The Detention Club (14 page)

B
Y THE TIME
I
GOT TO
D
REW'S HOUSE
, it was dark out, but I didn't care. I stomped through the backyard and, sure enough, the Coleman lantern was on up in the tree house, and I could see Drew sitting inside, probably hatching a plan to steal back his winter jacket from me.

“Get down here!” I shouted.

Drew peeked out the window at me, then climbed down from Corbett Canyon. I went over and started shaking him by his shoulders.

“Are you insane? Why would you steal from people?” I shouted. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in right now?”

“What are you talking about? Get off me!”

“Everyone in detention thinks I'm the thief, but the truth is you're the thief—admit it!”

“I'm not the thief, Peter!” he cried.

“Who else would steal our mica collection? You wanted it for yourself this whole time. And you're mad that I made friends through detention and was winning the experiment, and sure enough, everyone in detention has gotten stuff stolen! You said so yourself how much you hated the Sweet brothers!”

“First of all, yes, I have the mica,” he said. “But I hid it from you so you wouldn't throw it out! Why would I steal it? It's in my tree house.”

“Oh,” I said. “But okay, so what were you doing up there just now? It's cold, you were plotting to steal your jacket back from me, weren't you? Fess up!”

“I wasn't, and besides—it's my jacket, Peter.”

“I knew it—you're never going to let that go!” I said. “I can't believe I didn't figure this out sooner. You fit the profile perfectly. You're a collector, and a magician, and—”

“Well then,
you
fit the profile, too.”

We stared at each other. Like I'd said before, best friends can read each other's eyes, and I realized he was telling the truth. I felt relieved and, I hate to admit it, kinda disappointed at the same time even though it meant my best friend wasn't the thief.

I sighed.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“You've changed, Peter. You're hanging out with the Sweet brothers, you get detention on purpose, and now you accuse me of being the thief? I don't know you anymore.”

“I said I was sorry. Shish kebab.”

“Did you just say ‘shish kebab'?”

“I said it instead of ‘sheesh.'”

“Why didn't you just say ‘sheesh'?”

“If everyone thought that way, we wouldn't have many words to use in conversation.”

“You're distracting me.”

“You're the one who asked me the question! Shish kebab!”

Drew sighed, making it clear we weren't having a fun conversation. He went on.

“And were they really ever your friends?” he asked. “You thought they liked you because you hung out in detention together, but they just wanted to be on the good side of the Sweet brothers, and look what it got you. You weren't invited to Angie's party, just like me, and now they've turned on you, just like that. I would've never turned on you like that, Peter.”

I groaned.

“You're right, Drew,” I said. “I've really messed things up. They're going to tell the principal I'm the thief Monday if I can't catch the real thief and return their items. And it totally looks like I am the thief—I stole those chemicals from science class, and I am a magician . . . I need your help. I don't care about the loser experiment—I'm in worse trouble than that.”

He stared at his shoes.

“You shouldn't have accused me of being the thief.”

“I know, but I'm really confused right now,” I said. “Plus, you're the one who broke us up and made up this experiment in the first place. I just want things to go back to how they used to.”

“It can never be just like it used to,” Drew said. I didn't say anything. He looked up at me. “But what choice do we have? Tell me how we're going to catch the real thief.”

I shook my head.

“I'm done screwing things up for us,” I replied. “We're going to have to figure this one out together.”

“It's because I'm good at thinking outside the box, huh?”

“You're way better than I am, at this point.”

“Let's put our thinking caps on and head up to Corbett Canyon,” he shouted.

“Okay, but promise me you'll never use the phrase ‘thinking caps' again for the rest of your life, okay? It's
so
fifth grade.”

We climbed up into Corbett Canyon, and when I sat on the floor I felt something hard stick into my back. I reached behind me and pulled out Hugh's yearbook.

“Check it out,” I said, tossing it to Drew.

“He let you borrow it?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I'll return it later, he won't even know it was missing.”

“Are you sure you're not the thief?” Drew asked.

“Just be careful with the pages.”

“What's this?” he asked when he got to the Last Will and Testament section. I explained it to him. He stared at the wall for a minute. Then he started nodding to himself as if he was hearing invisible music. “We can use this.”

He stared at me. A lightbulb started flickering inside my brain, but I couldn't quite grasp what Drew was getting at, so it kinda just flickered on and off in that way basement lightbulbs do that make it seem even scarier than not having any light at all.

“Don't you see, all we have to do is make up a phony thief to get you off the hook! The thief is going to tease everyone on the Lost-and-Found Forum message board tonight about how nobody can catch him. Then we'll have a way to communicate with him.”

“How do you know this already?” I asked him, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. “Are you sure
you're
not the thief?”

“You're not following me,” he said. “Think about it—we're popular in other towns, remember?”

“But we're not, Drew.” I sighed. “You don't really need me to go over that with you again, do you? And what does that have to do with anything?”

“Sure we are—we're friends with make-believe kids from Halliston, Peter!”

The lightbulb in my brain finally flickered on for good, and I smiled. But then,

“But they could just accuse me of making up the fake thief, and we'd be nowhere,” I pointed out.

“You're right,” he admitted, thinking about it for a few seconds. “Well, I guess you guys will have to try to catch the thief, then.”

“Now you're not making sense again.”

“No, hear me out—you and the detention club reach out to the fake thief, which is actually us, but they won't know that. You guys pose as a lonely, angry student on the yearbook committee who actually supports what the thief's doing. Make it sound like you consider the thief a modern-day Robin Hood or something, and that you hate everyone, too, so you offer to help the thief out by giving the thief an advance copy of this year's Last Will and Testament. That would be kinda like the holy grail for the thief, don't you think?”

“And then what?”

“Then you set a trap to catch the thief near the hill at school, and I'll show up disguised as the thief, and then you'll chase me and we'll lose them—and you can just say the thief escaped, and they'll have to believe that the thief isn't you!”

I frowned.

“But it's risky. It hinges on us being able to get distance from the others. What if they catch you, first?”

Drew beamed at me.

“That's why we'll set the trap next to the hill so we can use our land-skiing abilities to lose them. Nobody's faster than us, right?”

“You. Are. A. Genius,” I said.

“I have my moments,” Drew said, turning away from me and sort of staring up at the ceiling with a dreamy look on his face. After five seconds I got really bored waiting for him to stop feeling so thrilled with himself. Finally, he looked over at me and blushed. “The moment ended already, huh?”

I put a hand on his shoulder.

“It's one thing to have a moment, but it's even cooler to know exactly how long those moments last.”

“But I don't get them very often.”

“No, it's not a big deal, I'm just saying. . . .”

“Well, let's get to work on the thief's message, then,” he said.

E
VERYONE WAS BUZZING ABOUT THE
thief the next morning, and the lobby sounded like a beehive. “It's official,” a seventh grader said to Drew. “The thief wrote the school a message!”

“What are you talking about?” Drew replied, trying to seem completely clueless, but he overdid it and came off more like he was just coming out of a coma.

“I printed it out in computer lab, check it out,” the kid said, handing Drew a rumpled piece of paper. Drew kept a straight face as he showed me the message we'd composed the night before.

The Sweet brothers and Trent came over to us.

“What do you think you're doing, writing the school like that?” Hugh asked me.

“I told you, I'm not the thief,” I replied.

I couldn't help but blush even though I wasn't the real thief, I was merely posing as him to clear my name . . . it was getting confusing for me to keep track of it all at this point.

“This doesn't change things,” Trent said. “Whether this message was from you or not, if you don't catch the thief or return my basketball, we're turning you in on Monday.”

“And my hat,” Hank added.

“I have a plan for catching the thief,” I said, but they walked away. I called out to them, “I'll explain it in detention!”

“Don't worry, this'll work,” Drew said, nudging my elbow.

“Just make sure you're sitting at your computer after school so you can respond as the thief like we'd planned.”

“No more talking about it at school,” he suggested. “Just to make sure no one figures out we're behind this.”

“That's a good idea,” I agreed.

Drew frowned.

“I said no more talking!”

“I was just agreeing with the plan,” I said.

“Now you're talking again.”

“So are you!”

“What part of ‘no more talking' do you not understand?”

I sighed.

“Okay,” I said. “From this moment on, no more talking.”

Drew's face turned red after a few seconds, and finally he leaned over and whispered in a kid's ear. The kid turned to me and said, “Drew says, see you in homeroom.”

“Tell Drew I said, ‘Not if I see you first,'” I instructed him.

“You guys are weird,” the kid said, and walked away.

Apparently, it's really hard for me and Drew to stop talking to each other.

At detention that afternoon I finally explained my plan to catch the thief.

“Personally, I still think you're the thief, but if you aren't and this message is legit, I can see why the thief would want it—the Last Will and Testament's basically a shopping list for the thief,” Trent admitted.

“But Peter's the thief!” Donnie cried.

“Look, what choice do you have but to believe me?” I said calmly. “You want your things back by Monday, right? If I'm telling the truth, then I'm going to need your help to catch the real thief.”

“I vote Peter back in as leader of the investigation,” Hugh said, crossing his arms.

Everyone looked at Donnie. His brow was furrowed. Then he looked at me.

“This might just work,” he admitted. “If you really aren't the thief.”

“So what now?” Hank asked me.

“The first step is we have to make contact with the thief,” I continued. “I've composed a letter to set the bait, but I need someone to set up a fake email address so we can communicate privately with him without the feds busting us, since our first message is going to be on the Lost-and-Found Forum.”

“I'm on it,” Donnie replied, eager to have a major role in the hunt.

When the late bell rang, we ran outside and took the late bus over to Sally's house. Donnie sat down at her desk and set up a phony Guggle email address on her laptop while I took out the letter to the thief that I'd written earlier. Sally then typed up the message, since it was her computer and she wanted to have a role, too. When she was done, she called us over.

“What do you guys think?” she asked.

“It's not bad,” Trent said. “We'll get the thief to meet us somewhere, and then we'll ambush him!”

“That's
if
the thief isn't Peter,” Donnie reminded everyone.

“Hit send already, Shakespeare,” Hank said, and Sally clicked the mouse.

“Actually, she's more like Shakespeare's typist, while I'm the real Shakespeare,” I clarified, but they ignored me.

“Now what?” she asked.

“I guess we wait,” I said.

Donnie stared at me.

“You know, if you
are
the thief, we're not going to get a reply right now, we'll just get one later when you're alone and can write back, so it won't prove anything.”

“Yes, that would be the case if I actually was the thief, but I'm telling you I'm not,” I said, stalling by talking really slowly. Fortunately, Drew was on top of his game back home, and a moment later Sally's computer beeped. Everyone looked shocked.

“I guess that proves it,” Trent said to Donnie. They both looked a little disappointed, actually.

I watched everyone read the email in silence, their faces lit up blue by the computer screen. They looked excited, and a little bit scared—which seemed like a good thing, because that meant they believed it.

“Can we all make it on Saturday?” Hugh asked.

Everyone nodded.

“I can't wait for the hunt—we're going to catch the thief and be heroes!” Hank shouted, and I started high-fiving with everyone before remembering the real situation. I turned away from them and sighed. I didn't like having to juggle all these lies; it was hard to keep track of them all at this point. I couldn't wait for it to all be over so I could go to T.A.G. during the week and to Angie's parties on weekends.

I couldn't eat anything at dinner that night because I felt too antsy about the hunt. If Drew got caught, we'd both be in trouble, and it would totally look like we really were the thief even though we weren't.

“Why are you so fidgety?” Sunny asked.

“No reason,” I said quickly. “I'm just hyper, I guess, from hanging out with Trent and Sally. They, um, gave me a lot of candy.”

“Congratulations,” she said softly.

Seeing her look jealous didn't make me feel good like I'd thought it would. Maybe it was because I knew that this tiny victory was based on my lie that things were great with the detention club, but usually that doesn't stop me.

“Why aren't you eating anything?” Mom asked.

“I'm not hungry,” Sunny and I said at the same time.

“She was talking to me,” I explained, playing with my peas.

“Actually, I was talking to your sister,” Mom said.

I looked at Sunny. Her face was kinda pale.

“You look sick,” I noted. “No, I don't mean lookswise, I mean you really look like you're sick.”

“He's right,” Dad said. “Do you have a fever?”

“I just have a lot of work to do, may I be excused?” she asked.

Dad nodded, and she left the table. He looked over at my untouched plate and nodded at me. “And you shouldn't be eating candy before dinner, haven't we told you before that it ruins your appetite?”

“I assumed it was a theory you'd never actually tested out, since you've never kept sweets inside our house.”

“Do you have a bellyache?” Mom asked.

“No, I just have a lot of work to do, too,” I said. I wasn't thinking about my regular schoolwork that I regularly wasn't doing, but the inventors' fair. That was another reason I couldn't wait for the hunt to be behind us—my brain was too nervous to think about anything else, which meant I couldn't work on my inventions at night, either.

She smiled. “We'll keep your plate in the microwave and you can eat after you do some work,” she said, and I got up from the table.

“I'm glad you're buckling down with your studies like this, Son,” said Dad.

“Right,” I said, not looking at him.