Poached (30 page)

“What?” Bubba shouted. “I thought you put him in detention.”

“I did,” my principal replied. “But he got the jump on us. He told the proctor he had to go to the bathroom—and instead he must have fled the grounds.”

“How long ago?” Marge asked.

Mr. Dillnut tugged at the collar of his shirt uncomfortably. “I'm not sure. Up to fifteen minutes, maybe.”

Bubba grimaced. “He could be anywhere in town by now.” He turned to the other police officers. “Get over to his house and stake it out in case he shows there.”

The policemen raced back to their car and peeled out.

“He's not going back to his house,” Marge muttered. “No kid with an ounce of brains would do that.”

“That's why the rest of us are gonna comb the town for him,” Bubba said. “Maybe we'll get lucky.”

I glanced back toward the cafeteria windows. “Maybe we won't have to,” I said. “I'll bet Vance's friends know where he's gone.” Without waiting for an answer, I ran toward the cafeteria.

Everyone else followed me, but I got there ahead of them. I burst into the cafeteria and instantly spotted TimJim. It wasn't hard to find them, as they were a good six inches taller than almost anyone else in the school. Up until that moment I had always been afraid of them. But I surprised myself—and everyone else—by storming directly toward them. “I need to talk to you!” I demanded.

Xavier rushed into my path, apparently thinking I'd gone insane. “What are you doing?” he asked. “In case you've forgotten, these guys tried to shove your head in a toilet yesterday.”

“I haven't forgotten anything,” I said, then slipped past him and yelled at TimJim. “Where's Vance keeping the koala?”

Tim and Jim were thrown. They weren't used to kids confronting them like this. Both did their best to play dumb. Given that they
were
dumb, it shouldn't have been that hard, and yet they didn't do a very good job of it. It was a few seconds too long before one of them could figure out what a fake innocent response might be. “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about,” I said. “Vance stole Kazoo, didn't he?”

“No,” they said at once, although it was an obvious lie.

I was about to lay into them again, but before I could, someone behind me shouted, “That's not true and you both know it!”

I spun around to find Violet Grace there. She seemed stunned that the words had come out of her mouth. Everyone in the room suddenly turned to her. Even my parents, Marge, and Bubba regarded her with surprise. She shrank under the collective gaze, looking guilty.

“You knew about this?” I asked.

Violet averted her eyes, embarrassed. “Yes. Vance told me about the koala.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he stole it for me,” Violet said.

Everyone in the cafeteria gasped.

Violet quickly tried to explain. “I didn't ask him to do it! He just did it, thinking I'd be impressed or something.”

“Why would Vance be trying to impress you like that?” I asked.

“Because he's had a crush on her since third grade,” Xavier said.

Now the entire school turned to Xavier, surprised.

“None of you noticed?” he asked the crowd. “Really? I know he's tried to keep it a secret, but the guy practically drools every time Violet walks by.”

Violet blushed, embarrassed by this. “
I
didn't know he liked me. Not until he showed up at my house the other night with the koala.” The whole story suddenly came tumbling out of her; after keeping it bottled inside for the past four days, she couldn't contain it anymore. “My parents were out at a school meeting, so I was all alone—and suddenly Vance shows up at the door, saying he has a surprise for me. He totally freaked me out. First of all, he was all cut up and bleeding everywhere. And then he pulls this koala out of his backpack and says he got it for
me
. I thought it was a stuffed animal at first, but then it jumped out and scared the holy heck out of me. I always thought koalas were cute and all, but this one was
mean
. It started running around my house, squealing like a pig, knocking everything over and totally destroying the place. I got up on the couch and told Vance to get it out—but Vance didn't do anything. Instead he sat there, trying to explain that I should
like
him because he brought this crazy thing to my house. He said he was just going to get me some stupid stuffed koala at first, but then he realized he could get me a
real
one, which was like a thousand times cooler. As if I'd ever want this stinky, screeching, freaky thing.”

I thought back to the tapes I'd seen of Vance the night he stole Kazoo. He'd originally been holding a stuffed koala—the one he'd intended to give Violet. But then Vance had seen Kristi leave the office door open. And so, on the spur of the
moment, he'd decided to bring Violet the real thing instead, thinking he would
really
win her over that way. Then he'd swapped the toy for Kazoo. Only it had all worked out far worse than he'd expected. “I don't think he knew the koala would behave like that,” I explained. “He probably thought it would be like a living doll.”

“Well, it wasn't,” Violet said. “Vance is an idiot. He didn't think anything through. He said he'd gone to FunJungle to scope out the shark tank for some prank and then just swiped Kazoo on a whim.”

I groaned, regretting the day I'd suggested the shark tank prank to Xavier even more. Not only had that led to Vance forcing me to pull the prank—but it had also indirectly led to the theft of Kazoo. “Why didn't you tell anyone about this?” I asked Violet.

“Because Vance told me not to,” she replied. “I think he really expected that I would just fall in love with him when I saw he'd stolen a koala for me. And he was really upset when I didn't. I mean, like super angry. I told him he'd better take the koala back, and he said he couldn't because then they'd know he stole it. So then I said I was going to call the police—and he said that if I did that, he'd . . .” Violet trailed off, looking scared.

“Did he threaten you?” Mom asked.

Violet nodded, fighting back tears, then looked to me
again. “I
tried
to reach out to you anyhow, though. I gave you my phone number. . . .”

I grimaced, feeling like a fool. Under normal circumstances I
would
have called Violet. (Even if I'd suspected she was only using me to get to Summer.) However, a lot of other things had happened that day. The truth was, I'd forgotten Violet had given me her number at all.

But Vance hadn't, I realized. He'd been watching us through the cafeteria window. He'd
seen
Violet give me her number—and it had made him think I was a threat. Maybe he thought Violet was tipping me off about him and the koala. Or maybe he thought she was showing interest in me rather than him. Whatever the case, he decided to get rid of me. He had just learned I was a suspect in the koala's theft—so he snuck into our home and planted evidence in my room to frame me. He hadn't done it as revenge for embarrassing him, as I'd originally suspected. He'd done it to keep me away from Violet.

“Do you have any idea where Vance is keeping Kazoo?” I asked her. “It's important. He's dying.”

Violet shook her head sadly. “Vance took the koala from my house that night, and I never saw it again. I was hoping he would take it back to FunJungle, but when he didn't, I . . . I was too afraid to ask. And if I called the cops, he'd know I was the one who turned him in.” She shifted her attention
toward TimJim angrily. “But they'd know. Vance tells them
everything
.”

We all looked toward TimJim, only to find that while Violet had been distracting all of our attention, they'd been sidling toward the door. Now they made a break for it.

Bubba and Marge raced after them, but the boys had too big a head start. They were at the door before the police could take three steps.

As TimJim opened the door, though, Ethan Sokol and Dash Alexander tackled them. The football players broadsided them so hard I could hear the wind getting knocked out of them from across the room. The twins ended up flat on their backs, the jocks pinning them to the floor.

“Tell us where the koala is,” Dash warned, “or we pound both of you into dog food.”

“Even you two meatheads aren't strong enough to do that,” Tim shot back.

“Oh, it won't be just Dash and me,” Ethan told him. “It'll be
all
of us.” He pointed toward the cafeteria.

The entire student body nodded agreement. If there was one thing that could unite every single person in our school, it was saving a koala from Vance Jessup. Even a few of the cafeteria ladies joined the crowd.

TimJim gulped in fear.

“His uncle has a garage in town!” Jim blurted out. “Jessup
Automotive! He's been keeping the koala there!”

I turned back to my parents and the police. Bubba Stackhouse gave me the thumbs-up sign—this was the info he needed—and then waved for me to come quickly. I started toward him, but Violet caught my arm.

“I'm so sorry,” she told me. “I should have told someone sooner. If that koala's dead, I'll never forgive myself.”

“It's not your fault,” I said. “Trust me, I know how intimidating Vance Jessup can be.”

Violet smiled, then released my arm. “Go get him,” she said.

I grinned back, then raced out of the cafeteria. The entire student body followed me. Jessup Automotive wasn't that far from school, and this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in town. No one wanted to miss it. They swarmed past Mr. Dillnut, ignoring his demands that everyone get back to class.

“This is not a holiday!” he yelled impotently at the crowd. “This is an unexcused absence for all of you!”

Bubba, Marge, Mom, Dad, and I all piled back into the police car. We peeled out of the parking lot.

Despite the urgency of the situation, I noticed both my parents were grinning at me.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Mom said cheerfully. “It just seems you've made a lot of friends.”

“Who was that cute girl who gave you her phone number?” Dad asked.

I could feel my ears turning red. “Nobody,” I lied.

“She sure looked like somebody to me.” Dad looked at Mom, and they both stifled a laugh, as though this was all hilarious.

I tried to change the subject. “Here's what I don't understand: Why would Vance steal Kazoo just to impress a girl? How could he possibly think that would work?”

“It wouldn't be the first time a man has done something incredibly stupid to get the attention of a woman,” Dad told me. “In fact, I'll bet there isn't a man out there who hasn't made a fool of himself for love.” He looked back at Mom, and they both smiled again.

“I still don't get it,” I said.

“You will someday,” Dad told me. “Maybe even sooner than you think.”

It didn't take long to cover the few blocks to the garage, especially since the police car could tear through town at well over the speed limit. Jessup Automotive sat at the end of Main Street, right on the edge of the small commercial district. It was an old-fashioned garage and gas station that had recently gone out of business. The windows were boarded up. Behind it was a large yard surrounded by a chain-link fence. The yard was a maze of storage sheds and broken-down cars
that had been pilfered for spare parts over the years.

Bubba braked to a stop by the gas pumps. He and Marge leaped out of the car, though when my parents and I tried to follow, they turned on us.

“Stay here,” Bubba told me. “It could be dangerous back there.”

“But . . . ,” I began.

“When we find the kid, we'll bring him out here for you to ID,” Marge said. “Now just sit tight and keep your nose out of our business for once.”

I tried to protest, but Mom signaled to me to let it go.

Marge and Bubba slunk toward the boarded-up garage with their guns raised, like they were infiltrating a nest of professional assassins instead of going after a teenage boy with a stolen koala. They both seemed very excited to have an actual mission for once.

“Idiots,” Mom muttered. “They'll probably end up shooting each other.”

Bubba banged on the garage door. “Vance Jessup! We know you're in there! Come out with the koala!”

There was no answer.

My parents and I climbed out of the police car—it was too cramped and stuffy to wait inside—but we heeded Marge's warning and didn't try to follow her. Instead we waited by the gas pumps.

Behind us, people had begun to emerge from the businesses on Main Street, intrigued by the police activity. They filed out of the real estate office and the furniture store and the diner. One man came out of the barbershop halfway through a shave, his face still covered with lather.

The garage door was open. Bubba and Marge slipped inside.

A noise began to grow in the distance, a great murmur of voices. I glanced down Main Street. Several blocks away, a horde of students charged around the corner. It was my whole school, racing to see Vance's capture.

A weird, piercing screech suddenly came from the junkyard. It sounded like a large bird being strangled.

“That's a koala!” Mom exclaimed.

I'd never heard Kazoo make a sound before. But then I'd never seen him in distress.

Vance Jessup burst out of a storage shed and raced through the junky cars, wearing a backpack from which the angry koala noises emanated. Since the police were blocking any exit through the garage, he ran for the chain-link fence instead.

“He's out here!” Dad called to the police, while Mom yelled, “He's getting away!”