JW01. Under Locker and Key

by Allison K. Hymas

  But how on earth could I fix this? What could I give the principal to make him let Tate go?

  “What’s up, J?” Case asked. “You look sick. Do you and Tate have, you know, a thing? Because if you do, I’ll back off.”

  “What? No. There’s no thing.”

  “It’s about the job, isn’t it?” Hack asked. “What’s happening?”

  I swallowed. “I’m glad you know I haven’t gone dirty. I want to tell you everything. But I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”

  “Why not?” Case, this time. His arms were folded, but his face was listening.

  “It’s a long story.” I looked at my feet. “I’m not keeping you in the dark because I don’t trust you. There’s no one I’d rather talk to than you. But after today, you must have seen the kind of trouble I’m in; you even helped me get out of some of it. It’s worse than you know, and I know you’d help me if I asked or even if I didn’t. So I won’t tell you anything. You can’t help with something you don’t know about.” Hack opened his mouth to argue, and I headed him off. “No. Not with this. I’m not going to budge.”

  I thought of Becca and the way she was going to turn me in for the retrieving and the fire alarm, and I thought about Tate, sitting in the principal’s office, punished for a crime she didn’t commit. “There’s a good chance I’m going to go down for this one,” I said. “You’re not going down with me.”

  “We can help,” Hack said. “Whatever you need.”

  “We’re here for you,” Case said.

  It felt good to hear them say that. “I know. Don’t fight me on this. I have to finish this alone.”

  “You won’t go down,” Hack said. “You’re too good. No one has anything on you.”

  I nodded, thinking about Becca again and deciding to never tell my friends about my deal with her. “You’re probably right. Anyway, thanks again for saving me. How did you know I was in the band room?”

  Case shrugged. “Cricket told us what he told you. We thought it would be a good chance to confront you—”

  “See for ourselves what you weren’t telling us,” Hack added.

  “Then we saw Becca and some eighth grader inside. He left; she didn’t. We heard her calling for you. So we gave her a reason to leave.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t feel like I could say that enough times to make it mean something.

  “No, thank you.” Hack raised the tablet. “Wanna come in and own Case at Mario Kart a few times before my mom comes home? Someone has to, and I’m getting bored.”

  Case rolled his eyes. “Last player gets the blue shells. It’s all about strategy.”

  “So why haven’t you won a single game?”

  I waved. “Still here. Sounds like fun, but I’m working. See you next week?” If I’m still free.

  Case nodded, an odd look in his dark eyes. “Sure, next week.”

  Hack grinned. “Later, J.”

  I nodded and went home, having returned all the stolen items. My stomach twisted as I thought about Tate and what I had to do. There had to be a way to help her without turning myself in. But I couldn’t think of what it was.

  At least I had other things to think about. Mark wouldn’t be able to get inside the school for the weekend, so I had time to plan and execute the third and last phase of getting back the master key. Becca had agreed to keep working with me because this last phase required all of my skills. Everything I knew how to do would come into play in a way a private eye couldn’t imitate. But for the time being I had to balance waiting with action.

  Easier said than done. Within an hour of coming home and having my customary fight with Rick, I itched to go over to Becca’s and run some ideas by her. But that was a bad idea for many reasons. One: Even after she kicked me in the back, someone might suspect we had some kind of partnership, and I couldn’t let anyone think that. It might get back to Case and Hack, and although everything seemed to be okay between us again, all that hard work would shatter if they knew I was working with the gumshoe. Talk about not trusting me then.

  Two: Yes, we had a deal, and although she was mad at me about pulling the fire alarm, she’d seemed okay after we talked at practice. Still, I didn’t know how I would manage a conversation with her. She’s a detective. They have to be good actors to get what they need from people. Watch TV sometime and you’ll see what I mean. Just by talking to her, I could give her the evidence she needed to turn me in and make it stick. All it would take would be her camera hidden better than last time.

  Although, would that be such a bad thing? Once Mark was taken care of, maybe I had some debts to pay. What you’re doing . . . it hurts people.

  I banished the ghostly echo of Becca’s voice. I couldn’t afford to think like that. Focus on Mark: That was the key. But the achy feeling lingered. Tate was in trouble and it was my fault. I owed her for the help she’d given me, tailing Mark. Even without that debt I couldn’t let her take the fall for me.

  But what could I do? Mark was on the loose and I had to stop him.

  After an hour of sitting in my room, guilt-crazy and playing a game of catch with my wall, I was more than glad to hear a knock at the back door. “I’ve got it!” I yelled down the stairs.

  I tossed the tennis ball into a pile of dirty clothes and ran downstairs in record time. Rick had answered the back door for me.

  “Looks like you’re in trouble now, Dr. Evil,” he said, smiling as he walked away. “Don’t stay out too late.”

  Was it Becca? Teachers? But why would teachers come after me on Friday night and come to the back door?

  I pulled the door open farther and saw, to my extreme disappointment, Mark. He was flanked by two huge guys who were clearly going to go on to play high school football before getting jobs as prison guards. That is, if they didn’t end up as inmates for shattering someone’s kneecaps.

  “Good to see you again,” Mark said. “I was just talking to your brother. Seems like a nice guy.”

  “He’s a meathead,” I said. “But I guess you have a thing for those.”

  “What, these guys?” Mark laughed. “Sean and Hugo are harmless. They just wanted to come along and meet the great Jeremy Wilderson themselves.”

  “I doubt that. It’s nice, though, that business is so good that you can afford a pair. Me, I’ve never had any need to buy bravery. So,” I said, clapping my hands together. “What can I do for you fine gentlemen? Steal an old lady’s life savings? Kidnap a toddler’s pet kitty?”

  Mark smirked. “I didn’t take you for the bitter kind, Jeremy. I just thought you and I could go for a little walk.”

  I would have rather stapled my fingers together, but I had no choice but to go with him. Mark’s newly bought thugs would make sure I cooperated. But there was a silver lining to this meeting: If Mark was getting up close and personal . . .

  “I must really have you scared,” I said. I turned my head and called back into the house, “Mom, I’m going outside.”

  “Okay. Dinner’s in an hour!”

  I looked at Mark. “Dinner’s in an hour. If I’m not back by then, she’ll worry.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid and you will be back by then. We’re running out of time.”

  I stretched out my arms. “Where to?”

  “Around.”

  We left my backyard in silence. I tried to lead the group to the sidewalk so Becca could maybe, possibly see me, but the unfortunately named Hugo put an arm around me and steered me into the woods behind my house. Hugo. No wonder he’d turned to crime.

  Once we were so far into the trees that I couldn’t hear the neighborhood traffic anymore, Sean shoved me from behind, throwing me facedown into dirt and shredded tree bark. Second time today, I thought as I pushed myself to a kneeling position. Or tried to, I should say. Hugo, pushed down on my back with his foot. Not meant to hurt, but where I lay, pressed against the ground, a few fallen twigs scratched my face. Becca’s kick had been downright chiropractic compared to this.


  Mark knelt next to me. “How does it feel to be under my boot?”

  “Technically, it’s not your boot; it’s Hugo’s.”

  “He works for me, so it’s the same thing. Listen to me, kid. Nice trick taking my stash today, but as of right now you’re going to stop this little witch hunt of yours.”

  “It’s not a witch hunt. If it were, I’d be hunting you and not the key. A lot of innocent people would also be in trouble. I’d call this more Robin Hood–style vigilante-justice.”

  “Will you stop analyzing my threats?” Mark snapped his fingers, and one of the thugs—Sean, I think—kicked my side. Not painful, but annoying. Hugo took his foot off me and, when I started to get up, grabbed my hair and jerked my head back. That time it hurt. One thick arm snaked across my throat in a choke hold. I didn’t think anybody under eighteen (whose mother wasn’t a cop) was allowed to learn that.

  “Careful, boys,” Mark said. “He can’t do what we want if he winds up in the hospital.”

  Hugo released me. Rubbing my neck for dramatic effect, I coughed and wheezed. Then I stopped. “It wasn’t that bad,” I said in my normal voice. “Next time, stop the arteries. I’ll pass out in no time.”

  Looking at Mark, I added, “I have to admit, this is the most exciting job I’ve ever done. Even better than the one where Caleb Vanderhoos lost his retainer on the Natural History Museum field trip and I only had a half hour to track it down. And while I’m grateful for you keeping your rabid dogs from tearing me apart, I have to wonder why. If I’m out of the picture, the pressure on you goes away.”

  “Maybe not from you, no, but what about your partner?” Mark smirked. “I know you have one; there’s no way you could get into my locker and backpack without getting caught unless someone was helping you.”

  I smirked back, which made a new scratch on my cheek sting. I’d have to clean that as soon as I got home. “I don’t have a partner.” I have a warden.

  Mark’s face turned bright red. “You do! I know you do.”

  I laughed. He looked just like Becca when she was accusing me of retrieving in the band room and pulling the fire alarm. The thought made my stomach twinge but my heart leap. If I’d bested the school’s number-one private eye, a petty thief was no trouble.

  “No partner.”

  “I know there’s one. Who is it? Sean, Hugo, persuade him for me.”

  “ ‘Persuade him for me’? Really? Where’d you learn that, a made-for-TV spy thriller?” I raised my hands. “It’s not going to do you any good.”

  And it wouldn’t; I’d won before we’d begun. So what if I was outnumbered and in danger of a little roughing up? Mark may have realized I had a partner, but he would sooner believe in little goblins that eat toenails with maple syrup than that I’d team up with Becca Mills. I could tell the truth and he wouldn’t buy it. It was one perk of working with her; she was so far removed from me that she was invisible on Mark’s radar.

  “I don’t have a partner,” I said with as much scorn as I could muster. “You hired me because I’m the best, and the best work alone. It’s not my fault if that’s hard for an amateur like you to believe.”

  Hugo clenched his fist. “Hold on,” Mark said. “We’re not done yet.”

  He leaned in close to where I knelt on the ground. “You aren’t the best. I am.”

  I flopped down and reclined on my stomach, face in my hands, looking up at him like I was watching a mildly interesting caterpillar eating a buttercup. “You’re small-time, Mark. Strictly small-time.”

  Mark’s face muscles twitched. “Small-time? I’ve stolen more in the past two days than you have in your whole career.”

  “Then why are you so scared?” I grinned. “These meteoric—nice word, right?—rises to the top are fragile. Sure, people are noticing you now, but all this could go away fast if the key, the source of your power, disappears. You can’t let that happen.”

  His lips twisting, Mark grabbed my head and drove my face into the ground. “You found nothing when you looked in my locker and my backpack,” he said. “Nothing. It’s not there. I beat you, Wilderson. I won. Do you call that small-time? Now you need to call your partner and tell him it’s over. If you don’t, the principal is going to get a very interesting surprise on Monday.”

  Uh-oh. I knew what that meant: framing time. It was one thing for Becca to bring me in for things I actually did, but it was another entirely for Mark to accuse me of being behind the crime wave he’d committed. I pushed my face out of the dirt and resumed kneeling. “I’m going to find the key. You can’t stop me.”

  Mark stepped back. “Maybe not you. But I can stop your partner. I’ll find out who it is, and he’ll be sorry he ever agreed to work with you.”

  “What, are you going to watch me? Guess I’m wearing my swim trunks in the shower tonight.”

  Sean’s fist landed on my shoulder. It hurt, but it wasn’t meant to damage anything. Not an attack, but a warning.

  Mark waved, and both thugs hauled me up by my arms. “Let’s get you home for dinner. Don’t want your mommy getting worried.”

  They marched me home, where I rushed to the bathroom to clean my scratches. Nothing too bad, but that punch on the shoulder was going to bruise. I’d have to make sure Mom didn’t see it. The scratches, on the other hand, cleaned up well, but Mom’s trained eye would zero in on them as if they were flashing green and red.

  I mean, even Rick noticed them. “Look at this. The criminal mastermind got himself roughed up,” he said. His voice sounded oddly serious.

  “I tripped and fell. It happens.”

  Rick gave me a long look. “For future reference, if you want anyone to believe you, you’ll need to come up with a better story. Maybe one that factors in the way you’re favoring that shoulder. Let me have full control of the TV tonight and I’ll tell Mom I was teaching you football.”

  “She won’t believe it.”

  He shrugged. “Try me. And is it a deal or not?”

  I sighed. “It’s a deal.”

  “Great.” He turned and walked back to his room.

  I went to mine, preparing to spend the entire evening there while Rick watched whatever inane action show or brain-dead sports he wanted. Becca, Mark, Rick—I couldn’t win!

  MOM, OF COURSE, ASKED ABOUT the scratches on my face, and Rick stepped in with a lie about tossing a football around in the yard and my eating it in the shrubs. Like it or not, I had to agree with whatever he said. Good thing people trust lies that sound embarrassing. Mom asked a few questions, but in the end she bought the whole thing.

  After dinner I sat on my bed. I ached all over and, believe it or not, also worried that I was playing with fire. Okay, so I was playing with fire, but it felt like the flames were leaping all around me and my fire extinguisher had turned out to be a flamethrower and I couldn’t ask for help because some moron had already gone and pulled the fire alarm.

  The idea was to make sure Mark knew I was coming after him, but I hadn’t expected to get beaten up in the woods. And Mark had made it clear that sending thugs my way wasn’t even the worst he could do. What would he tell the principal if I didn’t let up the chase? What would happen to me? What would he do to Becca if he found out I was working with her?

  I shouldn’t care. Let Becca take care of Mark or vice versa. It would solve my problems.

  But Jeremy Wilderson didn’t work that way. I had to solve my own problems. Besides, letting Mark and Becca attack each other while I stood by eating Milk Duds was . . . wrong.

  I stood up and paced my room. I wanted to talk to someone, but who? It wasn’t like I could bare my soul to Rick, who’d laugh, or Mom, who’d try to understand but wouldn’t, not without my explaining that I’d been retrieving all year.

  I walked to the hall and picked up our cordless phone. My fingers tapped out the first six digits of Case’s number. He would have had to leave Hack’s house before Hack’s mom came home, so he would be at home after having a good time playing video games
and possibly doing whipped cream mouth shots. But I stopped because I remembered that “having a good time” meant not having scratches or bruises thanks to poor work choices.

  Case and Hack were my friends and the obvious choice for my partners. If I was being watched—and I knew Mark would keep a close eye on my activities—then calling Case and Hack would put my friends on the bad guy’s radar. In fact the goons were probably there already; I’d have to stay far away from my friends until the job was done if I wanted to keep them safe. If I was worried about Becca—and weirdly, I was—the anxiety for her was tiny compared to my worry that Mark would harm my best friends. When all this was over, I’d be free and clear to explain everything to them (minus my involvement with Becca), as long as I did it after my stint in in-school suspension/grounding.

  But someone needed to know I’d been threatened. I canceled the call, went downstairs, found the number I wanted in the neighborhood parents’ contact list, and then returned to my room. I had to call Becca, but I had to be extra sneaky about it.

  Okay, here’s the thing. Being extra sneaky does not mean hiding items behind your back or carrying phones into locked rooms. It can, if you do those things often, but most people don’t. Being extra sneaky is acting like everything is normal when it’s not. For example, it would be weird for me to sneak up to my room with a phone under my shirt and call someone. It would be normal, however, for me to call a friend from school about an assignment.

  Sneaky behavior was a go. I put the phone back in its cradle and went into my room, where my backpack waited. Homework time. I had to anyway; it was house rules the Friday before a Saturday track meet. It also made a good show for anyone watching the house.

  I pulled out my math binder and started filling in the answers for that night’s worksheet. After about fifteen minutes, I flipped through my binder like I was looking for something, and then I walked out to the phone. I know, I know: The odds that someone was watching me right then, as I did homework in my room, were astronomical. But as long as there was a chance, I had to be careful.