Gotcha (2 page)

Paige may be my best friend, but I have no doubt that if the position of class president had come down to a tie-breaking vote between Warren and me, Warren would have got her vote.

“So, we need a plan,” Paige says. We’ve come back to the school to collect our homework. Paige takes a long suck on a juice box while I select the books I need from my locker. She crumples the empty box and tosses it toward a garbage can across the hall. It misses. She doesn’t bother to retrieve it.

“Mrs. Kennedy recycles those,” I tell her. I can’t help myself. Paige may be my best friend, but sometimes she just doesn’t get it.

“Only Mrs. Kennedy would collect garbage.” Paige sighs. “But stay focused, Katie. What about a plan?”

“She doesn’t collect garbage.” I shut my locker and slip the lock in place. “She returns them for a refund and then buys stuff for the art room. I like her fundraising ideas.”

“You would.” She shakes her head. “So?” she glances down the deserted hallway . “Whose name did you draw?”

“Yours.”

“Get out!” For a moment she believes me. I can’t help but laugh at the look on her face. “You brat!” She smacks my arm. “Seriously. Who did you get?”

“I’ll never tell.” I walk across the hall, scoop up the empty juice box and slide it into the pocket of my jacket.

“Then how can we help each other?” Paige whines. “Katie, you promised we’d be a team!”

I start walking down the hall without her. “Yeah, but if I tell you, you’ll tell someone else, who’ll tell someone else and so on until it gets to the person I’ve got. No one can keep a secret, especially you.” And especially with the name I’ve drawn, I think but don’t say.

“I’m crushed, Katie! I thought we were best buds.” Paige catches up to me and I notice her dramatic hangdog expression.

“Cut it out, Paige. It’s got nothing to do with us being friends. I just know you too well.” I glance at her pouty face. “And you know you can’t keep a secret.”

“I can too!” Her head snaps up. “What are you talking about?”

Hmm. Which secret that she didn’t keep should I remind her of? I make my decision. “Remember the butt incident?”

“What butt incident?”

Paige feigns innocence, but I know by the way she averts her eyes that she remembers only too well. I decide to rub it in. “I innocently mentioned that Matt’s looked particularly good in a new pair of jeans he was wearing, and you just had to tell Mariah, who didn’t think you’d mind if she told Rachel, who didn’t think Mariah would mind if she told Tanysha, and Tanysha thought it would be such a big joke if she told Matt.”

“Yeah, well, I said I was sorry about that, and so what if Matt knows you like his butt?”

“Paige! You’re missing my point.”

“The point is you like Matt, but you’re too chicken to do anything about it.”

“Right.”

“Oh c’mon, Katie. It’s like on
Survivor
. We need alliances. You know how the game works.”

“I haven’t been able to make eye contact with Matt since.”

“Who cares? It’s his butt you want to look at anyway.”

“Paige!”

“Just think of what we can do with all that money.”

“But only one person can win, Paige, so I don’t see what good forming a team will be.”

“Omigod, Katie. For someone who gets straight A’s, you can be so thick. We’d split the money fifty-fifty. Duh. One thousand and sixty a piece. How cool is that? I
know
you can use the money, and I can help you win. Now, tell me who you got.”

“Nope, not telling. But I will walk home with you, arms linked. Safety in numbers.”

“Oh jeez,” she mutters. “This is gonna be so scary.”

As we pass a group of grade ten boys, I toss the empty juice box toward a recycling container that sits in a corner. I miss, and as I’m bending to pick it up, I see the boys checking Paige out. She’s too busy worrying to notice, but I glare at them. They act nonchalant but make a hasty retreat
when they read my face. That’s another perk of being on grad council. People treat you with more respect, though I haven’t really figured out why.

“What if I forget to lock my doors?” she whimpers.

“You won’t.”

“And what if you’re busy and I have to walk home alone?” I can hear the familiar panic rising in her voice, and when she turns to me, I see her eyes beginning to bug out.

Her arm roughly links with mine, even though we’re still safely on school property.

“You’ll find someone else. Maybe even Warren.”

Either she doesn’t hear me or she chooses to ignore my attempt to distract her. “I just
have
to find out who has my name so I can protect myself.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I can’t stand it!”

“It’s just a game, Paige. Jeez.”

I may be acting unconcerned, and Paige may be getting unnecessarily hysterical, but I do know what she means. It is kinda creepy, knowing you’re being stalked. Knowing someone has your name. And knowing what has happened in years gone by.

“I pulled Elijah Widawski’s name.”

“Huh?” I glance at Paige.

“For Gotcha. That’s the name I drew.”

“Oh.” The timer on the microwave bleats, so I remove the bag and pour the hot popcorn into a bowl. We’ve only made it as far as my house from the school. Paige is afraid to walk the remaining three blocks alone, so she’s waiting for her mom to get home from work and pick her up, or for the cover of dark to protect her. “Who’s he?”

“I haven’t a clue. He must hang out in the shop classes or something. Have you got an old yearbook so I can look him up?”

“Yeah, in my room.” I take the bowl of popcorn and head upstairs. “C’mon.”

Paige flops onto my bed. I grab the book and sit beside her. She’s studying my bookshelf. “I can’t believe how organized you are, Katie. It would take me a week to find my yearbook. It could be just about anywhere in the house.”

I glance back at my bookshelf. “Yep, everything’s in alphabetical order by author’s last name. Yearbooks are in order of years.”

“You’re one sick puppy.”

“No, you are.” I give her a shoulder check and we both flop over.

“No, you are!” she laughs, struggling to sit back up. I press my weight into her, holding her down.

“Uh-uh. You are.”

“Katie, get off me!”

“Not till you admit that you’re a sicker puppy than me.”

“Never!”

I crunch my shoulder into hers. She’s so tiny it’s easy to pin her down.

“Katie!” she screams.

“Say it.”

“Okay!”

“I’m waiting,” I tell her.

“I’m sicker than you.”

“Louder.”

“Omigod!” she groans, crushed under my weight.

“Say it!”

“I’m sicker than you!” she yells.

“Good girl,” I say and pull myself off her.

She slaps my shoulder. “Bully!”

I smile down on her. “Sick puppy.”

We flip through the yearbook pages until we find Elijah, and then we both gape at his unfamiliar face.

“This is like
so
unfair!” Paige wails. “How can I tag him when I don’t even know if he exists?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Paige. Of course he exists. And he wants to play the game. Otherwise his name wouldn’t have been in the hat.” That’s not quite true, I realize. My name was in the hat, and I don’t want to play. I wonder if anyone else felt pressured into it, like I did. I’m only playing because I am on grad council and helped organize it, so I felt I had to sign up. “You’re just going to have to do some sleuthing to figure out who he is.”

“Sleuthing?”

“Yeah, sleuthing.”

“What the hell is sleuthing?”

“Detective work.”

“Detective work. Great. I won’t look one bit obvious hanging around the shop classes. Me. Paige Harrington. I’ve never even been on that floor before.”

“He has to surface sometime. At least to go home. And besides, you can’t tag him at school anyway.”

“Yeah, but I have to figure out who he is!”

We stuff popcorn in our mouths while mulling over the existence of Elijah Widawski. “Okay, I told you who my target is,” she says. “Now tell me yours.”

“Oh, sort of like...I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?” I smile at her.

“Sort of like,” she says, smiling back. “But not quite as much fun.”

“Sorry, Paige, we didn’t make any deals like that.”

“We didn’t have to!”

“I didn’t ask who yours was.”

“But that’s what friends do. We tell each other things.”

Maybe, I think. But not when the
thing
is this particular person. “If we were playing chess, would you tell me when you were two moves away from checkmating me?”

“I don’t know what checkmating is. Sounds kinky.”

“Oh yeah. Very.” I try not to roll my eyes.

“Then I’m sure I would.”

“No you wouldn’t! That’s why you play games,” I told her. “There are winners and losers. You compete.”

“Not on
Survivor
. They form teams.”

“Well
Survivor
is stupid. And they all end up betraying each other anyway. I don’t know why you’re comparing Gotcha to that dumb show.”

“Because that’s what you have to do,” Paige insists. “I talked to grads from last year. You have to protect your friends.”

“Then the game would never end.”

“Well, it always has in the past. One way or another.”

It turns out Paige’s mom is working late, so she has to walk home after all. She phones me after supper.

“I made it,” she says. “If you care to know.”

“I didn’t doubt you would.” I can just picture her, slinking from one dark patch of road to the next. Streetlights would be her greatest hazard. “It’s not like the person with your name will already have figured out your habits.”

“Oh yeah? Mariah called my cell when I was coming home, and she said Minas has been tagged by Jelani already. And then Jelani got tagged by Tyson, so now he has three beads.”

“No way!”

“Yes way!”

“Huh.” I have trouble getting my head around that. “And guess what else?” she asks, clearly worked up.

“What?”

“Mariah asked Tanysha to swap names with her.”

“She did? Why?”

“Because Tanysha has Chad’s name, and you know what that means.”

“I do?” It’s like the circuitry in my brain has malfunctioned. “Chad’s not going to like Mariah if she gets his bead.”

“That’s not how Mariah sees it. She wants an excuse to stalk him.”

Omigod. What next? “This game is sick.”

“Tell me about it,” she says with a dramatic sigh, but somehow I don’t believe she thinks the game is sick at all. She’s loving every minute of it.

Maybe she’s sick too.

“I wonder if Warren has my name,” Paige considers. “Or Justin. They could be stalking me...now that’s an interesting concept.”

It’s confirmed. I know she’s sick.

“I made it to the bank and back without being tagged,” I tell her.

“You what?”

“I had to deposit the money.”

“What money?”

“The Gotcha money.” Grad council secretary also acts as treasurer for some reason.

“I thought the school took care of the banking.”

“It used to, but now that Gotcha’s been banned, they won’t do it. It creeped me out having so much money at home, so when my mom got home I borrowed the car and stuck it in my account.”

She thinks about that. “You better be careful you don’t spend it by accident.”

“Are you kidding? I’m going to Hawaii with that money. Screw the game. Wanna come?”

“Oh sure.” Her tone has changed and I can picture the evil glint in her eyes. “But let’s make it Brazil. I hear the guys are much hotter there.”

“Okay. I hear the beaches are nice there too.”

“Who cares about the beaches?” She laughs at herself, but suddenly realizes what I’ve done. “Katie, you were stupid to go out alone! You could have been tagged.”

“No big deal.”

She sighs at my lack of enthusiasm. “It is too a big deal. Get with the game.”

“Whatever.”

“We’ll walk to school tomorrow? Same time? I’ll get my mom to drop me off.”

“Yep, see you then.” As I hang up, I picture Paige at home, checking and double-checking the locks on her doors. Visions of last year’s incident are still fresh in her mind. I decide to check our locks too.

The feeling of being swept up by a swarm of bees has intensified. Now the whole school is buzzing with news of the game. Gotcha is only played by the grads, but the excitement permeates all the grades. Before the tone for the first period has even sounded, everyone knows who’s still in
and who’s out. Those who are out are assisting their friends with bead-snatching strategies or starting rumors about who is stalking who. There’s even name trading going on, which is against the rules, but who are you going to tell?

Paige slides into the seat next to me in English. Mr. Bell hasn’t arrived yet, and Tyson is straddling his desk, fingering the string of beads he’s acquired in less than twenty-four hours. A small circle of girls surround him, and he’s clearly soaking up the attention.

“I think I know who Elijah is,” Paige whispers over the noise.

“Oh yeah, who?”

She glances around to make sure no one is eavesdropping. “He’s in the gifted program. A brain.”

“Ahhh. So
that’s
why you don’t know him.”

She swats my arm. “You don’t know him either!”

Mr. Bell strides into the classroom and claps his hands for attention. “Okay, everyone, take your seats.” He leans against his desk, arms folded across his chest, waiting. It takes a lot longer than usual for everyone to settle. It’s that Gotcha energy. When the chatter has dimmed, he observes, “The banning of Gotcha clearly didn’t have the desired affect.” He nods. “Somehow I didn’t think it would.”

“It’s a grade twelve tradition, Mr. Bell,” Tyson blurts out. “You can’t break tradition.”

Mr. Bell thinks about that for a moment. “That’s an interesting statement, Tyson. Why can’t you?”

This is so typical of Mr. Bell. He expects us to question everything. Tyson must be even stupider than I thought to make such an idiotic comment in Bell’s class.

“Well, because.”

“Because?”

“Yeah, because.” Tyson is clearly wracking his brain, trying to figure out why. “Because that’s the way things have always been done around here.”