by Vicki Grant
Then the phone gets cut off and at least we don’t have to worry about the calls anymore. The hard part then is coming up with excuses. Other kids just don’t get it. They don’t even know you can lose your phone service. They don’t understand why we don’t answer the door anymore. It’s like they live in a fantasy world or something.
It’s stupid, but I could feel my eyes start to sting. It didn’t matter how pretty Shannondoah was or that she’d actually kissed me. Thinking about her couldn’t make me forget those orange envelopes.
Mr. Yurchesyn said, “Okay, guys. Lab closes in half an hour. Start winding things up. Get focused.”
Right. Get focused. Forget about feeling sorry for yourself. Do your work. I stuffed the note back in my pocket. I shook my head until things straightened up inside.
I just had to attack my project one step at a time.
1. Put in the credits.
From Louse to Lousy Rich: The Life and Death of Ernest Sanderson.
Conceived, written, directed, videotaped and edited by Cyril F. MacIntyre
Should I mention that I did the voice and soundtrack too? I considered it for a second, then decided against it. If I added that, I’d have to make my name smaller.
2. Arrange to take some before and after shots of kids’ teeth the next day. Ask Fitzmo. His are so gray they’re almost green. He’s a prime Gleamoccino candidate.
3. Cut out a bit of the footage of Sanderson’s early years. It doesn’t add much to the story—except the idea that even hopeless nerds can some day make a lot of money and end up with Miss Gingivitis USA.
4. On second thought, don’t cut it after all. We all need hope.
Mr. Yurchesyn gave the twenty-minute warning.
5. Tighten up the sequence in the lab.
That whole scene was way too long and had hardly anything at all to do with Gleamoccino. I should have just focused on Sanderson and Reith, but I couldn’t resist keeping Disco ‘Stache in there. I figured I owed it to the guy. My life really, really sucked at the moment, but he made me laugh. He’d made Andy laugh. If he wanted fame, I’d give it to him.
I couldn’t resist. I knew I didn’t have much more than fifteen minutes left, but I hit Rewind and watched him weasel his way into the frame again. The guy was about as smooth as Mr. Bean and just as out of it.
I was looking at the footage for, like, the hundredth time, just sort of fast-forwarding through it, when I practically fell off my chair.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. For a second there, I thought I was just imagining it. Like maybe I was tired or had spent too much time in front of the computer or something. I mean, how could I not have noticed this before?
I scrolled back and watched him do it again.
No, I wasn’t losing my mind. I saw what I saw, and I knew right away where I’d seen it before.
Disco ‘Stache licked his middle finger and pushed his glasses up his nose.
chapter 21
Dolus malus (Latin)
Fraud. A false representation of fact that is intended
to deceive another so that the individual will
act upon it to her or his legal injury.
Why was I scared? What was there to be scared of? I didn’t know, but something was making my heart go crazy. It was like a sumo wrestler was stomping the yard in my chest or something. It was making my teeth vibrate.
Mr. Y went, “Fifteen minutes, people!”
I had to act fast. I printed off a still photo of Disco ‘Stache. I stared at it. What was I thinking? The guy was young and skinny and had a full set of teeth. So he licked his middle finger before he pushed his glasses up.
Big deal.
I bet he and Chuck weren’t the only guys to do that. It’s not that unusual. Other people must do it too. (It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had their own website. You know, www.fingerlickingdudes.com or something.) This was just a coincidence. That skinny guy didn’t look anything like Chuck.
I rolled my eyes at myself. I was getting all worried about nothing. Like I needed to waste the twelve and a half minutes I had left over stuff like this?
I took my pen and just sort of scribbled over Disco ‘Stache’s face in disgust. I pushed it out of the way and turned back to the screen. Finish your project! Would you just get to work?
I tried but I couldn’t concentrate. I don’t know why, but I had to look at the picture again. It’s like it had me hypnotized or something. Like it was going, “Cy-ril! Cy-ril! Look into my eyes. Look deep into my eyes...”
I looked.
Weird.
Not weird. Creepy.
Hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-my-scrawny-neck type creepy.
It was just this sort of wiggly scribble of black ink, but if you squinted and turned the page a bit sideways, it kind of looked like a beard.
The sumo wrestler started in on his routine again.
It looked a lot like a beard. It looked a lot like Chuck. Not the nose really. Not the glasses. The ones he wore now weren’t quite as out of style. But the eyes. The eyes hadn’t changed.
No use trying to work now. I had to see if I was right.
I drew in the rest of the whiskers, blacked out the front teeth, added some bags under his eyes, Chuckified his hair.
That’s when Sumo invited some of his wrestling buddies to join his routine.
My hands were shaking so bad now I could barely hit the right keys. I braced my arm against the desk and somehow managed to pull up that old footage I had of Chuck from the dinner party. I held the Disco ‘Stache picture up and nudged Fitzmo.
“Hey. Quick. Does the guy in the picture look like the guy in the video to you?”
Fitzmo killed a few more aliens, then looked over. He scrunched his lips practically up to his nose and rocked his head back and forth. “Yeah,” he went. “Maybe, a bit I guess. But hey! Do you know who he looks even more like?”
“No, who?” Maybe I was missing something here. Something obvious.
“Ms. Cavanaugh.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. He had a point.
Mr. Y went, “Ten more minutes, guys. Then I’m going home whether you’re ready or not. Start putting your stuff away.”
It wasn’t a perfect match. It wasn’t like the guy was a clone or anything, but there was definitely something there. Twenty years can make a big difference in a person. (Case in point: At ten, Andy sang in the church choir.) It wasn’t unreasonable to think Chuck could be Disco ‘Stache, but how would I know for sure? I could hardly ask him. Fingerprints wouldn’t help unless I had some from both of them—and, of course, a little help from the guys at CSI. One way or another, I needed something to prove this wasn’t just Ms. Cavanaugh on a bad day.
But what? The video was shot before I was even born. How was I ever going to find out who that guy was?
I looked at the screen. The show kept rolling. DNA matching, FBI profiling, x-ray vision. I couldn’t think of anything that would help me.
Then it just hit me. I didn’t need anything that fancy. I just needed the credits! Disco ‘Stache might not have gotten the star billing he wanted, but the filmmakers probably thanked him, if only to make him go away and leave them alone.
Yurchesyn was doing this irritating “Tick...tick...tick” thing as if he was a bomb about to go off. (I’d seen him get mad before. It might not have been a joke.)
I opened the old Gleamoccino documentary and whizzed through the credits.
No luck. No Chuck.
I chewed on a hangnail and thought about it for a second.
The guy was a scientist. Maybe he didn’t use the name Chuck. Maybe Charles sounded more, you know, scientific to him or something. (I mean, who’d have listened to a guy named Al Einstein or Izzy Newton?)
I scrolled back and replayed the credits.
Yes! There was a Charles.
No, there wasn’t.
Charles was the guy’s last name, not his first. I kept going through the credits and then somethin
g—I don’t know what— made me go back. It was like my eye had seen something that my brain hadn’t.
I looked at the credit again. “Thanks to Ernest Sanderson, Ph.D., Michael Reith, Ph.D., and Duncan Charles from the Stanford University Sea Louse Laboratory.”
Duncan Charles.
Charles Duncan.
Chuck Duncan.
Chuck Dunkirk.
Cue the drumroll. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a picture of Ms. Cavanaugh now.
Mr. Y went, “Six minutes, everybody. And that means you, Cyril MacIntyre.”
I shuffled some papers around with my left hand to make myself look busy and Googled Duncan Charles with my right. Tons of hits. I doubted he was the Duncan Charles who won the Ukelele World Speed Strumming championship or the Dunkin’ Duncan Charles who won the Oreo-eating contest at the Quispamsis Fall Fair, but I could have been wrong. (That belly had to have come from somewhere.)
My guess was the Duncan Charles I was looking for was the one who wrote “The Atlantic Sea Louse: An Academic Treatise on the Blah-Blah-Blah Great-Big-Word Whatever.” I wondered too if he was the same guy writing all the stuff on a site called www.patentlyfalse.org. There was a whole bunch of scientific garbage on that too.
I didn’t have time to find out.
Mr. Y was heading right for me. I figured I wasn’t going to get much out of the academic paper on sea lice. (I couldn’t even understand the title.) Instead I just clicked one of the patentlyfalse.org entries and hit Print. They were at least shorter. I’d see what this Duncan Charles was talking about when I got home.
Mr. Y went, “No, no, no, no, Cyril! You don’t have time to print anything.”
“Oh, c’mon, Mr. Yurchesyn! It’s only one page. Please.”
“No, I gave you plenty of warning.”
“I really, really, really need it for my project. Please?”
“No, my hockey game starts in fifteen minutes. I’m not missing it because you didn’t get organized earlier. Ms. Cavanaugh assigned that project ages ago.”
I was down on my knees doing my best “I beseech thee” lowly peasant routine when I heard paper start fluttering out of the printer. Mr. Y heard it too. He rolled his eyes and yanked me up by the armpits. I got the feeling he was the enforcer on the team.
“Okay, okay,” he went. “Go get it, then get out of here!”
“Thanks, Mr. Y! You’re a great guy.”
I’ve got to give him credit. He sort of laughed. “And you’re a pain in the neck.”
I stuffed the page and the pictures in a file folder and headed home.
I wanted to check out my theory.
chapter 22
Eavesdropping
Listening to conversations or observing conduct which is
meant to be private. Generally, the term “eavesdropping”
is used when the activity is not legally authorized by a
search warrant or court order. The term “surveillance”
is used when the activity is permitted by law.
I was almost too late. I was coming round the corner onto our street when I saw Chuck leave our apartment building. I picked up speed.
I was just about to call out “Hey, Duncan!”—I wanted to see if he turned his head—when he started to run across the street. I was shocked. Who’d have thought a guy his size could run? It was like seeing the statue of Winston Churchill in front of the library break into a gallop or something. He went, “Thtop! Wait!” in this kind of loud whisper. Then he started yammering at someone.
Who? I couldn’t see.
Was it Andy? I didn’t think so. I never heard Chuck talk to Andy in that tone of voice. He was always kind of aw-shucks with her. Even when he was giving her one of his law lectures, he did it in that whole backwoods-boy way of his.
Who else could it be then? It wasn’t a stranger. I don’t know why I knew that, but I did. I guess you talk to a stranger differently than you talk to someone you know.
But who else did Chuck know? It’s funny, but it never dawned on me before that he might actually know anybody other than us. I mean, no one showed up at court for him. No one apparently ever wanted him home in time for supper. He clearly didn’t have a hairdresser. I doubted Atula was hanging around on a street corner waiting for him.
I had to see what this was about. I snuck around and crouched down behind this garbage can that had been left out in front of our apartment about two years ago. It wasn’t the ideal vantage point, but it was the closest thing I could find. Chuck was blocking my view, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying either, but you could just tell by the way he was sort of throwing his neck out and jerking his arms around that he was all wound up about something.
I was just about to boot it across the street to see if I could get a better look from behind a mailbox over there when Chuck suddenly turned to go. This time, I heard what he said loud and clear. He went, “Yeah. Don’t you worry. I’ll thee you then!”
I yanked my head back behind the garbage can like I was some cartoon turtle darting back into my shell. All I’d needed was one clear view of who he was talking to—and I’d got it.
I guess I should have known.
It was Biff Fougere.
chapter 23
Per minas (Latin)
Threatening someone with harm.
I leaned my back up flat against the garbage can and sucked in my breath. (Bad idea. Boy, did that thing stink.) This was too weird. Why was Chuck talking to Biff? Were they fighting? Was it that old jealousy thing again?
Could have been. Chuck was still spending most of his waking hours with Andy. But if it was jealousy, why was he making plans to meet Biff later? They didn’t strike me as the type of guys who’d want to get together to talk about their feelings.
Maybe they were going to have a duel or something. That was totally weird but might be pretty cool too. I mean, I’d definitely go to watch. And I knew Fitzmo would be up for it too.
I didn’t have time to figure out what was happening.
Andy barreled out of the building, going, “Chuck! Chuck! Phew! You’re still here. You forgot your file. I didn’t know if I should run it over to you or wait until Cyril got...Cyril?! What are you doing hiding behind the garbage can like that? How long have you been there? What are you doing? Spying on someone or something?”
There’s one thing I can count on in this life and that’s Andy. If I haven’t managed to get myself in enough trouble, she’s always there to push me in a little deeper.
I mentally scrolled through my options. I picked the best one I had. It was pathetic, but what could I do? I sort of wobbled up to my feet. I put my hand over one eye and went, “Ah, I, ah...I must have, like, slipped and knocked myself out or something. Out cold. Totally unconscious. You know. Unable to hear anything. Or see anything. Or anybody. Honest.”
Andy pulled her head way back and went, “Yeah. Right. Like I’m going to fall for that. What? Did you forget I used to be a juvenile delinquent?”
That’s it, Andy. Nice and loud. Make sure the neighbors all hear.
“You can’t fool me. Cut the crap. You were up to something!”
Chuck stepped up to my so-called defense.
“I wouldn’t be tho quick to judge, Andy.” He flashed his gums in that charming way of his. “The boy may thtill be weak from the other night. I theem to remember he wath quite ill. Mind if I ekthamine him? I wath trained in firtht aid.”
Andy nodded and her face went all TV-doctor on me. (Apparently, to look concerned you just have to tilt your head and raise your eyebrows in the middle. She did it amazingly well.) It didn’t seem to bother her that the last time Chuck practiced his rescue skills on someone, they ended up in the morgue.
Chuck took me by the shoulder and spun me around so we were face-to-face. He yanked down my lower lid so hard you’d swear he was trying to whip a tablecloth off without knocking over the dishes. “Your pupilth look okay. No indication of a concuthion.”
He clamped his ha
nds around my head and squeezed. I felt my ears touch in the middle. “Nothing theemth to be broken.”
He rubbed his hands through my hair in a way that can only be described as a “rolling power noogie.”
He went, “Let thee if you got a bump here...Funny. People uthally have a bump when they knock themthelf out.”
He mussed up my hair and gave me a “playful” push. “You muth juth be lucky, I gueth.”
Andy suddenly realized how close she’d come to losing me. She threw her arms around my neck and went, “Oh, C-C!”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, when she did it, she knocked the file out of my hands. It scattered on the ground. There was Duncan Charles looking up at us with his blacked-out teeth and scribbled-in beard. I kicked it over with my foot.
Chuck went, “Whatth that?”
I went, “Nothing. It’s nothing. Just my project.”
Andy went, “Nothing?! Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t nothing! This is going to be the best video project Citadel High has ever seen! Trust me, Chuck. Cyril has done some amazing investigative journalism here!”
Now was not the time to be mentioning my investigative skills. I had the funny feeling Chuck wouldn’t appreciate them.
I said, “Would you just quit it?” and bent down to pick the stuff up.
Andy went, “Whoa. Careful, C-C. Let me do that for you. No sudden movements. I don’t want you fainting again.” She got down, scooped up the papers and stuffed them into the folder.
She said, “We better get going, Chuck. Cyril needs to get a decent night’s sleep. I don’t want him getting any worse.” She handed him the file and put her arm around me. I didn’t fight it. I’m pretty sure she was the only thing holding me up.
Chuck went, “Good idea, Andy. I’d look after that boy if I were you. He could get himthelf in real trouble if he’th not careful.”