The Fourth Stall Part II

by Chris Rylander

  Monday—West Side of the School

  The first order of business for me the next school day was to find Hannah. I had to see if we could take her up on her offer to help us fix the SMART issue, which just so happened to also be the answer to her problem as well: Mr. Kjelson.

  I went over it all in my head as we walked over to find her. Kjelson arrives at our school, and all the problems start shortly after. Then Vince and I see him sneaking around school with cages of hamsters and other lab animals just as we’re getting reports of poop being planted in lockers. Then a student, Hannah, who apparently has known him longer than all of us, tells us he’s crooked. Also, he gets dodgy every time we bring up the SMARTs, and we just happen to see him hanging around the administration offices the very night we altered the answer sheets only to find out a few days later that all the tests failed. Then, to top it all off, we find direct evidence in George’s office that Kjelson altered the tests and that even George is on to him. It was almost as easy as adding up two and two.

  It was heartbreaking because Coach Kjelson had seemed like such a cool guy, and he was a Cubs fan. But then again, if a traitor like Mark Grace could be a Cub for close to ten years, then it was possible that there were some corrupt Cubs fans out there as well.

  Joe, Vince, and I started our search for Hannah during early recess on the west side of the school, the place where most of the seventh and eighth graders hung out. And finding her actually wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. But then again, she wasn’t exactly hiding from us.

  She was down near the skating rink. I tried to stay away from the skating rink as much as possible. It wasn’t really a dangerous area of the school in terms of bullies, not like near the teeter-totters, which was pretty much skid row, but the skating rink was perhaps the most dangerous area in the school because that’s where all of the eighth-grade girls hung out. Nobody knew for sure exactly what they did down there, but most believed they spent a lot of their time talking about different ways to make boys so confused they cried. Some kids also said the girls lit a bunch of scented candles and performed sacrifices on small animals to help them discover what the newest fashions would be and which boy would be the hottest one the next summer. That didn’t seem too likely to me, but you never could know for sure when it came to girls. Because as I’ve said before, more than a few times: in school, girls are more dangerous than shotguns.

  Hannah was with a small group of four girls. They were sitting in a row with their backs against the outside of the skating rink; none of them were wearing ice skates. They saw us coming from a mile away.

  Hannah smiled warmly when she saw me, as if she was actually happy I’d come to see her. She looked more like a nice person and less like a poisonous snake at that moment than ever before.

  “Hi, Mac,” she said as we approached.

  I nodded.

  “This is that kid I told you about,” she said to her friends, and they responded with giggles.

  “Can I speak with you for a moment?” I asked, trying to keep my face from turning red.

  “Sure.”

  I waited, and she just sat there looking at me with the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. I’d probably tell you it was too sweet if you asked me enough times.

  “Um, in private,” I said.

  “That works two ways,” she said, still grinning.

  I nodded at Vince and Joe and they nodded back.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said to Hannah.

  She got up and followed me around to the other side of the ice rink. Not all the way around to the other side but at least around the bend and out of earshot of our friends. She was still smiling when I turned to face her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Take a guess,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Her dark hair swung across her face. “I don’t know. You want to admit that you’ve fallen deeply and madly in love with me?”

  I took a step back almost as if she’d slapped me in the face.

  “No! I’m . . . Why would you think that?” I asked, again trying desperately to keep my face from turning red.

  She started laughing. “You’re really too easy, Mac.”

  I waited while she got it out of her system.

  After she finally stopped laughing, I said, “You know what this is really about?”

  For the first time her smile disappeared. “No, I really don’t. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Kjelson. I think you were right about him all along. And I was wondering what you know about him that we don’t. I mean, this goes way deeper than him just being mean to you; he’s trying to take down the whole school!”

  “What?” she said.

  “Tell me right now what’s really up with Mr. Kjelson,” I demanded. “We need to know so we can take him down. This is bigger than just your thing right now. The future of the school is on the line!”

  “Okay, first of all it’s pronounced ‘Chel-Sun,’ not ‘Kuh-Gel-Sun.’ Second I already told you. . . .”

  “No, you didn’t tell me the real reason, okay?” I said, my voice rising more than I’d intended. “You need to tell me why you really want him out, or else I’ll—”

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” some super-tan eighth grader asked as he approached us.

  We both stopped and looked at him.

  “Is this little punk hassling you? You want me to get rid of him?” His bangs were spiked up, and he wore a long-sleeved shirt under a short-sleeved polo with the collar raised around his neck like some sort of wall. And he had dimples in the sides of his face like giant caves in the sides of a mountain.

  “Can’t you see we’re having a private conversation, Prince Charming?” Hannah said to the guy.

  He flinched and took a step back. “Hey, I just thought . . .”

  “Yeah, you just thought you’d come rescue the poor, defenseless little girl, right? I can take care of myself, Ditty Pop. Now leave us alone!”

  Prince Charming put up his hands and backed away. “Okay, whatever. Jeez, sorry I tried to help.”

  “Hannah, listen to me, please?”

  She didn’t say anything. But she also didn’t walk away.

  “Look, I’ve got reason to believe that Mr. Kjelson is trying to get our school shut down forever, so I need to know what you know about him if we’re going to have any chance to stop that from happening.”

  “That can’t be right,” she said.

  “Well, it is. The thing is, I thought you were wrong. I thought that he was a great teacher and really cool guy. But then I started finding things out.”

  She shook her head. “No, this can’t be right at all.”

  “I don’t have time for any more stories, Hannah. I need to know what’s going on or we’re all going to get shipped off to other schools, maybe as soon as next week!”

  Hannah looked uncertain at first, and I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get anything real out of her. But then I saw her will break like a stale wheat cracker. She let out this huge sigh, like she’d been holding her breath for a month.

  “Mr. Kjelson is my dad.”

  I couldn’t say anything. I basically stood there gaping at her like an idiot. That couldn’t be right. She took my silence for what it was and then continued.

  “I know, I know, our last names are different. Carol is my mom’s last name, and I use it here at school. Anyway, we moved here earlier this year when my dad got this new job. He said it was ‘an offer he couldn’t refuse,’ which I just rolled my eyes to at the time, of course.”

  After the disbelief hit me in the face and I reeled for a bit, I started to realize that they did kind of look alike. And it wasn’t totally unbelievable. But then again, she had proven to be a pathological liar so far, and there were still details that didn’t make any sense.

  “But how could nobody know you’re related? Why didn’t he say so when I asked him about you? And most of all, why would you want your own dad fired?” Th
e questions spilled out onto the grass between us like I’d eaten rotten questions for lunch or something.

  “Nobody knows we’re related because that’s how I want it. At my old school, Oaks Crossing, everybody loved my dad. He was everybody’s favorite teacher. Do you know what it’s like to have kids like your dad more than you? I mean, parents and teachers are supposed to be dorks; everybody knows that. It was embarrassing. So I told him that if he was making me move to this dumb town and dumb school, then he couldn’t let anyone know we were related. I was sick of just being known as Mr. Kjelson’s weird daughter. Is that such a crime?”

  “Well, not really, but that still doesn’t explain why you wanted to get your own dad fired. . . . Is it because you found out he’s trying to sabotage the school?”

  “What? No! He’d never do anything like that; he loves this school. He always says it’s way better than that snobby Oaks Crossing. I wanted him to get fired because I thought that if he lost his job, I could go back to my old school, my old friends. I guess I’m still kinda mad at him for moving me here, away from my old life.”

  I shook my head. That was why. That right there was why they say that in grade school, girls are more dangerous than shotguns. They can go after you for the smallest things. And whatever it is they’re thinking at any given moment, it doesn’t ever seem to make sense to anybody but them.

  “But didn’t you just say that you hated your old school because everybody liked your dad better?” I asked.

  “Well, obviously not, like, everybody everybody. I was exaggerating for effect; I still had friends and everything.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think of to say back.

  “But now I guess . . . this school is pretty cool. It takes some getting used to, but the school plays are awesome, and there are a bunch of cool kids here. There aren’t really all those cliques you find at other schools, at least not in the same way. It’s different here—people kinda just accept you for who you are. I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t want to go back to Oaks Crossing anymore. I like it here. Please don’t get him fired.”

  So just like that she changes her mind. See what I mean? Dangerous with a capital D.

  “So you’re pretty sure then that your dad actually is clean?”

  “Definitely,” she said. “All he ever talks about is how much he loves it here. He said the kids are like none he’s ever met before. He said he didn’t know such a diverse school could even exist in today’s world, whatever that means. And he just loves you, Mac! I mean, you should have heard the way he talked at the dinner table about what great ballplayers you and Vince are. He just raved about you guys.”

  I think she was kind of embarrassed to be telling me this, because she was looking at something behind me now and not saying that right to my face. That was okay; I was pretty embarrassed myself. And it felt pretty awesome to know that Kjelson thought I was a good catcher.

  “Well, then who’s behind trying to get the school closed down?” I asked.

  Hannah shrugged and then said, “Look, I gotta go, okay? And I expect a refund of my twenty dollars at some point.”

  I wanted to argue that point with her since she’d already caused me way more than twenty dollars’ worth of headaches with all of her lies, but she trotted away, and I had enough on my mind right now anyway.

  I waved Vince and Joe over. As they walked toward me, I realized that maybe there was some hope after all. If Kjelson wasn’t behind this, the signs still pointed at him being involved somehow. That phone call we’d overheard in George’s office had to mean something. So maybe Kjelson could at least provide us with a lead of some sort. Or maybe he would even help us, if he loved the school as much as Hannah claimed.

  I filled Vince and Joe in on everything I’d just found out. They were about as shocked as I was.

  “Well, we should go pay Mr. K. a visit, then,” Vince said. “Maybe all that stuff you found in George’s office means that he’s been doing the same thing we have—trying to figure out where things went wrong. Maybe he was merely investigating things himself?”

  Chapter 24

  Monday—Mr. Kjelson’s Classroom

  After school that day we found Mr. Kjelson at his desk working on something.

  “Oh, come on in, guys,” he said to us. “What’s up?”

  Vince and I looked at each other and we both made a silent agreement in that one quick look. It was time to come clean; more lies in this situation wouldn’t lead us anywhere. The only way to get anywhere with Kjelson was going to be to tell him everything.

  So we did.

  We confessed it all. That we’d found out about a lot of weird things happening at the school and that we were convinced someone was trying to get it closed down. How we’d thought it might be him and about what we’d found in Dr. George’s office backing up those beliefs. I didn’t leave out the part about how I’d cheated on the SMARTs for the whole school that evening he saw us in the halls. I had to trust him all the way or nothing. Besides, that was what we still didn’t get: if I’d cheated for everyone, then how had we all failed?

  Mr. Kjelson looked pretty disappointed in us, and I didn’t blame him. Here he’d thought we were good kids and now he was finding out that we’d cheated on a state test—not just for ourselves, but for every kid in the school.

  “Boys, I’m glad you’re coming clean, but this is unacceptable. I can’t believe you guys would risk your futures like this.”

  All I could do was look at my shoes. I couldn’t even stand to look at him. I felt so bad.

  “But,” he continued, “I have to admit I can see why you did it. And that your hearts were in the right place. Because I agree, I’ve been suspecting the same thing you have. And it’s just as bad as you feared, too. The meeting that’s happening on Tuesday is going to be over whether to close this school down immediately. And I have to admit, it seems like it’s going to happen at this point.”

  “I’m so sorry. I just thought I was the one guy who could save the school,” I said.

  Mr. Kjelson actually laughed, but it was pretty humorless. He killed it off with a sigh. “The part I still don’t get is who is behind all of this? Who would go to such lengths to shut this place down and why?”

  “Maybe,” Vince said, “the person actually responsible for the recent events is the drama teacher, Louie-Booey, and he is actually the leader of an alien race of peoples who worship chocolate pudding, broken tennis rackets, and hairless dogs. And the changes in the school are merely intended to help make the place more habitable for their eventual invasion and takeover because their home planet was filled with failure and small animal poop, and they needed deep-fried, fatty foods to survive. Really, with the way things have been going lately, this one almost seems like the most reasonable option to me at this point.”

  Kjelson and I laughed out loud at that one in spite of the overall gloomy mood. That was why I loved Vince: he could always bring out the laughter in even the worst situations.

  “But seriously, why are you the only teacher who seems to care?” Vince asked. “And I still don’t get how one test can have this kind of impact.”

  “Well, most of the other teachers either thought I was a crazy conspiracy theorist or were scared for their careers,” Mr. Kjelson said. “It seems someone has been threatening them. And well, sadly there are a few who just don’t seem to care at all.”

  Mr. Kjelson then explained to us about this new legislation that required a certain percentage of the school’s students to meet minimum standards. If a school did not meet those bare minimum test scores, then there was an emergency provision that could call for immediate closure of that school. But the test scores would have to be universally, ridiculously low for that to happen. A school full of chimpanzees could probably meet those minimum standards. Yet unfortunately our students had not. Whoever had altered the tests after us saw to that.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid it
may be too late. That meeting is Tuesday. They think it’s imperative that this place be shut down pretty quickly.”

  “But they can’t just, I mean . . .”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid they can. It’s been done successfully before in other states and school districts and it’ll happen again. Usually it’s for other reasons, but I don’t think this will be unheard of. Whoever staged all this did a good job. I mean, there are health code violations, the lunch menu was blatantly negligent for a time, gym fitness standards aren’t being met, there are bully problems, and as far as government officials, local school district officials, and state education administrators can tell, our students failed the SMARTs in record numbers. From the outside this school looks like a disaster right now, even with all the good work Dr. George has done to try and clean it up.

  “But that still leads us back to who and why,” Kjelson said again. I could tell that he hated mysteries as much as I did, especially ones that involved him losing his job. “What could anyone possibly have to gain from this school being shut down? It makes no sense.”

  “Actually, it makes perfect sense,” said a voice from the doorway. “There’s plenty to gain from it.”

  The office was silent for a long time as we all stared at the newcomer. I think we were all in shock.

  Dr. George entered the room and closed the door behind him.

  “And you haven’t even heard the best part yet,” he said with a gut-wrenching and utterly sick, crooked smile on his cracked face.

  Chapter 25

  Monday—Mr. Kjelson’s Classroom

  “It was you?” Mr. Kjelson said. Practically shouted, actually.

  Dr. George just smiled at first as he approached us. I was so confused now that I thought I might pass out. Which probably would have been pretty funny in any other situation. This made even less sense than ever now. I’d known the Suits were bad, but I’d never imagined just how evil they actually were.

  “It was me,” he said with that horrible, horrible smile still on his face.