“What’s that?”
“A favor? It’s a small act of kindness. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Tell me.”
“I want to see his look when it goes live. Can you make that happen?”
“How in the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“You? Maxwell Cobb? The mastermind behind the Stranko Caper? I think you can come up with something.”
Ellie does that bat-her-eyelashes thing that the female species has perfected through thousands of years of evolution. Like all males, I’m defenseless against it.
When I think later about what Ellie wants, I realize the difficulty isn’t in the execution but in having the balls to do it. I will because Ellie’s the asker, but I keep thinking of a quote I once heard about how there’s a fine line between courage and stupidity. In this case, it’s a very, very fine line.
? ? ?
The rest of the week is spent suffering through exam prep and wondering just what sort of moron schedules semester exams for the three days following winter break. The only answer I can come up with is a moron who loves to ruin kids’ vacations. In this case, Stranko. He takes exams überserious, even sending out an email to every high school parent about how all classroom doors will be locked when the bell rings and how tardy students will receive zeroes. So imagine Stranko’s irritation when Monday comes and students and teachers are milling in the halls, unable to enter any of the classrooms because none of the doors will open. Zero. Not a single one.
We’re all loitering in the halls, watching teachers pointlessly enter and reenter keys in their locks while Stranko pushes his way through the crowds, yelling at Mr. Jessup over the walkie-talkie to “get these damn doors open.”
“Wheeler?” Malone says to Ellie and me outside Watson’s room.
“No chance,” I say.
By some miracle of the universe—or, in reality, a combination of make-up work, extra credit, and much pleading by his mom and guidance counselor on the defendant’s behalf—Wheeler’s pulled his grades to within striking distance of passing. The looming reality couldn’t be more mathematically simple: Pass the exams, pass the classes. Fail the exams, fail the classes.
“Maybe Tim?” Ellie asks.
“Not me either,” Tim says, coming up behind us. “I’ve made my entry in the competition. Unlike some people.”
“Mine’s coming,” Ellie says. “Sooner than you think, actually.”
“What about you?” Adleta says to me.
“Someday.”
That’s when my phone buzzes.
And Ellie’s.
And Tim’s.
And Malone’s.
And everyone else’s around us until the entire hall is a sea of miscellaneous chimes, rings, and tones signaling arriving texts.
We all receive the same message:
Courtesy of the (Genuine) Chaos Club.
“Wow,” Malone says. “As much as I hate them, I have to admit that’s impressive.”
Word soon spreads that during the night, the Chaos Club took every door off its hinges and reinstalled it at another classroom. It’s takes the team of Mrs. B, Stranko, and Mr. Jessup the better part of a half hour to unlock every room with master keys.
How am I supposed to think of a prank that competes with that?
After Watson’s exam, which is easier than I expected, I say to Ellie, “Do you still need me to do it?”
“Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, with the Chaos Club thing, I thought maybe you might want to have all the attention to yourself.”
“Are you kidding me? This is the best time. We’ll totally steal their spotlight,” she says. “Why do you have that look on your face?”
“Stranko, he’ll kill me.”
“Oh, foo. You don’t need to worry about him. Just be confident. It works every time,” she says with her best angelic voice and praying hands under her chin. “If you want me to, I’ll put in a special word with the big guy.”
“That’s good because I may be seeing Him sooner than expected.”
Mrs. Stephen’s precalc exam is next, and by the time I’m finished, I feel like I’ve spent the last hour and a half tumbling and crashing inside an industrial-sized dryer. I’m pretty sure the Pythagorean theorem and reciprocal identities were invented solely to make teenagers’ lives horrible. How else can you explain a teacher saying things like, “To find the zeros of the logarithmic function, one would exponentiate the left and right sides of the equation”?
The daily schedule for exam week at Asheville High makes almost as much sense as having the exams immediately after winter break. We get out ninety minutes early each day, but only after suffering through two, two-hour exams and a mandatory one-hour study session with our homeroom teacher. I’m five minutes into this study session when I get permission from Mr. Ewing to go see Stranko.
It’s time to die young.