It isn’t long before a special sort of silence descends. It’s a warm, comfortable quiet that puts me completely at ease. I’m not thinking about the Chaos Club, who I am, or anything. I’m just in the moment and it’s perfect.
“Can we come here again sometime?” I say.
“I’ll have to check my schedule. I’m pretty busy, you know.”
“What with skipping youth group and all.”
“And my job as a phone thief.”
“And eventual toppler of governments.”
We’re looking at each other as we say all this, and I know this is when I’m supposed to kiss her. I’ve also seen enough movies to know not to ask the girl if I can kiss her. The cool guys never do. Girls like confidence, and right now, Not Max is overflowing with confidence.
I lean in and begin to close my eyes…
Oh shit.
Ellie’s eyes aren’t closing. In fact, they’re growing wide with horror the closer I come.
Shit, shit, shit.
Now Ellie’s on her feet and backing away from me, looking mortified.
“I’m sorry, Max,” she says. “I mean, I like you and all but…”
“No, it’s okay,” I say, hoping I fall over the edge and die so I don’t have to think of this moment ever again. “I just thought, uh, you know…”
“It’s just we’re friends, and I don’t want that to mess that up. And right now I don’t want anything that could distract us from our Chaos Club plans. Is that okay? I’m sorry if I made you think this was anything more than just friends. Good friends, Max.”
Well, if we’re good friends, then maybe you can douse me in gasoline and light me on fire so I don’t have to hide in shame the next time I see you.
“I can live with just being friends,” I say, one hundred percent lying. “We’d better get back. It’s probably close to ten.”
? ? ?
On the return trip to town, Ellie has on the local college station down low, a slow instrumental song all echo-y that would make everything seem like a dream if this wasn’t all nightmare-y. It takes all my self-control not to throw my body from the speeding car.
At quarter past ten, Ellie pulls into my driveway, and I open the door before she’s even in park.
“Max, I’m sorry,” she says before I can escape. “You’re really a sweet guy.”
No, Just Max is a sweet guy. And sweet guys don’t get girls like Ellie Wick.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll see you Monday.”
Unless I can find an Ebola patient to lick.
Inside the house, I head upstairs, where Mom and Dad are in their room, the lights still on. I try to creep by without being heard, but Mom has bionic ears and calls for me to come in. She’s in bed reading, and Dad’s in the bathroom, probably on the iPad, a habit that drives Mom crazy.
“Get your work finished?” she says.
“Yeah, sorry I’m late,” I say. “We stopped at Becca Yancey’s for her notes.”
“I’m glad it worked out. She seems nice.”
“Ellie? Yeah, she’s great.” Great at tearing my heart out of my chest and tossing it into a wood chipper. “I’m going to crash,” I say. “It’s been a long week.”
“Okay, sweetie,” Mom says. “Good night.”
I turn, ready to escape into the safety of my room, when she says, “Oh and, Max?”
“Yeah?”
“Research project my ear,” she says. “You owe us an extra day for that. Get some sleep.”
Awesome. First humiliation, now time added on to my sentence. What’s next? A paper cut on my eyeball?
I throw myself onto my bed and stare lifelessly at the knobs on my dresser, wondering how I could’ve been so stupid. That’s what I get for following the lead of fictional characters in unrealistic movies. I’m not sure for how long I stay zombified, but at some point I fall asleep, and I don’t move from that position until my phone buzzes at 2:37 a.m. with a text from Wheeler.
Have epic prank idea for the aerial photo. Details on the way.
Chapter 10
Wheeler calls it Operation Schlonger, and Ellie assigns us code names matching our jobs: She’s Right-Hand.
Adleta is H2O.
Malone’s Pornographer.
Wheeler’s Architect.
And me, I’m Mole.
Generally, capers fall into one of two categories:
1. Those like the Stranko Caper, where most of the work occurs during the heist’s execution.
2. And those where the majority of the work is done in planning and the actual heist is mostly hands-off.
Operation Schlonger is the second type.