I Am Fartacus
Page 14
“Sizzler, can I use your phone for an hour or two to learn how poker works?” I ask.
He hangs his head. “Too close to using all my data this month with all the other stuff I’ve done for the cadre. My parents will kill me if I go over again.”
I think for a minute before the obvious solution comes to me: Mrs. Belfry’s laptop. But my excitement dies when I realize that won’t work. Mr. Mayer knows me too well. If I suddenly start volunteering in the library after school, he’ll know something is up. It won’t take long for Mrs. Belfry to tell him how “helpful” I am with the computer, and then I’ll be in real trouble. If I want to get on her laptop without raising any alarms, I need to play it just right.
I smile as the simple brilliance of my plan hits me. “Sounds like I’ll be getting detention tomorrow.”
The trick to getting detention on purpose is pulling off a stunt that walks the line between detention and suspension. After going through the prank supplies in my locker, I decide to go with a good old-fashioned stink bomb, but I’ll set it off in an outside passageway so it won’t gas out the inside of the school. If any classes have to be canceled, there will definitely be a call home, followed by a one-way ticket to Potato Land. It’s too much of a risk now that I’m so close to bringing Archer down.
I stand in the breezeway between the main school building and the gym and let off the bomb. Within seconds kids are running every which way to escape the rotten-egg stink. The sulfur cloud burns my eyes and makes it hard to see, but the shape of a person comes toward me. Moby walks right through the toxic cloud and stands next to me, just like I did once with him in his moment of need.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“You’re trying to get detention without me.”
“Yeah, and Mr. Mayer will be here any minute.” I shoo him away.
But he refuses to go. When it’s clear he isn’t going to leave, I give up, and the two of us stand there waiting for the principal.
When he shows up a minute or two later, his eyes are ringed in red like he hasn’t slept in a week. I may be wrong, but I think seeing me there, claiming credit for the prank, actually makes him a little relieved. None of us say a word as we make the long walk back to his office to do the paperwork.
Mrs. Belfry is happy to see me when I walk into the library to serve my sentence after school. She claps her hands in front of her mouth when she notices I also brought a friend with me.
Moby gives me a weird look as I explain to Mrs. Belfry that the Dalek virus is going around the Internet and that she better update her TARDIS drivers so her computer doesn’t catch it. Because of all the “help” I’ve given her, she pulls out chairs for us and leaves us alone to do what we need to do.
We spend the entire hour searching everything we can find on how poker works. We hit the blog first. Looking at the pictures of Mr. X, I can’t believe I never realized it was the Arch before. In almost all the pictures he’s next to a scrawny guy in a leather jacket. The captions tell me that he’s Mace. The only thing cheesier than the thick, fake-looking gold chain around the beanpole’s neck is the grin on his pimply face. I was expecting a fat, old movie mobster; this guy barely looks old enough to shave.
Next we go on YouTube to watch some tutorials. It’s confusing at first because nobody seems to be playing with real money, but pretty soon we figure out that you have to buy little plastic poker chips and bet with those instead to make it easier to count. The videos show us the different combinations of cards you can play and which ones give you the best chance of winning. They explain how to act like you have good cards when you actually don’t and bad cards when they are actually good. I’m even more confused than I was when we started. I doubt I could even shuffle a deck of cards, let alone play well enough to take down a real player. I need to scrap any dreams I have of beating the Arch at his own game. I’ll just have to work this thing out with him the way civilized people do—with blackmail.
If I’m going to sneak into the basement of the bowling alley and see the poker league in action, I need to blend in. A mustache worked for the Arch; now I need to get one of my own.
Before we leave school, we meet Shelby in the drama club room.
When I tell her we need a mustache and a wig, she gets a look on her face that’s halfway between giddy and constipated.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
The look tips toward giddy and she claps her hands together. “I’m just savoring the irony.”
“I see,” I say, even though I don’t.
“Archer shut down the drama club, and now we are going to use the props to exact our vengeance!” Her glee bubbles over like a soda poured into a glass too quickly.
I’ve never seen her get excited about anything before, let alone cackle, but it’s pretty cool. Maybe I’m starting to rub off on her.
Shelby lugs out a wooden toolbox that’s bigger than she is. She makes a big show of opening all the drawers and picking through their contents. When she closes the box, she shows us what she found—a wig, a fake mustache, and some glue. I’ll use the disguise to sneak into the game and spy on Mace and Mr. Mayer, then confront the Arch with the hat so he can make his choice.
The three of us go to Moby’s house to try out the disguise.
The Colonel is in a recliner in the living room taking a very loud openmouthed nap. It’s good he’s asleep, because we can’t afford to have adults start asking questions when we are so close to taking down the Arch. Plus, his snore sounds like a herd of buffalo drowning in a tub of butter, which is good. If it stops, we’ll have a minute or two of warning, so he won’t walk in and surprise us at work.
“Hold still,” Shelby says as she plasters glue on my face. She uses way too much to get the mustache to stick and almost seals my mouth shut. I suspect this is not an accident. When I have the wig on, I check myself in the mirror and hope like heck that I appear old enough to get through the door.
I look like an adult, all right, one whose body suddenly shrank down to the size of an eleven-year-old. The effect is not convincing. Am I really going to sneak into an underground poker game looking like a grown-up who got left in the dryer too long?
As I’m pondering this, Moby reaches over and rips off the mustache.
“OOOWW!” I yell, and rub my face.
“Lemme try.” He slaps it on his own lip. Next he takes the wig and puts it on.
I don’t want to admit it, but like all my friends, Moby has gotten taller than me recently, and he makes a much more convincing adult than I do.
Shelby pushes her glasses up her nose and looks him up and down. “Sorry, Maciek,” she says. “It looks like the role of Poker Spy One has just been cast.”
The gears in my head grind, then start turning. “Moby,” I say. “Does your dad have a suit that fits you?”
Friday morning I drop a note in the Arch’s locker.
Thunder Alley: Tonight. Come get your hat back, Mr. X.
I don’t sign it. I figure I don’t need to.
That night my dad is out running some mystery errand, which makes it easier to get away. Jarek gets me out of the house by telling my mom he needs my help at the theater, and then he drives Moby and me over to the bowling alley. In the car I hand Moby the tube of glue he’ll need to stick the mustache to his face. He needs to sneak into the game to make sure Mr. Mayer and Mace don’t wander out and catch me and the Arch having our showdown.
We hustle through the lobby and walk downstairs to the basement together. I hang back while Moby goes to check in. The lady watching the door doesn’t give him a second glance as he strolls by wearing a suit that’s just a bit too big. Either the light is really bad or the lady doesn’t care, because she waves Moby right through. So far, so good.
When he’s barely inside the door, he looks back at me, smiles, and throws me a double thumbs-up. I shake my head back and forth to get him to put his thumbs down, but he just nods back, his smile all but hidden by the ridiculous mustache.
I turn around and he’s there. With all these adults around he doesn’t look as big and scary here as he does at school.
There’s a long silence as we each wait for the other to talk.
When it’s clear he doesn’t know what to say, I go first. “You got my note?”
“Yep.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets.
I’m not positive, but I swear it looks like he’s about to cry. What does he have to cry about? Maybe he finally feels bad for everything he’s done to me.
“So, why did you do it?” I say.
“Do what?”
“Let’s not insult each other. I have all the pieces, I just don’t know how they fit together yet.” The guy at the counter looks over at us. I take a deep breath and lower my voice. “Why don’t you start with why you burned the uniforms?”
He takes a deep breath and looks around. “You think you’re so smart, but you don’t have a clue.”
“I don’t, huh?” I spit. “You left some pretty big ones for me. Calling yourself Mr. X doesn’t make you one of the X-Men, Archer.”
He snorts.
I lower my voice more and take a step closer to him. “I know about Mace and the poker. I also know you’ve been losing. The only thing I can’t figure out is what any of this has to do with the school. You might as well tell me. I’m going to figure it out eventually.” My heart beats like a jackhammer.
“Or what—you’re gonna blackmail me?” he sneers. “Go ahead. Mace won’t care if I get in trouble with my parents or at school. How do you think I’ve kept playing even though I’ve been losing so badly? I owe him a ton of money, and he’ll figure out a way to make me pay him no matter what. The only way out now is to win and pay him off. When I win, it’ll be over.”
I’ve seen enough movies to know what a real bad guy will do to you if you don’t pay up when you owe him.
“Who is this Mace guy, anyway? He looks like the kind of kid you’d shove around at school.”
“I’m surprised he isn’t your hero,” Archer says.
The comment catches me off guard. “What the heck does that mean?”
“He’s a shady little jerk who likes to manipulate people, just like you.”
Is that what he thinks? That he’s some sort of good guy and I’m the problem? I can’t let him throw me off track.
“Archer, you’re a kid. You can’t go back in there and play anymore. Mr. Mayer’s an adult, and look what it’s doing to him.”
His head dips. “I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“You think it’s easy being the Arch?” He raises his head. I can’t tell if he’s angry or sad.
Try going bald in second grade and see how you like it. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because everyone thinks you’re awesome? Give me a break.”
“You’re so dense. You act the way you act because it’s what people expect from a lice-infested nerd. It’s no different for me. People want the Arch, so that’s who I have to be. You only think it’s great because you don’t know what it’s like.”
“Oh, is it tough being the student body president and everybody’s hero?” I say.
He shakes his head. “Nothing at school is a challenge for me anymore. I don’t even have to break a sweat and I can smoke everyone on the track team.” He pauses and sucks in a deep breath, working up to what he’s about to say. “At summer baseball camp I made it onto one of the teams with some high school kids. They were cool, and after lights-out they taught me how to play poker. It was hard at first, but I was good at it. By the end of the first week I’d won all their money.” He smiles a sad smile. “One of them introduced me to Mace later that summer and it just . . . got out of hand.”
I take the edge off my voice. “So you’re going to keep playing? You’re just going to get yourself deeper in trouble?”
He uses the toe of his Converse to kick at a piece of gum stuck to the carpet. “Mace has these games rigged so he can win when he wants to, but he doesn’t run the regional. I already in it. When I win, I can pay him off and be done once and for all.”
“And if you don’t win?”
He kicks the gum harder. “I have to at least try. I only need to come in second to pay him off. The only reason I can’t beat him here is because he cheats. Second place in a fair game is a sure thing.”
I run through it in my head. “But you’re a kid. How will you even get into the regional?”
“Fake IDs are easy to get if you know the right guy. Mace is going to hook me up.”
“Why would he want you in the tournament if you can beat him?”
“Me playing in this tournament is a win for him no matter what. If I win, I can pay him back. If I lose, I’ll have to borrow more from him. Either way he gets paid.”
I’m really starting to dislike this Mace.
There’s still one thing that doesn’t fit. “And how does all this help the school get new track uniforms?”
“My dad’s company is donating them. I asked him last year when I heard about the whole student government thing if he’d donate them if I became president, and he didn’t even blink. They get a tax break or something for the donation.”
“You’ve been planning this since last year!”
He nods. “I figured if I was student body president, I could keep the donation a secret and frame you for the fire. The student government gets to decide how to spend the money the school makes on bake sales and stuff. If the uniforms were ruined and everyone blamed you, it wouldn’t be tough for the student body president to redirect that money to buy new ones. All I had to do was get Sherman or Sam to vote for it. Once they did, I have Sherman write the check to Mace’s fake company, then I show up with the uniforms and nobody knows the difference. But I guess you’re not going to let that happen, so I have no choice but to play in that tournament.”
Now that’s a plot! I shake my head, more out of admiration than anything.
I reach behind the claw machine, where I stashed the cowboy hat. He holds out a hand for it, but I pull it back.
“You’re right. I’m not going to let it happen. If you try to take that money, you will get caught. This has gone way too far,” I say. Constantly plotting against the Arch is taking a toll on me. Now that I know how deep of a hole he’s dug himself, I don’t know if I have it in me to go in after him.
The harsh light from the game hits his face. His eyes have the same look they had in my basement the day he killed my hair, and our friendship along with it. “Is there anything else you want to say to me?”
He snatches the hat. “It’s almost over.”
Before I can say anything back, he turns and sprints out of Thunder Alley.
Is it possible the same forces that formed the Arch also formed me? That we are both just living out the expectations of a bunch of kids we don’t even really know? I’ve spent the last few years trying to be the opposite of him in every way. But neither of us would be who we are without the other.
I’ve read enough comics to know a hero isn’t a hero without a villain. The only question is, which one of us is which?
People drift into the lobby from the basement. The game must be winding down.
I better get Moby out of there before he improvises something and gets himself in trouble. I’m in a fog walking back down to the basement when the lady at the door stops me.
“I just need to get my . . . friend,” I explain.
She folds her arms. “No interrupting the players while they’re playing, kid. Why don’t you go try the claw machine and win yourself a stuffed toy while the adults finish their game.”
I suspect the
claw machine is as rigged as Mace’s poker league, but I keep that to myself. “Oh, he’s not playing,” I say. “He’s the guy over there.” I look into the gloom of the basement and try to make out individual shapes through the darkness and smoke.
When my eyes settle on Moby, I start to sweat.
He’s not in the corner watching everyone else play. He’s sitting at one of the tables, stroking his fake mustache, and holding a pair of cards just like the players we watched on the Internet.
But the thing that really makes me rub my eyes is the gigantic stack of chips on the table in front of him.
CHAPTER 20
When Moby finally gets up from the poker table, I’ve gnawed my nails down to nubs. A guy leads him off to a corner of the basement, where they disappear for a minute. As I wait for him to reappear, a deflated Mr. Mayer pulls on his jacket and skulks to the door. I quickly duck into a coat closet so he doesn’t spot me, then watch him as he walks up the stairs shaking his head. So he didn’t snap his losing streak tonight. I scan the faces of the other players as they file out. Most of them look tired, like Mr. Mayer has lately.
An eternity passes, and I decide Moby must’ve pulled one of his escapes and slipped out a side door. When he finally appears, he looks like he’s trying to race out of the room holding a pool ball between his butt cheeks.
The lady at the door doesn’t pay him much more attention on the way out than she did when she waved him in. “Congratulations,” she says flatly.
He hustles by her, then takes the stairs two at a time.
I catch up to him in the lobby and grab his sleeve. “Moby!”
He turns and looks at me, the fake mustache still stuck on his face. “Hey, Chub.”
“What the heck happened in there?”
He throws a paranoid glance around, like the Colonel does when he answers the door. “I think we should go outside first.”
I don’t realize how musty it is inside Thunder Alley until the cool night air hits me. We find a shadowy spot away from the lights of the parking lot, and Moby hands me a heavy envelope. I open the flap and gasp.