The Seventh Level
Page 1
Jody Feldman
The Seventh Level
For Jennie Dunham,
who insisted I tell this story first
Contents
Chapter 1
I’m free! I want to run through the halls and…
Chapter 2
Randall’s hand jerks back inside. I run to throttle the…
Chapter 3
After practice, we head to the cap side of the…
Chapter 4
“I thought…” I don’t bother to finish my sentence.
Chapter 5
My mom makes me stand outside at ten to seven.
Chapter 6
I hide the envelope underneath my shirt before I go…
Chapter 7
Just two classes left today and still no Legend Event.
Chapter 8
After school I’m back in my dungeon and itching to…
Chapter 9
Mrs. Pinchon is now banging on the computer keys like she…
Chapter 10
Day two of detention. I wait in the driveway with…
Chapter 11
It’s nearly midnight, and I still don’t know what to…
Chapter 12
Last year The Legend started the Friday Lunch Shuffle, where…
Chapter 13
Hoo-hah! We have a puzzle.
Chapter 14
No matter how creative I get all weekend, I can’t…
Chapter 15
I run toward the office. And stop. If she’s back…
Chapter 16
All right! Does this mean I’m totally forgiven? Almost done?…
Chapter 17
It’s no problem they’re asking for seven nails, like it’s…
Chapter 18
It’s Wednesday and five minutes before lunch, my social studies…
Chapter 19
I spend most of Spanish getting whiplash, turning away every…
Chapter 20
I run upstairs and write a message on notebook paper.
Chapter 21
I’m walking with Matti and Kip to the bicycle rack…
Chapter 22
After dinner I decide there’s only one thing to do.
Chapter 23
I don’t hear anything my teachers say the rest of…
Chapter 24
“I hate Randall Denvie,” I say to Matti as we’re…
Chapter 25
Only one person can take the pictures, and three’s a…
Chapter 26
5:18. Do I have enough time? Not if I stand…
Chapter 27
I jolt out of bed long before my alarm goes…
Chapter 28
Do they think I try to mess up? Did they…
Chapter 29
After they leave, I can’t stop jumping up and down.
Chapter 30
He looks around then punches a number into his cell…
Chapter 31
We speed the opposite way of the brooms and syrup…
Chapter 32
My parents are relaxing with their coffee and the newspaper…
Chapter 33
It would be a normal school staircase, going down one…
Chapter 34
To make this work, it can’t look like we’re conspiring.
Chapter 35
I don’t get a chance to catch my breath. I…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
I’m free! I want to run through the halls and slide down the banisters, but every classroom still has kids and especially teachers, so that would be stupid.
Anyway, Senora Torres said, “Be quick, Travis.” Or really, “Rapido, Travisito.” And she did let me out to fetch the once-alive, now-stuffed blowfish from my locker even though I was supposed to bring it, first thing, to class.
I go downstairs, slurp from the drinking fountain, peek into Matti’s science room and make a face at her without the teacher seeing, then I turn the corner to go back upstairs.
When I open my locker to get my blowfish, it’s not the only weird thing there. Balanced on my emergency 3 Musketeers bar, there’s a big blue envelope. Not normal blue, but shine-under-the-surface blue like my favorite Hot Wheels car ever.
TRAVIS RAINES is marked with black Sharpie in perfect teacher handwriting. Then stamped all over are the words, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.
My eyes are the only ones in the hall, unless that clock has eyes. And it shows I’ve been out of class just three minutes. How often’s a kid at his locker without eyes around?
Besides, some reverse burglar broke into my locker, and that’s not right. Unless…
No. Impossible. But it’s blue! And a kid can hope, right?
The envelope’s held shut by a string that winds around two dime-sized plastic circles, one on the flap and the other on the main envelope part. I unwind and unwind and I want to rip the thing, but the envelope’s sort of plasticky itself and not rip-able.
Inside’s a sheet of paper with some math problems. Well, woo-hoo. What’s so top secret about that? Paper clipped to it is another piece of paper with a lot of writing. I want to read it, but that wouldn’t be so rapido. I can start, though.
Travis Raines,
You have been chosen for this game of sorts. Trust us.
You will want to do
“OH MY G—” I clamp my hand over my mouth and shove the envelope back into my locker just before Mr. Gunner sticks his head out the door.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class, Mr. Raines?”
“I’m getting something for Senora Torres.”
“Then be quick and quiet.”
“Yes, sir.” But how can I be quick and quiet when this might be an invitation from The Legend? I need to jump. And whoop. And run around. I especially need to read on, but Mr. Gunner stands with his shoulder in the door frame.
I leave the envelope and math sheet in my locker, but the letter’s coming with me. I fold it the long way again and again until it’s skinny enough to hide under the band that runs around the cap I’m wearing for Lauer Middle School’s first-ever cap day.
The cap, though, isn’t mine. It’s Kip’s antique, team-signed 2000 Super Bowl Champion St. Louis Rams cap. He thought it’d be safer with me than in his stinky gym locker.
I take the cap off my head and—
Mr. Gunner spins around. “You have three seconds to get back to class.”
I shove the paper into my pocket and slam my locker closed. With the blowfish inside. I fumble with the combination, open it, grab the blowfish, and race back without Senora Torres yelling that I’ve been gone too long.
Everyone crowds around her desk and oohs and aahs over the real Ecuadorian gold nugget in place of the blowfish’s eye. That’s why it’s here. Yesterday, we learned oro means gold, and I mentioned the hunk in my blowfish.
Senora Torres wants me to tell the class about it. I want to go back to my desk and read that paper, so I skip the part about liking blowfish so much. How they start small but know how to grow bigger, especially when they’re in trouble. “My dad felt—”
“Ah-ah, Travisito. En español,” Senora Torres says, but how can a seventh-grade kid who’s in Spanish class only forty-seven minutes on weekdays for less than eight months talk about this en español? It took me more than twelve years to learn this many words in English.
“Mi padre felt bad because he was in Ecuador on my tenth birthday, so he brought this back as an extra regalo.”
“Si viaja mucho?” asks Senora Torres. “Does he travel a lot?”
I nod. “He speaks cinco languages so his company
sends him all over,” I say really fast, ditching more attempts to do this in Spanish. “He’s in Japan now, but it’s not my birthday, so when he comes back he’ll stick with tradition and bring me an interesting fact.”
“Eh-dweeb! Eh-dweeb!” The cough-word comes from Randall, the oaf who almost killed Jackie Muggs in fourth grade. Literally. Jackie’s parents sent him to another school after that. No one knows why Randall was allowed back here. We just try to stay away from him.
“Eh-loser!” Randall’s stinky breath coughs again as I duck out of the crowd and slip back to my desk.
Marco, a lesser oaf, laughs, but only so Randall won’t try to kill him, too.
I take off Kip’s cap and put it next to mine. With the two caps as shields, maybe I can read more of the paper.
I unfold it, hoping I’m not delusional and the mystery paper really is from The Legend. No one knows anything about the group except the members always use blue, they put on amazing school events, and they make you pass a test before they let you in. I cover the first two lines of the paper with Kip’s cap and start with the numbered section.
#1 Everything in this envelope and in each one to come is to remain strictly private. “For Your Eyes Only” means
I whip my head to the right and shove the paper onto my lap. “What?” I say to Randall, who’s now hovering over me. Can’t let an oaf like him see my note. I refold it and jam it into the lining of one of the caps, staring at him the whole time. Once it’s safely inside, I glance down to see which cap I used. Kip’s. I can’t switch it now. Not with Randall looking at my desk. And no matter how many times I keep raising my hand, Senora Torres won’t let me put my blowfish back into my locker so I can also make the switch and read that paper.
Ringle-ringle-ringle! Ringle-ringle-ringle! The bell! Finally!
“Hasta mañana!” says Senora Torres. She heads right out the door.
I head right to her desk, grab my blowfish, turn back around and—
There’s only one cap! “Where’s Kip’s—”
“No!”
It’s sailing out the window.
CHAPTER 2
Randall’s hand jerks back inside. I run to throttle the big smirk I expect he’ll flash me, but he sticks his head out the window like Marco and some other kids do.
I squirt through, ready to see Kip’s cap with my letter lying two stories below for anyone to steal, except…
Except everyone’s looking up.
“You oaf!” I yell, not caring if he tries to kill me to.
“I wanted to look at it by the window,” Randall says. “See if the signatures were real or if someone stamped them on. Then—”
“They’re real.” I jut my head out, but I can’t believe what I’m seeing is real. My stomach lurches like a milk shake maker.
Kip’s cap is somehow stuck to the brick wall between the roof of the school and the second floor where we are. At least I don’t see my paper snake on the ground below.
I could kill Kip. Why didn’t he listen to me and keep his cap on the fake head in his bedroom? Why didn’t I jam that paper inside mine? Why did I leave both caps alone?
I keep looking up, praying for the wind to blow the cap off, but the wind today couldn’t blow a dead leaf off the point of a pyramid.
“What’s going on?” Kip’s voice.
I close my eyes and bring my head back inside. Time to tell him about half this mess.
“Randall threw your cap out the window,” I say.
Kip’s freckles pop out on his face. His lip color disappears, too.
“Did not,” says Randall.
“Sure,” says Marco.
Randall glares him quiet. Marco’s lucky that’s all Randall did.
Right now their war doesn’t matter. Other stuff does. It matters I might have lost my invitation to become part of The Legend. It matters Kip trusted me to keep his cap safe, and I didn’t.
Idea. “Someone get the whiteboard markers.”
I kneel on the bookcase below the windowsill. With one hand plastered to the inside of the window, I maneuver my head and shoulders outside—the only advantage of being puny.
“Kip, hold my legs. Tight.”
Randall’s stronger, but I wouldn’t trust him with an ant’s life.
“It’s too dangerous, Travis,” says Kip, latching his beanstalk fingers onto my ankles anyway. “The wind’ll blow the cap down.”
“Yeah,” I say, inching out the window. “The wind’ll pick up in the middle of the night, blow it away, and some oaf will have himself a priceless cap that belongs to you. Just hold on.”
His fingers grip tighter and his weight presses down.
“Marker.”
Someone hands me one. I hurl it up. Right direction but not close enough to the bricks.
“Another.” It hits the wall too low.
“Another.” I arc it an inch short.
“Another.”
“Let me try,” says the oaf responsible for this.
“No way.”
Someone hands me the eraser. I heave it up, up, up, and over the cap.
“Another.”
“There is no other,” says Randall.
“Then get one.”
“What about baseball practice?” Randall says.
“Leave,” I say. “Someone else! Get me something to throw.”
“No,” Kip says, pulling my ankles back in. “It’ll fall on its own. Maybe after practice.”
I come back in, and Randall’s gone. “He really left? That oaf!”
“What a wimp,” says Marco. “If you wanna get him back…” He double pounds his chest.
I thought all oafs stuck together. I almost give him a smile, but Kip tugs me toward the door. “C’mon, Travis. I don’t want Coach to yell at us.”
Coach always yells at me. Everyone yells at me. Or at least gives me those looks.
“Get it over with, Kip. Yell at me for once.” We speed to the locker room.
“Not your fault,” he says. “We’ll get it.”
Why’s he so confident? He should be furious even if he’s never been mad at me no matter how much I mess up. He’ll just flash his cockeyed smile that means he’s worried. Usually about me.
We change lightning fast and barge out.
Matti’s racing toward us, her black hair bouncing behind her. In the next ten seconds she’ll have it bound like a ball in a hair band until it unravels into a messy ponytail a minute later. It has since she was two. But it never stops her from playing better than most boys. That’s why Coach lets her stay on the team instead of sending her to girls’ softball.
“You’re late,” she says, then turns and sprints toward the door.
I run past her then outside toward the cap side of the school. She catches up and matches my stride. Kip pulls in two steps after we stop. I kick the whiteboard markers and eraser against the wall so I can fetch them later. Then I point up.
Her eyes open wide. “Yours?” she asks Kip.
He nods.
“How’d it—”
“Randall,” I say. “I turned my back for three seconds and—”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” says Kip. “You didn’t throw it out.”
“But it was on my watch,” I say. “I’m gonna get it.”
Matti shifts her eyes back and forth. “How?”
I sigh. “Don’t know.”
We hear shouts from the field. No one says anything. We race to practice, but I’m not thinking about bats and balls. I’m thinking about Matti’s question. How can we rescue Kip’s cap and my paper inside it?
CHAPTER 3
After practice, we head to the cap side of the school. Yes! It’s still there. I tug Matti’s sleeve and stop by the loading dock. She tugs Kip, and we let the rest of our team pass.
I’m not sure what the cap’s stuck on. Probably a nail that holds up Legend Event banners. If I knew who was in The Legend, I could ask how they get the banners up and down, and I wouldn’t have to do w
hat I’m about to.
I let the loading dock corner scratch my shoulder. When the other sweaty bodies are far enough ahead, I point my chin up. “I’m going up there. I’m gonna get it.”
Matti smiles. Big.
Kip smiles. Cockeyed. “It’s not worth it.”
I look at him like he’s nuts. “Not worth it? Your dad’ll kill you.”
“He won’t either.”
“I know,” I say. “But you’d do this for me.”
Kip shakes his head.
“Okay,” I say. “Maybe you wouldn’t do this for me, but how many times have you bailed me out? First, when the oaf knocked over my easel and you missed recess to help me clean—”
“That was kindergarten, Travis.”
“Then my lunch on top of the cubbies. The oaf again.”
“Travis,” says Kip. “First grade. I was taller.”
“Fine. Second gr—”
“Stop. My fault I brought the cap to school,” Kip says. “You can’t take this risk for me.”
It’s not only for you. It might be for me and The Legend. “What risk?” I say instead.
“One, there’s you killing yourself. And two, if you’re not lucky enough to kill yourself, there’s Principal Wilkins.”
“He’s not the one I worry about. You know that.” I turn to Matti. “Please?”
“Oh no,” she says. “I’m not stupid enough to try and distract her. It’s like she has her radar gun aimed at you, Trav.”
“Which is a good thing,” says Kip. “Otherwise, you would’ve pulled the fire alarm.”
“There was fire in the room. And smoke.”
“It was a makeup science lab with a teacher,” says Matti, adjusting the band holding her hair. “There was supposed to be fire, and you weren’t supposed to be at school.”