The Fourth Stall Part II (9 page)

M
y first reaction was that perhaps Fred was wrong, that Dr. George was headed this way for some other reason. Then I came to my senses and realized just what would happen if Dr. George noticed a giant line of kids outside a supposedly closed bathroom and then found me in there with a desk in a stall, my Books, and a cashbox containing a few hundred dollars: my business would be no more.

I heard what sounded like a billion footsteps as the kids in line ran for their lives. Then the door to the bathroom burst open, and I heard Joe yell, “Mac, Dr. George is coming. What should we do?”

I turned to tell Tyrell to take off, but he was no longer there. All that sat across from me in the small plastic chair was air and some dust particles. Even now, in a time of life-shattering chaos, I had to take half a second to admire the kid.

I stepped out of my office and into the bathroom. The three panicked faces of Joe, Fred, and Vince stared at me.

“Guys, we've been over this,” I said. “Initiate Operation Tuxedo Bacon.”

Operation Tuxedo Bacon was a procedure we'd put in place way back when we'd first adopted this bathroom as my office. It was designed for this exact situation: What would we do if someone from the Administration ever came down this way? If you can believe it, it had yet to happen. The Suits don't often venture too far from their offices, especially not all the way down here to the East Wing. There was nothing down here but this old bathroom and a few classrooms that were shut down years ago due to asbestos and had never been used again since the removal.

Now it was time to see if Operation T.B. actually worked.

Joe dove inside my office and placed the three plastic chairs on top of the desk. Then he lifted the whole thing off the ground and carried it to the next stall over. He sat on the toilet with the small desk and chairs balanced on his lap and then shut the stall's door. This part of the plan was key, as only Joe's feet could be seen under the stall, thereby eliminating all traces of the desk and chairs. It never would have worked if Joe were a normal-sized kid, because most normal-sized kids would have buckled under the pressure of a desk and three chairs. Luckily for us he was practically the size of a small truck.

While Joe did this, Vince ran out to the hallway to intercept Dr. George and distract him with questions or stories of some sort. Vince could spin stuff off like nobody's business, so I trusted he'd buy us enough time to get everything concealed.

Meanwhile Fred stood there looking like a Tasered criminal while I scrambled to get all my Books and locked cashbox stored in the trash can, where I normally stored them each night after school before we all went home. Fred had no duties because he hadn't been around when we came up with Operation T.B.

I grabbed the DVRs out of the first stall and shoved them into his hands. They were almost too much for him to carry, but he held on. “Fred, just go!” I whispered.

He nodded and dashed out the door.

I finished stashing all of our Books and the cashbox and then got out my key to the bathroom. Ideally the plan was for me to make it out quickly enough to lock the bathroom door from the outside so any approaching Suits wouldn't be able to get in right away. The janitor had provided us with a pretty authentic-looking “Out of Order for Health Code Reasons” sign that would explain why the bathroom was locked.

I could hear voices already, so I knew I didn't have time for the health code sign, but I still thought I might be able to lock the door before Dr. George was in view. I hurried out of the bathroom and into the hallway with the key in my hand.

But it was too late.

Dr. George was just fifteen feet away and approaching fast. Vince was on his tail like a little puppy dog. He bounced excitedly and was clearly trying desperately to distract the vice principal.

“Hey, Dr. George, hey!” Vince chattered as he bounced along behind him. “Are you sure you don't want to hear more about my pet turtle, Billiam? Because I swear he's the greatest turtle ever, really! One time I made him a castle, and you should have seen the way he lorded over the peasant frogs I stuck inside of it with him. He was a natural, if I don't say so myself!

“Oh, and this one time I also made him a little Hula-Hoop out of these magic rings I stole from a Canadian magician. I even took the turtle out of his shell so he could use the Hula-Hoop. Except, man, he really didn't want to come out. I finally was able to get him out with a big rock, but holy Yeltsin, did it ever make an awful mess of his shell house. Anyways, I think the ring still had magic on it because when I put it around the turtle he stopped moving and went into a coma; it was pretty sad. I still have the little guy. He's safe in his coma in my sock drawer, but one day I'm gonna find the counter spell to the Canadian's magic. Do you think it'd take a spell from a Mexican magician? Well, do ya?”

I had to keep back a laugh, because sadly enough that was a true story. But Vince was only in kindergarten at the time, so we hadn't known any better. I swear, too, once we found out that the turtle was dead and not in a coma, we both cried for like a week straight. We'd just wanted him to Hula-Hoop.

Dr. George was just a few feet away now, but Vince actually got him to stop and face him, buying me just enough time to pocket the bathroom key without being noticed.

“What is wrong with you?” Dr. George asked Vince in a way that I thought adults were never supposed to talk to children.

Vince just grinned at him.

“That is not an appropriate story to be telling, okay? Now get back to class before I give you detention!”

“But there's still recess for another three minutes,” Vince said, keeping that dumb grin spread all over his face like butter on toast.

“Go!” Dr. George yelled.

Vince glanced at me, shrugged, and wandered off down the hall.

I made a move as if I was also just leaving, but Dr. George grabbed my shoulder with his crusty old hand. He grabbed it harder than any adult should ever grab a kid, and my knees almost buckled at the pain of his fingers digging into my arm.

“Get in there,” he said, motioning toward the bathroom with his other hand.

“But I just finished. Why would I—”

“
Now
, Mr. Barrett,” he hissed.

I let him guide me back inside the bathroom. He stopped in the middle and looked around as if he'd never been inside a bathroom before. I was afraid he was going to ask me for instructions or something.

“What's going on in here?” he asked.

“Uh, probably some kids using the bathroom,” I said, rubbing my sore shoulder.

He raised his hand, and for a moment I thought he was going to slap me, so I flinched. Then he laughed and merely rubbed his stiff fake hair and sighed. He coughed and then jabbed his finger in my chest. Hard. His old bony pointer finger slammed into my sternum with enough force that I thought I heard my chest crack in half.

“You are a liar! I know you're up to something,” he said, jabbing me with his finger once for every other word.

“I don't know what to say, sir,” I said, trying to hold back the urge to poke him back right in his bulging eyeballs like in this old Three Stooges movie I saw once.

“Start by telling me what you were doing all the way down here. This bathroom is nowhere near your classrooms or the playgrounds.”

I shrugged and looked at my feet.

“Well?” he asked.

I started crying. Not for real. It was just a ruse, of course. Being able to cry on demand is a pretty powerful tool when dealing with adults. But my aching shoulder and chest certainly didn't hurt my ability to cry right there on the spot.

“I'm too embarrassed to go in the other ones.” I sobbed. “I get . . .
shy
in bathrooms where a lot of people go, okay?”

I could feel Dr. George's old, wrinkle-shaded eyes staring at the top of my head. He said nothing for the longest time. Finally I peeked up at him.

He was smiling. I'd never seen him smile before. On his face a smirk looked about as natural as a blind, three-legged giraffe on stilts and roller skates would look trying to play centerfield in a major league baseball game.

“You think I'm going to buy that?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Well, I don't, so cut the crap,” he said, once again jabbing his finger at me to emphasize his words, only this time it stopped just short of my face. This guy sure loved to use his finger to make points. I wondered if he'd even be able to communicate with other human beings without it.

I didn't know what else to say, so I just looked him right in the eyes. It felt like I was looking into an emotional desert, a place where there is nothing but dry, hot, mean sand. He squinted and shoved past me.

He pushed back the swinging door to the trash can where all of my money and records were stashed and looked inside. He leaned down and moved his head from side to side, so he could see in at all angles. Then he reached down in and pulled out a mashed ball of paper towels.

Dr. George scowled and stuffed them back inside. He wiped his hand on his suit pants. I tried not to breathe my sigh of relief too loudly. I'd stashed some damp paper towels on top of my stuff for extra cover, but what if he'd reached into the trash can just a little bit deeper?

Then he moved to the first stall and pushed the door open. When he saw that it was empty, Dr. George moved to the second stall and then on to the third, the very stall in which Joe sat on a toilet with my small desk and chairs resting on his lap. He was probably dying from the weight and panic. The door didn't budge when Dr. George pushed.

“Occupied,” Joe's voice rang out.

“Who are you? I demand to know what's going on!” Dr. George said.

“Uh, do you
really
want to know what's going on in here?” Joe said.

“Stop this foolishness! I know trouble when I see it. Now what are you two up to?”

“Dude, there's only one of me in here, and I'm telling you, you don't want to know what's happening in here,” Joe said. The desk must have been getting heavy because Joe's last few words strained as if he was being choked. Under the circumstances it actually sounded authentically gross, if you know what I mean.

Dr. George must have heard it, too, because his scowl disappeared and he looked uncertain for the first time.

“I still want—” He was cut off by the recess bell.

“Sir, that's the bell. It means I have to go back to class. Can I please go?” I begged while dancing impatiently.

“I know what that bell was.” Dr. George sneered as he glanced at his watch and then walked toward the bathroom door. “I have an important meeting right now, but I'm going to find out what sort of racket you've got going on in here, Mr. Barrett. You'd better believe that. How does one more day of detention sound in the meantime?”

“For what?”

“Okay, you want two?”

I kept my mouth shut, figuring that there was no response I could give that wouldn't result in more detention.

With that he nodded and showed me his teeth in what I can only imagine was another attempt at a smile. Then he was gone. I waited a few moments to make sure he wasn't coming back and then I quickly helped Joe put the desk back. Fred came back, and I hooked up the DVRs again and then locked the bathroom from the outside.

“What are we going to do, Mac?” Joe asked.

“I don't know,” I said, “but you guys better get to class. We can't all be in detention today. We still have a business to run.”

A
t lunch that day we decided to just close up the office. Joe hung the “Closed for Repairs” sign on the door so kids knew that we'd be out indefinitely. We needed to lay low right now, at least until we could figure how to get Dr. George off our tails.

I let Fred do whatever he wanted for the rest of the day and sent Joe on a few errands for some of the customers I'd seen the past few days. Vince and I went outside to the playground to brainstorm.

“Before we get down to business, I need to ask you something,” I said.

“Okay, shoot.”

“What's the Cubs' longest winning streak in team history?”

“You realize that I'm not a moron, right?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Could have fooled me, Joe Blanton lover.”

Vince scoffed theatrically and then kicked some pebbles down the hill. We were headed to the new playground by the Shed for privacy reasons. We couldn't be too careful.

“Twenty-one games. They did it twice, once in 1880 and again in 1935. Both currently stand as tied for the second-longest winning streaks in baseball history.”

“Wow, that was so much more information than I asked for. Thanks for wasting ten seconds of my life, Mr. Show-off,” I said.

Vince laughed as we reached the playground and sat on the swings, but his laughter sounded pretty vacant. I was pretty sure he was thinking the same thing I was.

“So,” I said, “are we ever going to get to use the office again? I mean, now that we know George is onto us, it may not be safe to open up shop in there.”

Vince shook his head. The look on his face seemed about as bleak as the gravel under our feet, which was destined to sit there forever getting trampled by kids.

“What are we going to do, Vince? Without the office we pretty much don't have a business.”

“I know, I know. We'll figure something out,” he said. “Or I mean, you will, right?”

“Hey, hey, I'm not Joe Blanton. I can't work miracles,” I said. “But maybe even more important is figuring out more about the SMARTs. I hope Tyrell comes through for us, because if our school doesn't pass those, then there'll definitely be no business for us.”

Vince nodded solemnly, and I started getting too bummed so I decided to change the subject.

“Did I tell you yet that I got to dance with Hannah?”

Vince's jaw dropped. Then he composed himself. “Whatever. I'm not that stupid.”

“No, seriously, Vince. In gym class we did dancing, and I got paired up with her. She was actually really nice.”

Vince shook his head and kicked at the sandy gravel under his feet. It made me nervous that he wasn't saying anything. Then he sighed.

“Well, she's a liar. Remember that, Mac? So don't get fooled. She was probably just, like, selling her lies, you know?” Vince said.

My first impulse was to call
him
a liar and then kick sand in his face, but the more I thought about it the more I realized he was probably right. She was blinding me, making me into an idiot by being nice to me. And I'd fallen for it like a chump.

“Yeah, you're probably right. It was still weird, though. But at least I now know for sure that something really strange is going on around here. I mean, the fried school lunches, the weird gym classes, someone dumping poop into kids' lockers, kids not getting punished for fighting, and on and on. I mean, for all of this stuff to be happening at the same time . . . well, it all had to be related somehow. Didn't it? I mean, all of this stuff adding together is so bad that they even brought in Dr. George to try and fix it.”

Vince nodded slowly. “Yeah, it all must be related. But why? Why would anyone do this, and who would have the power to do all of that stuff?”

“Definitely a school employee,” I said.

“Oh man, Mac!” Vince said. “I can't believe I never connected the dots before.”

“What?”

“What other major event occurred right around the time these weird things started happening? Right before George showed up to fix everything?”

It hit me. Mr. Kjelson. Mr. Kjelson started here just a few months ago.

“Coach Kjelson,” I said, not wanting to make that connection. “Maybe Hannah actually has been right all along. That still doesn't explain why she lied about dating Mr. Kjelson's son, but still . . .”

“Exactly,” Vince said, shaking his head slowly with a look of pain on his face. It was always a tragic thing to discover a fellow Cubs fan might be up to no good. Especially a guy as cool as Kjelson had seemed to be. “I mean, that can't just be a coincidence, can it?”

“I don't think we can afford to assume it is,” I agreed. “So now we need to figure out if Kjelson is somehow behind this all. And why would he want to take down the school? All this in addition to finding a way to take down George before he shuts down our business and trying to figure out how to make sure we all pass the SMARTs. Great.”

Vince didn't have much to add so he just kept shaking his head, still mourning the possible corruption of a Cubs fan.

“Right. What should we do about George?” Vince asked.

“We need some dirt on the guy. Maybe Tyrell can dig up something on him, or we could do some espionage work ourselves and see what we can find in his office or something,” I said.

“Isn't that going to be dangerous?”

“What choice do we have? We have to do
something
.”

“Good point,” Vince conceded.

“Anyways, you help out Joe after school with some of the other customers. At detention I'm going to confront Hannah and see why she lied to us. There's something more to all of this, and I have a bad feeling about it.”

Vince nodded and looked at his feet. “Oh, okay. Yeah, that's cool.”

“What's the matter with you?”

“I don't know. I just thought we could maybe do a dual interview. I kind of like that girl for some reason,” he said. “Besides, she already fooled you into a false sense of security once today.”

I laughed and said, “Hey, stay focused, Vince. We have other customers, you know? Customers who have actually paid us. We need to focus on them. Plus, don't worry about me; I'm onto her tricks now.”

Even as we walked back toward the school, I kept wondering why I was so worried about Hannah. Really, I should have been handling the other problems for paying customers. And why
couldn't
Vince come with me to talk to Hannah? He'd always handled her better than me anyways. I didn't know why, but I couldn't really come up with any answers to those questions, and that bothered me most of all.

In class that afternoon Mr. Skari announced that the whole school would be taking the SMARTs the next day. Which gave me basically no time to figure out how the tests worked and whether I needed to intervene and also how I would even be able to do that. Most everyone in the class groaned after the announcement and I did, too, but for slightly different reasons.

There was still a chance that Tyrell could come through with some info for me. After all, the day didn't end when school did, but it was a long shot. I mean, Tyrell was good, sure, but was he that good? Could anyone be that good?

And thing was, the way Mr. Skari acted next convinced me more than ever that I needed to do something. Ever since last Wednesday we'd been doing nothing but SMART-based worksheet packets and taking practice tests. And now he was up front announcing to all of us that we'd done all right on them—but that that wasn't enough.

“This last round of practice tests went okay but barely. It would be much better if we had another week to hone your skills.” There was a glimmer of desperation that I'd never seen in him before.

Mr. Skari was a big dude, bigger than my dad, maybe the tallest guy I'd ever seen in person. But he also was pretty calm, laid back about most things, except for staying on schedule, of course. Which is part of why I liked him as a teacher: he wasn't tightly wound like a lot of the other teachers. Except for now, when dealing with these SMARTs, he was acting like he was more tightly wound than a fishing reel with a twenty-foot, three-ton shark on the other end.

So he really pushed us hard the rest of the day, which stunk because Mondays are bad enough as is. But if anything, all he did was make the already panicked kids so panicked that I thought for sure a riot was going to break out or at the very least some heads would explode.

I decided to stick around after class to ask about the SMARTs. See what he might be able to tell me. I had detention from the incident with George that morning in the fourth stall, but since Mr. Skari was a teacher, he could write me a late excuse note.

“What can I help you with, Baretta?”

I have no idea why Mr. Skari sometimes called me that; he was always making up weird nicknames for kids. Some kids thought it just made him weird, but most of us liked it. Anything abnormal that teachers did usually was a good thing. It kept school more interesting, because otherwise it got old and boring after, like, the second day of school every year. Mr. Skari already stood out because it wasn't every day you came across a six-foot-six-inch-tall elementary school teacher.

“Why are these tests so important?” I asked. “I mean, even you teachers seem pretty worried.”

“Well, it's because they're a reflection of how well the school is doing. To all of the most important people. The people who make decisions about the school and its staff.”

I nodded, but I wasn't sure I understood completely. He made it seem like this test was all that mattered, like all of the other stuff we did all year long was just for show and counted for nothing.

“I heard that this test could get the school closed down. Is that true?”

“Oh.” Mr. Skari smiled hollowly. “Well, don't worry about that kind of stuff. Just do the best you can.”

I let it go, but his answer worried me. Or I guess I should say his lack of an answer worried me. He maybe thought I was too young to notice that he'd dodged the question, that he didn't really deny it, but I practically invented question dodging so I didn't miss it. Basically he had just told me the answer was yes without really saying anything at all.

“Who grades the tests? Like, how do they work? I mean, if they're so important, then shouldn't our teachers be grading them?”

At this Mr. Skari actually laughed. “I think I have some stuff to do, and if I'm not mistaken, I have it down here that you're actually supposed to be in detention right now.”

I also wasn't too young to know what this was: an end to the conversation.

I nodded, and he handed me my late pass. I left not really feeling better at all, even though I'd found out plenty. In fact I felt worse because I now knew that these tests were just as important to the Suits in charge of this place as we'd all feared. And our window to do something about them was closing fast.