The Shadow Club Rising (13 page)

She shook her head. "People don't die from allergic reactions. I'm allergic to cats, and it never killed me."

"Ever swallow a cat?" I asked. "Try it sometime, and we'll see if the allergic reaction kills you."

Mr. Greene was pacing outside of his office, waiting for me. Those last steps up to him felt like the thirteen steps up to the gallows, and no amount of denials would get me out of this.

"Good morning, Jared," Greene said as I approached him there in the hallway. "I suppose you know why you are here?"

There was no smug cockiness in his tone. Instead it was dead serious, and that was scary.

"How's Alec?" I asked.

"He's home today. We hope he'll be back by Friday." I took a deep, much needed breath of relief. "Understandably," said Mr. Greene, "his parents want to bring whoever did this up on criminal charges."

And one last time I looked Greene straight in the face. No attitude, no defenses, just the honest truth.

"I didn't do this, Mr. Greene."

And Mr. Greene said, "I know you didn't, Jared." Then he swung open the door to his office to reveal it was already full of people. Faces I knew—the Shadow Club.

I stepped in, wondering at first if I was the victim of some practical joke myself. The looks on everyone's faces made it clear that I wasn't. They were as scared, and worried as I was. Darren, Jason, O. P.—all of them, even Cheryl.

"They all came to my office right after school yesterday," Mr. Greene explained, "O. P. showed me this." He pulled from his desk the medical form O. P. had shown me, with the note on the back. "We're on your side."

"I told him why you were wearing that hat," Darren said. "Why you've been dressing that way. Going undercover and all."

"I told him exactly what happened at that meeting," said Jason.

"I didn't believe them at first," said Greene.

"Yeah," said Randall, "he thought it was some trick the Shadow Club had worked out to get ourselves off the hook."

"So what changed your mind?" I asked.

"I did," said a voice that I wasn't expecting to hear. As I moved deeper into the office, I saw that someone was sitting in the Electric Chair. Not a member of the Shadow Club, not even close—it was Austin Pace.

"Why don't the rest of you get back to class," Mr. Greene said.

The Shadow Club filed out and left me alone with Austin and Mr. Greene.

"It was you, Austin?" I said incredulously. "You pulled all those pranks? You poisoned Alec's lunch?"

Mr. Greene answered for him.

"No," Mr. Greene said, "but what he did wasn't much better."

Austin wouldn't look at me. Mr. Greene had to prompt him. "Why don't you tell him, Austin."

I sat down in one of the softer chairs reserved for kids who needed kindness instead of discipline.

"I put your button on Alec's driveway."

"What?!"

"I didn't think anyone would actually find it," said Austin, already getting defensive.

"But . . . but how did you get a hold of my button?"

"Dinner at my house, remember?" Austin said. "You lost it then."

"There's more," Mr. Greene said. "Go on, Austin." Austin threw me a quick glance, then looked down.

"I heard some noises outside the night that it happened. Alec lives across the street from me, and I looked out of my bedroom window that night. I saw somebody running away. I couldn't tell who it was, but I knew it wasn't you, because, believe me, I know the way you run, Jared."

He tried to say something else, but it seemed hard in coming. He looked at Mr. Greene, he looked at me, then he looked at his own fidgeting hands. "But even if I hadn't seen it, I would have known it wasn't you, because I knew you wouldn't do something like that again—not after what happened to me."

More than anything else, hearing that from Austin was like a pardon from prison. It suddenly struck me how strange It was that of all the people in school, the one who knew me well enough to know that my heart really was in the right place was my old adversary, Austin Pace.

"Why, Austin?" I asked. "If you knew it wasn't me, then why did you put the button there?"

Then he looked at me, his face twisted in conflicting emotions: guilt, anger, frustration.

"Because I wanted it to be you."

Mr. Greene dismissed Austin, who was happy to get out of there as quickly as possible. Then Mr. Greene sat on the edge of his desk and said, "I owe you an apology, Jared. For the way I've been treating you, for not believing you, for thinking the worst. For all that, I'm sorry."

They were words I thought I would never hear Mr. Greene utter. I had to admit I had him pegged, too, as the type of guy who would weasel out of an apology, even when he knew he was dead wrong. I guess we both had misjudged each other, because it took a lot of guts for someone like him to apologize to a fourteen-year-old kid.

"And my parents?"

"Principal Diller is letting them know that you're off the hook. He doesn't know the details yet, but we'll go down there in a bit to fill them all in."

"Good," I said. "Maybe you can apologize to them, too."

Mr. Greene grinned at that. "Fair enough. I owe you that."

I could literally feel the weight being lifted off my shoulders. My chest didn't feel so tight, and although my legs were sore from all the running I did yesterday, I felt like I could jump up and touch the ceiling. I could have just accepted that sense of vindication and left, but quitting while I was ahead was never one of my strong points.

"There's just one problem," I said. "We still don't know who's been pulling all these pranks."

"It's not your problem anymore," Mr. Greene said.

"Even so," I told him, "I'd like to finish what I've started, and flush out the creep."

Mr. Greene crossed his arms, looking at me no longer as a subject to study and dissect, but more like an equal—someone who had earned his respect. I never thought I would care about that.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

It was a fantastic plan if I do say so myself. Everyone would have to work together to pull off the scam of the century— or at least the school year. It would take me, the members of the Shadow Club. It would take Principal Diller and school security, but it would also take Alec. He had the most crucial role to play. Although Alec hated me, I knew once Principal Diller sat him down and talked to him, he would play his part, because it would make him look real good.

I didn't see him, or speak to him about it, but Mr. Greene assured me that Principal Diller was taking care of it, and he'd be much more responsive to the principal than to me.

On Thursday night I wasn't good for much of anything. I was nervous, like an actor before the opening of a play. I sat at my desk staring at that blue denim cap with TSC in bright orange letters across the face.

Tyson came in, and I tried to hide the cap, but I was way too conspicuous about it. I wanted to tell him about our plan to flush out the rat in our school but somehow felt it would be wrong. He didn't need any more complications in his life.

"That's Jodi Lattimer's hat, isn't it?" he said.

I shrugged. "Tennis and Squash Center," I said. "Actually, lots of kids are wearing them now."

"But
that
one's Jodi's," he said.

"How can you tell?"

"The way the brim is curled. I notice things like that." He started to leave, probably assuming that Jodi and I had something between us. I stopped him.

"It's not what you think," I said.

"Who said I think anything?"

He went back to his room and closed the door. Not with a slam, but hard enough to mean business. I wondered if the morning would bring more of his fire sketches.

Alec was back in school on Friday, in time for the candidate debates. The day off had done wonders for him. There was no sign that he had had the allergic reaction at all. He and his parents supposedly were told by Principal Diller himself that I was not responsible for what happened, but Alec still avoided me that day. He wouldn't even make eye contact with me, and that was fine by me, because I wasn't quite ready to talk to him either.

The candidate debates went on as scheduled. Tommy Nickols tried to change his campaign slogan to "The thinking
person'
s candidate," but no spin doctor could patch up his earlier image. The final blow came when his girlfriend tried to dump him. Apparently she was more important than his quest for power, and he quit, putting his backing behind Katrina Mendelson. Alec's video ploy had rattled some votes away from Cheryl, according to the school poll, and since Katrina Mendelson was giving free, home-baked cookies to anyone who promised to vote for her, she was picking up steam. Still, Alec was way out in the lead. Although half the school couldn't stomach seeing him succeed again, the other half was ready to follow him into victory. And now the sympathy vote, which often went to Katrina in the past, was going to him, because he was the only candidate who had been glued, skunked, hair-balled, and poisoned.

By the time I arrived at school that day, everything was in place for the big show. Not the debate, but
my
big show. Although I was nervous, I knew I wasn't alone—each member of the Shadow Club was behind me, and so was Mr. Greene—even Principal Diller had a role to play. When I walked into the auditorium, the Shaditude had grown around me. It was no longer just an aura, it moved before me like a compression wave, and I rode the wave for the first time, allowing myself to really enjoy it, knowing it would be the last time I would feel the sense of head-turning power, even if it was just illusion. I could make a very successful creep, I thought, and although that should have bothered me, somehow it didn't. Perhaps because I knew I never would want to be one.

The debate questions were posed by people in the audience—people handpicked by their teachers, of course. I waited, not even hearing the questions or answers, just generating the nerve to do what I was there to do. I do remember one question, though.
What qualities make you the best candidate for the job?
Alec was asked. His answer was,
Because I'm not afraid to fight injustice, and I can tell the truth no matter how well the lies are concealed.
His words were directed at me, with that same cold stare he gave me before he knew I wasn't the one tormenting him. But I didn't have time to think about what was going on in Alec's head. I just assumed he was playing his part in the show, and I took it as my cue to stand. Principal Diller, the moderator, acknowledged me, and I came to the microphone to ask my question, feeling that compression wave of the Shaditude pushing around me, bringing me a chorus of whispers, then silencing the auditorium as I approached. It was so quiet you could hear the steam gently hissing through the radiator coils.

"I want to know," I said into the microphone, my voice larger than life, "I want to know how Alec can stand up there and say he has any self-respect whatsoever after Iso completely humiliated him." The gasps and murmurs around the room rose in a wave, then silence fell again.

"Mr. Mercer," said Principal Diller, "exactly what are you saying?"

"You know what I'm saying," I answered. "How does it feel, Alec," I said, "to stand up there knowing that I'm out here, the one who glued your hands to your head, the one who skunked you, the one who gave you some chili-cillin and put a clump of my own hair in your soda? How does it feel to look at me and know that you can't do anything about it?"

I could see his face going red and was impressed by his acting ability—he was really playing this one for all that it was worth.

"There's something I can do about it, all right."

"I admit it," I said. "I did all those things. Me and the Shadow Club. So what are you going to do about it?"

"If you want to see the type of guy who'll lead you into the upper grades," he told the audience, "then watch me now."

By now Mr. Greene was heading toward me from the back of the auditorium with a security guard.

"Mr. Diller, it's time that the Shadow Club pays for what it's done. Their time is up." Mr. Diller came out from behind the moderator's podium. Slowly the growing murmur of the crowd became a roar. I felt as though I was in the middle of a courtroom and not a junior high school debate. I half expected Principal Diller to bang a gavel and tell everyone to come to order. Instead he said, "Mr. Greene, will you have Jared Mercer escorted out, along with all the other members of the Shadow Club."

The other members were in the audience as well, spread out in various locations, each of them wearing Tennis and Squash Center hats. It had been easy to get a hat for everyone—there were enough of them around school. It was just a matter of buying or borrowing them from other kids. Even Cheryl as she stood there behind her debate podium pulled out a TSC hat and proudly put it on, to the stunned amazement of everyone gathered. The result was perfect. We had everyone fooled! That's when the security guard, who was in on it, too, took handcuffs out from his back pocket and cuffed me.

"We have zero tolerance for the Shadow Club," Mr. Diller said. "Or for any gang, now or ever. All members of the Shadow Club are expelled from this school, effective immediately." And every last one of us was escorted out, with me in the lead with my hands cuffed behind my back. It was so realistic that for a few moments even I was scared as we walked down the hallway toward the main office.

"Okay," I said to the security guard, who was holding my arm a little too tightly, "you can take these off now."

"I don't think so," he said.

I looked at him in shock, and he looked at me with those hard dark eyes of his.

Then he cracked a smile. "Hah!" he said. "You should have seen the look on your face!"

"Very funny."

We were escorted into the teachers' lounge. Mr. Greene showed up a few minutes later after the bell had rung and kids were passing. The smoked glass on the teachers'-lounge door made it impossible for other kids to see all seven of us relaxing on the sofa, munching on chips, and enjoying the guilty pleasure of being in one of the few places that is completely off-limits to students.