The Fourth Stall Part II (6 page)

It was more of an accusation than an actual question. But I decided to play along.

“Why would we want to steal lab animals?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You tell me.”

I shrugged back.

“Okay, so if you aren't here for that, then can you possibly explain to me what you
are
doing in here
and
how you got in? I mean, you guys aren't even old enough to be in one of my classes, and you just said that you thought I was at practice, so it couldn't have been to come and tell me why you weren't there today. So where does that leave us?”

I glanced at Vince because I was fresh out of believable lies that could fit this situation. Plus, it's hard to think when you're panicking as much as I was right then. If Mr. Kjelson went to the Administration with this, and there was no reason not to, then Dr. George would really be on our cases. And he might even find out about my arrangement with the janitor. We'd be finished. Not only that, but this wasn't exactly helping our case to make the baseball team.

“The door was already open,” Vince started.

Mr. Kjelson looked skeptical. “They lock automatically every time they close.”

“It was ajar, not just unlocked,” Vince countered.

Mr. Kjelson frowned.

Vince took a deep breath.

“Okay, here's what happened. We stayed after school because we got detention for trespassing in the kitchen earlier today. So Mac and I finished detention and we're wandering the halls, and you know, we're basically arguing about Joe Blanton and what matters more in baseball, numbers or intangibles, like always. Anyway, somehow the SMARTs came up because since Georgie, er, I mean Dr. George mentioned them yesterday, kids have been pretty concerned. Even teachers seem concerned. I heard from this one kid that his teacher, like, freaked out in class today, and after ranting about the SMARTs for several hours, he took off his shoes and socks and was pacing throughout the classroom talking about how the floor wasn't fit for his feet to walk on and also something about an alpaca, which I guess is some sort of rabid llama, that was trying to eat him in his dream last night or something.

“Anyways, so we were debating how good old Joe Blanton would do on such a test and I was saying that of course he would pass with flying colors. That he could pass the test in under two minutes even if you cut off his arms and only gave him a T-bone steak to write with. Basically, the only way he would fail is if he played for the Cubs, since the Cubs can't really win at anything. And Mac here was arguing that Blanton could never pass, not even if he was given the answer sheet while he took the test, not even if they let Joe write the test himself! Even then he'd score like negative fourteen percent, which is so bad that it isn't even mathematically possible.

“So this is where it gets really bizarre, right? So we're walking and talking, and then I swear I saw Joe Blanton himself turn the corner and head this way. I kid you not. I could have sworn it was him. It was this tall, sort of portly dude with a nasty-awesome beard, and he was wearing pinstripes. So naturally we followed him. Except the hallway was empty, and then suddenly Christian here notices that your door is open, and we're like, ‘Hey! Might as well take a peek and see if whatever teacher's classroom this is has any extra information on the SMARTs.' So we came on in with the idea of looking for SMART stuff, and then we heard some animal noises coming from your office and . . . here we are.”

Vince panted beside me.

You see now why this guy was my right-hand man?

Mr. Kjelson didn't say a word. He just stood there, one arm still folded over his chest, the other reaching up and rubbing his chin lightly. He studied Vince. He studied us. His face was blank, as if he were in a trance.

The silence was practically exploding all around us like grenades it was so tense.

Then Mr. Kjelson did the last thing I ever expected him to do.

He laughed. He laughed until his face was red and tears were streaming down his face all over the floor, and he was slapping his leg over and over again. Okay, maybe it wasn't like that, but he did laugh pretty hard.

Vince and I glanced at each other, not sure what to do.

“Oh, that's too good, really,” Mr. Kjelson said as he started calming down. “Okay, for that little bit of entertainment, I'm going to let you guys off with a warning. This time. But you may want to consider how serious this sort of thing is before doing it again. Because there are some teachers here who would probably try to suspend or even expel you for breaking into classrooms. Okay?”

“Really? We can just go?” I said.

“I can always reconsider if you'd like,” Mr. Kjelson said.

“No, no. That's okay. Sorry for snooping, sir. We'll just go now, then.”

Vince and I started inching toward the door.

I couldn't believe that we actually might get out of this scot-free. This wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting from Mr. Kjelson. It didn't match up at all with the story that the dark-haired girl had told us just an hour earlier. Something was up. Trixie had been lying to me for some reason—the question was why?

“So can you guys tell me what you were really doing here, or is it something I probably don't even want to know?” Mr. Kjelson said as we got to the door.

I turned around, shrugged, and pointed at Vince. “It was like he said: we really were just curious about the SMARTs.”

Mr. Kjelson nodded, and then a weird look came over his face, as if he'd hoped that part was actually a lie. Of course it was, but I don't think he knew that. I think he believed the part of the story that involved us looking for SMART information. Which seemed weird. . . . Was he just disappointed that we might have been trying to cheat? It felt like there was more to it than that.

“Okay, then, off with you. I'll see you guys tomorrow at tryouts,” Kjelson said with a grin returning to his face. It was either the grin of the coolest guy alive or the grin of the devil himself. But I didn't stick around to get a second look. We basically sprinted the whole way through the halls and out the school's west door.

“That was close,” Vince said once we were a good block from the school.

“Yeah, what was that all about? He was really cool about the whole thing.”

Vince nodded. “No kidding. He was . . . I don't know. It's almost like he was
too
nice, though. No way any teacher is that cool of a person. No way.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Too nice. But . . . he is a Cubs fan.”

Vince considered this. It was all just too confusing. We walked on and shook our heads for a while, letting our brains digest what had just happened.

“We need to look into this. We need to talk to some of his students and find out what's going on with this guy. And we possibly need to talk to Trixie again, too. There's something not right about this,” I said.

“About Kjelson or about Trixie's story?”

“I don't know. Both, maybe. I mean, did you catch the weird way he reacted when we said we were just curious about the SMARTs? Either way, I know one thing: I intend to find out.”

T
he next day during morning recess I interviewed a few kids from Kjelson's classes who Joe had rounded up for me. I had told him to pay each of them a couple dollars for their time. I'm normally the guy who got paid around here, but sometimes you've got to give a little to get something back.

The first kid was Kyle, a seventh grader who had Kjelson for General Biology sixth period. He sat across from me looking pretty relaxed.

“So what can you tell me about Mr. Kjelson?” I asked.

“He's my teacher.”

“Right . . . I know that. Do you like him as a teacher?” I spoke slowly, as if talking to a dog.

“He's okay, I guess,” Kyle said in a way that a dead fish might sound if it could talk.

This was what annoyed me most about some of the older kids. Talking to them was like talking to zombies. Actually it was worse. I'd rather have been talking to a zombie. At least then I could ask him interesting questions like “Do you ever miss being alive?” or “What do brains taste like?” Still, even from his one little comment I could tell that this kid hadn't had any real problems with Kjelson. Because most kids disliked their teachers, and they had no problems saying so. It's nature, like how a mother bird knows that it needs to chew the food for her babies and then spit it into their mouths.

“You ever see him freak out in class or yell at anybody?”

“I don't know,” Kyle said. Except that he mashed it all together so it sounded like “I-uh-no.”

“How could you not know? Have you seen him act that way or not?” I asked.

Kyle shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “Can I go now?”

I sighed and made some notes in my Books. “Whatever.”

Kyle got up and slid out of the bathroom, dragging his feet and groaning like zombies do in the movies. Despite Kyle's overall inability to speak clear English, I could tell that Kjelson hadn't really done anything all that horrible in his class. Even someone like Kyle would have been able to say that much.

The next student was an eighth grader named Carissa who had Kjelson for Advanced Biology third hour.

“You have Mr. Kjelson, correct?'

“Yup.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Like what?” she asked.

I tried to stay calm and still so as not to lead her one way or the other. I've often found that the way I ask things can change what people tell me. This is usually most true for the younger kids, but it can happen with anyone.

“What's he like, as a teacher?”

“Okay, well, he's a pretty nice guy. He's actually one of my favorite teachers. For some reason his class is never as boring as my other ones. He's always telling funny stories or doing cool things with the computer. I don't know. He just, like, makes class more fun than usual, I guess.”

I nodded and tried to hide my frustration. Why wouldn't anyone spill the dirt on this guy? Maybe there was simply no dirt to spill?

“So you like him?”

She nodded.

“Has he ever yelled at anybody in class or done something unfair?”

“No, not really. I mean, one time he kicked this one kid named Justin out of class, but that's because Justin was being a real jerk. He was, like, making farting noises while Mr. K. tried to teach. As if he was still like ten or something. No offense.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“Seriously, though,” she continued. “Justin is so immature. We all hate him. But Mr. K. wasn't even all that mean, he just said, ‘Justin, time for you to leave, please,' like that.”

Only teachers who were well liked usually got called stuff like Mr. K. If a teacher who had a hard name were hated, then kids usually would just keep on mispronouncing the name because it really pissed off the teacher. Or they'd make up a mean way to say it instead.

“What about rumors? Have you heard stuff about Mr. K. being mean or anything like that?”

Carissa shrugged. “I guess one of my friends told me she heard he was a total jerk and that I'd hate him. But she didn't really know; she just heard that from someone else. I think he's nice, and so does everybody else in my class.”

I nodded and let my breath out. I hadn't realized I'd been holding it. This whole mess probably couldn't get much more confusing. I bet this is what it felt like for a blind guy trying to do a Rubik's Cube.

“Okay, thanks, Carissa. One more thing. What about this girl, is she in Kjelson's class with you?”

I held out a picture of Trixie that I'd printed at home from the DVR camera in my office. Carissa looked at it, and then it happened. It was like one of those lightbulb moments you see in cartoons. Her face just lit up.

“Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, no, she's not in my class, but now that I see this, I do remember something. I saw this girl and Mr. K. arguing in the hall one day. It looked pretty heated, like it was about way more than what a normal student and teacher might be arguing about. I think I even heard him threaten to call her mom or something, which she seemed pretty upset over.”

So finally there was something that backed up Trixie's story. Which of course only made me more confused than ever, since so far everything I'd found out had pointed toward her lying.

“Thanks,” I said, and then paid Carissa a small fee for her time.

She smiled, nodded, and left.

It was more of the same from other kids I interviewed that day. Some had nothing bad to report about Mr. Kjelson. Actually, most of them really seemed to like the guy as a teacher. But one other kid also said he saw a pretty tense exchange between Trixie and Mr. Kjelson in the hall one day. And maybe the most confusing part of all was that none of the kids I'd interviewed that day had said that Trixie was in Kjelson's class during the same hour as they were.

Finding Tyrell was getting harder these days. He'd told me the week before that'd he'd been honing his concealment skills. Apparently he'd just gotten a new book called
Self-Camouflaging: The Art of Being Invisible
. And it must've been a pretty good book because it took me the better part of lunch period that day to find the kid.

Or I guess he found me, if you want to get technical.

I was down the hill near the new playground that the school had installed last year between the football field and the Shed. It was the kind with big plastic, interconnected red, yellow, and blue slides with platforms and clear plastic bubble windows. Not many kids used this playground; most of them still hung out up the hill near all the old metal, dangerous stuff: the slides so slick that you got a face full of gravel at the end, the teeter-totters so high and heavy that a cherry bump felt like a kick in the butt from a professional soccer player, the two giant truck tires that reeked of toxic rubber and broken limbs, the old chain-link swings that went so high you could see the roof of the school, and, last but not least, the caged dome, which was perfect for high climbing, long falls, and battle royale cage-match wrestling tournaments and fights. One of the older kids had named it Thunderdome.

That's why I thought I might find Tyrell by the new playground. It was usually deserted. Every once in a while a group of first graders might head down and play on the plastic behemoth, but normally it just sat there empty and expensive looking.

I looked up all the slides and in every platform fort area on the big plastic complex. But it was empty. I jumped down into the sand and headed back toward the hill, utterly perplexed as to where Tyrell could be. I'd already checked all his usual places.

I was almost at the end of the huge sandbox housing the whole new playground system when a hand grabbed my ankle. I screamed and jumped high enough to dunk on a regulation basketball hoop.

“Shh, Mac, it's just me. Calm down,” the sand said.

But sand can't talk. At least not usually.

“What?” I said, backing away slowly.

Then Tyrell sat up out of nowhere and sand fell all around him. He had been lying in the sandbox the entire time. I'd probably even stepped on him and didn't notice.

“How?” is all I could really manage to say.

Tyrell stood up and brushed the loose sand off of his clothes. Then I saw “how.” He was wearing sand-colored sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt with the hood up. The clothes were still caked in sand, and that's when I realized that he had somehow glued sand all over the sweat suit. His shoes were also caked in sand. A small sand-colored straw stuck out of his mouth.

He reached a sand arm up, removed the straw, and pulled down his hood.

“What's up, Mac? Need help with something?”

“That's some outfit,” I said, walking back into the sandbox.

He shrugged and grinned at me. The kid was beyond unreal when it came to spying. He took his craft seriously, and it showed time and again with his amazing results. There was a good reason he was the highest-paid person on my payroll.

“Actually I do need your help,” I said, “finding out some stuff about a girl.”

“Oh yeah? What kind of stuff?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“It's not like that, Tyrell. I basically just need to know her name, who she hangs out with, after-school activities she's in. You know, the usual.”

“The Works, then?”

I nodded. “Why do girls lie so much, Tyrell?”

Tyrell shrugged a single shoulder and then smiled. “We
all
lie, Mac.”

He was right. I'd done my fair share of lying. But lying to teachers and adults was one thing. Lying to your fellow students was entirely different. Especially when you're lying to probably the one guy in the whole school who can solve your problem.

“The usual fee okay?” I asked.

Tyrell nodded.

“I also would like you to see if you can find out if Mr. Kjelson is up to anything suspicious. I don't think he is, but maybe you could just confirm that for me.”

“Hey, that's why I'm here,” he said.

“I know, exactly,
and
I may have even more for you when you're done with these two assignments. I need to know more about the SMARTs. I mean, kids seem to be getting more worried about them every day, and even the teachers are acting weird. So I kind of want to make sure they're not going to be a problem. Also, I may even need more help after that, so maybe take it easy on the whole invisible thing for a few days?”

“Sure thing, Mac. I'll be stopping by sometime soon with that info.”

“Okay, thanks, buddy.”

I gave him a salute before heading back toward the school. That's another thing that I loved about Tyrell: not only was he good at what he did, but he was fast, too. I couldn't say either of those things about too many kids these days.