Shooter

by Caroline Pignat

  “Did you forget your homework?” I asked Max. Maybe he was in Mr. Quigley’s grade 11 Biology, period 2.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out a set of keys. I’d have recognized that E=MC2 lanyard anywhere; those were Mr. Quigley’s keys. But where did Max get them? He unlocked the door and entered. Not wanting to stay in the dark hallway alone, I followed him inside.

  We should not have been in the school after hours. We should not have been using Mr. Quigley’s keys. I knew that. But I didn’t know what Max had planned for our mission—and I just had to see.

  Turning on the light, Max grabbed Mr. Quigley’s lab coat from the hook. Then he dressed the skeleton with it. Then he unhooked the skeleton and laid it on its back on the long desk.

  “Gimme your glasses,” he said. So I did.

  Max put them on the skull and then bent one of the skeleton’s legs, so it looked like it was just suntanning on the desk. Then he took a cigarette from his pocket and wedged it between the teeth. Then he closed two fingers of the skeleton’s hand, taped them together like an okay sign.

  This did not look like any of the experiments we did in grade 11 Biology.

  “Give me that big glass tube thing.” Max nodded at the foot-long glass tube at the end of the counter.

  “It’s a graduated cylinder,” I said, trying to be helpful. “It holds one thousand milliliters, but they come in different—”

  “Whatever, Einstein. Just get it.” He did not have a happy face. So I handed it to him.

  He took a large bottle of Diet Pepsi from his backpack and opened it up.

  “Can I have a sip?” I was pretty thirsty from running up the stairs.

  But Max didn’t answer. Instead, he filled the cylinder three-quarters full. Then he corked it with a rubber stopper he had rigged with paper clips, string, and four white Mentos candies.

  I wondered what he was doing, but then he stepped back and I saw the skeleton wasn’t just wearing Mr. Quigley’s lab coat and sunglasses; it wasn’t just smoking a cigarette as it leaned back against the books. It was jerking off its one thousand milliliter graduated cylinder.

  Max laughed and he ran around the desk. He stood beside the skeleton, arm around it, and faced me. “Okay.” He gave me the finger. “Take the picture.”

  “What?”

  “Take my picture. Why do you think I brought you here, loser?”

  I wasn’t sure, really. “Umm…for the sunglasses?”

  “Take the damn picture!”

  So I did. Even though it was kind of weird.

  What kind of mission was this?

  Max looked at the clock: 9:42. “The alarm defaults if the door hasn’t locked fifteen minutes after it’s set.” Max jangled the keys. “I just gotta get a few more supplies.” He disappeared through the back door marked “Private.” And once again, I followed.

  “We aren’t really supposed to be in here,” I said, as he scoured the shelves in the narrow room. Hundreds of glass bottles and jars stood in meticulously labeled rows. “Unless you’re a Lab Tech. Are you a Lab Tech?”

  He snorted as he unlocked the metal cabinet and took out a few jars, delicately placing them into his bag. “With those science suck-ups? Wasting their lunch hours cleaning out test tubes?” He opened another cabinet and took a few brown bottles. “No. Quigley didn’t pick me. But I don’t care. Who wants to be a stupid Lab Rat anyways?”

  He closed the cabinets and locked up the supply room before hanging the keys around the skeleton’s neck.

  “Come on,” he said. “We gotta hoof it. The alarm is gonna trigger soon.”

  “Shouldn’t we…?” I looked at the obscene display on Mr. Quigley’s desk. “I mean, don’t we have to put away the, uh…lab equipment?”

  It was Mr. Quigley’s number-one rule. It felt terrible to me that we’d left the stuff out, all over his tests and marking, never mind what inappropriate things that skeleton was doing.

  Max laughed again. “Stay if you want, but if you don’t make it out the side door in three minutes, you’ll be explaining all this to the cops.”

  He took off, shoes squeaking in the dimly lit hall as he bolted for the stairwell.

  And I followed him. Like I’d followed him all evening.

  But that’s the thing with Max. I never know when he’s joking or serious. I didn’t understand the mission at all. And by the time he gave me a choice—there wasn’t one, really.

  Observations

  1. The next morning, I was very nervous when I went to the lab, but surprisingly everyone liked Max’s skeleton. In fact, they LOVED it. Even though it was wrong, the whole class thought it was so cool. They took photos and texted and tweeted.

  “Who did it?”

  “Who’s X?” they asked each other, looking at the Cyclops glasses.

  I smiled. Proud. Bringing the glasses was my idea.

  2. When Mr. Quigley arrived to class after his hall duty and saw the skeleton sprawled on his desk, he did not laugh or text or tweet. Mr. Quigley was mad. Like, off the charts, brain-vein-bulging mad. And when he grabbed the skeleton and tipped its graduated cylinder ever so slightly, the string released, and the Mentos hit the Diet Pepsi—and foam exploded, fizzing up and out of the glass tube and all over Mr. Quigley’s purple face. Just the way Max had planned. And the kids all took pictures of it, just as Max had expected. And Max got his revenge, just as he’d hoped.

  Conclusion

  I know that breaking and entering was wrong. Leaving out the science equipment was wrong. And I’m sure whoever donated their skeleton to science did not mean for it to be used for this kind of social experiment. But in the big picture, which Mrs. O’Neill keeps telling me to look at—it was kind of funny.

  I also know that stealing and lying is wrong. That’s even in the Bible.

  But since no one has asked me—I am not lying.

  And since Max is my friend—I will keep his secret.

  And if he asks to go on another secret mission, I might even say yes. And then, I won’t need a Social Autopsy—in fact, I’ll need to start a Mission Log.

  HOGAN

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Iz shift closer to Alice. Something’s up. She nudges her and tips her phone so Alice can read it. Obviously, they don’t want me knowing, so I pretend like I didn’t see.

  There’s stuff I don’t want them knowing—like the dozen cop cars I saw in the parking lot. The yellow police tape holding back reporters. Or the ambulance waiting to deal with whatever might come next.

  This is no prank.

  “Hogan,” Iz goes. “When you said that some kids wanted to leave school with a bang…what exactly did you mean by that?” For an actress, she’s pretty horrible at acting casual. I guess for someone as dramatic as her, it’s a big leap.

  “I dunno. Nothing.” I look at her directly. “Why?”

  “Oh, just wondering.” Izzy eyes the splintered wooden door I kicked in, the stall door I pounded into place. “Where did you say you were when the shooting happened?”

  “I didn’t.”

  She looks at Alice. I know where this is going. And it’s bullshit.

  “It’s just that…hypothetically,” Alice says, “if there’s more than one shooter, which, statistically, there usually is, the police will want to question anyone that wasn’t in a classroom at the time of the shooting.”

  I glare at them. “Were any of you in class?”

  They look away.

  “I get it,” I snap. “Of all the crazies in here,” I wave my arm at Noah and Xander, “hypothetically, you guys assume it’s me. Nice. Real nice.” I snort and shake my head in disgust.

  “Like I said,” Izzy adds, “you are the one with a record. And you do have that…” she pulls in Alice once more, “how did you put it, Alice?”

  Alice pauses.

  “Alice?” Izzy elbows her.

  Alice swallows and mumbles, “A hostile vibe.”

  “Hostile?” I blurt. Oh, this is rich. “So, why not Noah?
” I point at the guy in the hat who’s banging his head on the stall. “Of all the people in this room, statistically,” I throw the word back at her, “he’s the only one that has freaked out and injured someone today. Who’s to say he didn’t blow out the atrium and then go and hide in a closet? Because, statistically, he is the only one among us with a history of causing lockdowns!”

  Izzy gasps. “He’s right!” She eyeballs Noah.

  But Alice isn’t convinced. In fact, she’s pissed. “You’ve got to be joking!” She gets up and stands right in front of me. “You can’t seriously be blaming Noah…for this?”

  Click.

  XANDER

  X-MEN MISSION LOG

  NOVEMBER 13, 2015

  OPERATION VOMIT

  I wondered what Max had taken from the lab supply cabinet. But I didn’t have to wonder long. The next week, he told me to meet him outside the caf at lunch. No one had ever asked to meet me for lunch. I was pretty excited. I even brought an extra Twinkie for him.

  I didn’t think he was going to show, but he did. Only he didn’t have his lunch. Just a remote, like the one from my new plane. It was based on the Lockheed SR-71 spy plane, just like the X-Men jet. I’d just gotten it for my birthday, and when Max heard, he’d asked if he could borrow it. I did not want to lend it. But #4 on Mrs. O’Neill’s Friendship Checklist says that friends share. So I did.

  I followed him in the side door, up the shadowy stairs, and onto the dark stage. Through the thick navy curtain I could hear the sounds of the kids having lunch in the cafetorium on other side.

  My stomach growled. “So, are we going to eat? I brought you a—”

  “Take my picture first.” Max picked up a plane, MY plane, resting at his feet.

  I was happy to see he’d brought my X-Jet back in one piece. Even if he’d painted our red X symbol on it. That was cool.

  I guess.

  I took his picture, unsure of why he even wanted me to. He never asked to see them. I tried to show him once and he told me to keep them top secret.

  The cafetorium was full of kids, and teachers on duty watching the kids eat. And Principal Wilson watching the teachers watch the kids eat. And while everyone was busy watching each other, Max knelt down just behind the curtain crack and shoved the plane out center stage. Working the remote, he made it do a vertical takeoff, though I could have done one way better, and then he sent the X-Jet out over the crowd.

  He should have asked me to fly it. He was not a very good pilot. Plus he’d rigged up little test tubes along the bottom that were weighing it down. Clearly he had not read the instruction manual I’d given him. I hoped he had not ignored my directions about not tearing up the box, too.

  This friendship thing was a lot harder than I’d expected.

  By the time a kid noticed the plane, it was halfway across the cafetorium. Everyone looked up laughing as it swooped overhead, and they all started chanting, “X-Jet! X-Jet! X-Jet!”

  Principal Wilson shouted for it to land NOW and the room went silent. All except for the drone of the X-Jet now on a collision course with him. It dive-bombed, making him duck as it pulled up at the last second. Kids cheered as the jet rose higher and higher.

  “Fire in the hole!” Max said beside me as the near-vertical plane tipped enough to unload the contents of the tubes.

  It wasn’t much liquid, really. But as it hit the principal he gasped and retched. Kids around him bolted, pinching their noses, gagging at the smell. I knew even before the stench reached us it was BTA—butyric acid taken from the science lab. It wasn’t dangerous. Like Mr. Quigley said, it’s found in the colon and in body odor and milk and parmesan cheese. But BTA is best known for being in, and smelling like, vomit. Strong vomit. Like burn-your-nose-hairs vomit.

  Mr. Wilson ran for the doors, retching like Misty, my neighbor’s cat. But he’d never get away from the smell. Not for days.

  “Mission accomplished,” Max said, dropping the remote as he got up to leave. I looked through the curtains, just as my X-Jet smashed into the basketball backboard and dropped. Half of it dangled in the white netting, the rest of it fell in shattered pieces to the floor. Max cheered, as though he’d done it on purpose. As though even that was part of his plan.

  It wasn’t, was it?

  Did he even have a plan—or was he just figuring it out as he went? But before I could ask, he’d gone.

  I won’t lie. I was mad. Almost crying when I saw that plane crash. But as I write this mission log tonight, I’m trying to do what Max says I need to do. Max says I’m too focused on silly things. And maybe he’s right. Sure, the Tank helps me zoom in and focus—but maybe I should think more like Max. He sees the big picture, even if I can’t. He’s got a plan. And if I want to be a part of it, I just have to trust him.

  Besides, Cyclops crashed the real X-Jet a bunch of times. And I’ve never seen him cry.

  XANDER

  X-MEN MISSION LOG

  DECEMBER 11, 2015

  OPERATION PENII

  Max and I waited in my hiding spot—the corner carrel. I told him it was my secret place where I read my Star Wars graphic novels sometimes. And just like I said she would, Mrs. Tucker turned out the lights and left for lunch at 11:07.

  We climbed off the desk and Max pulled three tinfoil things out of his backpack. They each had a foot-long silver shaft and three round bulbs at the bottom. He held one up against his crotch and told me to check out his foil dick. Technically, a penis should have only two testicles. I wondered if he knew that. I wondered if, perhaps, he had three.

  He told me to take his picture. So I did, even though it was weird. But lots of kids do things other people think is weird—like how Danny obsesses over medieval weapons, or Trisha collects fishing lures, or how I know everything there is to know about Star Wars. Like Mrs. O’Neill says, everyone has unique interests. Maybe genitalia was Max’s thing. He’d done that skeleton thing, and now this. Come to think of it, a lot of kids seemed to enjoy drawing them in our textbooks and on the bathroom stalls. I wondered how long he’d been interested in the art of penises. So I asked him. He just looked at me funny.

  “Or is it penii?” I corrected myself.

  Max said I was messed up (even though he was the one with three testicles) and asked me for the stickers. My job had been to make a sheet of X-Men stickers. Big, red, circled Xs. Max said every superhero leaves a calling card. All this time, I’d thought it was just the villains. But he didn’t even thank me. He stuck them on the three foil shafts and told me to keep a lookout while he climbed up to put them on the bookshelves. Then he hung strips like flypaper from a few ceiling sprinklers. I looked down the hall for Mrs. Tucker, who I knew would not like Max’s decorating.

  After a few seconds, the air reeked of burning plastic or hair. Then Max grabbed my arm and ran for the emergency exit at the back. I tried to tell him it was alarmed, but the thick black smoke chugging from the silver shafts caught my eye.

  “Max, your penii are on fire!” I yelled. But he didn’t seem to care. The strips above them burned like fuses towards the sprinklers. But before I could tell him, the fire alarm sounded, the sprinklers turned on, and Max shoved open the alarmed door and dragged me out behind him. My heart raced as we joined all the kids and teachers filing out of the school. Everyone was freaking out.

  “I see smoke.”

  “Something’s burning.”

  “Is there a fire?”

  Only Max and I knew the truth. It made me feel smart to know something the other kids didn’t. But I felt kind of sick, too. Those were some serious rules we’d just broken. We stood with the crowds gathered on the football field, shuffling and stomping in the snow. Max shushed me when I told him we could have stayed inside where it was warm, because we knew there wasn’t really a fire, and the school was totally empty so no one would have seen us, and the firemen always took seven minutes.

  Then Max smiled and said I was brilliant. I wasn’t sure what I’d said, exactly. All that mattered was h
ow happy it made Max.

  Six and a half minutes later, the fire truck came, and firemen ran into the building, axes ready. All because of Max’s three tinfoil penii. I wish he’d told me his plan, though. Because the sprinklers destroyed a lot of the books in the library. Including all of the Star Wars graphic novels.

  Maybe I could have done something to save them, if I had known.

  ALICE

  How can Hogan think Noah is the second shooter? Noah? It’s too ridiculous to even contemplate. So ridiculous that I can’t stop myself from venting even more as I stand over him.

  “My brother—who cannot even tie his own shoes—somehow masterminded this crazy plan to bring a gun to school and shoot out display cases…and set off explosives…”

  I glare at Hogan. But he’s not going to sit there and get yelled at—not even by me. He rises to his full six feet and towers over me.

  Isabelle gets between us—though it isn’t quite clear who she’s protecting.

  Maybe Hogan is laying blame because he really is involved somehow. I didn’t think so when Isabelle was questioning him. But now, I’m not so sure. After all, he is a thug, a disgruntled student being forced to perform in a pep rally he’d rather avoid. And he does have anger issues. Who knows? Maybe Hogan did have a whole other show in mind. It’s possible. And he was in the hallway right before the explosion went off in the main stairwell.

  I poke his furry chest. “For all I know, you tossed that bomb in the stairwell!”

  Hogan stares me down. “For all I know, you did. You’re the one out sneaking around the halls during a lockdown.” He turns to Isabelle. “And you’re the one completely losing it.” He groans, and rubs his hands through his hair in frustration. “This is stupid. What even makes you think there is an accomplice?”

  “Bri,” Isabelle says. “The security cameras caught someone else running from the atrium.”