She gives me a confused look. “What are you doing?”
I look around, desperately searching for an excuse, and my eyes land on a poster from another play. “Is Wolverine in that one too?” I ask, pointing at the poster.
Shelby takes a step toward it and sets the cookie plate on the bed. I look at my hand and my heart skips. It’s covered in small purple feathers.
“No, that one’s with Matthew Broderick.” She admires the poster.
I cram my hand in the pocket of my sweatshirt, trying to wipe off the feathers. “Hmm,” I say, pretending to contemplate Matthew Broderick, my pulse racing.
Shelby goes on. “He became famous playing teenage nogoodniks, but he matured and now he’s a Broadway star.” Her arms fold like a pair of wings and she swivels her neck around like I’m supposed to be impressed.
“So, he used to be in movies, but now he’s just in plays? That sounds like a demotion to me.”
She rolls her eyes
“Sorry, I don’t know anything about plays and culture stuff.”
“It’s okay; it’s an acquired taste.” Her head cocks to one side and she reaches down and picks something off the floor. She straightens up and holds her hand in front of me. Between her fingers is a small purple feather.
My head starts to sweat as she turns on the inquisition stare. I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Ooh, pretty.”
Shelby whirls around toward the closet. The door is still cracked open. Was it totally shut before I looked inside?
When she turns back to me, the stare is turned up to eleven. “Were you in my closet?”
She’s locked onto me like a tractor beam. I can’t look away, but I can’t lie to her either. She’s been lied to enough to know what one looks like. Then her stare suddenly fades, replaced by a look I know all too well: disappointment. She flops down on the edge of the bed and wraps her arms around her knees. She twirls the feather between her fingers. “I’m such a fool.”
It looks like there could be tears at any moment, and I’m not ready for that with all the other stuff on my mind. I slide my foot toward the door.
“Here I thought you might want my help, but you came over to see if I stole the Boogerloo?”
She’d see right through me if I tried to deny it. It’s probably best if I just call the Getter and then give her some time alone.
I wipe some sweat off my head with my sleeve. “Shelby, I didn’t think you took it, but I had to be sure.”
“So you thought the best way to be sure was to come over here under false pretenses and then snoop through my room?”
Embarrassment hits me. The day Shelby joined me and Moby in our quest to take down the Arch was the day we officially became a Cadre. Have I really become desperate enough to spy on someone I trust? “I’m sorry, Shelby. I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do.”
She stands up and looks down at me. “Did you ever think to just ask me?”
I look around the room one last time. There is nowhere else to stash the thing. “Well?”
She narrows her eyes. “Well, what?”
“Did you take the Boogerloo?”
The silence in the room is so deep I could probably hear a butterfly fart a block away. I wish I could take back the question, but the hurt look on her face makes my stomach flop. I’m afraid to say anything else and make it worse.
After a small eternity, Shelby goes to the door and slowly pulls it open. “I was wrong, Maciek. I’m not the fool. You are.”
As usual, Shelby’s right.
CHAPTER 17
I could walk the ten blocks to the Clairmont to call the Getter, but that would flagrantly break my New Year’s resolution to get less exercise. Besides, the clock is ticking and Moby’s house is only a few blocks from here. With any luck the Colonel will be there. He’ll let me use the phone without making me pass a lie detector test about our relationship.
Five minutes later I’m on Moby’s street. There aren’t any cars in the driveway, so there might not be anyone home, but I’m running out of options. I cross the Dicks’ lawn and pound on the front door. After a short silence, there’s the telltale creak of the Colonel coming down the stairs. He jerks the door open and sticks his jaw out. He’s wearing army sweatpants, a silver chain, and that’s it—unless you count his chest hair that looks like a wool poncho.
I wave hello, trying to avoid focusing on any of the frightening details in front of my eyes. “Colonel.”
He looks me up and down. “Chub.”
“Were you in the middle of something, sir?”
“Thinkin’ about a snack. Why?”
“Can I come in?”
He sticks his head out the door again and scans the street. “Moby’s, uh . . . not here.”
“Yeah, I know he’s out getting coffee or something.”
I don’t know what’s so funny about that, but the Colonel chuckles and a whole bunch of skin that looked pretty solid a minute ago ripples under his hair sweater. “Yeah . . . or something. Well, double time it. I’m sweating like a politician in church out here.”
The inside of the house is colder than Lockhart’s soul. I put my hands in my pockets and almost flip up my hood when I decide against it. Last time I had my hoodie on in front of him he asked me what I was trying to hide, and then made me say the pledge of allegiance before he’d let me in the house for the next month. I’d prefer a cold head to a sweaty one, anyway.
We make our way into the kitchen. I need to call Margot right away, before the Colonel starts grilling me about what I’m doing there. Once I get the name of whoever bought the stained kangaroo suit, I can kick back, share a snack with the Colonel, and make it home in time for dinner.
I grab the phone off the charger. “Can I use your phone, sir?”
“Checkin’ in with HQ, huh?”
“Um, yep.”
“All right, but make it quick.” He shakes a bag of snacks the size of a pillowcase. “They don’t put as much in these bags as they used to. I’m not making any promises.”
Moving into the family room, I dial Margot’s number from memory. She picks up on the third ring.
“Levi?”
Confused, I check the number on the phone’s screen. “No, it’s Chub. Do you know Moby?”
“No, but the caller ID says ‘Dick,’ so I guessed. You really need to get your own phone.”
It’s hard enough to get my parents to buy me new shoes when my feet outgrow the old ones. The chances of me scoring a cell phone are about as slim as the Colonel making the women’s Olympic figure skating team. “Yeah, I’ll work on that.”
Margot wastes no time on pleasantries. “What do you need me to get for you this time, the Mona Lisa?”
“No, this one should be simple.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I need a name.”
There’s silence on the line for a minute, then Margot says, “Tired of writing out that alphabet soup of yours on all your assignments, huh? Wish you were John Smith or something?”
“What? Not for me. I need to know who bought the stained kangaroo suit from you last week.”
“Oh! Why do you want to know that?”
Years of negotiating with the McQueens has taught me that the more desperate you appear, the higher the price. The key is to act nonchalant. “Just curious. Nothing major.”
“This has something to do with that stupid glass mascot, doesn’t it?”
My face gets hot like someone just pointed out my zipper was down in front of the whole class. I could lie, but what’s the point? “Yeah. Whoever bought the suit stole the Boogerloo. Can you just tell me who it was?”
There’s a sound like she’s sucking air between clenched teeth and then she says in a slightly higher pitch than normal, “There are a couple of teeny problems with that.”
“Such as?”
“One: my services are confidential. If I were to go blabbing about everyone who came to me to get them something, people’d be
too embarrassed to ask me for help. My business would dry up like a salted slug.”
She has a good point. But maybe there’s a way around it. “Could you maybe give me some sort of hint, so you wouldn’t have to tell me?”
“Which brings me to issue two: I couldn’t tell you who it was, even if I wanted to.”
“You didn’t recognize them?”
“What, you think I do these deals in person? I’m barely four feet tall! I can’t take risks like that.”
“How then?”
“I take PayHub. Once I have the money, I tell them where to find the item. Very low risk.”
“Who sent you the money on PayHub?”
“Sorry, Chub. It’s pretty much anonymous. I prefer it that way. You ever heard the term ‘plausible deniability’?”
Less than an hour ago I was sure that this phone call would be the end of it. Now I’m back at square one without a single lead. After thanking Margot for her time, I hang up and flop onto the huge leather sofa. This feels like getting sent back to the beginning in the game Sorry!, only a thousand times worse.
Thankfully, the one person in the world who might be able to help me is right in the next room.
I walk into the kitchen. Before I even put the phone back in the charger, a smell hits me. The Colonel’s irritable bowel is probably acting up again. I learned a long time ago that in Moby’s family, gassy is a dominant genetic trait. I breathe through my mouth and pull out a chair across from the Colonel.
“So, what have you got on? Your mind?” He’s told me and Moby this same joke about three thousand times, so I smile enough not to insult him. His chuckle sends tiny pieces of his snack flying.
“Just asking someone to help me find something.”
“I heard something about a bowling ball?”
“Boogerloo,” I correct him. “Just something at school that’s missing. I’m . . . trying to help them find it.”
“Volunteering, huh?”
“Yeah.”
He turns the bag toward me, offering me some. I reach in and pull out a puffy little chip. It looks weird, but I’m about to eat it anyway when I suddenly realize that what I smelled when I came in the room was not coming from the Colonel.
“Uh, what kind of chips are these, sir?”
He shoves one in his mouth. “These aren’t chips, private. Chips are bad for you. These are pork rinds.”
I examine the smelly little glob. If it were possible to 3D print a fart, it would look and smell just like a pork rind. But if there’s one thing that being raised by Polish parents has taught me, it’s that sometimes weird tastes really good. I pop it into my mouth and the Colonel watches me carefully as I chew. I don’t want to insult his snack, especially since he’s trying to eat healthy, so I give him a smile and a thumbs-up.
“You know, there’s a big difference between missing and stolen,” he says.
I’d hoped he hadn’t overheard the whole conversation. Normally I’m good at maintaining secrecy, but Lockhart is in my head, and I’m starting to make silly mistakes.
“Who stole what, now?”
He already knows enough. What harm can it do? “Someone stole the school’s mascot, and a couple of us are going to get in trouble if we can’t prove it wasn’t us.”
His beard makes a sound like a wire brush as he rubs his hand on his chin. “How long you been looking for the thief?”
“A couple of days.”
He rubs his chin. “What kind of leads do you have?”
“That phone call was the last one. I have no idea what to do now.”
“Why not make them come to you?”
What is he talking about?
“Listen, you ever hear about Operation: Tapeworm?”
I rack my brain in case he told us about it before. “I don’t think so.”
“Of course not! It was top secret.”
I grab another pork rind. “That’s too bad.”
He spins the bag back toward himself and continues. “Well, it happened way back when. I’m sure it’s not top secret anymore.”
I sit forward in my seat, but not close enough to get hit by any fried pig shrapnel.
“So this arms dealer got his hands on a bunch of bazookas and some other stuff after a certain war, on a certain peninsula.” He raises his eyebrows at me.
I nod as though I understand.
“Anyway, he puts the word out that he has this stash and that he’s going to sell it to the highest bidder. We had no idea who this guy was, or where he was keeping the stolen stuff. So we came up with a plan to get him to show himself.”
Even though the Getter had turned out to be a dead end, I knew coming here was a good move.
“What’d you do?”
“We posed as a rival dealer and put out the word that we’d found his stash and that we were going to steal it.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“We were out of moves, and we couldn’t let the weapons fall into the wrong hands. It made him panic. He stuck his head up to see who was pinching in on his turf, we figured out who he was, and we grabbed him.”
It sounds simple enough. If I can’t figure out who the thief is, maybe I can taunt them into making a mistake and showing themselves.
“But you got the weapons back; that’s really all that matters.”
The Colonel lets out a belch, pats his stomach, and then rolls the top of the bag closed. “We caught the thief, but the weapons were never found. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.”
CHAPTER 18
The Colonel lets me make a few more phone calls while I wait for Moby to get home. This time I know he isn’t eavesdropping. From upstairs, the Dicks’ home theater rattles the whole house, as the Colonel loudly cheers on the whalers during an episode of Whale Wars.
I call Sizzler first, since he has a cell phone. He doesn’t quite understand the plan, but he agrees to do as I ask and text a couple of people that he heard the thief was caught and that the Boogerloo would be returned tomorrow. Next I call the McQueens, and then Shelby. She doesn’t want to come to the phone, and I don’t really want her calling my house later when my parents are home, so I tell Grammie I’ll just see Shelby on the way to school tomorrow.
I’m about to call it a day when it occurs to me I should probably call the Arch too.
His mom answers the phone.
“May I speak to the—to Archer, please?”
There’s a short pause. “Maciek?”
“Yes.” It takes me a minute to realize how she knew it was me. She probably doesn’t get a lot of phone calls from twelve-year-olds with Polish accents.
“How’ve you been?” Her voice almost gives my ear a sunburn through the phone.
“I’ve been . . . well,” I lie.
“You haven’t been over here in ages.”
“Yeah.” Unless you count the time I broke into your son’s room a couple of months ago.
“Well, Archer has been talking about you a lot. It sounds like you boys are hanging out again.”
That makes me pause. Just last spring he wouldn’t even act like he knew me; now we’re “hanging out”?
“I guess. It’s more of a business arrangement for now.”
Her laugh sounds like three hiccups followed by a snort. “You are so funny. Well, you are welcome here any time.”
“Okay.”
Just when it seems the torture of talking to an adult on the phone is over, she says, “And when I see you, I expect all the details on Archer’s new girlfriend.”
What the heck just happened? I’m pretty sure she just broke about a hundred unspoken laws between parents and kids. And the Arch has a girlfriend?
Girls at Alanmoore have been following him around like a bunch of lovesick puppies since the first day we got there. But there’s only one girl I’ve ever seen him show any kind of interest in. My stomach feels like a water balloon full of worms.
“I don’t know anything about that,” I say, wishing it were true.
/> “Oh, okay. Wink, wink.” She laughs again. “Oh, here he is.”
A second later Archer is on the line. “Hey, Chub. Any luck?”
I fight down the sick feeling and tell him what I need him to do. He agrees, and then we plan to meet in the hallway tomorrow to see if it works.
As soon as I hang up, I dial Megumi’s number as fast as I can. I want to tell her the plan before the Arch has a chance to. Her stepmom answers and calls for Megumi. I have plenty of time to wonder what her and the Arch’s kids will look like while I wait for her to pick up.
“Sorry about shoving you out the window.”
“It’s okay. My butt broke the fall.” I slap my forehead.
She giggles. “Thank God for butts, huh?”
Most of the blood in my body rushes directly to my face. “Yeah, butts are good.” As smooth as I am, I can’t believe the Arch is the one with the girlfriend and not me.
I explain the plan to her, and she agrees to help spread the word to the Trondson kids she knows from last year.
“Okay, so we’ll all conveniently be in the main hall tomorrow before school starts to see who’s acting weird. Right?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
There’s another pause, and I think she hung up. Then she says, “I thought you were calling to cancel.”
“Cancel what?”
“Emerald Con. This weekend, remember?”
In all the excitement, I’d forgotten about the tickets. But if she still wants to go with me, maybe she isn’t the girl Mrs. Norris was talking about after all.
There’s about as much chance of me missing Emerald Con as there is of me growing an arm out of my forehead. “Why would I cancel that?”
“You know, because I shoved you . . . and broke your butt.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It already had a crack in it.” I’m glad she can’t see how red my face is right now. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hang up before she answers, and before I have the chance to say anything else about my broken butt.
Jarek is coming over for dinner, and I don’t want to be late and have to answer a bunch of questions about where I was.
Electric Boogerloo Page 12