straight to science class.’

  I pulled up on the handle, hearing the metal click open, but I didn’t pull the door out.

  ‘Come on, man!’ I said. ‘You can do this. There’s nothing to be afraid of. There might even be another clue that tells you to go somewhere else.’

  The fear started to wash away as I realised that Faith’s project might not be in my locker. Buchanan lockers were tall and thin anyway. It would be almost impossible to fit an entire science project inside one of these things. I clenched my jaw and whipped the door wide open.

  And then I just about puked.

  Faith’s science fair project was smashed tightly between the metal walls of my locker. It wasn’t just forced into it either – it looked like someone had used their feet to cram it into place on top of my pile of rubbish.

  I started pulling out pieces of her project, hoping it could still be fixed, but the more I removed, the more damage I did. The pink and yellow paint from her crunched up backboard smeared all over my hands and my clothes. And then, in the blink of an eye, everything got much worse.

  The fire alarm went off.

  My body completely froze with my fists clenched around smashed pieces of Faith’s project. I wanted to run away, but my legs were like, Nope!

  Students poured into the hallway as the fire alarm blasted overhead. I stared at the ground as they huddled around me, shocked. I knew they were saying things, but I couldn’t hear them over the sound of
the alarm.

  Finally, my fists loosened up, and the rest of Faith’s project fell to the floor. I gulped again, feeling the chalky paint on my fingers. When I looked over, I saw Faith crying as Zoe stood next to her. Zoe looked disappointed.

  Brayden came out of nowhere, pushing me against my locker. ‘Was it you? Did you kill my science project?’

  I shook my head and shouted frantically. ‘No! I swear! I was set up!’ I looked at Faith. ‘The clue I found was a picture of my locker! Somebody else did this!’

  More and more students filled the hall, staring at me in disgust.

  Brayden looked at my hands and shouted over the fire alarm, ‘If it wasn’t you, then why do you have pink paint all over you hands? Why were you strangling Faith’s project when we got out here?’

  I screamed loudly, trying to defend myself. ‘I was trying to get it out of my locker because someone put it in there to make it look like—’ the fire alarm suddenly shut off, so I finished my sentence while screaming at the top of my lungs into the silent hallway. ‘I did it!’

  The crowd gasped, only hearing the last three words of my sentence.

  ‘No wait!’ I cried, but it was too late.

  Wyatt pushed through the students and stood in front of me. Behind him was a group of hall monitors, each wearing red wristbands. And behind them was Principal Davis along with several other teachers.

  That was it. I was dead meat. I was so dead they were gonna have to bury me twice.

  I’d love to say I was able to explain myself and why Faith’s science project was in my locker, but I couldn’t. There was too much evidence against me, and Principal Davis was so furious he wouldn’t even listen to me. Can you blame him? I had Faith’s project all over my hands. If I were him, I wouldn’t have listened to me either.

  My day ended pretty quickly. I spent the rest of the morning sitting in Principal Davis’s office with the school counsellor. Of course I told her I didn’t do it, but she didn’t believe me. Maybe it was because I left out all the details about the chess pieces and someone singling me out because I was a ninja. I mean, I just wrote that last sentence, and even I think it sounds crazy!

  My parents were disappointed to say the least. After my dad picked me up, I got a stern talking to. And then when my mum got home from work, I got another stern talking to. It felt like the longest night of my life … at least until I got to detention the next morning.

  ‘Mr Cooper,’ said Mr Lien, the computer lab teacher who was also the detention monitor. ‘If it isn’t the project-hater himself.’

  I shuddered when he said that. Stepping into the ice-cold room, I stared at the empty desks. It was just me in detention. I curled my lips, faking a smile. ‘So just sit anywhere?’

  The desks all faced the wall and had wooden partitions between them so students couldn’t talk to each other. Mr Lien pointed toward a desk at the back of the room. ‘You can take that seat back there.’

  I sighed, dragging my feet across the carpet. The room was so quiet my feet sounded like a monster scraping against a hollow tree. Once I took my seat, Mr Lien dropped off a stack of papers that were my assignments for the day. He giggled as he patted my shoulder. He was the first teacher I’d seen at Buchanan that seemed to enjoy his job.

  Leaning back in my chair, I shut my eyes and stretched my arms out. It was pretty bad to be in detention, but I’m not gonna lie to you – the peace and quiet was nice.

  Mr Lien took his mug from his desk and turned back to me. ‘Chase, I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he said, shaking his empty cup at me. ‘Gotta fill up the ol’ coffee barrel. Once homeroom is over, I’ll be in and out of here every few minutes. I teach the computer class right across the hall so my attention will be split between both rooms.’

  ‘So I’m gonna be completely alone in here?’ I asked, hoping it to be true.

  Mr Lien nodded. ‘Just for short periods of time.’ He laughed and wagged his finger at me. ‘Don’t you go sneakin’ out on me!’

  His laugh was frightening, but I did my best to laugh along. I’m sure it came out as more nervous than I wanted it to though.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Whenever I glanced at the clock I was sure it was going to tell me an hour had passed, but instead it was only a few seconds! How was that even possible? They say time slows down near heavier bodies of gravity, like black holes, but detention wasn’t a black hole … was it?

  Was I sitting in the pit of a black hole, sentenced to an eternity of isolation? Did Buchanan School have a secret so deep that even light couldn’t escape from it? I looked at the door, wondering how much time had passed for the students safe from this wretched room. Was Zoe somewhere in the world forty years older than me now?

  I slapped my cheek hard enough that it stung. ‘Oh my god, twenty minutes alone in here and I’m already going nuts!’

  The bell rang for the end of homeroom. I watched the opening of the black hole as students passed. A sense of fear wash over me at the thought of what detention was going to do to me by the end of the day.

  Mr Lien came back into the room and set his coffee cup on the desk. The bell rang again, starting first period. If I weren’t in detention, I’d be in art with Zoe and Brayden. They were probably hard at work on their paintings already.

  ‘Mr Lien?’ said a voice from just outside the door.

  I tipped my chair backward to see who it was, but I couldn’t.

  Mr Lien walked toward the entrance and spoke. ‘Yes, that’s me,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  The kid outside handed over a pink slip of paper. All I could see was their hand.

  Mr Lien took the slip and read it softly, moving his lips. ‘Ah,’ he said finally. ‘I see.’ Then he stepped backward and gestured for the student to enter. ‘Take a seat in the back next to Chase.’

  Gavin, the ex-hall monitor captain, entered the detention room. He nodded once when he saw me. Pulling the chair out from the desk next to me, he dropped his book bag and sat down.

  Mr Lien kept his coffee mug close to his face, letting the steam rise around his cheeks and eyes, making him look like an evil dark lord. I hate coffee, but I envied him because the room was so cold.

  ‘I’ll be right across the hall, boys,’ he mumbled. ‘If you need me, feel free to shout from your seat.’

  Gavin waited until Mr Lien was in the other classroom before he spoke. Looking at me, he smirked. ‘Trouble seems to find ya no matter where y’are, don’t it?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I wasn’t lookin’ for it.’

  ‘No,’ Gavin agreed. ‘But it still managed to creep into your life.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ I asked, frustrated. I didn’t need someone else telling me my situation.

  ‘The whole school is up in arms about what happened to you yesterday,’ Gavin said. ‘Everyone’s already painted you as guilty.’

  ‘And what have you painted me as?’ I asked.

  Raising an eyebrow, Gavin leaned closer and said, ‘Zoe told me ’bout the sticky notes you were getting in your locker from someone named Jovial. She told me ’bout the chess pieces and everything. She also told me you thought the chess pieces meant them kids were in trouble.’

  ‘So she basically told you everything?’

  Gavin nodded. ‘Which is why I’m on your side right now.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What’re you doing in here to begin with?’

  ‘Wasn’t that hard to get in here,’ Gavin said. ‘I needed to talk to you away from anyone else. In private. Figured the best way was to land myself in detention as well.’

  I paused. ‘What’d you do?’

  ‘Let’s just say the mice in the science lab got a pretty good view of the cafeteria during breakfast,’ Gavin said, smiling.

  I laughed and Gavin gestured at me with his open palm. ‘Look, I get it,’ he said. ‘I get why you probably didn’t give away the fact that the chess pieces were in your locker.’

  ‘What makes you think I didn’t?�
��

  ‘Principal Davis would’ve made a much bigger deal of everything if you did,’ Gavin said. ‘The fact that they simply sealed you in here means you didn’t rat out the real bad guy.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I sighed, wondering if I had made the right decision.

  ‘But Zoe and I know you’re innocent, even though you were covered in pink and yellow paint yesterday and Faith’s mangled project was in your locker.’

  ‘I was framed,’ I whispered harshly, leaning closer to Gavin. ‘Someone put her project in my locker during homeroom!’ I paused, catching myself getting too loud. ‘How’s Faith doing?’

  Gavin forced a smile. ‘She’s not as open-minded as Zoe and I,’ he said. ‘She believes you busted up her stuff. I think she might even hate you.’

  My heart broke as I sunk into the cold chair.

  ‘I understand,’ Gavin said. ‘I’d hate to think of how I’d feel if Zoe hated me.’

  I stared at the floor without saying anything.

  ‘So Mrs Olsen has everyone’s projects on lockdown,’ Gavin said.

  I looked up. ‘Lockdown? What’s that mean?’

  ‘What’s it sound like? It means everybody’s project is locked away in the room next to Mrs Olsen’s classroom,’ Gavin said. ‘It was actually some girl’s suggestion. Olivia, I think her name was.’

  ‘Olivia is my new lab partner,’ I said. ‘She prefers to be called Olive, like those things I hate on my pizza.’

  Gavin glanced out the door at the room across the hall. ‘Olive’s the only one with the key to get into the room and she’s in charge of guarding the projects. Well, actually it’s more of a skeleton key that can get into any room in the school, and I think Wyatt and his crew might’ve got a set too. Principal Davis probably has them making rounds close to that room to make sure everything is safe.’

  I realised I never talked to Gavin about Wyatt taking his position. ‘What’s up with that? Sebastian gave Wyatt your old job?’