Under Locker and Key

by Allison K. Hymas

  “No, you’d better come to my house,” Becca said. “My parents won’t be home, and I’m an only child. It will be more secret.”

  “Asking me over. Bold move, considering this is only our second date.”

  “You wish.”

  “Not really.”

  A girl with curly blond hair walked into the bathroom and turned red when she saw me. I grinned and waved as I walked past her. “It’s all yours,” I said.

  Finally I got the last word over Becca. And it felt so sweet.

  MINE MAY NOT BE THE most reputable line of work, but I keep my promises. After Mom drove me home from school, I made sure no one was watching before walking across the street to Becca’s house. Hey, I have a reputation to uphold.

  When Becca opened the door, she said, “Don’t thieves prefer coming in through the window?”

  “The amateurs, maybe. The good ones walk through the front door. Shouldn’t you know that?”

  “I’m not a thief.”

  “What a coincidence! Me neither.”

  “Good, because if you do anything that even looks like thieving for the rest of this case, that’s it. I will haul you and all the evidence I have on you down to Principal McDuff, and you will take the fall for this. I’ll deal with Mark on my own. Got it?”

  “What evidence?”

  “That’s my business. But I’ll have enough to make my threats stick.”

  “Got it.” I thought about all those kids with missing stuff and wished I could do something to help them instead of being stuck obeying a bunch of stupid rules laid on me by the school detective.

  “Promise,” she said.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Not your heart. I’m not sure you have one. Cross those sticky little fingers you love so much.” Becca grabbed my arm. “Come in; we have a lot to talk about.”

  I followed her inside to her kitchen table, where we’d first struck our deal. In the center of the table a plate of cookies, two glasses, and a gallon of milk waited.

  I froze. “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the spread.

  “Snacks,” Becca said. “Enjoy them while you can; I think prison’s sugar-free.”

  “What did you do to them? Did you bake truth serum into the cookies? Is it in the milk?”

  Becca rolled her eyes. She did that often. “We have a lot to plan, and I thought we’d want something to eat. And if you’d like to meet the devious, truth-serum-lacing chef, look right over there.” She pointed to a garbage can where an empty store-bought cookie package lay crumpled.

  “If it’s safe, you eat one.” I knew she hadn’t laced the cookies with anything. She wasn’t that high-tech. I just enjoyed bugging her about it too much.

  “Oh, come on,” Becca groaned. But she took a cookie and shoved it in her mouth.

  After making a big show of examining the chocolate chips and sniffing the cookies, I did the same.

  “Sit down,” Becca said, gesturing to a chair.

  “Are you going to push me over again?”

  “Depends. Are you going to ask for it again?”

  I looked at her but pulled the chair out and sat down, keeping the chair’s legs planted on the floor.

  “So, phase one went pretty well,” Becca said.

  “I guess,” I replied, tucking my hands in my lap. “At least I didn’t get caught.”

  “Did you find the key?”

  “Trust me—”

  “I never trust you, Wilderson.”

  “Will you let me finish my sentence? I was going to say, ‘Trust me, you would know if I found the key.’ You’d have it in your hand. Because I’m honest.”

  “Yeah. And I just made a down payment on the Taj Mahal. How do I know you wouldn’t lie and keep the master key if you found it?”

  “If that were the case, you’d know I had the key because I wouldn’t be here eating processed cookie. I’d be breaking into your locker.”

  Becca grinned. “Was that a confession I heard?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? It sounded like you admitted to wanting to break into my locker.”

  “That’s not what I said, and it’s not a confession.”

  She shrugged. “Why don’t we just listen again and check. . . .” Her eyes widened as she dug in her empty pocket.

  I casually held up the camera. “Looking for this?” Even when hidden in a pocket, a camera capable of filming makes a decent tape recorder.

  “You little thief.”

  “Hey, I never intended to remove it from the premises. This is more of a relocation. Don’t worry; I turned it off when I found it.”

  “And when would that be?”

  “When you pulled me inside. Here, you can have it back.” I slid it across the table. “The battery, though, will be returned when I leave.”

  I thought Becca would strangle me. “How dare you pick my pocket!”

  “How dare you try to record me when we’re working together? We have to be able to trust each other, or this will never work.” I sighed. “Just for now, I have to know you’re not trying to trap me.”

  “And I have to know you aren’t going to be a thief every opportunity you get.”

  “I’ve followed your rules. I think I’ve earned the right to establish one of my own.”

  Becca picked up the camera and popped the back off. She shook her head at the missing battery. But then she smiled. “I have to say, I’m impressed.”

  “Have to do better than that to trick me. Mark learned that today. Does that mean you won’t try to catch me in a recorded confession?”

  “Okay. But just until we have the key. After that, you’re fair game.”

  “Good.” Enough of this. The faster we got through our meeting, the sooner I could get out of here. Despite the camera, the cookies and milk made our planning session feel too much like a friendly get-together, and that was a dangerous illusion. It was like believing a king cobra was a shoelace.

  “Speaking of Mark,” I said, “how did things go on your end? What did you find?”

  Becca laid the camera on the table. “I found evidence that a short thief with red paint on his hands rifled through Mark’s stuff.”

  I clenched my fists. “I’m short? Pot, meet kettle.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive. The path to inner peace begins with accepting your flaws.” Becca’s face lost its superiority and she added, “You were listening to us, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Did you like how Mark wouldn’t tell me why the twenty was important? But he knows it was you who wrote on it.”

  “Great.” I poured a glass of milk and took a swig. “Now, phase two. I can get in, no problem, but you need to keep the mark busy while I do my thing.”

  “He’s not a movie star, Wilderson. You don’t have to give him a title.”

  “What?”

  “His name is Mark. You don’t have to call him the Mark.”

  It took a moment to register, but then it clicked and I burst out laughing. “Oh, gosh, no,” I said when I had calmed down. “But it is funny that his name is . . .” I lost it again.

  Becca was not even sort of as amused as I was. “Tell me what you know.”

  The way her fingers gripped the surface of the table made me choke back my laughter. “The ‘mark’ is the target. The person you’re trying to take down. In this case, his name is also Mark. So Mark’s the mark.” I stifled a giggle.

  What? It’s funny!

  “Oh. Thief jargon,” Becca said, relaxing. “I’m not fluent in that language.”

  “I’m sorry. I suppose I should call him the perk so as not to offend you.”

  It was Becca’s turn to laugh. “It’s ‘perp,’ thief boy. As in, ‘That perp Jeremy Wilderson really got paint on his hands when he was knocking over Mark’s locker.’ ”

  I smirked. “ ‘Knocking over’? What was that about not speaking thief language?”

  Becca smirked. “I said I wasn’t fluent in
it. I never said I couldn’t manage a phrase or two.”

  That made us both laugh. But then, a moment later, we sat silent and awkward, sipping our milk. For a second there it had been almost like we were friends. Like she wasn’t out to get me.

  She must have felt the weirdness, because Becca closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the icy hardness had returned. “Okay, Wilderson. I have some things to talk to you about regarding phase two. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve noticed the potential for a . . . mishap.”

  “Like today’s mishap, which wouldn’t have happened if someone hadn’t brought the perp/mark over too early. Did you do that on purpose to catch me in the act?”

  Becca ignored the question. “I need you to pay attention to what I’m about to say. We’ve got Mark scared.”

  “Good.”

  “But that means that he’s not going to leave his backpack unattended. I know you wanted to search it while he’s in gym class, but for the first time in your life, be honest: Do you think Mark’s going to leave anything of his where you could search it?”

  I sipped my milk. “If it were me, I wouldn’t.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I leaned forward. “Then what do you suggest? Gym class is the best chance I have of getting to his backpack. It’s the only time you’re required to leave your stuff behind in an empty room, and backpacks are never locked up.” Though, technically, Mark could bring the bag into the gym and keep it on the sidelines. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  Becca ran her finger down her glass. “We could call him out of class for something. Like what I did with you. I’d have a reason. I could talk to him as a peer mentor about his troubles with you.”

  “Good idea. It would work, except that he could still bring his backpack with him. Even if he, by some miracle, left it behind, I still couldn’t get to it while it was sitting in the middle of a busy classroom.”

  Becca looked up. “It’s the best idea we have. Unless you want to try gym class.”

  “Gym class may work better. Or maybe in the lunchroom.” If only we had a scheduled reason for Mark to leave his backpack behind, like a field trip or an assembly or a—

  Fire drill.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. During a fire drill, students had to leave their stuff inside. Teachers were militant about it. Mark would have no choice but to abandon his bag.

  “What?” Becca asked. “You look like you just had an idea.”

  “Yeah.” I had an idea, one that was so dangerous and stupid and lawbreaking I knew I could never tell Becca. “I think I may be able to manage getting to the backpack while he’s in class.”

  “Really?” Becca raised an eyebrow. “All eyes will be on you.”

  “It’s not ideal. But I have some favors to call in, and I think I can make this work.”

  “Eighth-grade lunch is two periods after ours. He’ll be in class while you’re at lunch.”

  “I can work with that.”

  “What are the details?”

  “Haven’t hammered them out yet. It may end up being kind of spur-of-the-moment. Leave this part of it to me.”

  Becca frowned. “You will tell me what you’re doing, like we agreed, right?”

  “Absolutely.” Absolutely not. The plan only worked if we separated Mark from his backpack, and the only way to do that was to have a fire drill.

  The good news was I could schedule the fire drill myself. The bad news was, if I got caught, I would be in more trouble than I’d ever been in before.

  “Keep me posted. On everything.” Becca smiled. “And phase two is a go.”

  “Great. Well, if that’s it, I’ll be on my way.” I stood, ready to make my exit, but Becca motioned for me to sit.

  “Not yet. Right now I need to teach you how to look for evidence.”

  I sank into the chair. “Why?”

  “In case you need it. If you get caught, I get in trouble, so I need you to not get caught. This will speed up your search time.” She pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “This is a picture of a fake crime scene. Tell me what you see.”

  I could keep telling you how our meeting went, but after that it got long and boring and Becca made me jump through all these hoops to get ready for phase two. I left feeling brain-dead, excited, and terrified. After all, I’d never “scheduled” a fire drill before. The game had escalated. Let’s hope I could escalate along with it.

  FRIDAYS AT SCOTTSVILLE ARE ALWAYS kind of insane, but that Friday was worse than the grand opening of a devil’s-food-cake stand at a chocoholics’ convention.

  When I got to school, buzzing with adrenaline over my unsavory plans for phase two, and went to get my books for class, they weren’t there. None of them. Everything—my textbooks, notebooks, pens, highlighters—was gone. All I found was a piece of lined paper with a big winky face taped to the inside of my locker door. Under it was written, Who said anything about buying?

  I crumpled up the piece of paper and crushed it to the bottom of my backpack. “Oh, it’s on.”

  Maybe I could put my stuff in Case’s or Hack’s locker. At least I still had the books and notebooks I’d needed for homework the night before.

  Outside homeroom, once again a huge crowd of clients waited for me. All of them had had things stolen, valuable things, from their lockers. My only consolation was that I was sure Becca, as the school’s private investigator, had her own mob to deal with. I hoped she was blowing them off like I had to.

  Again I had them all write their names and stolen property on a piece of paper and waved them on their way. That should have been the end of it, but then Case and Hack appeared. They weren’t smiling.

  “I’m glad to see you guys. Do you think I can put my stuff with yours? My locker’s not safe right now.”

  “Since when are you afraid of a thief?” Case twirled a paintbrush, and Hack fidgeted with his glasses and hair and shirt.

  “I’m not. Something’s up with you. What happened?”

  Case took a deep breath and placed the brush over his ear. “Our lockers aren’t safe either. My locker was broken into. They took my new batch of hall passes.”

  “They got my tablet, too.” Hack looked at me and shrugged. “Well, it’s my mom’s. But I need it back before she realizes I borrowed it.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Mark couldn’t just attack me directly; he had to go after my best friends, too. I was going to make him hurt.

  My fingers itched. I wanted to ditch all my classes and track down Mark’s stash, get back my books, Case’s hall passes, and Hack’s mom’s tablet. Mark had to be keeping them somewhere nearby until he could get them out of the building. It would be so easy for me to find the loot and pay Mark back.

  But if I did, Becca would find out. She’s the best detective in school. Sure, she didn’t have any evidence on me yet, but that could change in a heartbeat. If I ditched phase two to find my friends’ stuff, I’d lose my chance to search Mark’s bag and I’d have nothing to give Becca. She’d want to know why, and then she’d get mad. That could be the tipping point that would let her find enough to turn me in. A student’s testimony, a teacher’s comment that I missed class two days in a row . . . it could accumulate. Then Mark would maybe never go down for what he did and Case’s and Hack’s things would never turn up. Hack’s mom would kill him for taking technology he wasn’t allowed to have, again.

  So all I could do was hand the list of stolen goods to Case and say, “Write down what was stolen and when.”

  Case took the paper. “You can’t remember on your own?”

  “It’s not like that. I’ve got a lot to deal with. I don’t want to count on remembering and then miss something. I’ll get your hall passes back. And Hack’s mom’s tablet. I promise.”

  “Sure you will.” Case passed back the paper without writing on it and gave me an odd look.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  I pointed
at his face. “That look. Maybe all the new clients have got me unhinged, but I could have sworn you squinted at me. Like you were suspicious.”

  “Me? Suspicious of you, J? That’s ridiculous.” Case, while a master forger, is a terrible liar. It was like someone had taken his precious paints and the brush from his ear and stroked I DON’T TRUST YOU across his face.

  “We’re friends, Case. You can tell me anything. What’s going on?”

  “If we’re friends, why won’t you tell us what’s going on?”

  I should have expected them to confront me. I did; I’d just hoped it would happen later. “What?”

  “We’re not stupid. We know something big’s happening and you’re right in the middle of it. With a crime wave like this, you’d have to be.” Case shook his head. “But you’re not saying anything to us. You always tell us about your jobs, even the small ones. Why are you silent now? And you’re not doing what you’d normally do. You’re not acting like yourself. The J I know would already have retrieved most, if not all, of the stolen items. He wouldn’t let people get ripped off like this, making a list instead of acting.”

  “If you’re so worried, you go retrieve it all.”

  “That’s not my area. I’d get caught like that.” Case snapped his fingers. “You’re the sneaky one. Like the thief responsible for this crime wave, you can get in and out of a locker without leaving clues behind. Come to think of it, you’re also acting so distant, like you have something to hide.”

  “Whoa.” I raised my hands. “Maybe I’m hallucinating, but it sounded like you just insinuated that I’m the one out robbing lockers.”

  “We don’t believe that,” Case said. “Really, we don’t.”

  “Yeah? Because it sounds like an accusation to me.” I looked at my friends and the distrust on their faces. “We made a pact, guys, to never use our skills for evil. I’d never break that. You should know that.”

  “Calm down, J! We know.” Hack squirmed more, looking like he’d rather be sitting in front of the principal, trying to explain how he cracked the school’s firewalls again, than be with us. “It’s not us. It’s other people.”