The Joke's on Us

by Gordon Korman

  Cathy had heaved the door open and was about to fling herself out into the corridor. “I don’t know! To bang my head against the wall! To go berserk in a wider area! To challenge Rex to a growling contest!” She lunged forward.

  There was a snapping noise and all at once she was tripping, tumbling, rolling down the hall. Diane raced after her. “Cathy, are you okay?”

  “I tripped over something!” Cathy gasped.

  Both girls looked back to the doorway. From the small gap where the pink carpet of the room met the sturdy shag of the hall, something was sticking up. The two crawled over to investigate. The frayed, broken ends of two pieces of wire protruded from under the broadloom.

  Diane frowned. “I wonder what you ripped.”

  The answer came over the P.A. system. “Warning,” announced a computerized voice. “There is an interruption in the SectorWatch system. The Fortress Ultra-Deluxe will not arm.”

  It dawned on Cathy slowly, and her expression turned from surprise to delight to pure joy.

  “Amazing,” she breathed. “All this space-age technology and one lousy little broken wire shuts the whole thing down!”

  “Shouldn’t we tell somebody?” asked Diane nervously.

  “I’ll tell you and you’ll tell me and we’ll both know,” Cathy replied, stuffing the two broken wires under the rug. “Get the Elmer’s glue. If we get the carpet back in place, with luck, no one will ever find this!”

  * * *

  Bruno and Boots knocked on the door of room 342, down the hall from their own room.

  Tall, blond Chris Talbot appeared. “Hey, guys,” he greeted. “Congratulations on not getting expelled.”

  He ushered them inside the room, which was one of the most impressive at Macdonald Hall. Chris’s paintings and sketches covered the walls; sculptures of all sizes stood on pedestals, shelves and furniture, along with the many trophies, ribbons and prizes on display. Chris was Macdonald Hall’s most promising young art student.

  Bruno got right down to business. “We need a favour.”

  Chris laughed. “I didn’t think you were here to clean my bathroom. What’s up?”

  “We want to set a trap for the Phantom,” Boots explained.

  Chris’s eyebrows rose. “How can you do that? You can never predict where he’s going to strike next.”

  Bruno sat down on the edge of Chris’s desk. “You know how when you see wet cement, you just can’t resist putting your initials in it? That’s the kind of guy the Phantom is. He sees a cannon and he wants to stuff something in it. He sees a statue and he wants to dress it up. We need a poster to tempt him like that — a picture so irresistible, so perfect, that the Phantom won’t be able to stand it if he doesn’t sneak over and draw something on it.”

  “Well,” Chris said thoughtfully, “I told Coach Flynn I’d do the poster for the big indoor track meet down in Toronto. I’ll show you my preliminary sketches.”

  He spread the drawings out on the bed. “What do you think?”

  Bruno’s eyes widened in delight. “Perfect!” he crowed. “The first thing we need is a big piece of paper — and I mean big!”

  Chapter 17

  The Discus Thrower

  SectorWatch Inc. sent a team of troubleshooters to locate the glitch in Miss Scrimmage’s security system. Six technicians combed the school, searching for the one trouble spot that was keeping the Fortress Ultra-Deluxe off-line.

  They began by checking all the fuse and junction boxes for broken circuits. They found nothing. The next step was a thorough examination of all the door and window connections. Everything was secure.

  “Oh, good,” said Miss Scrimmage. “So there’s nothing wrong.”

  “Well, not exactly,” the crew chief admitted. “We know there’s a break in the loop but we don’t know where it is.”

  Miss Scrimmage looked alarmed. “My word, what shall we do?”

  He smiled kindly. “Don’t worry. We’ll find it. But first we have to shut down everything.”

  “Gracious! Why?”

  The chief’s eyes widened. “Why? That kind of tinkering could set off the alarm!”

  “Well,” chided Miss Scrimmage, “that’s not the end of the world.”

  “No,” said the man through clenched teeth. “It just sounds like it.”

  Miss Scrimmage tittered. “Oh, you fellows are so full of fun.”

  Cathy and Diane also watched the progress of the work crew, Cathy in amusement and her roommate in growing panic.

  “Cathy, this is horrible,” she quavered. “Those poor workmen have been tearing the whole school apart for hours, and we could show them the problem in three seconds!”

  Cathy shrugged. “They get paid.”

  “That’s not the point,” Diane insisted. “This is wrong!”

  Cathy smiled serenely. “What’s wrong is keeping three hundred tender young ladies in a prison camp. So if they never find that broken wire, it’ll be too soon for me.”

  She watched benignly as a technician crawled down the hall, training a flashlight along the baseboard, following the wire that was stapled there.

  “Hi, Ma’am,” Cathy greeted the young woman warmly. “I just got a package from home. Want a cookie?”

  The technician looked up and smiled. “Yeah, thanks.” She savoured the chocolate chip cookie and accepted another. “These are delicious. Your mom’s a great cook.”

  “I’ll tell her,” said Cathy. Actually, this stash had been baked in Miss Scrimmage’s kitchen and was destined for Rex. “‘Bye.”

  When the technician resumed her painstaking check of the loop, she began on the other side of their door — past the break in the wire that the girls had concealed under the carpet.

  * * *

  In the main foyer of the Faculty Building, Wilbur and Boots held the top of the giant art board and Chris Talbot unrolled his poster.

  Bruno gawked. “It’s beautiful! It’s perfect!”

  TORONTO INDOOR TRACK & FIELD MEET

  SKYDOME DECEMBER 4 & 5

  … blazoned the heading in big, red letters.

  Below this was a painting of the famous Greek statue of the Discus Thrower. The nude marble figure was viewed from behind and it was definitely not Chris’s best work. This was as per Bruno’s instructions. The artist had deliberately drawn the hips more than twice the normal size. The result was that the Discus Thrower was positively pear-shaped, with a gigantic hind end that seemed to stare back at the viewer.

  Wilbur emitted a low whistle. “Man, check out the size of that butt! It looks like the back end of an aircraft carrier!”

  “It’s colossal!” agreed Boots with reverence.

  Wilbur regarded Chris questioningly. “I thought the Discus Thrower was supposed to be an athlete. He looks like he trains on cheesecake! You could rent out advertising space on that derrière!”

  Chris laughed and pointed at Bruno. “Ask the boss.”

  Bruno’s eyes gleamed. “If the Phantom is half the joker he thinks he is, there’s no way he’ll be able to resist drawing something on this!” He turned to gaze at the Discus Thrower. “I can hardly resist it myself!”

  “Down, boy,” said Boots as though he were training a dog. “This is our trap for the Phantom, remember?”

  “Awww!” moaned Bruno. “Couldn’t I just put Eat at Joe’s and then erase it?”

  “Or how about a big smiling face?” suggested Wilbur. “With Have a Nice Day written underneath.”

  “Come on,” cautioned Chris. “I’m going to catch a lot of flak from Coach Flynn over this. The least you can do is keep your mitts off it and let the Phantom get there first.”

  Boots frowned worriedly. “I hope the Phantom gets his chance at it. The minute we put this up, every guy in school is going to want to scribble his initials on it.”

  “They’d fit,” confirmed Wilbur.

  “Look who’s talking,” Chris told him.

  The office door opened and Mr. Sturgeon hobbled out, assisted by
his wife. He stared at the poster, his eyes becoming wide behind his steel-rimmed glasses. “Goodness,” he said in a faint voice. “What a healthy specimen!”

  Mrs. Sturgeon smiled brilliantly. “It’s wonderfully impressive, like all your work, Christopher. Congratulations.”

  His face red, Chris tried to mumble his thanks.

  “Sir, are you okay?” asked Bruno seriously. “I think your limp is getting worse.”

  “Not at all, Walton,” Mr. Sturgeon grimaced in pain. “I am fit as — ah, Mr. Flynn!” he exclaimed, grateful to change the subject.

  Coach Flynn jogged into the building. “Good morning, everybody. I can’t wait to see Talbot’s new poster for the — whoa!” He caught sight of the Discus Thrower and stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Bruno enthused.

  “What? Oh, yeah — great,” the coach managed in a strangled voice. “Only, why is it so — you know — like that?”

  The question hung in the air.

  Chris was the first to break the silence. “You’re disappointed?” he asked in hurt tones.

  “No!” the coach said quickly. “I love it! It’s — larger than life!”

  The Macdonald Hall students thought so, too. All through the school day, the poster was surrounded by an appreciative audience of pointers and laughers. “Get a load of the caboose on that guy!”

  “The Hindenberg!”

  “I’m quitting track and field! I don’t want to end up looking like that!”

  Elmer Drimsdale provided the scientific opinion. “This is anatomically impossible.”

  Edward O’Neal seemed unimpressed, as usual. “Big deal,” he yawned. “A discus.”

  “This is unbearable,” grimaced poor Chris. “I didn’t know there were this many wisecracks in the language!”

  “It’s perfect!” crowed Bruno. “Every guy in the school is going to hear about that poster — including the Phantom. He’s as good as caught!”

  * * *

  Just after lights-out that night, the window of room 306 opened and two shadowy figures dropped to the shrubbery below.

  Keeping low, Bruno and Boots dashed across the campus to the deserted Faculty Building.

  “So much for The Fish’s big curfew speech,” whispered Boots. “After all this, I sure hope the Phantom hasn’t been here already and we’ve missed him.”

  They slipped inside. A single light at the back of the hallway illuminated the poster. It was untouched. The broad backside of the Discus Thrower gleamed out at them.

  “It looks even bigger in the dark,” Bruno admired.

  “Where are we going to hide?” asked Boots nervously.

  Bruno’s eyes lit on the big lost and found chest that sat near the entrance to the office area. He lifted the hinged lid. “After you, Melvin.”

  The two settled themselves amidst the scarves, gloves, books and shoes. Bruno lowered the lid, propping it open in the corner with a tennis shoe. That left a four-centimetre gap, through which the boys peered. There was a clear view of the poster.

  “What now?” asked Boots.

  “We wait,” said Bruno. “Just don’t fall asleep. I can really picture us trying to explain this to The Fish when he finds us tomorrow morning.”

  * * *

  In the gloom of room 201, a match flared. A trembling hand touched the flame to a candlewick and the light swelled, bringing the walls to life in the dim glow. A drip of wax splashed onto the pile of books strewn every which way on the desk — Introduction to Skydiving, Climb Mount Everest, The Encyclopedia of Daredevils and the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine. An instructional video, Wing-Walking for Beginners, lay on a stack of order forms from the Music-by-Mail Record Club.

  Elmer Drimsdale, dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck, pulled a dark stocking cap down over his fair crew cut.

  He paused for a moment and took several deep breaths. What he was about to do terrified him, but that was part of living on the edge. “One cannot stay in one’s room and play it safe all the time,” he mumbled to himself. He was going for the gusto!

  With a flourish of his pen, he chose two more albums on the order form, snuffed the candle and eased himself out the small window into the bushes. The cool night air set his heart pounding. He felt scared but alive. This was it! Tonight he would do it!

  Chapter 18

  The Shadow of the Phantom

  Cathy and Diane shinnied down the drainpipe outside their window and jumped to the ground.

  “You see?” Cathy was saying. “If we hadn’t busted that little wire, there’s no way we could be doing this. Just opening our window would have set off the alarm.”

  “And we never, never set off the alarm on purpose,” the two girls chanted and laughed.

  “Well, we’d better enjoy our freedom while it lasts,” giggled Diane. “Tomorrow that special team of SectorWatch experts arrives from Wisconsin. They’re sure to find your little broken wire.”

  Cathy dismissed this. “I can’t take these guys seriously anymore. What a bunch of big babies, scared to death of a little noise! Maybe I’ll just threaten to set off the alarm and they’ll all hightail it to the North Pole!”

  “Shhh!” Diane grabbed her roommate by the arm and dragged her into the shadows of the apple orchard. “Someone’s coming!”

  They listened as furtive footsteps crunched in the dry leaves. Then a slim silhouette loomed up out of the darkness.

  Cathy’s brow knit. “It’s not Bruno or Boots — too skinny.”

  Diane whimpered in fear. “Now look what you’ve done! You’ve disabled the SectorWatch and this is a real intruder!”

  “Hmmm,” said Cathy.

  “What are we going to do?” Diane squeaked.

  “Prepare to defend our school,” Cathy declared grimly.

  As the figure rounded the corner of the building, she launched herself forward like a CFL linebacker. She hit the intruder just below the knees, knocking his legs out from under him. Then, as he collapsed to the ground, Diane struck, jumping on the prostrate victim with windmilling arms.

  The struggle continued until the girls heard a familiar voice: “But at least I lived on the edge!”

  The girls froze. “Elmer?” they chorused.

  The Macdonald Hall school genius sat up and adjusted his glasses.

  “Oh, hi,” said Cathy, as though she were greeting someone at a tea party. “What brings you here?”

  “I live on the edge now,” Elmer croaked.

  “The edge of what?” asked Diane.

  A dry rattle came from Elmer. His throat usually closed up in the presence of girls. But he realized he would have to overcome that.

  “I’ve been timid for too long,” Elmer replied in a strong voice that surprised even him. “I’ve come to meet Marylou Beakman face to face.”

  They looked blank. “Why?”

  Elmer turned three shades of red. “That’s personal,” he said stiffly.

  “Ooooooooh!” chorused the girls. It came out as a seven-syllable word.

  “You and Marylou Beakman!” Cathy exclaimed. “Cool!”

  “You guys would make the perfect couple!” Diane enthused.

  “Well, it’s somewhat complicated,” Elmer admitted. “I’m not yet one hundred percent sure that Marylou likes me. You see, I sent her two very nice gifts and I never heard from her at all.”

  Instantly, Cathy was alert. “Gifts? What kind of gifts?”

  “Very superior specimens,” Elmer replied. “A rare rodent skull and the droppings of the Tasmanian Mountain Sparrow.”

  It hit the girls at the same time. The threatening packages that had so frightened Marylou and Miss Scrimmage! The voodoo curse had been no curse at all — just a love token from Elmer Drimsdale!

  It was too much. The girls collapsed into each other’s arms and howled with laughter.

  Elmer was outraged. “Those gifts came from the heart!”

  But Cathy and Diane were out of control. They threw thems
elves to the ground and rolled amidst the leaves, hysterical.

  “Oh, so you think this is amusing!” Elmer exclaimed in great anger. “Well, it is not! Romance can be a deeply painful matter!”

  Cathy struggled to compose herself. “Sorry, Elmer,” she managed, still shaking. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

  “You’re a great guy,” added Diane. “I can’t understand why Marylou didn’t go gaga over your presents.”

  Elmer’s face radiated deep tragedy. “I’m afraid I can,” he said sombrely. “I believe Marylou Beakman already has a boyfriend.”

  Cathy thought it over. Marylou was one of the quietest, dullest, most ordinary girls at Scrimmage’s. The idea of not one, but two boys after her —

  “No way,” she said flatly. “Not a chance.”

  “But I’ve seen him,” Elmer protested. “He gains access to her room via the TV antenna mast outside her window.”

  Cathy grabbed Elmer with one hand and Diane with the other. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s settle this once and for all.”

  * * *

  In the darkened Dormitory 1, a window silently rose. A backpack was tossed out into the bushes. Then a leg was thrown over the sill.

  Edward O’Neal hopped to the ground and retrieved his backpack. He unzipped it and peered inside. Yes, he had everything he needed.

  He passed a cursory glance over the campus. He had been very nervous about doing this at first, but the butterflies in his stomach had long since disappeared. Hey, after getting away with it so many times, what was there to be nervous about?

  * * *

  In the lost and found box in the Faculty Building, Bruno snored, stretched and kicked Boots in the stomach. Boots snapped awake, sitting up suddenly and banging his head on the lid of the wooden chest.

  “What …?” The noise brought Bruno to life.

  The two looked at each other in horror. “You were asleep!” they chorused accusingly.

  In a panic, they threw open the box and stared at the poster. The Discus Thrower’s hind end was unmarked.

  “Whew,” breathed Bruno. “We didn’t miss anything.”

  A faint scraping sound met their ears.

  Boots froze. “What was that?”