Troy High

by Shana Norris

  Hunter put me on my feet. “Fine, but hurry up. You don’t have time to change.”

  I hurried back to my room, shoved my feet into the first pair of shoes I found, and pulled a jacket over my pajamas. Then I returned to the hall and followed Hunter down the darkened stairs.

  “What is going on?” I asked as we headed outside. My brothers’ car idled at the end of the driveway and Perry sat in the driver’s seat.

  Hunter opened the door for me, and I climbed into the backseat. Hunter sat down in front. Perry backed out of the driveway.

  “I’ll tell you when we get there,” Hunter said. “Don’t freak out.”

  I wanted to pound my brothers’ heads in. “How can you tell me not to freak out when you won’t even tell me what this is about? You wake me up in the middle of the night and say we’re going to Lacede, but you won’t say why. And I’m sure Mom and Dad have no idea that we’re running around town right now, do they?”

  “Relax, Cassie,” Perry said. “None of us are getting any sleep until Hunter does what he’s determined to do. So just sit back and enjoy the ride. It’ll make things easier on all of us.”

  I sat back, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at the backs of their heads. No one spoke as we drove across town. We stopped at the end of a driveway and a moment later, Elena joined me in the backseat.

  “Hi, Cassie,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure if you were coming.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I asked.

  Elena giggled. “I have no idea, I just feel like I should.”

  I looked at my brothers, who both stared straight ahead into the night, and then leaned toward Elena. “What are we doing?”

  She grinned. “You’ll find out.”

  When we arrived at Lacede, two cars already waited there with a small group of people gathered around.

  “There you are,” Paul Baker said as we approached. He held a long, rolled tube toward Hunter. “Just got this from my brother tonight. It looks great.” He grinned.

  Hunter nodded. “Does everyone know what they’re supposed to do?” he asked.

  Everyone nodded, except me.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  “You all go ahead,” Hunter said to the others. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  When everyone except Perry and Elena had left, Hunter turned to me. “You’re here because you have to decide what side you’re on.”

  “I’m on neither,” I said. “I’m neutral.”

  “You can’t be neutral,” Hunter said solemnly. “Friends or family, Cassie? Which will it be?”

  I stared up at him, swallowing hard. How could he have me choose between him and Greg? This wasn’t my fight.

  “You can make up for ruining Friday night’s plan,” Perry told me. “Prove you’re a real Trojan.”

  “What do I have to do?” I asked.

  Hunter held the rolled tube toward me. “This is your night to play a prank against Lacede on behalf of Troy. Hang this banner somewhere that everyone can see it when they come to school tomorrow.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Just hang some stupid banner and you’ll stop questioning my loyalty?”

  “That’s it,” Perry said with a smirk.

  It would be a relief to get everyone off my back. “Okay,” I said. “But from now on, you have to treat me like I’m one of you. Don’t let everyone ignore me at school.”

  “Deal,” Hunter agreed. “Elena will stay with you. Perry and I have business to attend to.”

  Perry sighed. “Can’t I stay here with them? They might need someone watching out for them in case any Spartans come along.”

  “I doubt anyone else is coming by at three A.M.,” Hunter said. “You’re coming with me. You have to prove yourself in your own way, too, you know.”

  My stomach lurched. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Hunter said. He grabbed Perry’s arm. “Come on.”

  My brothers disappeared around the side of the building, leaving Elena and me alone at the front.

  “You’d better get to work,” Elena said. “We don’t have much time. Someone could come by and see us.”

  It wasn’t too late to back out. I could go home and go back to bed and pretend this never happened.

  “How are we going to hang this?” I asked, gesturing toward the banner Hunter had given me before he left.

  Elena pointed to the front steps of the school. On either side were two brick walls that served as rails for the steps. “We can climb on them. Hunter put some nails and a hammer in his car.”

  They had already planned it all out. All I had to do was follow through.

  “What does this banner say, anyway?” I asked, starting to unroll it.

  “You can see after we hang it up,” Elena said quickly. “It’ll be a lot harder to manage it if you unroll it now.”

  I got the nails and hammer from my brothers’ car and then followed Elena to the front steps of the school. She held the banner while I climbed onto the first brick wall. The wall was wide enough that I could stand comfortably, but I still felt a little nervous as I looked down at the ground below me.

  I took the corner of the banner that Elena offered me and positioned it on the wall. Before I started hammering, I said, “We can get ourselves out of this, you and me. We’ll go to the principal or whoever will listen and tell them everything that has been going on. We can—”

  A cheer erupted from behind the school. I couldn’t tell anything that was going on from my vantage point, but whatever it was my brothers had planned must have been successful.

  “You can’t do that to your own family,” Elena told me. “Now just finish putting up the banner. The sooner you do, the sooner we can go home.”

  “Why are you a willing part of this?” I asked.

  “Lucas made it personal,” Elena said. “I can’t back down now. I can’t give him that satisfaction.”

  I turned back to the wall and tried to hammer the corner of the banner into place with as little noise as possible. Once I had the left side in, I jumped down and started climbing to the other side.

  The rest of the group returned as I hammered the last nail in, carrying a large bag between them.

  I eyed the bag. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” Hunter said as Paul stuffed it into the trunk of his car.

  “Nice,” Mallory said, grinning appreciatively up at the banner I had hung. “It looks even better than I imagined.”

  I jumped down and stepped back to get a look. And then my jaw dropped open.

  Hanging at least six feet wide before us was a blown-up picture of Greg. It was the picture from band camp that I’d stuck to my mirror. Greg’s huge cheeks, stuffed full of grapes, grinned down at us. Written across the bottom of the banner, just in case anyone couldn’t tell, were the words GREG MENNON: SOPHOMORE CLASS PRESIDENT.

  I whirled around, facing the others. “Who stole my picture?” I demanded.

  Elena turned away, looking at the ground.

  I started toward the brick wall, intending to tear the banner down, but Hunter grabbed my arm.

  “We have to go,” he said, “before someone catches us here.”

  I tried to pull myself from his grasp, but he dug his fingers into my arm. “Come on, Cassie,” Hunter said through clenched teeth. “We’re leaving now.”

  My brother dragged me back to his car and pushed me into the backseat, ignoring my attempts to get away from him. As we drove away, I couldn’t look at the banner that still hung, waving in the soft breeze.

  MY BROTHERS AND I MADE IT BACK TO BED without any problems. Mom and Dad were still fast asleep.

  I felt exhausted when I got up for school the next morning, but I dragged myself out of bed anyway.

  I hadn’t gotten much sleep after I made it back to my bed because I’d been too busy worrying about what would happen when Greg saw the picture I’d hung. Also, w
hat were my brothers doing last night? What if they had done something really bad to the school?

  But I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Greg.

  I waited all day for something to happen. Anything. But nothing did. There was no evidence to even suggest that we were the ones to blame. Ms. Fillmore didn’t make an announcement or hold an assembly. And my brothers and Elena wouldn’t reveal anything about what had really happened.

  But that afternoon, I was sitting on my bed doing my homework when my bedroom door flew open. Greg marched into the room, his lips pressed into a straight line.

  “You did this?” he asked.

  I stared up at him, blinking. “What?”

  “Don’t try to play dumb with me, Cassie. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re the only person who has that photo of me,” Greg said.

  “I—I—” I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to speak again. “I didn’t know that’s what we were hanging, I swear. My brothers dragged me out in the middle of the night.”

  “So you just do whatever Hunter tells you?” Greg roared.

  “He’s my brother!” I shouted back, gripping my pencil tight in my hand. “And he thought I was a traitor to my school.”

  Greg glared at me, his nostrils flared. “So humiliating me in front of my entire school is how you save yourself?”

  “I didn’t want to do it. Elena stole the picture from me.”

  Greg’s hands were clenched into fists. “You’re not the Cassie I used to know.”

  I scowled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “The Cassie I knew wouldn’t have gone along with some stupid plan. The Cassie I knew would have come to me and apologized.”

  I stood up from my bed, letting my math book fall to the floor. “Hunter is my flesh and blood, no matter what he does, and you’re just as mixed up in all this stuff as I am. And for the record, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

  Greg looked back at me with a mixture of anger and sadness on his face. “Maybe I don’t,” he said in a low voice. He turned toward my door and said, “Have a good life at Troy, Cassie.”

  And then he was gone, slamming my bedroom door behind him.

  That Friday, Troy played a home game against Forest High. Once again, I was in my uniform, sitting in the bleachers with the rest of the band.

  Only five more games to go and then the football season would be over. I hoped that things would go back to normal after this. The other sports teams never seemed to be as influential as the football players.

  I kept my attention on the field during the game. I had to admit that even though I wasn’t into the school rivalry thing, it was still fun cheering for my brothers. They really were great athletes and I couldn’t help holding my breath as I watched them on the field. Troy led the game 14–10, but Forest played well.

  The buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the first half. The teams charged toward the lockers and people started getting up for refreshments. My mouth felt dry, so I headed over to the drink stand.

  On my way to the refreshments, someone grabbed my arm. I turned around to see Mallory smiling at me.

  “Wait a minute, Cassie,” she said. “You won’t regret it, I promise. The halftime show is going to be very interesting.”

  “Halftime show?” I asked. The only game that had a halftime show was homecoming, and that wasn’t for a few more weeks. What was she talking about?

  I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. A figure dashed onto the field, jumping and leaping into the air. The Lacede High mascot. Someone dressed in the soft cloth body and giant head of the Lacede Spartan danced around the field, chased cheerleaders, and pretended to moon the spectators.

  The crowd had stopped moving and watched the Spartan. Several people started to boo.

  Why was the Lacede mascot at Troy? Was this something Lucas had come up with?

  A movement at the other end of the field caught my eye. Several people dressed as Trojans ran across the grass toward the mascot, wielding fake swords and spears. They jumped on the mascot, tackling it to the ground and pretending to stab it with their weapons. One of the Trojans shoved a spear through the top of the mascot’s head, high enough to avoid wounding the person inside.

  The crowd cheered as the mascot pretended to die in a long, drawn-out, and overly dramatic death dance. The group of Trojans raised their weapons and chanted, “Troy! Troy! Troy!”

  Ms. Fillmore marched across the field, followed by several teachers and coaches. The Trojans spotted them and took off in different directions, dropping their weapons on the grass. The once-dead Spartan came back to life and leaped to its feet, running as fast as it could in the costume.

  Mallory grinned at me as the crowd around us laughed and cheered. “See? I knew you wouldn’t want to miss it,” she said before heading back toward the cheerleaders.

  And then I knew what my brothers and everyone else had been up to the night we went to Lacede.

  I skimmed over the letter that had been passed out during my fifth-period class on Monday and then crumpled it into a tight ball.

  All day, no one had been able to talk about anything other than the mascot prank at the game. Three of the guys who had taken part had been caught, the one in the mascot costume and two of the Trojans. The other two had managed to get away and their friends had refused to give up their names, even though the would-be informants were given a week’s suspension.

  On the one hand, I was thankful to those guys who hadn’t given up names. If they had, the trail may have eventually led to my part in hanging the banner.

  But on the other hand, I wished everyone had been turned in and punished. Maybe that would have put a stop to this mess.

  My brothers weren’t in trouble, of course. They’d been playing in the game and had been in the locker room when the Trojans and Spartan mascot ran onto the field, so there was no way anyone could point a finger at them. Well, not without evidence anyway. All the students, it seemed, knew that Hunter and Perry had had at least some part in the theft of the costume.

  But no one would turn them in.

  They hadn’t even denied it when some students talked about it during lunch. Hunter seemed indifferent to the attention, but Perry reveled in it. He probably hoped everyone thought it was all his brilliant idea.

  Why didn’t I just go tell someone what I knew? I knew everything—well, everything except how exactly the laxatives had gotten into the spaghetti sauce.

  But Hunter and Perry were still my brothers and I just couldn’t do that to them. Besides, if I did, I’d have absolutely no friends at all. The Trojans who had started to talk to me would certainly dump me as soon as word got out that I’d ratted out my own brothers. And with Greg no longer speaking to me, I would be entirely friendless.

  The bell rang and I stood up from my desk along with everyone else and shoved my books back into my backpack. When I reached the door, I tossed my crumpled letter into the trash can.

  Kelsey laughed from behind me. “I don’t think Ms. Fillmore would be too pleased with your reaction to her very important words,” she said.

  I managed a small laugh. “You’re not going to tell on me, are you?”

  “Nope.” Kelsey threw her own crumpled ball into the trash too. “Not as long as you don’t tell on anyone.” She eyed me for a moment.

  “Who would I tell?” I asked.

  Kelsey slung her backpack over one shoulder and gave me a huge grin. “Well, I’ll see you later.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered as Kelsey walked away.

  “What’s going on?” Perry asked as our car approached Troy.

  I looked up from the book I’d been reading in the backseat during the ride to school. People milled around the courtyard, both students and teachers. From our vantage point, we couldn’t see what had their attention.

  Hunter pulled into a parking space and the three of us jumped out of the car, hurrying toward the crowd.

  “Hunter’s here,” I h
eard someone say. “He’ll know what to do.”

  The crowd parted before us as more people noticed my brothers moving through it. I followed at Perry and Hunter’s heels, getting more and more nervous about what exactly we would see.

  When we reached the front of the crowd, I saw it. Students whispered and muttered to each other while teachers tried to break up the crowd and yelled at everyone to get to class.

  But no one moved. I stood at the back of the group, staring up toward the statue of the Trojan—the statue that we proudly gathered around daily—seated on his horse in the courtyard.

  Only now, instead of the slightly smirking head of the Trojan warrior, there was nothing. The Trojan was headless.

  “The head is gone,” a guy behind me said to his friends. “I got a closer look at it earlier, before the teachers started pushing us back, and the Trojan’s head was cut completely off.”

  “All right, everyone!” Ms. Fillmore had appeared, wielding a megaphone in front of her mouth. “Everyone get to class now!”

  “Spartans suck!” someone shouted.

  “We need to fight back!” someone else said.

  A cheer arose from the students around me. Ms. Fillmore glared around at us and spoke into her megaphone again.

  “Did you not hear me the first time? Anyone who does not go to class right this minute will be suspended. Go!”

  The crowd started to break up and I let myself get caught up in the flow of bodies headed through the double doors of Troy High. Just inside the doors, people flocked toward Hunter.

  “What do we do?” Paul Baker asked my brother. “We can’t let the Spartans get away with this.”

  “They’ve gone too far,” Perry said, nodding.

  Hunter rounded on him. “And just what are you going to do about it? I’ve been the one who’s had to make every decision throughout this entire thing! I’m bearing the burden of your little love triangle while you do nothing but kiss your girlfriend and then bask in my glory. As if you honestly had any part in it! The only thing you’ve had a part in, Perry, is making this rivalry an all-out war.”