The Seventh Level

by Jody Feldman

  I get to my seat, and the other five look at me like I’ve risen from the dead.

  “Yes, I’m alive, thank you very much.” I open my lunch bag. “Anyone want to guess what The Legend Event is?”

  “Travis!” says Matti. “Tell us already. Last night? This morning? Details. Now.”

  I give them a play-by-play of what went on after they bolted like rabbits.

  I look at Kip. Amazing. He’s taken only two bites of his first peanut butter and Bacos sandwich. He puts it down and puts on his sorry face. “No baseball for the rest of the week?”

  “Not your fault, Kip.” I look two tables away from us. Randall’s shoving a cupcake into his face like he had no part in this. “He’s the one who should apologize.”

  “The oaf.” Kip takes a big bite of his sandwich.

  “So, what’d your mom do?” says Matti. “Call your dad in Japan? Scream? What?”

  “Worse. She freaked out that I could’ve splatted. It didn’t matter that I was standing in front of her with all my blood inside my body,” I say. “Then she went into this thing, how if I stop watching TV shows where the hero jumps from the tenth-story window into a Dumpster and walks away with nothing a shower can’t fix, then maybe I’d remember I wasn’t immortal, and I’d use my brain instead of letting TV put ideas into my head.”

  “Sounds like your mom,” Matti says.

  “Sounds like every mom,” says Katie, the only other girl besides Matti who’d be good enough to play on the boys’ soccer team if they’d let them. “What’s your punishment this time?”

  “I’m her total slave for two weekends. Plus I’m grounded from life for two weeks. No TV, no computer, no video games, and maybe no soccer camp.”

  “No soccer camp?” Kip sounds almost as panicked as I did when my mom hit me over the head with that.

  “What’s with you?” says Matti. “Even if Travis doesn’t go, I’ll still be there.”

  That’s what worries me. Matti and Kip have been talking more lately and nudging each other, and I get this vision of them becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. I shake that thought and describe the part about me needing to be good forever or until school’s out, whichever comes last, or I might as well throw myself into a volcano.

  So while I tell them how my mom threatened that I could be weeding the garden for the entire summer, I stab my sandwich with a pretzel stick, trying to hit a Swiss cheese hole. I hit cheese. I pull out the pretzel and lick the end from the sandwich. At least I got mustard. But nothing tastes good now. I push my sandwich aside.

  “You’re not going to eat that?” Kip says, finishing his second sandwich.

  I give it to him. My stomach’s too loaded with blowing my chance for soccer camp and soccer captain and with two and a half more hours of solitary confinement just this afternoon.

  It’s also crammed with the secret of the envelope.

  CHAPTER 7

  Just two classes left today and still no Legend Event. When I get to Mrs. Bloom’s science room, I walk straight to her. “Is there gonna be a Legend thing or not?”

  She smiles. “The Legend doesn’t make a habit of telling us teacher types much.”

  “Yeah. Right.” I point to the non-shiny blue envelope on the lab table in front of her.

  She turns it over so I can see what it says on the other side. “‘Open only when instructed.’”

  “I haven’t been instructed yet,” she says. “Believe it or not, Legend information comes on a need-to-know basis. Most of us don’t even know who’s in the group.” She gives me a small push toward my table. “Sit, Travis. Be patient.”

  Be patient? I hate that especially when it’s my only option, but I can’t afford to get in trouble again. I sit.

  Mrs. Bloom’s room is probably the most interesting in the school, with lab tables, microscopes, Bunsen burners, ecosystem displays, a static electricity maker, a rainbow tube, the periodic table of elements, Whiskers the live rabbit, dead taxidermist-stuffed animals, and the Toxic Closet—the one that equals instant expulsion if anyone breaks in. It’s even locked with some thick, circle-stamped metal bar.

  It’s way past time for class to start, but Mrs. Bloom’s just sitting there, thumbing through our textbook. Either she totally spaced out or she—

  The intercom crackles. “Faculty? Please open your envelopes.”

  She does. In slow motion. “‘Please bring your class to the cafeteria,’” she finally reads. Then she leads us out the door.

  I wonder how they’ll pack every kid at Lauer into the cafeteria without suspending half of us from the ceiling. But then a bunch of classes veer toward the gym.

  We stop at the cafeteria doors, which have been transformed into archways of canned food. When did they do that? How? And who? Was anyone missing from class? Great. I didn’t pay attention.

  “Hey, Natalie!” She always pays attention. I weave around a few kids to get to her. “Anyone missing from your classes this afternoon?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Legend people? Someone had to set all this up.”

  “Drat!” She looks around.

  “What?”

  “I always thought Zoe was in it, but she was in class the whole time. So was Amos.”

  I’m glad I’m not the only one who obsesses over things like that.

  This guy, Mick, is standing right next to me. “I helped do it. Me and the janitors and about ten other people in my gym class. And believe me, none of us are in The Legend.”

  They lead us in, and the cafeteria is empty except for twenty clear-glass booths and three long tables spaced around the room. They make us sit on the floor, which also means on the grease of eighty-three million squashed french fries, but who cares? It’s The Legend.

  Principal Wilkins goes through his welcome-and-behave speech. If he’d move right to the interesting part, he wouldn’t need to tell us to behave. No one’s paying attention, but then Mr. McKenzie rolls a huge TV to the middle of the floor.

  It gets quiet until we hear screams coming all the way from the gym. So we get noisy, too. Principal Wilkins gives up and hits a button on the remote.

  A huge green dollar bill appears on the screen. Then music plays, and some guy’s singing about money. “Money, money, money, money. Mo-ney!” The dollar bill starts fading in the background, and the guy…

  “Ahh!” It’s Chase Maclin!

  No mistaking his messy black hair, black T-shirt, gold guitar, and trademark tiger chain.

  We’re all shocked it’s Chase Maclin, but no one should be. He graduated from Lauer Middle and Lauer High School, and he’s back in town sometimes. Rumor has it he has a recording studio—

  “Hello, Lauer Middle School!” he says from the screen.

  Screams peak.

  He signals us to quiet down. I guess international rock stars know how kids’ll react because it’s not like he sees us.

  “I’ll keep this short,” he says, “because you have only till the end of school today to collect money for the food bank.”

  I probably groan the loudest. The Legend cannot turn boring on me. Not now.

  Chase zooms so close to the camera, his face gets all distorted. “Stop complaining.”

  We laugh.

  “Most of you aren’t hungry.”

  “I am!” I yell, but I’m not the only one.

  “Who said that?”

  It’s like Chase knows us.

  “But seriously, Lauer.” He backs away from the camera. “People go hungry, really hungry, every day of the year. You guys who collected seven thousand cans before Thanksgiving, even you have forgotten that food pantry shelves empty out. Today it’s your mission to fill them up.”

  We stay quiet.

  “And that’s where the fun comes in.” Chase motions for us—or the camera—to follow him. “You didn’t think we’d forget the fun?” He shakes his head. “You gotta have faith, man.” He closes himself inside a glass booth like the ones here. “Watch this.” Sudde
nly he disappears behind clouds of money blowing around.

  Then we see his hand catching some. And more and more. Soon the money stops blowing, and Chase comes out with handfuls of dollars.

  “You’ll each have thirty seconds to catch as much as you can. Half the money you grab will go to the food bank. And if you want to keep the other half…”

  Chase grins, waits for a few seconds to let the cheers die down, and taps his watch. “But if you turn in all your money, you might win prizes that are worth more than the few bucks you’ll keep. Your choice. See ya!” He walks off the screen.

  Principal Wilkins steps in and tries to tell us which classes are assigned to which money booths, but he gives up.

  Kip and I stand together—apparently Matti’s class went to the gym—and we study people trying to catch the bills. It doesn’t look as easy as Chase made it seem. Maybe he practiced or he had more money in his booth. We decide to forget the money that falls to the ground because it blows back up right away. We’ll concentrate on the bills flying between our stomachs and eyes.

  Kip and I mimic the guy in the booth, trying to snatch money out of the air, but I stop to rub my arms. “I couldn’t play ball today even if I wanted to.”

  “Because,” Kip says, “if you’re trying to get ready for a game, you probably shouldn’t go hanging off buildings.”

  Natalie and Marco and some other people turn and laugh.

  “Here’s more advice,” Marco says. “Next time make a Legend person do it. Or Randall.”

  I’m getting to like this guy.

  “Hey, Randall!” Marco calls him over. “Travis has sore arms from yesterday.”

  “So?” says Randall.

  Marco rolls his eyes. “Just wanna give you credit, big guy.”

  I don’t care if Marco’s trying to suck up to him. I won’t give Randall any credit for my pain. “It wasn’t the roof,” I say. “It was the toilet paper.” By the time I finish telling them the story, they probably think I carried eight hundred cases of toilet paper to the storeroom plus eighty more upstairs to that pipe room near the teachers’ lounge.

  Most of the way through the story, Kip steps into the booth. He’s grabbing everything.

  “How great is this?” I say.

  “It’s cool,” says Marco, “but why does The Legend get the glory when anyone can rent a money machine?”

  “Still,” I say, “what other school gets to do what we do?”

  Kip’s buzzer goes off, and he points to me with two fistfuls of dollars. “Your turn.”

  Mr. Gunner reminds me I can’t touch any money on the ground until the wind blows and the green light flashes. And I need to freeze when I hear the buzzer and see the red light or lose my turn and everything I’ve caught. He opens the door. It might be my imagination, but I think he’s watching me harder than he watched anyone else.

  Wind! Money! Green! Go!

  I ignore the pain and grab air. Concentrate. Got one! Another! Gonna lose them if I open my hands too much. Another! Stuff all three into my pockets. Grab. Stuff. Grab. Grab. Stuff. More. More.

  Buzz!

  I bend a little backward and catch a fluttering-down dollar on my chest.

  Mr. Gunner opens the door.

  “Can I keep this one, too?”

  He gives me a look.

  “I’m donating every dollar. I promise.”

  “We both are,” says Kip, who waited for me.

  Mr. Gunner plucks the bill off my chest and motions for me to step out. “I can’t punish such flexibility.” He hands me the dollar.

  Kip and I head to the tables. We turn in everything—we each caught eighteen dollars—and I ask who got the most so far.

  “Over there. He got twenty-five.” The teacher points to Randall. Figures.

  We fill out our entry forms and stick them into the prize-drawing box that shows what we can win: pizza party, random school supplies, double lunch period, and playlist composer for before-school music. Then, at the bottom:

  GRAND PRIZE: BOX OF MYSTERY ITEMS,

  ALL AUTOGRAPHED BY CHASE MACLIN.

  VALUE: AT LEAST $700.

  TO QUALIFY FOR THIS ADDITIONAL PRIZE,

  BRING IN 5 CANS OF FOOD BY MONDAY.

  Kip nods his head and just says, “Cool,” in typical Kipness.

  Me? I’m jumping on his back. “More than cool! Awesome! What do you think’s in there? What’s worth at least seven hundred dollars?”

  Kips shrugs, but I’m still bouncing. Not only could I win, but I don’t have to haul five cans of food all the way here on my bicycle. I have a ride in the morning.

  Now I just need a way to survive the rest of detention and figure out where I’m supposed to take that mathsheet circle.

  CHAPTER 8

  After school I’m back in my dungeon and itching to pull out my math sheet, but I’m not alone. But the way Mrs. Pinchon’s hitting her keyboard, she wouldn’t notice the difference between mystery math, homework math, and fireworks.

  I take the chance.

  …1035, 828, 621, 414, ___…

  …8, 16, ___, 64, 128…-51, 32, ___, 14, 25, 16, 17, 18-…4, 9, ___, 25, 36…

  The problem at the very left? In preschool, I thought I was brilliant when my mom taught me one plus one is two and two plus two is four. I got all the way to 128 plus 128, which I thought was the highest anyone could add until she told me about 256 plus 256.

  I write 32 in the blank.

  Back to the top. All the numbers decrease. Minus 207, minus 207, and please. If you’re gonna give me a test, give me a real test. Okay? No lame word problems either. I write in 207.

  I look at the clock. If Travis has four math problems and solves the first two in three minutes, how long will it take him to finish them all?

  Six minutes? Bing, bing, bing! Give that boy a prize!

  At this rate I’ll be done by three fifteen with only social studies homework left. Time to waste time. I slip down, flop my neck over the chair back, stick out my legs, and feel like the slidey part of a playground slide. My stomach bubbles. I poke it near my belly button, and it speaks to me.

  Why’d I let Kip eat my sandwich? It would taste amazing now. Cardboard would taste amazing now. And no way she’ll let me out to grab my emergency 3 Musketeers bar.

  I poke my stomach again. This time it yells.

  “Travis?” says Mrs. Pinchon.

  I sit up. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” She smiles, a real smile. “I should’ve thought about feeding you. We have vending machines in the teachers’ lounge, but you know that.”

  I start to give her one of my best fake grins, but any principal who can joke with me deserves a real one.

  “So, what’s your poison?” she says.

  “My poison?”

  She gives a laugh. “No worries, Travis. It’s simply a figure of speech. What would you like to eat?”

  “I know,” I say. “My grandma used to say that.”

  “Your grandma, huh? And what did you tell her?”

  “Cookies.”

  “We have cookies,” she says. “What’s your favorite? Oatmeal? Chocolate chip?”

  “Either’s fine,” I say. “The machine won’t have my favorite anyway. Moon cookies.”

  Mrs. Pinchon looks at me like I spoke in Martian. “Moon Pies, you mean? Closest we have are chocolate-covered Oreos.”

  “No, I mean moon cookies, which look like moons because they’re round and white and have poppy seed craters. My mom and I have been trying to make them the right way since my grandma died, but we haven’t figured out the recipe yet.”

  “Sorry,” she says like she really means it. “No moon cookies in the machine.” She starts around her desk, toward the paper.

  I throw my backpack over it then rummage around to see if I can come up with any money. “How much is stuff in the machine?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says, heading toward the door. “Principals have power over school vending machines.”<
br />
  I don’t know if she’s kidding or not, but my stomach’s relieved. Can’t even find a penny.

  “So chocolate chips? Oreos?”

  “No,” I say. “Only moon cookies would taste good to my tongue right now. So, is there something cheesy in there?” Like my cheese sandwich conveniently digesting in Kip’s stomach.

  “I’ll be back.”

  I wish she’d find moon cookies. My mom made a batch last night but accidentally sprinkled the tops with salt instead of sugar so we threw them all out and—

  And why am I just sitting here? Even if Mrs. Pinchon jogs all the way upstairs, down two halls, gets me something to eat and rushes back, she’ll be gone for at least three minutes.

  Maybe her computer has something about The Legend or Chase’s mystery box or even why Randall gets away with everything, including knocking me into the bushes after practice last week. I could unload for three hours about everything he’s done, starting with Kip’s cap, but I’m not a snitch.

  Neither’s her computer. Whatever’s on-screen is disguised behind some jungle screen she must’ve clicked on before she got up. I’d minimize it, but there’s no telling if I could click it back in time. Good-bye, spying. Back to mystery math.

  I look at the next problem.

  51, 32, ___, 14, 25, 16, 17, 18

  The numbers go down, then up, then down, then up. I write in the differences.

  No pattern. No hint of a clue of a pattern except random nines and ones. No way to add or subtract or multiply or divide to get the next number. Forget this one. Next.

  …4, 9, ___, 25, 36…

  At least these numbers don’t seesaw.

  The office door swings open, and Mrs. Pinchon puts a bag of cheddar Goldfish and a carton of orange juice on my table. I’d rather it be a can of orange soda, but I don’t say that. “Sort of an orange theme, huh?” I say. “Thanks.”

  She nods, all businesslike, then she pounds away at her keyboard, frowning.

  What’d I do? I thought we were making progress. I don’t want to cause a backslide, so I try to open the Goldfish without making noise. Silent crunching is just as hopeless, but if I chew when she types, the sounds blend together.