Gotcha

by Shelley Hrdlitschka

  “Joel’s.”

  “Oh no.” All sense of hope disappears again.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We’re working as a team.”

  “You were working as a team.”

  I shake my head. “He’ll hate me if I don’t stick with him. I can’t do it.”

  “Don’t be silly, Katie. Of course he won’t hate you. Of anyone in our class, he’d be the first to understand. He strikes me as being totally level-headed. He won’t mind at all if he knows it gets you out of this mess.”

  Could he be right? Oh God, I hope so. Things are just getting good with Joel. I don’t want to mess with that.

  “So that’s where we have to start,” Warren says. “And immediately. You invite Joel over and then let me in. It will be quick and painless.”

  Painless. I feel sick. I promised Joel, told him I was his partner. Would he do this to me? No. So how can I do it to him?

  And yet...maybe Warren’s right. Joel knows what’s at stake for me. Well, he doesn’t know about the money. What would he think of me if he knew about that? But he did tell me that he’s just playing the game for fun, that he’s not obsessed with it. Not like Paige was.

  Paige. Oh man. I will have set up my two closest friends, Paige and Joel, before this is all over. What have I become? And did I betray my entire class by loaning Dad the money? Just when I thought I was at the bottom of that water chute, I slide a little farther.

  “Katie? You still there?” Warren asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “So can you get Joel over? Right now?”

  “Right now?”

  “We’ve got to wrap this up tonight, remember?”

  “Okay. I’ll call him.”

  “Good. And unless I hear otherwise, I will be at your door in an hour. Just let me in and I’ll tag him.”

  “He’s going to be so mad.”

  “Katie. We have to do this. We have to get you back to school.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  I hang up the phone and quickly dial Joel’s number before I lose my nerve.

  “Hello?” Joel answers after just one ring.

  “Joel, it’s me, Katie.”

  “Hey, Katie.” His voice softens when he realizes that it’s me. Now I feel sicker than ever.

  “Something urgent has come up and I need you to come over right away.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll explain when you get here.”

  “But...”

  “Can you come?”

  He hesitates “Not really but...” He sighs. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be right there.”

  I flop onto the living room couch while I wait for Joel. I’m hoping my mom doesn’t decide to appear from her room to serve brownies during the tagging. That’s just what I’d need. I’m surprised she isn’t in the kitchen cooking up a batch right now. That’s her usual stress-buster.

  The wait is killing me. I see some books lying on their side in the wall unit. Dad must have knocked them over when he was ransacking the house. I straighten them out, placing them back on the shelf in order of their height, tallest to shortest. Then I arrange the rest of the shelves the same way. I stand back and admire my handiwork.

  I move from there to the kitchen, where I tackle the spice rack. I wipe off each bottle and replace them in alphabetical order.

  Still no sign of Joel.

  I start organizing the papers and CDS that collect around the computer. What could Joel be doing? He said he’d be right over.

  Just when I’m about to start cleaning the elements on the stove, the doorbell rings. Thank God. Feeling ill at what I’m about to do, I hobble to the door and open it up, expecting to see Joel, but it’s Warren who’s standing there, peering past me into the house.

  “You’re early. He’s not here yet.”

  He doesn’t look at me but slides past and walks straight through to the living room. “That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll be able to tag him as soon as he arrives.”

  I nod. “I did wonder how I was going to explain to him why I’d called him over.”

  As I follow him down the hall, an idea blindsides me. I could reach out, tag Warren and stay in the game with Joel. I could. Why don’t I?

  But then I remember. Warren knows my dirty little secret. What would he do with that information if I tagged him right now?

  I sit across from him and study his face as he scans the room. I try not to think about what being indebted to him might mean.

  The silence is awkward. Warren fiddles with his phone, opening and shutting it. His presence fills the room. I am so aware of him, yet I try hard to remain aloof. He turns suddenly and smiles at me, a warm, reassuring smile. I feel my skin burn and look away. Why do I get so messed up around him?

  “We can do this, Kittiekat,” he says softly.

  I just nod, still not looking at him. He saved me once before, at Tyson’s house. I just hope he can do it again.

  I think about what he said, how he didn’t think that I liked him. Was he serious? And even if I didn’t like him, why would he care? Everyone else loves him.

  I wonder how a person acquires that kind of magnetism. Do you learn it or are you born with it?

  When the doorbell rings, my stomach clenches. I make eye contact with Warren, and he nods, ever so slightly. When I hesitate, he smiles again, that same smile that has opened so many doors for him. Disgusted with myself, I hobble down the hall and open yet another one.

  Immediately Joel’s arms are around me. I look up and he’s grinning, all sweetness and innocence.

  And then I know that I cannot go through with it.

  I push him away. “Run!”

  “Huh?” The smile turns to confusion, but he drops his arms.

  “Run! Warren is going to tag you.”

  I give him another push. He steps back, but he doesn’t leave.

  That’s when I hear the footsteps behind me and see the alarm on Joel’s face. Now he does turn to run, but it’s too late. Before Joel even gets out of the doorway, Warren smacks his arm.

  “Gotcha!” he declares. Then he turns to me, his hand in the air for a high five. I ignore it.

  “Katie?” Joel asks, looking back to me.

  “I’m sorry, Joel,” I say. I turn away so he can’t see my tears.

  “Did you set me up?”

  I open my mouth, trying to find words to explain, but Warren interrupts. “She sure did,” he says, putting himself between Joel and me.

  “Why haven’t you tagged him?” Joel asks, even as Warren is pushing him out the door.”

  I wanted to! The words are screaming in my head, but nothing comes out of my mouth. It would require such a long explanation.

  “Give me your beads, Joel,” Warren says. “And your victim.”

  “Katie,” Joel calls, “was the whole thing a joke? Did we ever have a real alliance?”

  I want to tell him the truth, tell him why I had to do it, but Warren is pulling him down the driveway, and Joel appears to be too stunned to put up a struggle. I move to the kitchen and watch from the window as Joel passes Warren his beads. Before he leaves, Joel glances back at the house one more time. When he sees me in the window, I mouth the words again. “I’m sorry.”

  He just stares back, and I watch as his bewilderment turns to something much harder. He gets into his mom’s car and squeals away from the curb.

  For the millionth time today, I lay my head on the table and wish I’d never heard of Gotcha.

  Fourteen

  I feel Warren’s hand rubbing that hollow space between my shoulder blades. My initial reaction is to shrug it off, but even that requires too much effort. I give up.

  “He’ll get over it, Kittiekat,” he murmurs. “He will.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And we’re almost there.”

  I raise my head and look at him. “I forget why you’re doing this, Warren. There’s no money, remember?”

  “I’m doing t
his to get you back in school.”

  “There must be an easier way.” There must be. I just can’t think of what it is right now.

  “Listen. You stay put. I’m going to go nab a few more beads, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I must be hearing things. “You’re going to nab a few beads? If it was that easy the game would have ended by now.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I’m not telling, but it’s a good one.”

  “If it’s such a good one, why haven’t you already won this stupid game?”

  “Shh, Katie.” Warren puts his fingers to his lips and peers around the room.

  “What?”

  “The Gotcha Gods. You called the game ‘stupid.’” He glances over his shoulder. “They might be listening.”

  I smack his arm. “Shut up, Warren!”

  “We need all the help we can get right now.”

  I roll my eyes but make a silent apology to the Gotcha Gods. Warren’s right.

  There’s a creak in the upstairs hallway. We both glance at the ceiling. I hear the bathroom door shut.

  “When you come back, just tap lightly on the door.” I glance back at the ceiling. “She goes to bed early.”

  “Better yet,” he suggests, “text me.”

  “I don’t have a cell phone.”

  “Oh. Right. Then just call my phone when she’s gone to bed.”

  I get his number and see him out the door. Then I turn on the computer and check my e-mail. Nothing. Has Dad really dropped off the planet?

  Mom comes down the stairs and plugs in the kettle. “Did you have any dinner?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I lie, not wanting to have a meal with her. “I made myself some eggs.”

  She roots around in the fridge and pulls out a container with leftover casserole. She sniffs it. “How old do you think this is?” she asks.

  I think about it. “Too old,” I say.

  I watch as she scrapes it into the garbage and goes back to the fridge. There’s a slice of apple pie that she brings out, and then she reaches for the ice cream in the freezer.

  “That’s your dinner?” I ask.

  She gives me a look. “No comments from the school dropout.”

  “I’m not a dropout. I got kicked out.”

  “No you didn’t. You have choices.”

  “And so do you,” I say, glancing at the pie. “They’re just not too appealing right now, are they?”

  Mom gives me another look but doesn’t respond. I admit, in some ways she has better self-control than I do. She knows when to bite her tongue.

  The kettle whistles and shuts itself off. Mom pours herself a cup of tea and takes her “dinner” to the living room. A moment later I hear the drone of the TV.

  The phone rings and I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Katie?”

  “Hey, ’Riah.” Uh-oh.

  “Katie! I heard what just happened. How could you do that to Joel?”

  “I didn’t want to, ’Riah, but I had to. Warren has a plan to get me back to school, and that was part of the plan.”

  “You trust Warren?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he rescued me at Tyson’s, and I think he can do it again.”

  “I wouldn’t trust him.”

  “Hey, I didn’t see you sticking up for me at the Gotcha party.”

  The connection appears to go dead. I wonder if she has hung up.

  “Joel is super-upset,” she says finally. “He came straight here after Warren tagged him.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “No, but Katie, he was hurting, bad.”

  Oh man. “I feel terrible about it, ’Riah, but I had to do it. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “You’ve blown it with Joel.”

  My heart sinks even lower. “You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “Just...something that happened.”

  “And what was that?” She sounds skeptical.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause you’d hate me.”

  “I wouldn’t hate you!”

  “You might when you hear what I did.”

  “Is it worse than what you did to Joel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But Warren knows?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So you trust Warren more than you trust me?”

  “It’s not that. It’s because he promised to help me out of my mess.”

  “So did Joel and I!” Mariah is getting steamed. “We don’t make promises we can’t keep, but we were trying to help as best we could.”

  “I know.” I do.

  “So what was it that you did?”

  There’s nothing else to do but tell her. “I lost the Gotcha money.”

  There’s a long pause. “You lost it?”

  “Uh-huh. I lent it to someone, and now I can’t get it back.”

  “How could you do that? It wasn’t your money!”

  “I thought I’d get it back, plus a lot more.”

  “Katie,” Mariah says very quietly, “this does not sound like something you would do.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “There’s got to be more to it that you’re not telling me.”

  I cannot bring myself to tell her who I gave the money to and why. It’s so pathetic. How could a father do that to his daughter? “That’s all I can tell you, Mariah. And Warren swears he can bring this game to an end tonight, with me being the winner so that I don’t have to give anyone the money. And that’s why I had to set up Joel.”

  “Why would Warren do that?”

  “I don’t really know. But he said he would.”

  “I still don’t trust him. And I don’t think you should either.”

  “I have to, ’Riah. It’s my only hope.”

  I hear the click as she hangs up on me.

  I have just swooshed out of the waterslide chute and crashed onto the jagged rocks. My friends, my dad, my self-respect, gone. I’ve been kicked out of school, and I won’t graduate. And now I’ve put all my trust into an untrust-worthy person.

  How did I get to this place?

  Before Mom goes to bed, she drags herself back to the kitchen. I think she’s planning to give me another lecture, but when she sees the shape I’m in—head resting on the table, face blotchy red and the floor littered with sodden tissue—she changes her mind.

  “Sometimes things look better after a good night’s sleep,” she says.

  I try to nod. “Thanks, Mom.”

  I hear the toilet flush in the upstairs bathroom, and when I hear her cross the hall to her bedroom, I call Warren’s cell.

  “She’s in bed,” I tell him when he answers.

  “Good,” he says. “I’ve got them, all but one.”

  “You do? How could you?” He’s only been gone a couple of hours.

  “I do.”

  “Come on over.”

  I let him in and we sit at the kitchen table, talking in hushed voices.

  “You don’t look so good, Kittiekat,” Warren says, studying my face.

  “I don’t feel so good either.” He runs a finger down my cheek, but I bat his hand away. “How did you get them all, and so fast?”

  “Easy,” he says, unperturbed by my rebuff. “First of all, we were down to eight players anyway.”

  I nod.

  “And since the game went underground, there’s been more confusion about who has whose name.”

  “Right.”

  “And do you remember who wrote out all the names on the scraps of paper?”

  “Wasn’t it Paige?”

  “No, it was me.”

  “So, what does that have to do with anything?”

  “When I left here, I went home and cut up some more scrap paper, exactly like the originals.”

  I can only stare
at him.

  “And I wrote the name of each of the remaining players on those pieces of paper.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s cheating!”

  “Show me where in the rulebooks it says you can’t do that.”

  “Warren!”

  “So, one by one, I tagged the remaining players, except for one. None of them realized that I didn’t really have their names. ”

  “I can’t believe you’d do that.”

  “Really?” He regards me coolly. “And I can’t believe you’d give the Gotcha money away.”

  I feel my face flush.

  “I could have done it the legit way, just tagged them one at a time and kept taking their beads and their names, but this sped the process up because I could tag them in any order.” He gave me a searching look. “And as you know, Kittiekat, we don’t have much time.”

  “But they’ll figure it out eventually, when they start talking.”

  “Probably, but I’ll just feign innocence. Tell them I had each of their names, which I did.”

  “I think they’ll kill you.”

  “Me? Warren MacDonald?” He laughs. “Not a chance.”

  Hmm. I wonder if even Warren has that much immunity.

  “How did you get close enough to tag them? No one trusts anyone right now.”

  “Except me. Everyone trusts me.”

  Even me. I’m such a fool. “What exactly did you do?” I ask.

  “I dropped in on each of them to discuss important school business.”

  “Important school business? They bought that?”

  “Of course. You see, there was a strong possibility that you were going to blow the whistle on each of us and get us suspended, so we had to have a Gotcha Game Time-Out to discuss what we were going to do about the situation.”

  “A Gotcha Game Time-Out?”

  “Yeah, clever, don’t you think?”

  “And each one of them fell for it.”

  “Each one of them did.”

  At first I don’t believe him, but then I remember his seductiveness, that hypnotic voice and the acting skills. Maybe it really was that simple.

  “And then you just tagged them.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Didn’t they go crazy and accuse you of cheating?”

  “No, I think they were too stunned by what had just happened.” He grins. “Aren’t I clever?”

  I have to smile. I honestly can’t believe the nerve of this guy.