Crisis Zero (6 page)

I
DIDN'T GET EXPELLED THE NEXT MORNING.

At least, not right away—I still had no idea what the rest of the day would bring. First and second period came and went and nobody got called down to the office. The school was still abuzz from the bizarre and exciting events of the day before. But by the start of third period, things had begun feeling normal again. Middle school kind of had a way of sapping the energy and fun out of even the craziest events pretty quickly.

Third period also brought along the start of my investigation. It made it easy that the first name on my list
also just happened to be my third-period social studies teacher, Mr. Lepsing.

I should probably mention that at one point during our sixth-grade year, Dillon had been entirely convinced that Mr. Lepsing was a Swiss spy.

“Swiss?” I had said at the time. “Why would Switzerland have a spy in our school? It makes no sense.”

“Exactly!” Dillon had said. “Nobody ever suspects the Swiss! Which is precisely how they're getting away with taking over our government from the inside using brain-control fine chocolates, expensive watches, and rogue sentient bank accounts!”

I obviously didn't believe any of that for a second. But since becoming a secret agent I found out that Dillon had been right about way more stuff than I ever would have imagined. And so I figured there was a chance that he had been right about Mr. Lepsing being a spy, even if he wasn't a Swiss spy.

I thought I'd start my investigation by showing up to class as early as I could and trying to catch him coming into or out of his supply closet. But he was already seated behind his desk when I arrived.

Mr. Lepsing was tall and thin. Not just thin, but thin in a way that made you suspect he was really a giant
praying mantis wearing a human skin for a disguise. He was mostly bald, except on the sides where long, brown stringy hair dangled down from his shiny scalp like tentacles. He wore glasses so thick that when he looked right at you, his eyes practically filled his entire face. He always wore skinny ties; sweat-stained button-up shirts; and old, thick pants with heavy textures from the 1970s.

Mr. Lepsing was generally a nice guy and a good teacher, despite being one of the weirdest people at the school. Most of the students really liked him, since his oddities at least made his class slightly more interesting than other classes. Even if the entertainment was mostly unintentional.

But his likability meant I needed to tread lightly. The rest of the class was already filing in, and if they thought I was making fun of Mr. Lepsing in some way, they'd turn on me. Being allowed to get away with somewhat obnoxious behavior was an advantage I didn't want to lose. And the best way to lose such a thing was to annoy your classmates.

“Mr. Lepsing.” I raised my hand just after he'd handed out a reading assignment. “Can I come up and ask you a question?”

“You can't ask me from there?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, come on up,” Mr. Lepsing said.

I went to his desk, bringing my textbook with me so the class would think my question was related to social studies. Of course it wasn't. Or, well, I guess technically it
was
, but you'll see what I mean.

“I was wondering . . . where were you this past weekend?” I plopped my book onto his desk.

“I don't really see how that's pertinent to the downfall of the Roman Empire, Carson,” Mr. Lepsing said, motioning at my textbook.

“Well, it's not, it's for another class,” I said, words just tumbling out of my mouth without any thought or planning. “I'm investigating a crime that occurred here sometime between Friday evening and Monday morning. You know anything about that?”

His expression shifted from mild curiosity to something much closer to surprise, and perhaps even suspicion. He sat upright.

“Why would you ask
me
such a question?” he said. “What crime are you talking about? If this is more of your infamous trickery, I'm not finding it very amusing. Besides, what I do on my own time is no one's business but my own.”

I pressed on. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about framing, would you?”

“You are treading on some thin ice now, young man,” he said.

His eyes flickered wildly, as if he were looking for a way out. Maybe I was making him uncomfortable? Perhaps I was getting closer to the truth than I suspected. Even still, it was probably best to back off a bit. After all, even if I did get him to admit something here and now, what could I do about it in the middle of class?

“Mr. Lepsing,” I said, smiling, “you've got the wrong idea. I'm talking about framing a portrait. You know, like of a person? I got a print of a portrait of my favorite aunt, and I was wondering if you knew where I could get a custom frame job. Since you got all these history posters hanging all over your room.” I motioned to all the maps and historical posters on the walls.

Mr. Lepsing stared at me, trying to decide if I was joking or not. Or maybe he was wondering if I knew more than he thought I did. Or maybe he was trying to figure out if it'd be better to just kill me right then and there and be done with me, even if it meant breaking his cover.

“What did you think I meant?” I asked with a laugh. “Framing a person for a crime? That's funny.”

“Carson, please take your seat before you end up with a detention,” Mr. Lepsing said calmly. “Something of which I'm quite sure you already have an ample supply.”

I nodded, conceding that the charade was over and returned to my seat. But the efforts had not been entirely fruitless. Not by a long shot. He'd acted suspiciously enough that I knew I had to investigate further. After that conversation, I wasn't entirely convinced that Mr. Lepsing was nothing more than an extremely odd, yet mostly harmless, weirdo. There was only one way to tell for sure.

The question was: When and how would I actually get inside his supply closet?

O
NE THING WAS FOR SURE: I WASN'T GOING TO BE ABLE TO
sneak into Mr. Lepsing's supply closet during morning classes. So I turned my attention to the next name on my list: Gus Agriopoulas, aka the Untouchable Mega-Bully. His reputation for fits of extreme violence meant I'd need to tread very carefully while investigating him.

Up to that point, I'd had nothing more than a few minor run-ins with Gus. I suspect this was because I think he saw me as a kindred spirit due to all my pranks over the years. He obviously couldn't differentiate
between harmless pranks and outright brutal violence committed against innocent kids, but just the same, I wasn't complaining since it had mostly saved me from his cruelty.

That could change in an instant, though, if he suspected I was following him. Or spying on him. Or found out I thought he was an enemy agent, regardless of whether he actually was or wasn't. If any of those things happened, he'd probably be eating a Carson-faced sandwich later that day for lunch, using my guts as the meat, my skin for the bread, and my brains as mayo.

I knew where Gus's locker was. Everyone did. It's one of the first things every kid mapped out on the first day of school every year, so they'd know which part of which hallway to avoid every day for the entire school year.

After third period, I rushed out of Mr. Lepsing's class and directly toward Gus's locker. I might have been the first kid in school history to make such a move. Even most of Gus's “friends” tried to avoid him in the halls. School seemed to bring out his cruelty the most.

Gus was at his locker when I got there, but he wasn't alone. He was trying to stuff some poor sixth grader inside it. There was no way the kid was going to fit, but Gus just kept cramming limbs into his tiny locker as the
kid squirmed and groaned in pain.

Gus laughed like a seven-year-old frolicking through a sprinkler on a hot summer day as he continued to jam.

“Come on, man, we'll be late,” said Cade, Gus's best friend.

Strictly speaking, Cade wasn't Gus's best friend. But he pretended to be because being best friends with the star athlete and richest kid in school had its benefits. Avoiding the worst of Gus's torturous sense of humor was not the least of them. Getting playfully slugged in the arm or casually derided from time to time wasn't nearly as bad as having the palms of your hands forcibly super glued to your cheeks. Which is something Gus had done to countless kids over the years. It was his signature move. He called it the
phaf
, or Permanent
Home Alone
Face.

“Let's go, man.” Cade pulled at Gus, trying to hide his concern for the sixth grader who was folded up like a pretzel, half inside Gus's locker.

“Whatever—keep your panties on,” Gus said, finally allowing the sixth grader to clamber out and run away.

He slammed his locker shut and walked with Cade toward where I was standing and gawking at them just fifteen feet away. I diverted my gaze quickly, trying to
pretend that I was looking for something on the floor nearby.

“What are you staring at?” Gus asked me. “Want to give it a try yourself? See if you'll actually fit?” He motioned back toward his locker.

“I'm good,” I said.

Gus snickered and kept walking past me. Then he stopped and pivoted on his heels, as if he suddenly remembered that he did want to at least snap my vertebrae in half, if nothing else.

He grinned. “Nice job with the goats yesterday, bro,” he said. “That was hilarious.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I finally remembered to breathe as Gus and Cade walked away, laughing.

How about that? Saved by fainting goats twice in two days. Not many kids could say that. I was starting to think that fainting goats might be my own personal guardian angels or something.

A
FTER TEMPTING FATE AND FOLLOWING GUS AND CADE TO
their next class, I came to the conclusion that Gus was perhaps even more likely than Mr. Lepsing to be in cahoots with Medlock. The kid clearly wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, every moment of his life. He wouldn't think twice about getting behind a plan that ruined Principal Gomez's life or released a deadly virus out into the world or whatever other horrors Medlock was planning.

During their short walk to class, Gus and Cade spent
much of it laughing about what had happened to Gomez. Laughing the way that people did after witnessing the aftermath of a successful prank. Not only that, but he showed even further evidence of sadism by taking one kid's math notebook, tearing the whole thing in half, and tossing it into the hallway garbage can just to show off to Cade how well his new weight-lifting regimen had been working.

I knew I'd need to make Gus a priority for the time being. Of course, eventually breaking into Mr. Lepsing's supply closet was still on my radar, but at the moment I had more suspicions surrounding Gus than Mr. Lepsing. Mr. Lepsing ultimately just seemed like he didn't have it in him to work on a plan for mass chaos.

During my fourth-period gym class, I tried to map out a strategy while avoiding a barrage of dodge balls. I devised a way to make sure I could follow Gus around between every single class, during lunch, and then also to basketball practice, keeping my eyes open the whole time for anything suspicious. And if all of that produced no evidence, then I'd even follow him home. Whatever it took.

And so right after gym class, I tracked down Cade and Gus by heading in the direction of the classroom I'd
seen them enter at the start of fourth period.

I ended up walking right by them. Gus definitely saw me, but had been too busy telling a story about this third-grade girl he stole an iPad from that weekend at the mall to acknowledge me.

As soon as they passed, I wheeled around and started to tail them. At a safe distance, of course. Eventually, they bumped knuckles and Cade split off down a different hallway, presumably to a different fifth-period class than Gus's.

Gus bobbed his head while he walked in time to some song apparently stuck in there. A few times he made a threatening gesture toward a passing kid. They all flinched, and Gus snickered each time as if the joke never got old.

One poor kid even got tripped, not realizing it was Gus who did it as he face-planted into the hard tiled floor. I had to resist helping him to his feet. Gus stopped just long enough to admire the pain he'd inflicted on the poor kid, and he would have seen me had I not quickly ducked behind a trash can. When he was finally satisfied that the kid had not enjoyed being tripped, Gus resumed his path of terror down the hallway. I stepped out from behind the trash can and resumed my pursuit. Gus took
his phone from his pocket a few moments later, glanced at it, and then veered off suddenly into a bathroom.

Two kids hurried out a few seconds later, one of them still trying to hastily zip up his fly. As soon as Gus entered a bathroom, you got the heck out.

I knew this was my chance.

Judging by the way he'd changed his course upon checking his phone, Gus must have gotten a secret text message he wanted to read in private. And so I waited a few seconds and then entered the bathroom myself.

I had just become the first kid in the history of the school insane enough to knowingly follow Gus Agriopoulas into a bathroom.

T
HE BATHROOM WAS EMPTY.

All four urinals were unoccupied. I looked under the walls of the two stalls and saw no feet. Gus had come in here a second ago and now he was gone.

There were rumors that many of the town's oldest buildings had secret passageways that were used back in the days of Prohibition. They didn't call Minnow “Little Chicago” back then because it looked like a miniature version of the huge city or anything like that. It was called Little Chicago because it was one of the most important hubs of alcohol smuggling outside of Chicago itself.

Why would a kid be using a secret passageway in a school, if not to sneak around, committing acts of sabotage and framing principals as a part of some grand scheme to infiltrate and destroy the clandestine government agency located underneath the school itself?

But that's when one of the stall doors slowly creaked open.

Gus was standing on top of the toilet seat, which is why I hadn't seen his feet. He glared at me as he hopped down and took four impossibly quick strides, closing the distance between us in a fraction of a second.

Gus grabbed my shirt and lifted me several feet off the ground as if I were filled with helium instead of bones and blood and organs. He slammed me against the wall and put his face very close to mine.

“Listen,” he said, his minty-fresh breath smelling surprisingly pleasant, “I don't know why you're following me around, but I don't like it.”

“I'm sorry,” I gasped, the collar of my shirt starting to dig into my neck. “I just think . . . you're cool.”

“I don't care,” he said. “But you're going to stop, got it? You're creeping me out.”

I nodded. Or tried to. I didn't have much feeling left in my head or neck.

“Now, just as a fee for wasting my precious time, I'm going to dunk your head into that toilet a few times. You're lucky I like you, or else I would have taken a dump in it first.”

He put me down, but only for a second. Before I could really react, he had lifted me up again. But this time he wrapped his arms around my waist and promptly tipped me upside down. He carried me over to the (thankfully) empty toilet and dunked my head into the water a few times. Then he set me down, not gently exactly, but he didn't drop me onto my head at least.

Gus crouched on one knee and looked down at my dripping face. I gagged. Just because the toilet had been empty didn't erase the cold fact that it was still toilet water. And the bowl had contained
contents
at some point in time. Maybe even that same day.

“Leave me alone,” he said. “Or next time I'll tear your head off and use it to clog up the whole school's plumbing. Later, bud.”

He walked toward the door, but then stopped. He turned back toward me, smiling.

“Again, though, dude,” he said, “the goats were hilarious.”

With that, he left me there, gagging on the water
running from my hair down into my eyes and mouth.

That hadn't necessarily gone well. Especially since I was still far from convinced that I could cross Gus's name off my list.