The Fourth Stall

by Chris Rylander

  “Look, you can believe me or not. If you want the truth, I don’t really care either way what you think. Let’s just say that you’re right and that Staples never will be a threat to you guys. If that’s true, then what have you got to lose by helping me? Nothing. All you have to do is a few odd jobs and you’ll be much richer for it. I’m basically making charity cases out of all of you; why in the heck would any of you turn me down? Are you scared or what?”

  “Are you calling me a chicken?” Little Paul asked. His little fist was balled up, and he took a step forward.

  I took a small step back, wary of his first-strike capabilities.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “Not if you’re willing to help me out. But if you are too chicken to help, believe me, I totally understand. I mean, who could blame you, right?”

  Several bullies shuffled their feet and I saw most of them glancing around at one another to see who might be the first to show fear, which is the ultimate sign of weakness for a bully. One flash of vulnerability with everybody watching and their status as school bully could come crashing down in the blink of an eye.

  After nobody spoke for a few more seconds, I finally said, “Good. It’s nice to see that none of you are too scared or stupid to turn down such a lucrative offer.”

  “What’s our first, like, task or whatever?” Nubby asked.

  “The first task is the elimination of Barnaby Willis, otherwise known as the Collector. I want him taken out. Immediately.”

  “Just, like, go beat him up or what?” Kevin asked.

  “It’s more than that. I want him to be completely convinced that it’s in his best interest to stop collecting kids. Permanently. I’m ordering a hit on him. In movies that usually means killing the guy or dumping him into the river or something. Obviously I don’t want that. I just want him to stop collecting debts. Understand?” I said.

  The bullies looked at me with blank stares. I sighed.

  “Look, I want you to collect him. Take his stuff. Do whatever you have to do—just make him know what it feels like to be collected. Make Barnaby Willis wish that he never came to school today.”

  Again, I just got more blank stares in response. I guess that’s why these kids are bullies and not honor students.

  “Okay, look, meet up with me at the start of late recess and I’ll tell you exactly what to do, all right?”

  “What about me?” PrepSchool asked, her arms crossed and her hip jutting out like she had better places to be. “What am I supposed to do? I’m not getting involved in any fighting, okay? I can’t risk losing my acceptance into Hanover Academy, plus I just got a mani, if you couldn’t tell.”

  I hid a smirk. “No, you can start by spreading a rumor about the Collector that causes kids to laugh at him instead of fear him.”

  “Hey, I don’t deal in rumors, okay? What do you take me for? I’m not like some lame gossip girl. I don’t have time for that kids’ stuff.”

  I looked her right in the eyes until she looked away. “Well, I guess there’s no reason for you to be here, then, is there? I guess that saves me some money, too. You can go now.”

  She didn’t move. “Wait. You said twenty dollars for each task if I go along with this stupid thing, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine.” She sighed as she shifted her weight so that her other hip was now pointing at me like some sort of huge accusatory finger.

  “Same with you, iBully. Your job is to try and destroy Barnaby’s street cred by breaking into whatever personal online account you can find for him.”

  iBully wheezed and nodded while his fingers flickered rapidly across a touch-screen phone he’d been fiddling with the whole time. Knowing him, he’d probably been hacking into Canada’s Homeland Security database just while we’d been talking.

  I smiled. “All right. I’ll see the rest of you at the start of late recess, then. Except for Kitten. I need you to stick around for a minute. I’ve got a special assignment for you.”

  The rest of the bullies started leaving. As Brady ushered them out of the bathroom, I looked at their eager faces while trying to ignore the sudden feeling that I was letting loose a bunch of wolves into a flock of lambs.

  Soon only Kitten was left. He looked at me, waiting for his special assignment. Now that a plan to take out the Collector was in place, it was time to move to phase two.

  “Kitten,” I said, leading him toward the fourth stall, “how would you feel about convincing somebody to come in for a meeting with me?”

  His face remained expressionless, except possibly for the barest hint of a smirk.

  “I thought so,” I said, and then proceeded to tell him exactly what I had in mind.

  Chapter 9

  Later that lunch period Joe ushered in a small weasel-like kid. He looked terrified and it was obvious why. Kitten was standing right behind him.

  Kitten’s special assignment had been to bring in Jacky Boy for a “meeting.” I figured that all of Staples’s employees here had probably been warned not to talk to me, so I knew he’d need a little convincing. I sent Kitten instead of Joe, because Joe’s method of persuasion would have been physical force, and the recess super- visor probably would have noticed a huge eighth grader dragging a little kid across the playground against his will. I figured that Kitten would be able to get Jacky Boy here much more subtly. And it appeared that I was right.

  Vince searched Jacky Boy and his backpack for weapons or recording devices.

  Kitten stood behind them looking calm and bored, as always.

  “Thanks, Kitten,” I said.

  Kitten shrugged and slipped something he’d been holding into the pocket of his khaki Dockers dress pants and then left the bathroom. I didn’t even want to know what he’d used to “convince” Jacky Boy to come here. I’d learned long ago not to even ask Kitten about his methods. I slept easier that way.

  It had been Vince’s idea to bring in Jacky Boy for “questioning.” He’d come up with it the night before while we watched baseball together. As valuable as Joe was to our business, our best ideas usually came up when it was just me, Vince, and a Cubs game. It hadn’t actually been a Cubs game last night, but baseball is baseball.

  I led Jacky Boy into my office and pushed him into the chair across from my desk. Then I sat down myself. I folded my hands in front of me and looked at my visitor. Jacky Boy was a fourth grader. He was a little money-grubbing ferret. But he had provided my customers with test answers and homework answers and forged progress reports and other stuff like that many times. So, while I didn’t really like the kid, it would be best for future business dealings if I could get the information I needed without using threats.

  “Jacky Boy,” I said, nodding my head in a greeting.

  “Why am I here, Mac? Why did you send that psycho after me?” he said. His high-pitched whine of a voice pierced the quiet of the small stall like a cactus needle stabbing your ankle. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “I know, Jacky. It’s just that I’ve got work to do, too. And my work and your work are sort of related, so I thought we could help each other,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mac.”

  I shook my head and sighed.

  “Jacky, Jacky, Jacky Boy. Do you really think I’m that stupid? Are trying to offend me?” I asked as sincerely as I could.

  “No, Mac, it’s not that. It’s just—”

  “Jacky Boy. You’re working for Staples for the money, right? Well, I can help you make even more money. And you can keep on working and taking bets. I’m not asking you to quit. So why are you playing dumb? Don’t you want more money?”

  He eyed me suspiciously with his beady black eyes. He licked his lips and I saw a line of sweat trickle down the side of his face.

  “What do you want?” he asked, sounding like I might ask him to eat a school lunch or something crazy like that.

  “All I want is to talk to your boss at this school. You see, I’d like to partner u
p with him; I want to help him run things better here. I know he usually hangs out on the middle school side, but I don’t know exactly how to contact him. Can you help me?” I asked.

  Obviously I had no idea where his boss hung out; I didn’t even know who it was. But I wanted Jacky Boy to think that I did know who it was. I knew that it must be a middle school kid, because Fred had made it clear that Staples didn’t trust little kids very much. There’s no way his top guy here would be younger than seventh grade.

  “How will that make me more money?” he asked.

  “Jacky Boy, a better-run business usually means more money for everybody involved. Know what I mean?” I said. Then I moved a piece of paper off my desk, revealing two crisp ten-dollar bills underneath.

  I swear when he saw the money, his face lightened as if the sun was shining right through the roof, spotlighting him like he was in a play. His mouth foamed with spit, and his beady eyes got just a little bit wider and brighter.

  “All I have to do is help you meet up with Justin?” he asked.

  Justin. Now I had a first name. I went through all of the Justins I knew who were older than sixth grade. I could eliminate several right away because they were either too stupid to ever be given that kind of job or they were straight-A students who were so well-behaved that they asked for the teacher’s permission just to breathe.

  I narrowed it down to two: Justin Johnston and Justin Slauter. Slauter was a possibility, but he was really into sports and he was so competitive that one time after he missed a free throw in gym class, he desecrated a basketball and then threw it at some kid on his own team. So it didn’t seem likely that he would get involved in a business that dealt with losing on purpose. Justin Johnston, however, made perfect sense.

  “Yes, that’s right, Jacky Boy. I just want to meet up with Justin Johnston. I’ll contact you later with a time and place, okay?” I watched for a reaction.

  He nodded calmly. He did not correct me or make any reaction. So Staples’s head guy here was Justin Johnston. That didn’t surprise me. He’s a real jerk. I don’t like him. I think he’s no good. I never really worried too much about Justin, though, because despite his being one mean seventh grader, Joe is bigger and stronger. But now with Staples at his back Justin was much more dangerous. It was no wonder that nobody had complained about him in a while. He’d been too busy running a dirty gambling ring right under my nose.

  I slid the twenty dollars across the desk. Jacky Boy pounced on it. I thought he was going to stuff it in his mouth and eat it, the way he grabbed it. But he just stuffed it into his pocket and got up to leave.

  “One more thing, Jacky,” I said.

  He sat back down. Now he looked intently at me. He wanted more money, so I had his complete attention.

  “I want to place a small bet.”

  I slid another ten across the table. He put his hand on it and then took out a small notebook with the other.

  “I put ten bucks on our eighth-grade football team making the regional tournament this year,” I said. It was as sure a thing as I could think of. Our school’s football team had never, ever missed the regional tournament in the fifty-plus years of being a school.

  Jacky Boy nodded and wrote something down. He put the ten dollars in a small compartment in his backpack.

  “I’d like to bet with each bookie . . . kind of as a peace offering. But I don’t know where they’re all at. Can you tell me where I can find them all, so I can place some more bets?” I said.

  He told me the names and locations of the other nine bookies operating at my school.

  I thanked him and he left. Vince came in, and I let a huge smile spread across my face. Just like that we had the name of every kid in the school currently working for Staples. We also had the identity of his top guy here, Justin Johnston. Now that I knew exactly who I was up against, I could start making an actual plan to take them all out.

  “We’re making progress,” I said to Vince. “We might have this whole thing cleared up before the World Series after all.”

  “Yeah, but we probably won’t have any money left,” Vince said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that was expensive, but you can’t deny the advantage it just gave us. Now we know who we’re gunning for. We’re not fighting blind anymore.”

  Vince nodded. “You’re right. That was a pretty nice move, Mac. Man, that Jacky Boy kid sure loves money. He treats money like my grandma treats the Pintsized Midnight Moonbeam Workers who live in her purse.”

  I laughed and it echoed throughout the bathroom. Vince’s grandma was always opening her purse and talking to the Pintsized Midnight Moonbeam Workers. Sometimes she’d just say hi, but other times she would thank them for all the money they left in her wallet.

  “Those darn Moonbeam Workers. I need to find out how to get some of them to live inside my wallet,” Vince said.

  Later that day Joe, Brady, and I stood on the edge of the upper-grade playground and watched as Kitten approached the recess supervisor. We could see every inch of the playground from our carefully chosen spot.

  Kitten tugged at the edge of the RS’s shirt. She turned around and smiled when she saw who it was. Adults adored Kitten as if he was the greatest thing since the advent of manners. Adults just went crazy over the whole dress pants, nice hair, sweaters, and dress shirts thing. Plus, he used “please” and “thank you” more than any kid I knew, and those words were like drugs to adults.

  We watched as Kitten started talking to her. He pointed at something down near the goalpost of the football field. Then he grabbed her hand and led her away. She was happy to follow, of course. Kitten didn’t talk much normally, but, man, could he tell long and pointless stories like a pro when he needed to. And for some reason adults always found his stories really cute and interesting.

  As soon as I was sure that Kitten had the RS’s complete attention for the duration of his story, I turned my hand over and passed a small mirror under the sun’s light. I saw it reflect brightly across the playground to where Vince was waiting for my signal.

  He nodded in our direction and gave his own signal to Little Paul. Except Vince’s signal was a massive sneeze so obnoxiously loud and overdone that I thought I’d blow the whole operation by laughing myself to death.

  Little Paul heard the signal and then approached Barnaby Willis, who was playing basketball with some seventh and eighth graders. Little Paul walked right into the middle of their game. He was one brave little kid, that was for sure. They all stopped and watched as he walked up to the kid with the ball, took it from his hands, and marched right up to Willis. Willis towered over him by at least a few feet. But that didn’t stop Little Paul for a second.

  What he did next actually went a little above and beyond what I’d instructed him to do, but it still worked. He threw the ball right at the Collector’s face. It bounced off the Collector’s nose with a rubber pop that sounded like he’d just bricked it off the rim. Everybody on this side of the playground gasped.

  Then Little Paul took off running. Willis followed just like we knew he would. A guy like the Collector doesn’t let a little kid get away with disrespecting him in public.

  Little Paul was a fast kid and he easily stayed ahead of Willis as he ran toward the portables. The portables are these three small buildings that the school built to house specialty classes. Like for the kids who are LD or MR or ADHD or ADD or JLCA or GKD or TNIF or whatever other letters adults label kids with.

  Behind the portables is the official fighting rink. Everybody knows that if you’re going to fight somebody, you take it behind the portables. The portables have no windows and the recess supervisor never goes back there. Plus, with the portables all side-by-side, there is enough room for a whole crowd of kids to watch without being seen. The spot has been used so many times that a large circle of trampled dirt has replaced the nice green grass.

  Little Paul led the Collector around to the back of the portables. As soon as he cleared the end portable, Vi
nce gave the other bullies their signal. They descended upon Willis like a pack of starving monkeys at a flea market. What happened next was pretty hard to watch, in all honesty. Willis was a crying mess by the end, and to add insult to injury the bullies even stole his wallet and shoes. After finally prying Snapper off his ankle, the bullies told Willis that if he ever collected one more kid, they’d collect him twice as hard next time.

  I made eye contact with Vince during the aftermath. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was: What have we done? I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the whole thing made me feel horrible for the rest of the day, even in spite of what the Collector had tried to do to me on Tuesday.

  But what mattered was that the Collector was out of commission, which meant it was now time to fix the problem at the source: getting kids to stop placing bets. If we cut off the supply of gamblers, then the money would stop coming in. If the money stopped flowing, then Staples’s business at my school would collapse. Easy as pie. Or as Vince’s grandma sometimes said: Easy as dressing up like a tree to catch wombats.

  Chapter 10

  After school that day I found a surprise in my locker. Not a good one, though. I opened my locker to put away some books and get my Cubs hat. And there it was, staring at me with the type of vacant look that only death can supply: a dead rat.

  I was just barely able to hold back a yell. I think probably the only reason I didn’t make a fool of myself right then and there was because the rat lying on the top shelf of my locker was actually pretty small and white, like the kind that are in the school science lab, and not a huge gray beast like you see in movies that eats small deer for snacks and would give you the bubonic plague.

  After I reminded myself that it was really just a mouse after all, I nudged it onto a piece of paper and tossed it in the garbage. Although the dead rat had been gross, that wasn’t what was bothering me. It was the message it was supposed to send. I looked around inside my locker and found the note I knew would be there.