“What’s wrong, Tommy? Where’s Perk?”
“I waited for a while at the stop,” the bus driver said. “But then I called the school, finished the route, and brought him back here.”
Mrs. Pell rubbed Tommy’s back. “We just heard from Tommy’s parents that Perk should be coming any minute, so we’re just waiting here together, aren’t we, Tommy?” She said more quietly, “He’s been pretty upset.”
Tommy shook his head. “That was my stop. My bus stop. It’s where I’m supposed to wait for Perk. He told me to never leave until he comes. But he didn’t come and now he won’t know that I’m here. And I’m cold and I want a red gummy bear and I want to go home.”
Perk didn’t forget him. It couldn’t happen. He said the Internet at his house was down until tomorrow morning when they were going to upgrade it. “I’m gonna check Parmar’s e-mail in the library,” he’d told Adam. “I’ll be at Ray’s later on.”
Adam pulled out his phone. It was almost dead, but alive enough to text him.
Tommy’s waiting at school. He’s upset. U coming?
He hit Send.
Tommy smeared his hand over his eyes and nose at the same time then nodded. “I want to go home now. Adam, can you take me home? You can take me home and Perk will be there.”
“We have to wait for Perk to come here, Tommy, remember?” Mrs. Pell said.
“Yeah, Tommy,” Adam said. “But maybe I can wait here with you until he gets here?” He looked over at Mrs. Pell, who smiled and nodded.
Adam glanced down the street. His stomach twisted and tangled and tightened up. What if Perk had forgotten Tommy? Tommy let out another sob and leaned onto Adam’s shoulder. “Come on, Perk,” he said. “Hurry up.”
CHAPTER 57
Ray
Sneaking out was easy. His dad and brother didn’t care where he was or where he went as long as he was out of the way.
Walking to his dad’s shop in the dark was fairly easy. He kept his head down and quickened his pace every time a car drove past.
Opening up the shop was easy. He had the alarm code and the keys and only turned on a few lights in the back when he arrived.
And even pulling out the lifts and the two old metal bumpers that he thought they could use to test their plan was fairly easy. It was just a bumper, but they could at least get the idea and see what they were working with.
And then checking the Internet at the shop when no one was there was easy. He was curious about the school roof. He hadn’t thought about whether it could hold the car until he walked past the hardware store beside the shop. A couple months ago a late winter snow had caved in through part of the roof. They were still fixing it. Ray typed in “how much can a flat roof hold” into the search bar. Twenty-five to thirty pounds per square foot. He typed in “weight of Shelby Cobra.” Enter.
Two thousand, five hundred fifty pounds.
His heart plummeted.
The car would fall right through. Maybe not right away, but definitely by the time they figured out a way to get it down.
Nothing else about tonight was going to be easy.
Stupid. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Engineers thought about those sorts of things. He clicked off, stood up, and shoved back the chair. It banged into the filing cabinet behind him. Everyone would be here within a few minutes.
He wheeled the lifts into the open space and dragged the bumper over.
Even if it was easy to lift the bumper up with the levers, they were talking about a car that weighed two thousand, five hundred fifty pounds, a car that was worth almost six hundred thousand dollars, and a school roof that would be as flimsy as a piece of thin ice.
He wanted the plan to work; he wanted it to be easy. He really, really, really did.
He had friends now.
Friends who believed in him.
He had backup.
He was somebody else’s backup.
But the plan wouldn’t work.
And it wasn’t going to be easy for everyone to find that out.
CHAPTER 58
Pearl
DA-na, DA-na, DA-na-da-na-da-na-da-na-da-na …
The theme music from Jaws played louder and faster inside Pearl’s head and her fingers flicked faster and faster across the imaginary E and F strings as she walked around Ray’s dad’s shop. It felt like any moment, something was going to reach out and grab her.
She almost hadn’t come tonight. She really didn’t want to come tonight.
Her house was dark and quiet, so sneaking out wasn’t a problem, but After-the-divorce-Pearl didn’t care. Her parents were sleeping in separate beds in separate rooms and soon separate houses and she was supposed to be excited about getting a car on a roof?
Adam walked in, whispered something to Perk, then said, “Hey, Ray.” She watched Perk shake his head and clenched his jaw.
“Hey.”
And where was Dutch? Did he quit everything all together?
Just then he pushed through the front door. “Hey, guys.”
“Hey,” Ray said. He looked around. She could tell he didn’t like even the smallest spotlight. “This is my dad’s shop.”
Adam nodded. “Cool. So, where are the lifts?”
“Uh, over here.” Ray walked across the shop and Pearl followed along with everyone.
“You okay?”
Pearl glanced over at Dutch. She pasted a smile on her face—the one she used when she didn’t want to talk to anybody. “Yeah, fine.”
It should’ve made her feel better—that’s what he was trying to do—but instead it just annoyed her. How much could he really care? He hadn’t even bothered to come to her recital.
“I’m sorry I missed your recital the other night,” he said, almost reading her mind. “My grandpa forgot to give me the message.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care.” She didn’t. Really.
“But I really wish I could’ve heard you play.” She didn’t answer and he continued. “My grandpa’s been forgetting a lot of things lately.”
“Really?” She was paying attention and not. She cared. She didn’t care.
“Yeah. I guess early signs of dementia, maybe. I don’t know.”
She turned and looked at him. “Wow. That’s hard.”
He shrugged. “Yeah.” He squinted. “You don’t seem fine, either. It’s okay to not be fine.”
He might’ve wanted to spill his guts, but not her. She brushed past him, nearly tripping over a long cord that ran the length of the dark shop. “But I am fine. Really.”
“Be careful,” Ray said, turning around. “There’s a lot of stuff in here.”
“I’m fine,” she said again. How many times did she have to say it?
“Here’s the jacks.”
Pearl had seen things like this before on the side of the highway, men in hard, orange hats thirty feet in the air changing the picture on a billboard, or maybe she’d seen someone cleaning a window on one of them.
How in the world was it going to do what they needed it to do? What were they even doing? She heaved a sigh.
Dutch kept glancing over at her.
“What?” It came out meaner than she meant it to, but whatever. Maybe it would give her some space. Adam, Perk, and Ray were already starting to argue.
Dutch shrugged and looked away from Pearl. “It just seems like there’s something wrong. And I … I don’t know. I want to make you smile.”
Pearl forced another grin. “Okay, I’m smiling, see. Besides, you don’t seem ‘fine,’ either.”
Dutch shrugged and directed his gaze back to the others.
“So this is it?” Adam asked.
Ray nodded and ran his hands along the top of the contraption. “We’ll have to use two. One at the front end and the other at the back. One of us can work the one and someone else the other, then we’ll need two people on flashlights and someone in the middle to make sure they’re going up at the same time. The key will be in getting the car on both lifts using
a jack and then working them so they go up at the same time. But—”
Ray was about to continue when Perk, who was walking around the two lifts, interrupted. “And the car will fit?”
“It’ll fit, but barely. We’ll have to be really careful. We don’t want to scratch the paint or dent anything. But the thing is—”
“We’ll be careful.”
Ray sighed.
“Hey guys,” Pearl said, “listen to Ray; he’s trying to say something.”
“What is it?” Adam had one of the remotes in his hands, and Pearl could tell he was anxious to try it out.
Ray coughed into his hand. “Well, the thing is, I’m not sure if the prank is gonna work.”
“We’ll go slow when we’re using the lift,” Adam said. “And we can practice. Don’t worry about it. Now Perk, get on the other side of the lift.”
Ray stopped Perk. “No, it’s not the lift. It’s the roof. The school roof.”
“The roof?” Perk said. “You guys measured it. Did you get it wrong?”
Adam bristled. “I didn’t get it wrong. Fifteen feet. I can read.”
“I never said you couldn’t—”
This time Ray interrupted. “I don’t think the school roof can hold the weight of the car.”
Silence echoed through the shop.
Pearl and Dutch looked at each other. Was he serious?
“It’s a roof,” Adam said. “It should hold a ton of weight.”
“No, it doesn’t. Spread out over the whole roof, yes, but all in one area like the car?” Ray shrugged. “I think it would fall right through. I just looked it up tonight.”
“We put it on another roof then? Parmar’s roof? The high school roof, above the room Tommy’s program uses?”
Perk laughed. “Yeah, right. I doubt it’s any stronger than the middle school roof. It’ll fall through like cardboard.”
“Well, this is great to find out now,” Adam said. He shoved the remote at Ray. “When were you going to tell us about this, Ray? Break the news next week when the car was on the jacks?”
Ray shrugged. “No. And I told you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you were about to let us start practicing with the lifts, and … and we’re a week away from doing the prank.”
“I don’t know; I didn’t want to ruin it for everyone. You guys were counting on me.”
“Yeah, we were,” Adam snapped.
“Leave him alone,” Dutch said. Pearl pointed her flashlight over at him. He squinted a few times in a row. “Let’s just put the lifts back and get out of here. Ray, lock up like nothing happened. We’ll figure something else out.”
Adam kicked a screw lying on the ground. “Oh yeah? What do you know about it, Dutch? Nothing. So just shut up.”
“Hey,” Pearl said. “Stop it. He didn’t do anything.”
“I know. Ray should’ve found out at the beginning so we weren’t a week out with nothing.”
Perk sighed. “It’s fine. Don’t worry, Adam, we’ll make something work.”
“Yeah? Like what?” Adam said. “Stupid sticky notes on his car?”
“Maybe. What’s your obsession with putting it on the roof?” Perk said. “You’re forgetting that this is about Tommy and getting back at the Parmars, not how cool the prank can be.”
“Forgetting? I don’t think you can talk, Perk. I’m not the one who left my brother on the side of the road.”
“It was an accident—”
“Hey, cut it out, guys,” Pearl said. “You know what, just forget it.”
“I’m sorry,” Ray said.
Pearl tossed her flashlight at Adam, who barely caught it. “I’m leaving. This is stupid. We’re all going to get caught and the whole thing is over.” She didn’t turn around to hear any replies or see if anyone was following her.
They were all stupid boys.
And this was a stupid idea.
CHAPTER 59
Dutch
Why did he even agree to this?
Why did he let himself like Pearl?
Why did he let himself think that maybe she blushed because of him?
Why did he let himself like any of them?
Having his head dunked in the toilet was much easier… or at least less painful.
CHAPTER 60
Adam
He let the door slam behind him and started down the sidewalk. Pearl was already a block away.
This was what he got for asking everyone to join in on something that he and Perk could’ve done on their own.
But they couldn’t have done it on their own.
He knew that, and that’s why it was all so stupid.
And he hadn’t forgotten what this was all about. He just wanted this to be the best—the coolest—prank they’d ever done.
For Tommy, of course. It was for Tommy and the others.
Adam rubbed his temples, his head aching.
CHAPTER 61
Perk
He hadn’t meant to leave Tommy.
He hadn’t meant to forget.
Adam was the last person that he wanted to find Tommy standing on the sidewalk, but then again, he was the only person he’d want to find Tommy.
And now everyone else knew.
His stomach turned.
If it had just been he and Adam, none of this would’ve happened, but then again, he wouldn’t have three more friends.
He rubbed his eyes. Everything was blurry, jumbled up, and out of focus.
And he wasn’t sure if he could find the answer—or if he even wanted to.
CHAPTER 62
Ray
The front door to his house was locked. The key under the mat was gone.
He walked to the side of his house and opened the window, hefting himself up and through and landing with a hard thump on his shoulder. He pushed himself up and leaned against the wall.
Wow. That couldn’t have gone any worse.
But what did he expect?
Adam and Perk had asked him to join because they suspected that he was smart.
But he wasn’t smart enough.
Some things never change.
CHAPTER 63
Pearl
She was lucky that her dad slept so deep. The back door barely whined when she opened it, padded through the kitchen, and saw him sleeping on the couch, a blanket pulled over him.
It was real.
He was really leaving, and everything that night had really happened, and the people who she thought were friends were the same as everyone else—no one listening, everyone just thinking about what they wanted and what they thought.
Pearl walked to her room, closed the door, and then fell on her bed without changing out of her clothes.
What did it matter?
CHAPTER 64
Adam
He felt like an idiot.
Not an every-day-regular sort of idiot, but a special-one-of-a-kind-egotistical idiot.
A Hill Parmar sort of idiot.
But at least he hadn’t posted a picture of himself as his home screen. That was something, right?
But maybe that was the next step into becoming a special-one-of-a-kind-egotistical idiot.
It was an hour after he’d walked home and he hadn’t slept. The clock on his phone moved from one number to the next, but he couldn’t settle his mind enough to sleep. The scene replayed in his head.
The hero in stories always has this sort of choice—to become what he’s hated and fought against the whole time, or recognize that he’s made a huge, humongous, enormous, egotistical-jerk-sort-of-mistake and he needs to make it right.
So, Adam had to choose either the egotistical-idiot route, or sorry-I’ve-been-an-idiot route.
He picked up the phone and dialed Perk’s number.
CHAPTER 65
Perk
It was like a thick book had landed on his head and woken him up, and all in all he was glad for it. Not for the fighting with Adam or any of the others, or the fact that everything mig
ht be a wash now, but because he’d at least woken up.
Perk opened Tommy’s door and glanced at him sleeping, the rising and falling of the comforter. He was snoring—Tommy was a terrible snorer.
He closed it again and almost wished it was morning. That he could wake up Tommy and they could watch some morning cartoons together and eat their cereal on the coffee table and then he could take Tommy out for dessert at Bakers’ Place and Tommy wouldn’t remember that Perk didn’t meet his bus today and Perk would forget, too.
Tommy’s face, puffy from crying and his nose running, flashed in Perk’s head again. And again.
Perk went to his room, shrugged out of his clothes, and stared up at the ceiling. He had to make it up to Tommy. His cell phone hummed from its place on his dresser.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Adam.”
“So,” Adam said. “I was a pretty big idiot.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“You still think we can make this work?”
“I’m in. It’ll have to be different, but yeah.” Perk paused. “Do you think everyone else is in, too?”
“Maybe we should do it on our own?”
“I don’t know. We should think about it.”
“Cool. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow?”
“See you then.”
The phone call ended and Perk plugged it into his charger.
Pearl had been distracted. The confidence Ray had started to have had disappeared. Dutch was quiet and sulky. Adam was … Adam.
Maybe they all had needed a little wake up.
CHAPTER 66
Adam
Going it alone—only he and Perk pulling off the prank—seemed like the best way to go.
No mess. No chance of getting caught.
It was better.
“We need them, Adam,” Perk said at lunch. “Besides, they’ve helped with everything from the beginning. It’d be wrong to cut them out now.”
Adam shrugged and stuffed his uneaten sandwich back in its Ziploc bag. He couldn’t eat.
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