The Fourth Stall Part II

by Chris Rylander

  The Olson Olson Theatre still pretty much looked the same now as it had then. As you entered you were at the top of one of two sets of stairs, with rows of nice leather seats on either side that ran down to the large stage. Behind the middle section of seats way in the back was the production booth, where the sound and lighting people worked. Up above that was a small balcony that was used for seating when the place got really packed.

  It was a really nice and expensive theater. The money for it had been donated to the school by two guys named Olson. But they weren’t even related. One of the Olsons was simply a big theater fan, and he’d heard about our school and how great our plays were, and he’s a really rich dude, and so when he came and liked our plays, he decided to help build us a new theater. Because before that the school theater was about as old and rickety as a hundred-and-five-year-old man. Comparing the new theater to the old theater would be like comparing an ancient Nintendo 64 with the newest version of the Xbox: there was simply no comparison.

  Anyway, then there was this other guy, the other Olson, and he was a former student. Our drama teacher has been at the school forever, and he was why our school plays were so good. So this guy Olson was in theater a long time ago, and he’d said it changed his life. And now that he’s a rich and famous actor, he wanted to give back to our school. The thing was that both Olsons wanted to donate the new theater. It was actually a pretty funny fiasco for a while, with those two guys fighting in the local papers all the time. The thing was, each of them wanted the theater to be named after him, which I heard my dad say once was pretty typical for actors and rich people. “Always in need of more attention” is what he’d said.

  So the two Olsons fought over whose name would get to be on the new theater. Then finally someone was just like, “Hey, you have the same name. Why not just call it Olson Theatre?” But neither Olson liked that idea either because then you’d never know which Olson it was. So eventually after like three months of arguing, the two Olsons agreed to split the costs and name the theater after both of them.

  And so they built us this awesome new theater and its full name is: The Monte Andrew Garrison Geoffrey Olson Olson Theatre. Most kids just call it the Magoo Theatre, which I think is probably the most fitting name anyway.

  I entered the theater on the left side and stood by the wall. The school’s play director and drama teacher, Dewey Louie-Booey (no, that’s not a joke), stood in front of the stage giving out directions to six giant sunflowers with arms and legs while a couple of kids dressed in all-black spandex suits and fake, ten-inch fingernails stood to the side watching. The yellow-foam flower petals the sunflower kids wore around their faces were so heavy that one kid tipped over.

  What was so great about Louie-Booey’s plays was that he wrote them all himself. Every play our school did was a Louie-Booey original instead of some cheap and crappy version of Annie or whatever other junky plays other schools were doing these days. And one of the best things about Louie-Booey, and what made him particularly awesome, was that he let the kids get involved, really involved. Like, he let them all interpret their own parts and help design their own costumes. So the school plays really felt like something that our students created as opposed to just a bunch of kids following directions from an adult.

  Everyone loved Louie-Booey and his plays, anyway, and the fact that he then let kids put their own spin on their character and really own the play in a cool way took it over the top. So at our school almost everybody wanted to be in plays, not just the drama kids who liked to both sing and complain a lot. At our school even the athletes liked to be in the plays. There was sometimes a waiting list to get to be in the next play, even if the part was just as an extra.

  Just as an example of how awesome our school plays were: our last one started out with a scene where Kanye West and a lobster were walking through a desert, and then they got into this awesome shoot-out with these mutant cacti. Anyway, you probably needed to see it to understand how great it was.

  “Okay!” Louie-Booey yelled, but not in a mean way, just loud. “You need to really get into your characters. You are flowers grown in the earth. Your seeds will eventually be harvested and become crunchy, salty snacks at sporting events everywhere. How does that make you feel?”

  The kids on stage giggled. Louie-Booey had this sense of humor where he would say ridiculous things all seriouslike, but then there’d be this grin on his face. Anyway, it’s hard to describe, but the guy was pretty funny.

  The sunflowers started talking to each other, and then they started acting like sunflowers, assuming sunflowers really could walk and talk. And I have to say, they looked pretty good—and funny. That was the other thing about our school plays: most of them were meant to be funny; they were comedies. Which everybody loved because really, who wants to see a play about an orphaned homeless girl or about a war where people die? I mean, those plays are just depressing. Plus, it’s fun to see kids get to try and be funny on purpose on stage.

  Louie-Booey laughed at the sunflowers. The sight on stage would have been the most disturbing thing I’d seen since this one time when I saw Vince’s grandma eating from a tub of Vaseline with a spoon if it wasn’t also so funny.

  “Yes, yes, now’s the time for the Underlings of St. Crispin to come in and plague the sunflowers. Now, Underlings!” Louie-Booey yelled through his laughter.

  The kids in black spandex, who apparently were Underlings of St. Crispin, started shuffling toward the sunflowers. Except they didn’t walk normally; they spread their legs really far apart and took high, huge exaggerated steps as if they were in a minefield. They wiggled their long fingernails in front of them as they neared.

  “Okay, now it’s time for the Articles of Vespa!” Louie-Booey yelled. “Where are you, Articles?”

  The Articles of Vespa entered the stage from behind the curtain. There were four of them, each wearing a different costume. The first one was dressed up as a giant pair of scissors. At first I thought the next two were supposed to be those cartoon characters Rocky and Bullwinkle, but I wasn’t sure, because the kid dressed as the squirrel had foam all over his mouth, so I think he was simply supposed to be a rabid squirrel. Plus, the moose was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a grass skirt. The last Article of Vespa was a giant tube of toothpaste, except that the brand name crudely drawn on the costume said “Cavity Growers Tooth-pasties.”

  Then the Articles of Vespa started chanting.

  “We want to drop the eggs! But the Formica is too cold. We want to drop the eggs! But the Formica is too cold.”

  I held in a laugh. It was pretty clear our next play might be the funniest one yet. Maybe the weirdest, too, but that was probably why it would also be the funniest. I decided to move along so I didn’t ruin it for myself once the show opened. I know going to plays is usually kind of nerdy at a lot of schools, but at our school everybody went to the plays. Every showing sold out.

  I moved around to the other side of the theater and knocked on the door to the production booth as gently as I could. After a few seconds the door opened a crack. I saw nothing in that open sliver but darkness, and then suddenly a face appeared in front of me.

  It was some kid I recognized as a seventh grader, but he didn’t look much older than me. He had thin metal glasses and short blond hair. His eyes bulged from his head like a pug dog’s.

  “Do you have the filter?” he asked.

  “Um, no.”

  His face disappeared into the darkness, and I heard whispering. Then he was back.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Where’s the filter? We need it.”

  A small bead of sweat trickled down his face and across his nose.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have it. I just need to speak with Hannah,” I said.

  His face disappeared again, and I heard more whispering. “No, he said he doesn’t have it. I don’t know. Maybe he’s hiding it.”

  Then he was back.

  “Hannah is
not here,” he said.

  “If you get her for me, I’ll get you the filter,” I said.

  His eyes bulged even more, and for a second I thought they’d splatter all over the inside of his glasses like bugs hitting a windshield.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  I waited while he disappeared back into the small production room. After a few minutes I was ready to give up and leave, but then Hannah came out of the booth and closed the door behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  She looked at me. Her green eyes glowed even in the dark light of the theater. I waited, she continued to look at me, and then she shuffled her feet and frowned.

  “Well, start talking,” she hissed.

  “Tell me about Bryce,” I said.

  “What? I already did. What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  “I don’t like being lied to.”

  She grabbed my shirt and pulled me out of the theater and into the hallway.

  “What are you talking about? I’m busy, okay? Just tell me what you want.”

  “Mr. Kjelson doesn’t have a son, okay? I found out. So you want to tell me why you really came to me for help?”

  She looked neither surprised nor upset at my revelation. Actually, she looked calmer than I’d ever seen her. Almost like I was really seeing her dropping her act for the first time. She sighed.

  “It’s complicated, okay? I just thought it’d be easier to make up that stupid story,” she said.

  “Fair enough. Now what’s the real reason?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I bet I would,” I said.

  That’s when she giggled and shook her head. I watched uncomfortably as she laughed.

  “What? What’s so funny?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just picturing you trying to understand anything at all.”

  I shook my head. We’d gotten along so well earlier that morning. But I guess that had been part of the lie. “Look, you haven’t paid me yet, so maybe it’s just best if we cancel this. I can’t really do much for clients who keep lying to me.”

  She frowned and nodded. I started walking away, a little upset with myself for doing that. I never gave up on problems. Ever. But in this case I couldn’t really even tell anymore what it was that I needed to do.

  “Wait, Mac,” she called out. “Did you ask him about me?”

  I turned around as she walked up to me. I nodded.

  “And?” she said.

  “And, yeah, okay. I admit he kinda, sorta acted pretty weird.”

  She looked at me again like she had before, like she was finally being honest. “Please do this for me?” She shook her head as if she was completely dismissing all of the lies she’d told me. “There’s nowhere I can turn. I already tried going to the principals, even. He followed me here. I used to go to Oaks Crossing, and even there he had it in for me. It all started when I made a joke about how short he is. I kinda sorta got a whole bunch of kids to start calling him a midget. I know, totally childish, believe me. But anyway, he got his revenge by giving me detention, way more than I deserved. He, like, basically made it his mission to make my life there a living nightmare.

  “So that’s why I transferred here this year. To get away from him. You think I wanted to leave all my friends back at Oaks Crossing to come here? Well, I didn’t at all. But he followed me. I know he transferred here to get me. I’m sure of it. I seriously just made up that thing about Bryce because it was so much simpler and more believable than the truth. I mean, it sounds ridiculous even now, me explaining it to you. I need your help, Mac. You’re the last hope I have to get away from him.”

  I could see that she was close to tears now. And even I had to admit that things must’ve been pretty bad if she transferred schools to get away from this guy. She had even gone to Dickerson and George for help. I’d never have done that no matter how bad things got.

  Then Hannah removed a twenty-dollar bill from her pocket and held it out to me. It fluttered between her index and middle fingers.

  “I’ll pay you now. Full asking price. Then you’ll take care of Kjelson? You’ll just get him out of here so he can’t keep making my life miserable?”

  I hesitated. But my business ethics got the better of me. I took the money. Never turn down a customer when they’re offering cash up front. And never give up on a customer. Plus, if she was telling the truth, then Kjelson had to be stopped. Nobody deserved that kind of teacher. Also, there was Vince’s new theory that perhaps Kjelson was somehow a part of all the school’s other problems as well, considering that they started up shortly after he started teaching here. I had to admit that there was at least a chance that Hannah was right about him.

  “Okay, deal. I’ll get him off your back. No more questions. No more lies, though, okay?”

  She nodded and smiled. Once again, like this morning in gym, she looked like a normal girl and not someone who’d just as soon grind you up to make fertilizer as she would be nice to you.

  “Thanks, Mac,” she said sweetly.

  Chapter 16

  Monday—Bedroom

  Before heading home that day after school, I stopped by Vince’s trailer for a while. I told him about my exchange with Hannah, and after that he was even more convinced that Kjelson was up to no good. But he was also more confused than ever. Why would a new teacher be so obsessed with getting a school in trouble with the higher-up Suits? I wished I had an answer for him, but I was probably even more confused than he was so we left it at that.

  When I got home, I went straight up to my room. I had just about an hour before dinner would be ready, and I wanted to make some notes in my Books, which I had brought home for the night, before I ate. It’s always best to take care of any business you have before eating. Because after eating one of my mom’s dinners, all you’ll want to do is lie on the couch while a cheesy game show plays on the TV and wonder why you ate so much.

  I flipped on the lights, closed the door, and turned to face my desk. And then I almost let out an embarrassing yell that would have shattered all the windows in the house.

  “Hi, Mac.”

  Tyrell was sitting in the chair by my desk.

  “You have to stop doing that to me,” I said. “Do my parents even know you’re here?”

  He looked a little taken aback. “No, why would they?”

  You just had to love this kid. He didn’t understand the concept of lawful entry. To him the only way to enter or exit a location was undetected, and I didn’t think using a front door or a doorbell was a thought that ever crossed his mind.

  “So you’ve been just sitting here in the dark waiting for me to get home like some kind of serial killer or something?”

  Tyrell grinned. “No, of course not. I knew right about what time you’d get here. So no worries, I haven’t been waiting long.”

  I chuckled. “I hope this means you have good news for me?”

  “That depends. I have a lot of information for you, but it will be up to you to decide whether it’s good or bad.”

  “Is it about the SMARTs?”

  Tyrell nodded.

  “Well, let me get Vince and Joe over here, then, because if we’re going to plan something, we’ll have to do it tonight since the school is taking the test tomorrow.”

  I called Joe and Vince and invited them over for dinner. My mom had an open-table policy for dinner. Which meant I never even had to get her permission. I could basically just invite over whoever I wanted for dinner. Which, of course, was awesome.

  After dinner I told my mom we were headed to the school to play football. And, well, we were headed to the school, just not to play football. Tyrell, Joe, Vince, and I all went to my office in the fourth stall to discuss the SMARTs.

  Meeting there during school hours had been dangerous because of George’s recent suspicion, but it was now seven thirty at night, so we figured there was no chance an
ybody would be around. Which is why it was the perfect—no, the only safe place to meet to discuss a possible plan that involved cheating on a state administered test—something that I didn’t think had ever been attempted on such a large scale before in history.

  “Okay, Tyrell,” I said once we were all grouped inside my office. “What do you have for us?”

  Now, I’d like to say that what he found out was pretty good, considering he had only half a day to do it, but that would be a lie. The truth was he’d found out so much information that it was close to a miracle. It wasn’t just pretty good; it was better than was humanly possible. Tyrell would put CIA agents to shame. He could out-cool and out-spy James Bond with nothing but a used toothbrush and seventeen cents.

  Tyrell had discovered that the SMARTs were administered via those sheets that just had circles all over them. The kind where you fill in A, B, C, D, or E with a pencil for hundreds of questions. The questions came in a separate packet. After the test Dr. George and his secretaries would go around to each classroom and collect all of the answer sheets for the entire school. Then they would go back to his office and put them all together in one large security envelope and seal it. At six thirty the next morning a few guys from the State Testing Bureau, or STB, would arrive and take the test results back to their local facility. The answer sheets were fed into a large machine, and because of some new software they got recently, the scores could be generated and delivered back to the school within a day or two.