“What does that mean?” I asked.
He held the envelope to his forehead like Carnac the Magnificent, the fake mystic played by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and feigned tremendous concentration. “I’m sensing the word sorry. It’s very strong. This is an apology?”
I decided the easiest way to get my letter back was to endure the stupid game. “Yes.”
Alf closed his eyes and resumed his mystic performance. He was a terrible actor; his attempts at concentration looked like constipation. “You feel bad about what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Because we trashed the store?”
“Yes.”
“We ruined everything?”
“Yes.”
“And now Mary hates you.”
“Yes.”
“And her father hates you.”
“Yes.”
“And you like this girl.”
“Shut up,” I told him.
“You like this girl,” Alf repeated, more confidently. “It’s cool, Billy. I see it all right here in the letter. You were never trying to get the alarm code. You were hanging around the store because you like Mary for real.”
I was so startled to hear Alf speaking the truth, I didn’t even try to deny it.
Clark’s eyes went wide. “Wait, seriously?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Definitely,” Alf insisted. “Come on, Billy. Stop playing dumb. It’s so obvious.”
“Fine,” I said. “It’s true.”
“But she doesn’t know!” Clark said.
“Right.”
“You told the cops you faked everything!”
“Right.”
“Oh my God!” Clark said, falling back in his chair and holding the Claw to his forehead, reeling from the news. “This changes everything, Billy! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
“Exactly!” Alf said. “If you told us, we could have helped you.”
“You’ve already helped me plenty,” I said. “Thanks to you guys, Mary and her dad hate my guts. They think I’m this giant spectacular asshole.” I figured “giant spectacular asshole” was pretty strong, but I was desperate for reassurance; I needed my friends to tell me that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
“I guess you’re right,” Clark sighed.
“Thanks,” I said, pushing away my tray because I’d lost my appetite. “Does anybody want my food?”
Alf plucked a handful of french fries from my tray and dragged them through a smear of ketchup. “Listen, we can make this right,” he said. “This letter will clear up everything. We just need to make sure Mary gets it.”
He proposed a dozen different scenarios, but none of them were truly viable. I couldn’t go to Mary’s house. I was forbidden by law to go anywhere near the store. I couldn’t count on any classmates to help me. I wasn’t even allowed on Market Street anymore.
As we pondered all of the different scenarios, Clark didn’t say a word. He just chewed thoughtfully on his sloppy joe, like he was turning around an idea. “There is one thing you could do,” he finally said. “It’s super risky. There’s an excellent chance you’ll get caught. But I guarantee you won’t see Zelinsky. He’ll be miles away.”
We waited for him to elaborate, but he suggested we meet in the library after school.
“Just tell us your stupid idea,” Alf said. “Why are you being so mysterious?”
Clark refused to spill. “I need to research a few things. Make sure it’s really possible. I don’t want Billy getting busted again.”
When Alf and I reached the library, we found Clark in the reference section, sitting at one of the long tables near all of the college brochures. He was reading a map, but it was upside down, so I couldn’t make sense of it. At the table next to ours, a group of fifth-grade girls were pretending to study. But every so often they’d steal glances at Clark and squeal with laughter. This seemed to be happening more and more lately—girls would see him and just lose their minds. Even with the Claw right in plain view.
“Well?” I asked. “Are you ready to tell us the master plan?”
“Let me make sure I have her schedule right,” Clark said. “Every morning, Zelinsky drives Mary to Market Street. They open the store together, and then she boards the bus to St. Agatha’s?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“And then every afternoon, the bus brings her back to Market Street, and she stays at the store until closing. Then Dad brings her home?”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
Clark shook his head. “No, I just told you the solution. This is how you reach her.” He spun the map right-side-up so we could read the headline at the top of the page: Mount St. Agatha’s Preparatory School for Girls.
“Impossible!” Alf said. “No one climbs that mountain.”
“Why not?” Clark asked.
“They’ve got guards and fences. Electric fences.”
Clark shook his head. “It’s a convent, not a James Bond movie.”
“You’re Presbyterian, so how would you know?” Alf asked. “I’m an altar boy, and I’m telling you nobody gets into St. Agatha’s. It’s like Fort Knox for Catholic girls.”
“It’s a school,” Clark insisted. “They have visitors. Deliveries. Lots of people coming and going.”
The map was part of an admissions application describing the school’s remarkable mountaintop campus. One hundred years ago, St. Agatha’s was a monastery with a chapel and a simple dormitory. Since evolving into an all-girls’ prep school, the campus had expanded to feature a classroom building, a cafeteria, and athletic fields. Everything was bordered by a “verdant forest landscape” rich with the “abundant wildlife” of northern New Jersey.
“They don’t show the fences on this map,” Alf said, “but they’re there.” He leaned across the table and scrawled a crazy jagged circle around the map. “These things will fry you like a grilled cheese.”
For once, I actually agreed with Alf. I’d heard so many crazy stories about St. Agatha’s, the idea of infiltrating the campus seemed ridiculous.
“Zelinsky won’t be anywhere near it,” Clark reminded me. “He works miles away.”
“Fine, walk me through it,” I told Clark. “Once I get up the mountain, how do I find Mary?”
“You don’t need to find Mary,” Clark said. “That’s the beauty of this plan. You just need to find any girl and ask her to deliver the note.”
“How do I know she will?”
“Because you had the guts to get there! No one’s ever done it before. Girls will respect that. She’ll know it must be important, and she’ll make sure Mary gets it.”
When he put it that way, the plan almost sounded easy. I didn’t need to search an entire mountain looking for Mary. I just needed to find one Catholic schoolgirl on a mountain filled with Catholic schoolgirls.