by Dustin Brady
“Please. Sit.”
“We’ll stand,” Jared said.
Greg walked over and pushed them both down into the chairs. OK, perhaps they would sit.
“Hi,” the bald guy smiled. “My name is Dr. Raymond Plotke. I own the building that you’ve broken into.”
“We’ll leave now,” Jared said.
Dr. Plotke smiled again. “I’m sure you would like to do that. And I would like to help you do that. I’m just going to need you to help me help you by answering a few questions first.”
“Why don’t YOU answer some questions!” Jared shot back. Jared didn’t know where this sudden courage was coming from, but he was feeling pretty good about being the tough guy.
Dr. Plotke spread his hands. “Ask away.”
Jared wasn’t expecting this. “Oh, uh, well why are you stealing our school’s bread?”
Dr. Plotke chuckled. “Is that why you came all this way? Oh my, I didn’t know James Ford Rhodes Middle School took bread security so seriously! If you must know, I’m actually borrowing the bread. It will be back within the next half hour or so.”
“But why?”
“We’re actually working on a very important cure here, and your school is going to be a crucial part of it,” Dr. Plotke said.
Jared scrunched up his face. “What are you talking about?”
Dr. Plotke held up his gnarled left hand. “See this?”
Jared looked away.
“I know it’s difficult to look at, but this hand is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Please. Look at it.”
Jared and Bre looked awkwardly at the tree hand while the doctor stared at them like he wanted them to say something. “Uh, cool,” Jared finally said.
Dr. Plotke smiled and launched into a story that he had clearly told a bazillion times. “As a child, I was horribly allergic to bees. I missed half a week of camp in third grade after I blew up like a balloon from a single bee sting. After that, I was so scared of bees that I barely ventured outside for years. I would lock myself in my bedroom for days on end and lose myself in my chemistry sets. Then one day in sixth grade, I climbed into the attic to look for some equipment my mom had put away. I grabbed a rafter to pull myself up and suddenly felt my hand light on fire. I looked up to see that I’d grabbed a huge beehive.”
Bre and Jared both winced.
“This hand,” Dr. Plotke held up the tree hand, “was covered in bees — maybe 20 or 30. I fell backward out of the attic and ran into the kitchen, all while the bees stung me over and over. By the time I shook the last bee off, my hand didn’t look like a hand anymore. I panicked and stumbled through the house looking for my EpiPen. Do you know what an EpiPen is?”
Jared shook his head. Bre spoke up. “It’s like an emergency needle you can stick yourself with if you’re allergic to something.”
“That’s right!” Dr. Plotke said. “I couldn’t find my EpiPen. I called for my mother, but both my parents were gone. After a few minutes, I curled into a ball and passed out.”
Both Bre and Jared had moved to the edge of their seats. “What happened next?” Jared asked.
Dr. Plotke whispered the next sentence like he was sharing the secret of the universe. “I was fine.” He paused to let that sink in and smiled. “My mother woke me up when she got home and rushed me to the hospital. At the hospital, they took blood test after blood test. Finally, they told me that I was not only healed from the bee stings, but I was also no longer allergic to bees. The bees had cured me!”
Jared looked around the room skeptically. “I don’t think that’s the way it works. Maybe your mom gave you something while you were unconscious or the hospital gave you medicine or even…”
Dr. Plotke slammed his fist down. “IT WAS THE BEES! I DON’T CARE WHO GAVE ME WHAT, I’LL ALWAYS BELIEVE IT WAS THE BEES!”
“But what about your hand?”
“What about it? It works doesn’t it?” Dr. Plotke flexed it a few times. “It’s even better than my other hand because it doesn’t feel pain.”
Bre tried to change the conversation to settle the doctor down. “So what does any of this have to do with our school?”
“After that day, I felt like I could live again. I didn’t have to be afraid. In fact, every day since then, I’ve stung myself with bees to remind myself how it feels to be alive.” He took a jar of bees out of his pocket like a real weirdo. Jared and Bre looked at each other uneasily.
“I want to give that feeling to others. That’s why I’ve been working on my new wheat allergy cure.”
Jared didn’t know what to expect when he walked into the room, but a wheat allergy cure was not in the top 1,000.
“Ever since the bees cured me of my allergy, I’ve believed that the best way to cure an allergy is with the thing that’s causing it. The body will do amazing things in its fight for survival, you know.”
“So you want to cure kids who are allergic to wheat by giving them wheat?” Bre asked.
“Not just wheat. Wheat concentrate. One hundred times the amount of wheat in a regular piece of bread.”
Bre and Jared looked at each other with wide eyes. This guy was officially nuts. “That could be deadly, right?!” Jared finally asked.
“I believe it will cure them.”
“What do you mean you ‘believe’? Haven’t you tested this?”
“This won’t work on animals. I feel that there’s something special about the way the human body fights for life that turns the disease into the cure.”
OK, that’s just lunacy. Jared started to panic. “So you have a crazy feeling that you’re testing on kids?! What if they get really sick? What if they die?!”
Dr. Plotke was starting to get annoyed. “Would you rather be sick for a day or live in fear of bread for the rest of your life?”
Jared turned to Bre with a “can you believe this nutcase?” look. Bre continued staring straight ahead. Her face had gone totally white.
“Once I share the results of my experiment, the world will be knocking down my door, begging me to cure them. Now,” Dr. Plotke spread his hands. “I believe that I’ve been more than fair in answering your many follow-up questions. I hope you’ll provide me with the same courtesy.”
Jared wasn’t listening to Dr. Plotke. He was staring at Bre. Something didn’t look right about her. “Bre,” Jared whispered. “Are you OK?”
She didn’t answer. Dr. Plotke decided to move forward despite the little whisper conference taking place in front of him. He turned to Jared. “You had quite the evening at the carnival last night, didn’t you? And then you escaped a maximum-security van. And now you’re here. You sure get around, don’t you?”
Jared avoided eye contact and shrugged.
“Now Jared, two of my finest employees are probably going to jail because of you, and I almost lost a $3 million vehicle. Even then, I told you my secret, didn’t I? The least you can do is share yours.”
Jared picked at his fingernails.
Dr. Plotke sighed and nodded at Greg. Greg started walking toward Jared. Jared sprang out of his seat and ran toward the door, but Greg crossed the room in two steps and snagged him by the collar. Jared tried to fight, but Greg was too strong. In three seconds, he found what he was looking for.
Dr. Plotke let out a low whistle. “Is that a magic eight ball? I haven’t seen one of those in what — 20 years?”
When he saw the eight ball’s message, he stopped. Then he backed up.
“What is that?”
Jared took a look at the screen. He squinched his eyes. The message didn’t make sense.
RECORDING SENT
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Emergency Exit
Recording sent? That’s not even an answer to a question. Jared was so confused.
“What is that thing?!” Dr. Plotke yelled.
“It’s just…”
Dr. Plotke looked frazzled. “Why does it say that?! What recording? Was it recording just now?!”
Ohhhhhhhh. Wow! Now Jared understood what the eight ball was doing. He played along.
“This is a police surveillance device,” Jared lied. Bre shot him a look, but he continued. “It recorded everything you just said and sent it to the authorities. They’re on their way now.”
Greg dropped the ball like it was made of lava. Dr. Plotke grabbed his head and walked around the room. “Why would you do that? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”
Jared picked up the eight ball from the ground. “You shouldn’t do weird experiments on kids.”
Dr. Plotke wasn’t listening. He pulled his phone out of his pocket while giving instructions to Greg. “We’ve got to move. Send the lunch lady away, take care of the kids and start loading up the vans.”
“What do you mean, ‘Take care of the kids?!’” Jared asked.
Nobody answered. Greg started pulling something out of his pocket. Jared looked down at the eight ball.
HE MEANS KILL YOU
“WAIT!” Jared shouted.
Nobody waited. Also, the “something” in Greg’s pocket turned out to be a gun.
“WAIT!” Jared tried again. “I, uh, I…”
“…I’m allergic to wheat!” Bre interrupted.
That got Dr. Plotke’s attention. He lowered his phone. “What’s that?”
“I’m allergic to wheat,” she said. “So you can use me for your experiment as long as you let him go.”
The room went silent. Jared mouthed “What are you doing?” to Bre. She didn’t respond. Instead, she kept her eyes on Dr. Plotke with her chin jutted out.
Dr. Plotke shuffled around the room for a few seconds. “How allergic?”
“One time, I broke out in hives just from smelling wheat.”
Dr. Plotke bit his nails. Finally he nodded his head. “OK, fine,” he said. “But we’re going to have to speed up the process.” He took a syringe out of his pocket.
“No!” Jared lunged for the doctor. Too late. Dr. Plotke stuck Bre with the needle and emptied the syringe. The whole thing was over in less than a second. Bre sucked in a sharp breath. She was trying to look brave, but her shaking gave her away.
“Put her in the van and get rid of him,” Dr. Plotke said as he walked out the door.
Greg grabbed Bre with one hand and went for the gun again with the other. Jared looked at the eight ball.
RUN. HE’LL MISS.
Jared ran.
BANG!
Greg missed.
Jared rolled into the hallway.
TURN LEFT
Jared turned left.
TURN RIGHT
Jared turned right.
HIDE IN THIS ROOM
Jared dove into the room on his left. “Now what?”
STICK YOUR FOOT INTO THE HALLWAY
Really? Sometimes Jared didn’t know about this thing. He took a moment to catch his breath, then stuck his leg into the hallway while trying to keep his body inside the room.
FARTHER
Jared sighed and pushed his leg out as far as he could without ripping his pants.
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!
Someone large was running toward Jared.
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!
He braced himself for impact.
THUDTHUD…
Jared felt a foot clip his leg.
“WHOA!”
THUNK!
Jared peeked into the hallway. One of the doctor’s henchmen was lying on the floor, out cold. He’d tripped over Jared’s leg and smacked his head on a cabinet. Jared scrambled to his feet.
EMERGENCY EXIT
Jared found the emergency exit at the end of the hallway and ran outside just in time to see Dr. Plotke and Greg load Bre into the news van at the other end of the building. Although it had only been a minute or two since Bre had been stuck with the syringe, she wasn’t looking too good. Even from far away, Jared could tell that her face was getting puffy and her steps were shaky. Jared put his head down and ran toward the van. He didn’t even stop to look at the eight ball. If he didn’t get to the van before it left, he’d never…
VROOM!
The engine roared to life, and the van took off. Jared was left alone in an empty parking lot.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Patton
“IS BRE OK?”
FOR NOW
“HOW LONG IS ‘FOR NOW’?!”
UNTIL 3:44 P.M.
Jared needed help. Lots of help. Like, the Army would be nice. He ran to Bre’s bike and took off toward the only help he could think of, which unfortunately also happened to be the place he’d run away from a few hours earlier.
His plan (if you could call it a plan) was to run into the school screaming. He hadn’t quite worked out exactly what he’d scream yet, but he was pretty confident he’d figure it out in the moment. Once he got to the principal’s office, he’d explain everything and lead police to Bre using the eight ball. “What time is it now?” he yelled as he pedaled.
1:27 P.M.
Jared had owned the eight ball for 22 hours now. During that time, he’d managed to tick off the school bully, embarrass his cousin, become a fugitive from school, get on the radar of some very bad people, and put an innocent girl in huge danger. He did win a stuffed gorilla though. Jared remembered the message Bre had received in her locker after the fire about “learning the hard way” and pedaled harder. He made it back to the school a few minutes later, dumped the hot pink bike in front of the doors and ran into the hallway.
“AHHH!” he screamed. It was not the most eloquent message, but it seemed to get the job done. People in classrooms peeked into the hall. He screamed louder. “AHHHHHHH!”
A hand grabbed him. “Gotcha!”
Jared looked up. Vice Principal Fuqua. “I’m so glad to see you!” Jared said. “I need to…”
“Save it!” Mr. Fuqua grabbed Jared by the collar and marched him toward the office. “You’re in more trouble than any kid has been in ever! Cutting class. Fighting. Running away from school.”
“I can explain everything,” Jared interrupted. “You see, Breanna Burris is in trouble…”
“Oh she’s definitely in trouble! Big time trouble! But if you think you’re pinning this whole thing on her, you’ve got another thing coming, mister!” Mr. Fuqua marched Jared into the school office with all the seriousness of someone who calls people “mister.” They walked past Lenny, who was sitting in a chair with his arms folded. Even though Lenny saw Jared, he refused to do anything but glare at the ground.
Vice Principal Fuqua brought Jared into his office and slammed the door. “I’m going to be honest,” he said. “You’re probably going to jail. In all my years, I have never…”
Jared interrupted by pulling out the magic eight ball. “We don’t have time,” he said. “We need to use this to find Bre right now.”
Mr. Fuqua snatched the eight ball out of Jared’s hand. “What is this?”
“It’s a MAGIC magic eight ball! It’ll answer any question we ask! If you call the police, I can use it to lead them back to Bre. Please, you’ve got to trust me!”
Mr. Fuqua walked across the room, grabbed a piece of paper and came back to hold it in front of Jared’s face. “Recognize this?”
Jared did recognize it. It was the fake note he’d had Lenny bring to the office to get him out of class earlier that day.
“You lost any chance for trust when you did this. I’m going to Principal Cochrane’s office now, and together we’re going to call both the police and your parents. Then we’ll bring your cousin Leonard in, and — I’m only telling you this once — your stories had BETTER match up.”
He marched out of the room with the eight ball. Then he locked the door from the outside, knocked on the door’s window and taunted Jared with the key. After a few seconds of key wiggling, he disappeared into the principal’s office.
Jared ran to the door and looked out the window. The secretary seemed to be on lunch break, so it was just Lenny sitting by himself in the school office. Jared knocked
on the window to get his attention. Lenny wouldn’t look up. Jared kept knocking, but Lenny had committed to ignoring him.
Jared frantically looked around the room for something he could use to communicate with Lenny. Vice Principal Fuqua kept a sparse office. Just a poster of the angry World War II general George Patton on the wall, a small bookshelf with a few books that had names like Building Winners Not Weenies, a simple desk with a laptop and a table with a weird printer/phone combination.
Maybe he could use the printer phone to call the police himself? But what if they didn’t believe him either? Once Mr. Fuqua started arguing against him, they’d surely believe an adult over a kid who’d been doing nothing but lying all day.
Jared looked around the room again. He had to be missing something. Wait a second…that printer/phone thing! He’d seen something like it at his dad’s work for “take your child to work day” last year. His dad had called it a — what was it again — a fax machine? It was supposed to send messages to people with paper and a phone instead of e-mail and the internet. Jared looked closer at the machine and found a list of numbers taped to the side. One of those numbers was labeled “SCHOOL OFFICE.” He looked back out the window. Right next to Lenny’s head was another fax machine. Jared got an idea.
He tore through Mr. Fuqua’s office looking for a piece of paper. After a minute of searching, he decided that Mr. Fuqua must be the neatest neat freak on the planet, because his office didn’t contain a single scrap of blank paper. He looked around one final time before taking a deep breath and ripping General Patton off the wall. He was already in more trouble than any kid ever, so why not pile it on? He scrawled a quick message on the back of the poster, fed it into the fax machine, dialed the number for the school office and hit “SEND.”
A few seconds later, the printer next to Lenny came to life and spit out a piece of paper. Lenny continued glaring at the ground. Come on! Jared knocked on the window. Lenny kept glaring. Jared knocked harder. Lenny glared harder. Jared knocked and knocked and knocked until Lenny finally looked up, threw his hands into the air and mouthed, “What?!” Jared jabbed his finger at the printer. Lenny picked up the paper that had printed, gave it a weird look and turned it around to show Jared. General Patton. Jared had accidentally scanned the poster in front instead of his message on the back. He ran back, flipped the paper and scanned it again.
