by Marty Chan
Slowly, I shook my head. Ida had framed me.
SIXTEEN
Sitting in Principal Henday’s office was like sitting in a dentist’s chair waiting for the dentist to drive the dental probe under my gums and dig for plaque. I imagined all the terrible things that might happen to me, and the longer I waited, the more terrible things I thought. I wondered if Mr. Henday earned his nickname, the Rake, not for being tall and skinny, but for using a rake to punish bad kids. Maybe he’d give me a hundred days’ detention. No, worse, he would make me clean the bathrooms with a toothbrush. Or worst of all, he’d call the police and I’d have to go to jail for a crime I didn’t commit. But as bad as the things were that I thought he’d do, nothing compared to what he actually did.
“Mr. Chan,” he said. “I’m going to have to talk to your father about this.”
If Dad found out I’d made any kind of trouble at school, he’d hit the roof. “I didn’t steal anything, Mr. Henday,” I argued.
“Don’t make this any worse for yourself. Come clean, Mr. Chan. Confession is good for the soul.”
Confession was only good if I admitted to what the Rake thought I’d done. If I told him the truth, he’d say I was lying. The problem with grown-ups was that they only wanted to hear what they wanted me to say. I knew I wasn’t going to convince anyone about the truth, so I just stared at my lap and waited for Mr. Henday to yell at me.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he barked.
Accusing the teacher’s daughter of being a thief would be like sticking my tongue on an icy fence post. I decided to keep my tongue in my mouth and save myself the pain.
“Last chance, Mr. Chan,” he said.
I looked up and said nothing. Mr. Henday folded his arms across his chest, his Finger of Confession poised to tap against his elbow.
“You’re not going to believe me anyway,” I said.
The Rake tapped his elbow once. “I’m waiting.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Instead of staring at his finger, I stared right into my principal’s eyes. “I did nothing wrong.”
The tapping stopped. Mr. Henday unfolded his arms and reached for the telephone. “I want you to know that I don’t like doing this, Mr. Chan.”
He dialled and placed the receiver to his ear. The curly phone cord reminded me of a hangman’s noose. “Mr. Chan, yes, this is Principal Henday calling. We need to talk about your son. Do you have time to come down to the school? Yes, I understand you’re running a business. I wouldn’t have called if this matter weren’t absolutely urgent. Again, I’m sorry to take you away from the store, but I must insist you come to the school. Your son has been accused of stealing.”
Mr. Henday jerked the receiver away from his ear. My Dad’s voice was loud enough for me to hear even without the telephone. It was probably loud enough for the secretary in the next room to hear. Mr. Henday spoke again.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes, Mr. Chan.”
The Rake hung up the phone. The sound of the receiver hitting the cradle made me think of the chop of an executioner’s axe.
Dad never visited the school. Ever. He never came to school concerts or Christmas shows or track and field meets. He never took me to class. He never picked me up. I was surprised he even knew where the school was. I think he was ashamed to come to my school, because he’d dropped out of school in China. But now Dad was not only in a school, he was in the Rake’s office, and I was the one responsible for making him sit in the principal’s office.
“My son will not steal again,” Dad said, his anger vein bulging in the middle of his forehead.
The growing vein meant that he was incredibly mad, but couldn’t blow off steam because he was around people. The bigger the vein grew, the madder dad was. Right now, the vein looked gigantic.
“But I didn’t steal anything,” I argued.
“Quiet,” Dad said through gritted teeth.
“Mr. Chan,” Mr. Henday said.
Both Dad and I looked at Mr. Henday and said “Yes?”
“I meant your father.”
I looked down at my lap.
“Mr. Chan, I know this is going to be difficult, but I’m going to have to ask you to search your home for a bicycle and a video game. Marty may have hidden them somewhere.”
For a few minutes, no one said a thing. I felt like time had stopped and the only way it would move forward was to look up, but I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen to me when time moved again. I stared at my lap, trying to keep time from moving.
Dad kick-started time and my chair. “We’re going home now.”
I didn’t budge, hoping that time could stop again.
“Now!”
There was no way Dad was going to listen to any kind of explanation. The Vein was controlling him and The Vein was saying “Get out of the office and yell at your son.” On the way home, Dad obeyed The Vein’s instructions to the letter.
By the time we got back to the store the vein had returned to normal size, but Dad was still pretty mad. He and Mom turned over everything in my bedroom. They didn’t find Eric’s game or the bicycle, but they weren’t going to stop with just my bedroom.
“Maybe he hide it in the store,” Mom suggested.
“His principal said there was a video game.”
They started to head out of my room. If they looked behind the oatmeal raisin cookies, I was done for. I had to stop the search.
“I didn’t take anything, Mom. You can look in the store. Start with the diapers. You won’t find anything.”
Dad slowed down. Mom bumped into him.
“You don’t want to look behind the diapers,” I said.
Dad turned around. “You know what? I don’t think he hid anything in the store. Our customers would have found it by now. Keep looking in his room.”
They turned over my mattress where I kept the oven mitts I used as hockey gloves.
“Aiya,” Mom said. “You steal these.”
“No, Mom, I was just using them.”
“Why you need them?” she asked.
“Hockey gloves.”
“It’s his friend. He make Marty do this,” Dad said.
I shook my head.
“You always let him come in the store,” Mom accused Dad.
“That boy isn’t allowed here ever again,” he yelled. “And you have to watch your son more carefully.”
Even though they were mad at me, they seemed to take it out on each other. I hated hearing them yell at each other. It was worse than listening to fingernails across a blackboard. When they’d finished searching my room, Mom sat me down in the butcher area of the store while Dad paced behind her.
“No more taking things from the store,” she said.
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Make him tell you where he hid the things he stole,” Dad ordered. He was so mad he could only talk to me through Mom.
“Marty, you tell your dad what you do with the bike and the game.”
I said nothing. Dad was a raging wildfire and anything I said would just be more kindling for the blaze.
“Tell him he is grounded until he shows us where he put the things,” Dad barked.
“You are grounded,” Mom said.
Dad continued to yell at Mom to yell at me, while she repeated everything he said. Eventually, Dad was yelled out. He told her to tell me to go work in the store. My punishment wasn’t very different from what I had to do on a normal school day. The only difference was that Dad used every chance he could to tell me that stealing was bad.
As I stood on a pop crate to ring in groceries on the cash register, Dad talked to the customers about what I had done. Mrs. Johnson, the oldest driver in the world, piled her groceries on to the counter while Dad tried to teach me a lesson through her.
“Mrs. Johnson, tell my son that stealing is bad.”
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Johnson said, turning up her hearing aid.
�
�My son doesn’t understand that stealing is a bad thing,” he said.
I punched in the groceries, trying not to make eye contact with the grey-haired Mrs. Johnson.
“Marty, stealing hurts everyone,” Dad said. “You take from people, you not only take away their things, but you also take away their feelings that people are good.”
“I didn’t steal,” I mumbled.
“Mrs. Johnson, you agree with me, right?”
She placed a couple of cans on the counter. “Well, that’s the last of it,” she said, ignoring Dad’s question.
“Stealing is the worst thing anyone could do to someone else. Maybe my son thinks it’s a little thing that was taken, but big or small, it doesn’t matter. If you steal, it’s wrong, and someone will catch you sooner or later.”
I rang in the last of the groceries. “Mrs. Johnson, will that be all?”
She sheepishly looked at my dad and whispered, “I ate some grapes while I was shopping. Please charge me for them.”
“I wasn’t talking about you, Mrs. Johnson,” Dad tried to explain.
I wanted to crawl into the cash register and slam the drawer shut. As long as Ida stuck to her story, I’d never be able to clear my name. I had to bring her to justice. To do that, I needed to prove that Ida was the thief.
SEVENTEEN
The next day, the kids at school treated me differently. Samantha clutched her backpack to her chest when I came near. Other kids steered clear of me and checked their pockets after I walked past them. There was a saying that a person was innocent until proven guilty, but this was a lie that people said to make the accused feel better. In the court of schoolyard opinion, this saying held as much water as Mom telling me that watching too much TV would make my eyes turn square. In the real world my eyes didn’t turn square and in the schoolyard the kids only needed to hear Ida’s accusation to believe I was a thief.
Eric Johnson charged across the field toward me. He moved like an oncoming car and I was a doe caught in the headlights of his angry eyes. He grabbed me by the shirt and nearly lifted me off my feet.
“Give me my game,” he shouted.
“I didn’t take it,” I explained.
He cocked his fist back. I scanned the schoolyard for help, but everyone was cheering Eric on. He swung at me but didn’t connect. Remi grabbed Eric from behind. Remi grunted. “Say you’re sorry.”
Eric struggled for a second, but couldn’t break out of my friend’s iron clinch. “No.”
“Say it.”
Eric’s shoulders sagged. “Sorry.”
Remi let go. Eric shuffled away, glaring at me. Even though he didn’t say another word, I knew what he was thinking from the scowl across his red face. Around me the kids pointed and muttered to each other, but no one said anything aloud. Remi grabbed me and pulled me away.
“Thanks, Remi,” I said, as we walked away.
“No problem,” he said. “But I don’t think anyone’s going to invite you to their house.”
I nodded. “That’s okay as long as you will.”
“I have to count the spoons first,” Remi joked.
I chuckled. I was so glad that Remi was my friend, because he always knew the right thing to say.
“So what do we do to clear your name?”
“We have to get Ida to confess,” I said. “Where is she?”
He pointed across the schoolyard. Ida, grinning at us, leaned against the granite statue of Jesus. I marched toward her with my friend on my heels. Ida stepped away from the statue, adjusted her wristband, and met us halfway across the field.
“You’re not getting away with this,” I told her.
Remi backed me up. “We’re on to you.” He squinted at her. Apparently, he remembered my mother’s squint-errogation technique.
“You guys can’t pin anything on me. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trina’s bike showed up behind your dad’s store.”
Blackmail was an ugly game, but I wasn’t going to let Ida win. I wished I had my dad’s tape recorder to capture her confession, but I wasn’t allowed to use it after the Graffiti Ghoul case.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “We didn’t do anything to you.”
“I’ve been watching you and your girlfriend spy on me in class, and I don’t like it.”
Remi’s eyebrows arched up.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said, looking at Remi.
Her eyes widened as she guessed the truth. “He doesn’t know, does he? Do you want to know a secret, Frenchie? Your friend here — ”
I cut her off. “You are going to admit what you did,” I said. “Or else.”
“Or else what? I can tell your friend everything.”
“What’s she talking about?” Remi asked.
“We have proof you took everything, Ida.” I had to stop her from blurting what she saw in my secret green scribbler, even if it meant bluffing.
“Who are people going to believe? Me or a bunch of nosy hyenas with a notebook?”
The pieces started to fall together. The reason why she broke into my locker was to get my detective’s notebook, but I never left it in my locker. I always kept it close to me. She grabbed my secret scribbler, mistaking it for the detective notebook, and that’s how she discovered my real feelings for Trina. The feelings I had hidden in the back of the scribbler, and now had to hide from my best friend.
“Face it, Marty, I have a lot of secrets I can tell. And they’d hurt you way more than they’d hurt me.”
She knew she had me.
Remi leaned in. “What do you know?”
“Things,” she said, looking right at me.
“Just because you’re the teacher’s daughter, you think you can get away with anything,” I said.
“It’s exactly the opposite,” she said, glaring.
He jumped in. “No way. The nutty professor will let you get away with anything.”
“Don’t call my dad that,” she snapped.
“You mean the mad science teacher?” Remi asked.
“Shut up. He’s not mad.”
Ida was sending mixed signals. She hated her dad, but she also protected him. How did she really feel about her father?
“He’s a maniac.”
Ida wound up to slap Remi, but I grabbed her wrist. I felt the Medi-bracelet under the cotton material. She pulled her arm away.
“You think I don’t know he’s embarrassing? I don’t need any more reminders. Especially not from snoops like you.”
Sometimes I felt the same way she did. My parents were so embarrassing I wished I was adopted. Sometimes I wished I could choose new parents. I never thought a teacher’s daughter would feel the same way. I figured being related to a teacher was like having a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Ida stomped away. Remi started after her, but I stopped him.
“Why are we letting her go?”
“Give her time to stew. She’ll start to panic soon enough and then she’ll slip up.”
“What secrets was she talking about, Marty?”
“She was bluffing,” I lied. She knew the very thing I needed to keep secret.
As Ida crossed the schoolyard, Mr. E intercepted her. I couldn’t make out what he was saying to her. She ripped off her cotton wristband and threw it at him. He pointed in the direction of the school, and she obeyed. She covered her Medi-bracelet with her other hand as she ran into the building.
He put the wristband in his pocket. He was trying to control Ida, just like my dad was trying to control me, but the more he tried to keep her under control, the more she wanted to act out. Then the truth splashed across my face like a jet of fountain water.
Ida hated Mr. E because he only saw her as his diabetic daughter. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. I finally knew why she stole. She wanted to be known for being something other than the sick girl.
When I told Remi this, he shook his head. “Why wouldn’t she say she was the thief then? Why hide from it now?”
“Remember when we talked about what we wanted to do to the Boissonault brothers to teach them for bullying everyone?”
“Like make them lick the bottom of my shoe after I visited my uncle’s pig farm?”
I nodded. “But when they came around, we didn’t do a thing. Why is that?”
He shrugged. “Because I like keeping all my teeth.”
“Exactly. Ida might want to get caught, but she chickens out when it’s time to take the blame.”
“That’s why she’s taunting us. She wants us to catch her.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And I know just how to do it.”
EIGHTEEN
In Mr. E’s class, I tried to talk to Trina, but she wouldn’t even look at me. Every time I tapped her on the shoulder, she shrugged me off like I was a pesky mosquito. When I tried to drop a note over her shoulder, she let it fall to the floor without even looking down. Instead, she stared straight ahead at Mr. E. Was she afraid of getting me into more trouble?
Finally, I leaned toward the back of her head and whispered, “We need to talk.”
She leaned back and muttered, “Why is Remi still acting as if he like-likes me?”
Had she figured out the truth? My bait trap had caught only one person: me. Trina turned around. I didn’t want to lose her, but I knew if she didn’t get a good answer, she’d come up with her own.
“It’s still part of the plan,” I whispered.
Mr. E barked without turning around. “I hear a lot of chatter but not a lot of writing.”
Trina leaned forward and copied down the notes that our teacher was writing on the whiteboard. I waited for a few minutes. Eric started to shuffle around in his desk. Near the front, a few of the girls started chattering with each other. The Lint was offering one of the Hoppers a melted chocolate bar from his front pocket. The classroom noise was building enough to give me cover. I tapped Trina on the shoulder. She leaned back.
I whispered, “You have to keep pretending so that Ida thinks you don’t care about me. The plan’s on the note.”
She didn’t look back, but she nodded. Then she pretended to scratch her left foot. She picked up the note and read it. Once she was done, she crumpled the note and stuck it in her mouth and ate it.
