Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers (8 page)

“POPCORN! PEANUTS! CRACKER JACK!”

That afternoon, Briana played her part with great gusto. It was as if Shakespeare were up in the stands of the high school baseball stadium hawking food.

“Hot, buttery popcorn! Slightly salted peanuts! Crrrr-acker Jackkkkk!” She hit that final consonant so hard, it sounded like someone had just thwacked a home run.

Riley was down on the field in his school photographer disguise: safari vest, backward Furriers baseball cap, big boxy camera to block his face. The camera also had an extremely long lens so he could zoom in on Gavin Brown and see which cheerleader
he
was zooming in on.

“Do you guys see what I'm seeing?” asked Mongo over Riley's Bluetooth earpiece. Mongo was seated two rows behind Brown and blending in nicely with the freshmen. “Every time the frizzy-haired blonde in the middle moves, Gavin moves his head.”

“Yeah,” said Riley. “Bree?”

“Talk to me,” Briana whispered back. Earlier, Jake had linked up their three cell phones through a dial-in conference call service so they could remain in constant contact with one another during the game.

“The frizzy-haired blond cheerleader,” said Riley. “The one they tossed up to the top when they made the pyramid.”

“Shorty?”

“Yeah. Who is she?”

“Don't know.”

“Can you find out?”

“But of course.”

“We just need a name,” said Riley, pretending to snap a photo of the crowd, actually framing up Gavin Brown. He was wearing a Furriers baseball jersey with the sleeves cut off and had painted half his face brown, the other half white—the team colors. With his flat, round face, he looked like one of those black-and-white cookies—half chocolate, half vanilla.

Briana worked her way down the bleachers to where
the rowdy juniors and seniors were chanting and stomping along with the cheerleaders.

“Here we go, Furriers, here we go!”

Stomp, stomp.

“Here we go, Furriers, here we go!”

Stomp, stomp.

Yes, unlike football, basketball, or even lacrosse, baseball basically had one cheer. On the plus side, most fans already had it memorized.

“Excuse me,” Riley heard Briana say to somebody on his earpiece. “I think that girl down there is, like, my second cousin twice removed.”

Riley tilted his lens down. Found Briana, who was schmoozing a hunky high schooler while pointing at the frizzy-haired cheerleader, who was shaking her fake-fur pompoms.

“But, and this is, like, totally embarrassing,” Briana improvised, “I can't remember her name!” She added a giggle.

“You mean Rebecca? Rebecca Drake?”

“Right. Becca! That's what we call her at family reunions. Becca Boo. The Beckster. Beck-o-matic. Thanks! Here. On the house.”

She gave the guy a free box of Cracker Jack.

“Way to go, B,” said Riley.

“Now what?”

“Stand by. Mongo?”

“Yeah?”

“Shout, ‘Rebecca Drake stinks,' then duck.”

“But she doesn't stink, Riley. In fact, I think she is a very talented cheerleader. Very pretty, too. I can see why Gavin keeps staring at her.”

“Mongo?”

“Yes, Briana?”

“It's called acting! Act!”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Wait for my cue,” said Riley as he panned up the crowd to Gavin. Unfortunately, at that moment, their mark was stuffing a whole hot dog slathered with mustard into his mouth.

“You watching Gavin, Bree?” Riley asked.

“Yep.”

“Me, too. Okay. Go for it, Mongo.”

Mongo cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Rebecca Drake stinks!” He quickly tucked his head down between his knees.

Gavin whipped around. “Who said that?” Now he stood up. “Which one of you jerks said Rebecca stinks?”

“Shout, ‘Down in front,'” Riley coached Mongo.

“With my head between my knees?”

“Yes! Briana? Pick up on it!”

“Down in front!” shouted Mongo.

“Down in front! Down in front!” chanted Briana, even though she was in the aisle with a food tray strapped around her neck, not sitting behind Gavin Brown.

“Who said it?” Gavin hollered again.

Now he really was blocking people's view, and the Furriers' best batter, Samuel Justus, was at the plate looking like he was ready to knock one out of the park, so everybody joined in the refrain:

“Down in front, dork face, down in front!”

Stomp, stomp.

“Down in front, dork face, down in front!”

Stomp, stomp.

Flapping his hand at the whole crowd, Gavin finally sat down.

Riley grinned. Maybe it was a good thing baseball had so few cheers. The fans were always hungry for a new one.

The slugger at the plate hit a home run. The crowd rose to its feet. The bleachers rocked with joy. Everybody, including Gavin Brown, immediately forgot how some loudmouth had insulted the perky blond cheerleader.

“Our work here is done,” said Riley. “Extricate at your earliest convenience. Rendezvous in fifteen minutes at Jake's place.”

“Riley?” asked Mongo sheepishly.

“Yeah?”

“How do I extricate?”

“It means ‘get out,'” said Briana.

“Oh, okay. But the game isn't over.”

“You're right,” said Riley. “It's just getting started.”

AROUND SIX P.M., RILEY'S CREW,
joined by Jamal Wilson, reassembled in the basement of Jake Lowenstein's house.

Riley remembered when he had first met Jake. In fifth grade, Jake Lowenstein was the shy new kid without any friends who always sat in the back of any classroom. Riley, who, like so many military kids, had once moved six times and attended six different schools in a single school year, never forgot what it felt like to be the new kid with zero friends. So, one day in late September, he sat down at the desk next to Jake's and started peppering the hooded genius with whispered questions while, up at the front of the classroom, the
teacher, Mrs. Finkel—who was close to retirement and extremely hard of hearing—tapped a globe with her wooden pointer and droned on about longitude and latitude.

“Hey,” Riley whispered to Jake, “what do people in China call their good plates? Hey, is it true cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny? Hey, you ever wonder what disease cured ham actually had?”

That's the one that finally made Jake smile. “Hey,” he whispered back, “what do you call a male ladybug?”

That one cracked Riley up, and they'd been friends ever since.

Now Jake's house was where Riley, Jamal, and Mongo would be spending the night so they could get up bright and early on Sunday morning to finally start the door-to-door search for Noodle.

Or so they had told their parents.

Briana, on the other hand, didn't have to tell her mom and dad much. They were earthy-crunchies. Aging hippies with severe tree-hugging tendencies. They both wore a lot of beads and clothes made out of hemp and encouraged Briana to “blossom wherever she was planted,” which basically meant she didn't have a curfew but always had to carry an extra granola bar in her backpack in case she missed dinner.

“Jamal,” said Riley. “Good to see you. Thanks for lending a hand.”

“My pleasure, Riley Mack. We're gonna bust that old lady for scratchin' up my iPods, am I right?”

Riley nodded. “We will. Soon as Gavin turns over Noodle.”

“Sure. I understand. You need to prioritize. You know what that word means?”

“Yeah. First things first.” Riley rubbed his hands together and paced around the basement rumpus room, which Jake had tweaked out with maybe six different custom-made computers, all sorts of monitors, blinking routers, cables everywhere, and, of course, Jedi posters on the wood-paneled walls. Jake was extremely nerdly. In the good way.

“You have Rebecca Drake's number?”

“Check,” said Jake.

“Man, we had that in like two seconds,” boasted Jamal.

Jake arched an eyebrow. “We?”

“I meant Jake. You shoulda seen him clacking that keyboard, tapping into some kind of database that looked like a swimming pool full of glowing green numbers. My man Jake has wicked mad skills, y'all.”

“Yeah,” said Briana. “We know.”

“Okay,” said Riley, still pacing, “what would a high school cheerleader's favorite radio station be?”

“Easy,” said Jamal. “Z One Hundred. Got that DJ from
American Idol
. Plays songs by that fifteen-year-old
with the curly hair and dimples. Chicks dig the curly hair and dimples, man.”

Jake was glued to the computer screen, scanning the results of his most recent internet search. “Jamal's right. According to the ratings data, Z One Hundred is top with teens in the metro area. Says so on their website. Good job, kid.”

“That's because I know my demographics,” said Jamal. “Find them fascinating. Do you know what—”

“Vital or social statistics of the human population,” said Briana before Jamal could finish asking if anybody knew what
demographics
meant.

Riley barged in: “Briana? Can you do a Z One Hundred DJ voice?”

“Shuuuuuure,” she said, the single word coming out silky and smooth. “‘I'm playing the hits while you're spraying your pits.' That's for a morning DJ.”

“Jake? Patch a landline phone into your digital recorder. Briana, the Z One Hundred DJ, is going to call Rebecca Drake.”

“This. Is. Zeeeee
One Hundred
,” said Briana, getting into character.

“Good,” said Riley. “Tell Rebecca she's about to win the one-hundred dollar jackpot. That'll get her talking, even if she's still supposed to be cheering. Maybe ask her a couple trivia questions. Music junk. Get her gabbing.”

Briana nodded.

“You'll need enough material so you can imitate her voice.”

“So I can call Gavin!”

“Exactly.” Riley powered up the digital camera. “We need Brown's cell number, too,” he said to Jake.

“Already got it.”

“I told you he had mad skills,” said Jamal.

Riley flipped his camera around so Briana could check out the display screen. He thumbed through a couple of the close-ups he took of Gavin at the game. Briana cringed when Riley flashed her the hot-dog-stuffing shot.

“Faunky.”

“Yeah. Jamal? You get on that other computer. Find the high school sports site, track the game. Thirty minutes after it's over, when Briana has Rebecca's voice down cold, she calls Gavin.”

Briana had her eyes closed and was mumbling, “In my circles, in my circles”—something she always mumbled right before she “went on.”

“Now, Briana,” Riley continued, “when you get Gavin on the line, tell him how amazing he looked in his ripped-sleeve jersey and Furriers face paint. How you'd like to go out on a date with him.”

Briana pried open an eye. “Fine. Just make sure somebody has a barf bucket standing by.”

“Lay it on thick. Tell Gavin he'll make you the happiest girl in the whole wide world if he just does one iddy-biddy thing….”

“Gives you a goldendoodle puppy!” shouted Mongo.

Riley smiled slyly. “Mongo, I like the way you think.”

“Because you already thought it, right?”

Riley shrugged. “Whatever. Jake—initiate the call to Rebecca Drake.”

“On it.” Jake slipped on his headphones and pressed the red button on the digital recorder.

“The digits are rolling,” added Jamal.

“You ready, Briana?”

“This is such a fabbomatic plan, Riley!” she gushed. “Your best ever!”

“Ringing,” said Jake.

“Tell her she could be a winner,” whispered Riley.

“Yeah,” said Mongo. “So we can turn Gavin Brown into a big fat loser!”

AT SEVEN O'CLOCK ON SATURDAY
night, half an hour after the baseball game ended, Gavin Brown was sitting in his bedroom picking at the flaky white gunk between his toes.

It was his favorite part of the day—scratching his feet, sniffing his fingernails.

His mom was downstairs, snoring on the couch. She'd already scratched her feet for the night.

His dad was out somewhere on police business.

Gavin yawned. It had been a long, long day. Some of his favorite cartoons had double episodes in the morning and then he had to go to the playground in Sherman Green to work on his weekly quota. He
jumped some first graders, stole their tricycles and bouncy balls. Scored a couple tennis balls from old farts flinging them for dogs to chase after. Tomorrow, he'd hit more playgrounds. Try to snatch purses from moms busy changing diapers.

His cell phone rang. Gavin snapped open the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Gavin?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Rebecca.”

“Who?”

“Rebecca Drake, silly. You know—goooo, team!”

Ohmygod. Gavin could not believe this. Rebecca Drake, the girl of his dreams, was calling him. On a Saturday night. On the telephone. Why wasn't she out on a date with Samuel Justus, the slugger who smacked three home runs in the game? Why was the golden goddess calling him instead? Gavin was so nervous, air was whistling through his nose hairs.

“That's a pretty song,” cooed Rebecca.

“Huh?”

“That song you're whistling.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I saw you this afternoon, Gavin.”

“Huh? Where?”

“At the game, silly.”

Oh, yeah. It was definitely Rebecca. She called a lot
of boys “silly,” especially the ones she liked. Gavin had wandered the halls behind her for a couple weeks now. She wore nice perfume. Smelled like walking bubble gum.

“I loved how you painted your face brown and white!” Rebecca gushed. “That shows true school spirit and I'm, like, a cheerleader, so that much school spirit means an awful lot to me.”

“Did you like my shirt?”

“The shirt was amazingly awesome, Gavbo. Can I call you Gavbo, Gavin?”

He gulped before he answered. “Sure.”

“I especially liked the stringy threads under your armpits where you cut off the sleeves.”

“Thanks. I didn't use scissors. I just tore 'em off.”

“Awesome! Anyway, me and my girlfriends…”

“Those other cheerleaders?”

“Yeah. Anyway, we were, you know, chilling after the game and, like, talking and junk and, like, Sherry—she's, like, the one on my left…”

“Oh, yeah. She's cute.”

Ooops. Mistake.

“But not as cute as you, Rebecca. You're the cutest.”

“Yeah. I know. Anyway, Sherry said she, like, heard that you're the kind of guy who can get a girl anything she wants.”

“Where'd she hear that?”

“Around.”

“Well, she's two hundred percent correct! You name it, I can get it for you!”

“Really? Because I'd really like to hang out with you, Gavbo. So, if you do this one iddy-biddy thing for me…”

Gavin stood up straight. “What is it you want, Rebecca?”

“A goldendoodle!”

“What's that?”

“A dog, silly. You know—part golden retriever, part poodle.”

“A golden poodle?”

“Doodle!”

“I never heard of such a thing. It's a dog?”

Rebecca giggled. “Are you playing games with me, Gavin?”

“No, I swear. I don't know about any goldendoodles but I could go buy you one. Where do they sell them?”

“Come on, Gavbo. Sherry said you were the man. That you probably already had a goldendoodle. A puppy? Wears a pink sparkly collar?”

“I have a couple golden watches. They sparkle.”

“I want a goldendoodle! A cutiful doggy just like the one on all those Lost Dog posters all over town?”

“Sorry. I haven't seen those.”

“What, are you, like, totally blind or something?”

“Don't be mad at me, Rebecca, please? I'll find you a goldendoodle, okay? I promise!”

“Where?”

“I'm not sure! But if you want a goldendoodle, I'll get you a goldendoodle—even if I have to steal it!”

And Rebecca hung up on him.