The Shadow Club Rising (9 page)

There were several chairs in Mr. Greene's office: a plush comfortable one for setting kids' minds at ease, a beanbag for less formal counseling sessions . . . and then there was the old wooden chair; a worn-out, high-backed, dark monster with wide armrests. Kids called it the "Electric Chair." This was the chair he had positioned in front of his desk when I was escorted into his office that morning.

"Come in, Jared. Have a seat," he said.

I sat down in the uncomfortable chair, figuring I would hear the same old stuff about how he thought I was the center of all local evil, but all he said was: "I like your shirt."

I looked down to notice that this was the same shirt I had worn on the days when Alec had commented on my shirt as well.

"I like your tie," I said to him. "Have you spoken to my parents yet?"

"We've been missing each other's calls." And then he sat there and just stared at me.

"Listen, is this important, because I'm missing English class."

"I will ask you this once," he said, "and I expect an honest answer."

"Sure."

"Did you put a skunk in Alec Smartz's minivan?"

"No, I did not," I said as directly as I could.

He leaned back in his chair, with a slight look of satisfaction on his face. "You might want to think about your answer." And then he reached into his drawer, pulled out a tiny plastic bag, and tossed it on his desk. At first I thought the hag was empty, but then I saw something in it—something small—something round and blue. It was a shirt button that looked very familiar. I looked down at the shirt I was wearing—the button was identical to my shirt buttons, and when I reached up to my collar, I found that the top button was missing. Suddenly I felt the hardness of the Electric Chair, and I knew what Mr. Greene's look of satisfaction was all about. It was the look of an executioner preparing to throw the switch.

"Do you know where this button was found?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"It was found on Alec Smartz's driveway—right near the spot where his van was parked that night." He reached out and took the button away from me. "Maybe you'd like to re- consider your answer."

I could only stammer, because I knew that no matter what I said, it would sound like a lie.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

"It's not my button," I said weakly, but we both knew that it had to be mine. The question was, how had it gotten there? I had never
been
on Alec Smartz's driveway.

"I'm going to give you one final chance, Jared," he said with the patience of someone completely sure of himself "I'd like to put an end to this situation by tomorrow. Otherwise, it might get ugly."

But I wasn't listening to him anymore. I was thinking about that button. There were only two possibilities: either Alec was lying about where he found the button . . . or someone had intentionally put it there for Alec to find.

But who? I thought. Who could have gotten that button? Then it dawned on me, in growing disbelief, that there was only one person in this school who had access to my shirts.

When I got home that afternoon, Tyson was already there, sitting in the living room with his headphones on, blasting his ears with one of my CDs. I pulled his headphones off, and his eyes snapped open.

"Hey, what gives?" he asked.

I wanted to grab him and shake him. I wanted to accuse him right there and pass judgment on him the way Greenehad passed judgment on me, but I had done that once before to Tyson, hadn't I? I had beaten him silly, convinced that he was the one pulling the deadly pranks last fall, but I had been dead wrong. Maybe Greene was ready to throw the switch on me, but I wasn't going to do that to Tyson. No matter what I suspected, he deserved the benefit of my doubt.

I took a deep breath to steady myself, and said, "How do you like my shirt?"

He looked at me like I was nuts. "It's OK," he said.

"Notice anything wrong with it?"

He looked at my chest and pointed to it. "You got some mustard there." I looked down, and he dragged his finger up across my face.

"Gets 'em every time!" he said. "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."

I pushed his hand away, and he finally realized that this wasn't a laughing matter. "What's your problem today, huh?"

"Remember when you said you hated me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Are we going to go through that again?"

"Do you hate me enough to get me suspended? Do you hate me enough to get me thrown out of school?"

He sat up, and answered me with the same directness I answered Mr. Greene.

"No," he said, "I don't. I hate you enough to take the extra hamburger at dinner, so you don't get seconds."

"Do you hate me enough to plant evidence on Alec's driveway?"

"Are you accusing me of something?" He started to get that red-in-the-face look he always got when someone lit his microscopic fuse.

"I'm just asking." I watched him closely, trying to gauge the truth in his answer.

"No. I didn't." He thought for a moment, then said, "There was a time when I hated you more than anything and there are still times when I want to hate you, but I just can't—and unless you do something
really
stupid, I probably never will." Then he stormed across the room, and turned to face me again, but he kept his distance. "You're my best friend, OK? There, I said it. The guy who ruined my life is now my best friend. Pretty pathetic, huh?"

"No, it's not," I said, feeling like a total jerk. There was no doubting his honesty about it.

"It
is
pathetic," Tyson insisted, "because I know you're not really my friend at all."

"What?"

"You feel sorry for me . . . you feel
guilty
for what you did, but you really don't
like
me."

"That's not true!"

"Prove it," he said.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I couldn't prove to Tyson that I was his friend, any more than I could prove my innocence to Greene.

"We'll never be on equal ground," said Tyson, "unless I ruin your life, and then turn around and save it, like you did to me. Then if you can tell me we're friends, that's when I'll believe you."

I don't know if Greene had spoken to my parents, because they didn't talk to me about it. That, I think, was as unsettling as if I had been punished for something I didn't do. Still, I tried to convince myself that this was over; that three dirty tricks was the charm that would break the spell, and whoever was doing it would slink back into whatever hole they crawled out of. But, like I said, something was set loose in our school, and Alec, simply by being Alec, kept making himself the target. But what he did next—his own little counterattack—was as unforgivable as any of the pranks pulled against him. It wasn't a prank that he pulled, but it was despicable nonetheless. It was as mean-spirited as it was self-serving, but all it served to do was feed the fires of resentment.

It happened on the day of the candidates' televised statements. About a year ago, our school had converted the audiovisual office into a television studio of sorts, and the school got wired for closed-circuit TV. This year, for the first time, each presidential candidate had recorded a five-minute campaign speech that would be televised throughout the entire ninth grade. I watched in social studies class—a class I didn't share with either Cheryl or Alec. Tommy Nickols came on first. The highlight of his rather dull speech was a top ten list—the top ten reasons why he should be voted in. It was supposed to be very funny, but was in fact so unfunny that people were laughing hysterically by the end of it. Unfortunately, they were laughing
at
Tommy and not
with
him. Next came Katrina's speech, which seemed like one long, rambling telephone conversation with herself. Cheryl's speech was masterful, as I knew it would be, and then came Alec's. No one, not even me, was prepared for what he did.

"Hello, friends and classmates," his speech began. "It is with great regret that I share with you some information I discovered just the other day. Something that every one of you has a right to know." We all listened closely, wondering what sort of bombshell Alec had to drop. Like everything else he did, it fell like a nuke.

"The video you are about to see was filmed a few days ago," he said on the TV. "I ask that you all watch closely." Suddenly the image of Alec changed to a handheld video shot of a place I recognized—a place filled with old, crumbling boats.
Oh no,
I said to myself,
he didn't . .
. but unfortunately he did. The video had been edited down to less than a minute, and within that minute, I saw Tyson and myself climb up in the hole of the tugboat, and then Abbie, Darren, O. P., Jason, and Randall. Finally the camera zoomed in to catch Cheryl, the image grainy and wobbly. She looked around, as if she was up to no good, and there the video ended. Alec came back on the screen. I slunk low in my chair.

"Several months ago," he said, "a group of seven kids terrorized this school, and they called themselves the Shadow Club. You thought they had been brought to justice. You thought they were sorry for what they had done, but you thought wrong. If that's the kind of person you want leading your class into high school, then vote for Cheryl whats-her- face. Otherwise you know where to cast your vote."

I didn't see it, but I hear their breakup was spectacular. Jodi Lattimer told me, and she was never one to gossip, so the source was reliable.

"Alec accused Cheryl of tearing down his posters," Jodi said, "and Cheryl called Alec more four-letter words than I knew existed. Some of them had, like, ten letters."

It was a breakup that could make record books, but this was about much more than that. Alec had incriminated us all with that video. Even though it showed nothing, really, it showed just enough to let everyone's imagination run rampant.

I went to the tugboat to be alone, to convince myself that there was a way to deal with this, and that I was strong enough to do it. I wasn't feeling strong at all, I was feeling weak, angry, and confused. That's when Cheryl showed up.

"Permission to come aboard?" she asked.

"Permission granted."

She climbed in through the hole in the hull, and we sat across from each other, as we had done so many times before in the old tree house. A winter storm had taken down that tree house this year, and most of its wood had been burned in her fireplace. Thinking about that bothered me more than I think it should have.

"Someone find me a bear so I can put it in Alec's mini- van," she said.

"Careful—we might find ourselves on cable tonight."

She shook her head, furious at herself. "How could I have been so stupid to trust him? I'm never going to trust anyone ever again."

I laughed. "Now you sound like me." Then I took a long look at her. I could see how much she was hurting. "Don't worry," I told her, "he'll get his someday."

"Well, I hope he gets it soon." Then she drew up her knees, realizing what she was saying. There it was, that old resentment.

"You want him hurt as much as he hurt you," I said. "I mean, what he did was really nasty, it's OK to feel that way."

"Are you my guidance counselor now?"

I grinned. "Me, or Greene—take your pick."

Cheryl took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Do you think he would have done it if he knew
why
we were all meeting . . . and if I hadn't laughed at him the other day?"

I fiddled with a nail that was sticking out of the hull. "Maybe, maybe not. You know him better than I do."

"That's what I thought." She considered it for a few moments and clenched her fists, still fighting her fury.

"I swore that I would never feel that way about anyone ever again," Cheryl said. "I swore I would never be so angry that I'd wish awful things on someone."

"Wishing and making it happen are two different things," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but sometimes wishes come true."

The Shadow Club might have been dead, but thanks to Alec Smartz it had risen from the grave. Everyone from Principal Diller to the cafeteria servers believed we were conspiring up a new reign of terror. Whether or not Alec realized what he did, he put the seven of us back in the center of attention.

I was in Greene's office first thing the next morning. I had expected it—he couldn't leave that incriminating video unanswered. Once I took my seat in the Electric Chair, he didn't waste any time beating around the bush.

"It was made very clear to you last October," he began, "that if the so-called Shadow Club was ever caught meeting again, it would be grounds for dismissal."

"You're going to expel us because we talked for five minutes? You don't even know what we talked about!"

"I have an idea."

"We were trying to figure out who's pulling tricks on Alec—ask the others—they'll tell you."

"I'm sure that's what they'll tell me," Greene said calmly, making it clear he wouldn't believe it, no matter who told him. "But the only thing I know for sure is that
you
called the meeting. That makes you the only one who's really in danger of being expelled."

"Fine! Then take me to Principal Diller! Maybe he'll listen to me!"

"No. I won't bother Principal Diller with you, because you're my problem, Jared. You've been my problem this entire school year, and I will make sure this is taken care of."

"Go ahead," I shouted. "Tell my parents I'm a delinquent. I'm sure you've told them already."

Greene sighed. "Your parents," he said, "are very defensive of you."

I wasn't expecting to hear that my parents would defend me in anything. While I grappled with what to make of that, there was a knock at the door, and a teacher poked her head inside. She stood with a girl who was upset about something that, mercifully, didn't involve me.

"Mr. Greene, could I have your help?" the teacher asked.

Reluctantly, Greene stood up from his desk. "I'm not done with you," Greene told me. "You wait right here, and think very carefully about your future in this school. When I get back I want to hear about your meeting, and about the pranks."