“Class trip!” the students said in unison.
When the teacher started speaking again, Zoe turned around and opened the textbook to a page in the middle. At the center of the page were two four leafed clovers.
I was shocked. I had a stinkin’ magnifying glass when I searched for over three hours the night before! “How’d you find two of them?”
“I found them years ago,” she whispered. “I’ve always had them.”
“Well, when you show them you have two, they’ll probably promote you immediately.”
Her jaw dropped and she gasped. “Are you stupid? One is for you! I brought it in case you couldn’t find any!”
Obviously I hoped that was the case, but I didn’t want to be rude and assume it. I took it from the textbook and studied it closely. “Really? That’s… awesome. Thanks!”
“Best cousin ever, right?”
I chuckled.
“You guys are seriously considering joining those ninjas?” Brayden’s voice asked.
He was in the seat next to us. Strange that I didn’t even notice him until he spoke. Guess he had that kind of a personality.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because they’re ninjas. Ninjas aren’t good guys,” Brayden said, slouching in his seat.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” I said. Is Brayden really against the whole ninja thing? This from a boy who hunts werewolves and brags about it? “Ninjas are all about honor and helping people. I read all about it on the internet last night,” I said, which was true. Sad, isn’t it?
And I learned some crazy things! Did you know ninjas were mostly peaceful farmers that lived in the mountains? The reason they’re all stealthy is so they can defend themselves when they were outnumbered. A few people bought into the fighting system of ninjitsu and went around assassinating people with their skills. And you know what they say – a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
“No,” Brayden said. “Real ninjas weren’t bad guys by default, but the ninjas you’re talking about joining… are.”
I shook my head and said the only thing that came to mind. “Nuh-uh.”
Thursday. 10:35 AM. Gym class.
Zoe and I sprinted toward the wooded area on the track as soon as we exited the gymnasium doors. Mr. Cooper had his sunglasses on and was lying back in a reclining lawn chair just to the right of the exit. His air horn was sitting on the ground next to him. It was the fourth day I’ve been in this school, and this was the position I was used to seeing him in. Lazy and uncaring. I think I’ll be a gym teacher when I get older.
Once we entered the trees, the ninjas were there waiting for us. I guess there wasn’t any reason to sneak up or anything since we had an appointment.
The shortest of the ninjas stepped forward. “I assume you both have your clovers, otherwise it would be pea-brained of you to return here.”
At the same time, Zoe and I held out our four leafed clovers.
“Excellent,” said the ninja. “Eat them.”
Did he just say what I think he said? Was this kid crazy? But when I looked at Zoe, she was already chewing on hers. There was no way I’d be shown up by my cousin so I popped the thing into my mouth and started going to town on it. At first, I expected the taste of dirt and grass, but was actually surprised. It wasn’t half bad! It was sort of tart and bitter. It’s possible that I’d even try it again someday.
“Sick!” the ninja said with a laugh. “I can’t believe you guys did that!”
Zoe stopped chewing and looked angry. She spit out the clover and stepped toward the small ninja. “I’m about to make you eat a mouthful of grass, you little—”
The ninja put his hands up, chuckling. “Wait, wait! I’m sorry. It’s cool, you guys are in the clan. Seriously, you’re in.”
Zoe perked up. “Really? Because you just made me eat a clover.”
I don’t know why Zoe minded. I was still chewing on mine. “So we’re in?”
The ninja pulled the black mask off his face. I gulped the clover down as soon as I recognized the kid – it was Wyatt, the short guy we saw standing alone the other day.
“Wyatt?” Zoe asked. “You’re the ninja leader?”
“I am,” he said nodding. “And the two of you are our newest recruits.”
I almost jumped with joy, but I’m not so sure a ninja would hop up and down when they were happy. “Nice,” I said. “So what’s next?”
Wyatt walked past us. The other ninjas remained in place in the woods, watching as he neared the edge and continued speaking. “Now there’s just one more test to pass.”
“But you just said we were in,” Zoe grunted with her arms folded. “In is in, isn’t it?”
“Sorta,” Wyatt said as he parted some leaves. “But you have to show your allegiance to the clan so that we know you’re dead serious.”
Oh no. This is what I feared. He was going to have us kill someone.
“You must perform a final task,” Wyatt said, studying the other students walking the track on the outside of the woods. “One that’s incriminating.”
“I don’t think I can kill anyone,” I whispered.
Wyatt looked over his shoulder at me. “Are you nuts? Kill someone? What’s the matter with you?”
I stared at the ground, embarrassed of opening my big mouth. As I kicked at the dirt, I whispered, “It was a joke.”
Wyatt shook his head in disbelief. “Doubt it,” he said as he returned his attention to the innocent bystanders walking the track. “There’s no killing here. Come on, we’re sixth graders.”
“Then what is it?” Zoe asked.
Wyatt pointed his finger at one of the girls on the track. She was walking with her friends. A purple and pink purse was slung from her shoulder. “Steal Emily’s purse and return it to me within the hour.”
Zoe joined Wyatt at his side. “What? You want us to steal Emily’s purse? Are you nuts? We’re not stealing anything from anyone! Besides, those girls are my friends!”
Wyatt turned around and looked at me. “Then the two of you are dismissed. Leave this place at once.”
I sighed, looking at my cousin. She was standing with her hands on her hips – the usual “you’ve got to be kidding me” look in her eyes. It’s a look I’m familiar with. I didn’t want to argue with her, so I didn’t, but she must’ve seen my hesitation.
“Fine,” she said softly. She was doing it for me.
“Excellent,” said Wyatt as he slipped his mask back on.
“So where’s our black pajamas that we wear since we’re ninjas?” I asked.
Wyatt shook his head and spoke from behind the fabric on his face. “You get those after you return with the purse.”
“After?” Zoe asked.
This was going to be more difficult than I thought.
Wyatt and the clan disappeared from behind us. Zoe and I waited until Emily and her friends made a full lap around the track so they were right in front of us again. I could see her purple purse swinging gently over her should. The strap was short. It wouldn’t be as easy as sneaking it off her arm.
“What do you think?” I asked Zoe.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she replied.
She can be such a drama queen. “Thank you for going along with this.”
She rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure I’m already regretting it.”
I straightened my posture, feeling guilty about Zoe’s involvement. I started to talk, to tell her she could back out of it if she wanted, but she interrupted me.
“Look!” she cried as she pointed. “They’re taking a break in the grass! She put her purse on the ground!”
When I looked out, I saw that Zoe was right. Emily was laying on her back along with her friends. They were staring at the clouds or something, I couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing, but I didn’t care. The purse was free from her shoulder.
“Follow my lead,” Zoe said as she burst through the tree line.
I jumped through, trying to keep
up, but she was fast! She sprinted like some kind of gazelle running from a predator! What was she going to do? Was she just going to snatch the purse and run like heck? I’m pretty sure those girls would notice something as obvious as that and, wait a second. Was she going to use me as a distraction?
My heart started to race as I saw the whole disaster play out in my head. She would scrape the purse off the ground. Just as the girls would notice, I’d suddenly appear, hobbling like a penguin because I suck at running. In all the chaos, they would see me as the bad guy and since I’m pretty slow, I’d be the one those lions would devour. How could Zoe do such a thing to me?
I watched as my cousin finally made it to her group of friends. My heart stopped as I waited for her to grab the purse, but to my surprise, she didn’t. Instead, she tripped just as she reached the circle and tumbled across the grass violently until finally flopping about ten feet away from them.
And then I realized her brilliance. Zoe’s friends dashed to her aid as she clutched at her scraped knees. They were so concerned with her that they left all their belongings behind in the grass. There were shoes with socks stuffed into them, stretchy hair bands, and one lonely purple and pink purse. Emily had left without it.
I grabbed it while watching Zoe and her friends talk in the grass. She glanced over at me and winked. I nodded at her before sprinting back to the woods as quickly as my scrawny legs could carry me.
When I hopped through the trees, Wyatt was waiting for me all by himself. The clan was nowhere to be seen.
“Well done,” he said as he held his hands out.
I dropped Emily’s purse into his palms. “So that’s it?”
His mask moved as he spoke. “That’s it.”
Suddenly Zoe stepped into the woods, joining us. Her faced looked like she had been slapped around by the dirt fairy. It even looked like her lip was bloody. Man, had she gotten into a fight since I last saw her talking to her friends?
“Happy?” she asked.
“Quite,” Wyatt answered. His eyes looked piercing from the ninja mask surrounding them. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one! The mask, I mean… not his eyes. For the record, I had no intention of getting my hands on one of his eyes.
Wyatt opened the purse and dumped the contents onto the ground. Zoe clenched her fists in anger.
“Why would you do that?” She asked. “Why not just take what you want and leave the rest somewhere she could find it?”
Wyatt chuckled. “Because that’s silly. The point of stealing it is that it’s ours to do what we want with it.”
My cousin stared at the short ninja. I thought time had stopped because of how thick the tension was. I was waiting for her to throw a punch at him. She tended to do things like that when she was angry.
“I’m out,” she said, raising her palms. “This is making me feel like throwing up.”
“You can’t just leave now, sweetheart!” Wyatt sneered. “You’re a member of the clan and guilty of theft! If you leave, we’ll make sure you regret it!”
The rest of the ninja clan started stepping out from behind the trees. Many of the ninjas were pulling their masks back over their faces. Their eyes looked angry.
“Whatever,” Zoe said as she stepped through the trees. From the other side of the foliage, she spoke to me. “You comin’ or what?”
I looked at Wyatt who was still holding Emily’s purse. The ninja was calmly staring at me, shaking his head slowly. It was one of the hardest things I’ve said in my life. “Sorry, Zoe. I think I’ll stay here.”
Friday. 9:30 AM. Art class.
I got to school late this morning, and it wasn’t by accident. All night, my stomach had twisted and turned from not only stealing a girl’s purse, but also betraying my own cousin. My parents didn’t seem to notice, but my sister sure did. She was nice about it, not by asking what was wrong, but hanging out with me while I wasted time playing video games.
When I woke up, I acted sick. My mom bought it for a little bit, at least enough to skip homeroom. But when she caught me out of bed and playing basketball in my driveway, she took me straight to school. She barely gave me time to get ready! I arrived for second period art class, but with messed up hair.
When I walked into class, I expected Zoe to scold me, but it was worse than that. She completely ignored me. I know she saw me walk into the room – everyone did and made fun of my hair. But she just sat at her desk with her watercolors painting unicorns or something.
When I looked at her canvas, I saw that she was painting flowers. I was wrong about the unicorns.
“Hey,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“Hey Chase,” said Brayden. The desks in the room were separated into clumps of four. He was in the clump behind Zoe’s.
“Hi,” I said, unenthusiastically.
He switched from his clump of desks to the one Zoe was at. “Did you hear about the food drive money?”
I had only gotten to school so I hadn’t heard about anything yet. “No. What about it?”
“It’s gone,” Brayden said. “The container is completely empty.”
“What are you talking about? That thing was filled with cash and sitting in the front office! Somebody stole it?”
“Just the money. The container’s still there, and nobody knows who did it,” Brayden said.
I felt that same sick feeling roll around in my guts. I had to take a seat and breathe slowly through my nose. I didn’t know what it meant, but I had my suspicions. And from the looks of it, Zoe did too.
“Anyway,” Brayden continued. “That’s that, so you’re all caught up in case you see a mountain of cash sitting somewhere.”
I watched in silence as he returned to his seat.
“Happy with your new friends?” Zoe asked. She wasn’t even trying to hide her sarcasm.
I didn’t want to make excuses. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Really.”
“Really?”
“Really!”
Zoe tapped the water off her paintbrush and set it on a wet paper towel next to her canvas. “So you quit then, hmm?”
I didn’t answer.
“You’ve quit, and you also returned Emily’s purse, right?” Zoe asked. The way she rose her voice grated on me.
“Well, no,” I whispered.
“Of course not,” Zoe said. “You know how I know? Because she called me last night wondering if I had seen it anywhere. You know what I had to do then?”
I took a breath. I remember it being the longest pause in the history of all pauses. “What?”
She leaned over and whispered. “I lied to her.”
That was it. If she was going to give me a guilt trip, I didn’t have to take it. “I didn’t ask you to lie! You could’ve told her the truth!”
“That I helped you steal it?” she whispered coarsely. “Yeah, right. And commit social suicide? Forever to be branded as a klepto?”
“Whatever, Zoe. You knew what you were doing.”
I could hear her teeth grinding. “That I was helping my cousin fit in at a school he was new at? That I felt so bad for him because he’s such a dork that I couldn’t stand to watch him be alone?”
I nodded my head, destroyed by what she said. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The truth. You’ve finally revealed how you really feel about it,” I said, surprised by the shaking in my own voice. “Well you don’t have to worry about it anymore. I guess I’ll leave you alone forever then. Happy?”
Ah, the classic guilt trip. I was good at those. Now I only had to a wait a few seconds for her apology. And in three… two… one…
“Good!” she said as she stood from her desk. She stormed up to the art teacher. He handed her a hall pass, and she disappeared out the door.
And there I sat, smug smile on my face, waiting for an apology that wasn’t going to be delivered anytime soon.
I’d never felt so stupid in my life.
Friday. 10:35 AM. Gy
m class.
I wasn’t sure what to do in gym. Zoe had already gathered with her group of friends, which included Emily. They stood just outside the girl’s locker room, gossiping and talking loudly to one another.
I was on the other side of the gymnasium, standing alone until Brayden joined me.
“Where’s Zoe?” he asked.
I nodded my head in her direction.
“Oh,” he said. “I heard you guys arguing in art class.”
Staring at the floor, I made sure not to make eye contact. The fact that he heard us talking meant he might have heard about Emily’s purse. “What did you hear us say?”
“Everything,” he sighed.
I took a breath and continued studying the gymnasium floor.
“Kind of shady to steal a girl’s purse like that,” Brayden said. “Kind of shadier to put that pressure on a family member.”
I feigned a large smile. “Thaaaaaanks. I’ll be sure to remember that next time.”
“Told you those were the bad guys,” Brayden said.
Would this kid just shut up already? “Look, I’m not arguing with you here. Alright? Would you mind walking away?”
Brayden chuckled as he shook his big dumb head. Finally he pushed himself off the wall and started walking toward the gymnasium doors.
I let everyone filter out before exiting. I didn’t feel like having anyone walk behind me.
When I reached the track, I waited until the coast was clear before entering the ninja’s secret hideout. Wyatt was already there in full uniform, as were most of the other ninjas. It was strange because they were all lined in a circle. At the center of the circle was a ninja uniform, tightly folded and resting on a small wooden table.
“Welcome, brother,” Wyatt’s voice said from beneath his mask. “You’re one of us now.”
I won’t lie to you – all the guilt I had felt earlier disappeared. The sun was pouring in from overhead, slipping through the leaves of trees. The ground twinkled from specks of water left behind from the morning dew and moist air, like diamonds sprinkled around the hideout. The rays of light fell upon the ninja uniform as if God himself had blessed the cotton it was made from. I scratched at my eyebrow, careful to hide a tear that had formed in the side of my eye.
Diary of a 6th Grade Ninja (a hilarious adventure for children ages 9-12) Page 3
