Homeroom Headhunters (12 page)

YARDSTICK FIELD NOTES ENTRY #1:


LOCATION: AUDITORIUM


TIME: THIRD PERIOD. 10:30 A.M.


Every year, Greenfield Middle School holds its annual talent show.


YARDSTICK: Stepping on stage before the whole school is just about the scariest thing I've ever done. I'll never do anything like that again.


His shyness was so out of sync with his physique. Yardstick had a solid six or seven inches over the average student
—
but his voice was barely there. I had to lean in to hear what he was saying.


His yearbook photo could hardly contain him. The photographer couldn't fit his head in the frame without pulling the camera back
—
and
still
the top of his head was cropped off.


It may have said his name was Jack Cumberland in the yearbook, but his classmates called him
Scarecrow
.


Skyscraper


Flagpole


Air Control


Elevator Shaft


He was in the sixth grade when he disappeared, soon after what happened in the talent show.


He told me his story while we were watching this year's parade of untalent, from the auditorium rafters. We'd hidden ourselves along the light grid directly above a steady stream of crappy song-and-dancers, crappy rappers, and crappy stand-up comedians.


At the moment, Yardstick had a solid rope of phlegm slithering down his lips. He slurped the loogie back into his mouth and swallowed.


YARDSTICK: The longest I've ever gone is about a foot.


ME: Was that your talent? Loogie yo-yo?


YARDSTICK: Nope.


ME: What, then?


YARDSTICK: Magic.


I thought he was kidding at first, so I laughed.


Bad move on my part.


I saw him wince, just the slightest pinch in the corner of his eyes, and I realized that he was one hundred percent
not
joking.


ME: Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh.


YARDSTICK: It's okay. I'm over it now.


ME: You sure?


YARDSTICK: Like Peashooter says, “Speak softly and carry a big yardstick.”


I'm pretty sure that's not what President Teddy Roosevelt said when he originally said it, but why quibble?


This was the most Yardstick and I had ever talked to each other. In fact, it was the most I'd ever heard him say in one sitting
—
period
.


Yardstick peered down at Sarah Haversand attempting to do an interpretive dance routine. He summoned as much phlegm from his chest as his lungs would allow, a quart at least, and let the saliva ooze from his mouth.


Six inches and counting
…

Seven inches and counting
…

Eight inches and counting
…

Nine
—

The tendril snapped. The loogie took a dive straight down, smacking Sarah directly on the head. She brought her hand up and patted the dampness on her scalp, only to look up toward the rafters, eyes wide in horror, and shriek.


She probably thought a pigeon just pooped on her head.


YARDSTICK: We better book it.


ME: Good idea.


YARDSTICK FIELD NOTES ENTRY #2:


LOCATION: UNDER THE BLEACHERS


TIME: THIRD PERIOD. 11:00 A.M.


Before his big night, Yardstick's mom had helped him into his father's tuxedo from some long-gone wedding. It was too short in the sleeves
—
which was no good. If his limbs poked out from his miniature tuxedo, he would've revealed the ingenious pulley system underneath.


YARDSTICK: Magic is really just engineering. The hand's always got to be quicker than the eye, so I designed this hidden quick-draw rig.


ME: Hidden what?


YARDSTICK: All you need is some Velcro, a drawer slide, some wire and tubes
—
and presto! You've got your own concealed pigeon-release rig.


Yardstick couldn't afford a dove
—
so he had to spend an entire afternoon at the park, struggling to catch a pigeon with his bare hands.


ME: You had a pigeon stuffed under your tux the whole time?


YARDSTICK: I should've figured out a better ventilation system.


When Yardstick took to the stage, the audience could see his sixth-grade scarecrow legs trembling.


YARDSTICK: I felt like my heart was gonna bust right out of my rib cage. I'd never been so nervous in all of my life.


He'd spent weeks leading up to the show, practicing.


Perfecting his approach.


Rehearsing the pigeon trick over and over again until he knew the routine inside and out.


The judges were teachers. Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mrs. Witherspoon. Mrs. Royer. Mr. Rorshuck. They all sat stone-faced in the front row, watching Yardstick pull out a never-ending noose of handkerchiefs from his tux.


YARDSTICK: I could feel the sweat soaking through my clothes. Like I was drowning inside my tux.


Not to mention his poor pigeon.


When it was time for his grand finale, the trick that would really wow the crowd, what Yardstick didn't realize was that his feathered assistant had already suffocated inside his armpit.


YARDSTICK: The mechanics of the trick itself worked perfectly. I had constructed this trigger system where all I needed to do was squeeze a key ring in my fist, setting off the drawer slide down the length of my arm and releasing the pigeon into the air.


ME: But
…
?


YARDSTICK: But when the pigeon popped out of my sleeve, it had already kicked the bucket.


Instead of that bird soaring over everybody's heads, an explosion of feathers and blood splattered across the entire front row. The body of that feathered projectile shot directly into the face of one particular student.


Guess who?


Riley Callahan.
Pow!
Pigeoned right in the kisser.


Nobody clapped. Everybody screamed.


Yardstick was too afraid to bow. He ran offstage, all the way home.


YARDSTICK: All I wanted was for everyone to leave me alone.


Especially Riley and his cronies.


“Beanpole! How's the magic act? Learn any new stupid tricks?”


“Whatcha gonna do, Scarecrow? Pull a dead rabbit outta your butt?”


“Skyscraper! How's it feel to have the whole school hate you?”


The one magic trick he wished he'd done that night was disappear.


So, finally
—
he did.


One day, Yardstick stopped showing up to classes. His desk sat empty. His locker unopened. His library books unreturned.


Now you see him, now you don't.


Poof.


ll of you are consumed with a desire to extend the glory of the Tribe!” Peashooter addressed us from within the bowels of the boiler room.

With detention done for the day, I had just enough time to slip into the basement for a quick visit before heading home.

Now I found myself standing at attention as Peashooter marched past, inspecting each member one by one. The acne on Compass's face seemed to catch fire in proximity to his leader. Yardstick might as well have grown an extra six inches when he walked by.

Sporkboy's arms were mummified in bandages. On each of his round, apple cheeks were a pair of Band-Aids intersecting in the middle to form an X.

After he'd crashed headfirst into the trophy case, I would have expected him to sit the next few nights out. But, nope—here he was, standing in formation among the rest and sucking on a lollipop, hungry for whatever Peashooter had up his sleeve.

Talk about team spirit.

“You long to humiliate those arrogant students who dared make fun of us!”

Sully was leaning against a pipe. She glanced over at me and rolled her eyes behind Peashooter's back, as if to say,
Can you
believe this guy?

I couldn't help but laugh a little. A giggle slipped out before I could swallow it down.

Peashooter stopped in front of me. I could read:
FEAR
across one fist. Over the knuckles of the other, it said:
LOATH
.

“All of you wish to be able to say with pride…” he brayed, straight into my face, “I was with the victorious army of the Tribe!”

Peashooter's demagoguing monologues needed footnotes.

His speech came straight from world history that morning.

Forget about dealing with Napoleon Bonaparte in class.

I had Peashooter the Awesome.

“I don't mean to overstep my jurisdiction here,” I piped up. “But I'm not so sure that's exactly what Napoleon had in mind when he said that.…”

Peashooter did a double take.

“Since when did you start paying attention in history?”

“As far as short French generals go,” I said, “I'll admit I'm no pro. But I'm pretty positive Napoleon wasn't talking about getting back at his classmates for teasing him.…”

I'm sorry, Peashooter, but you're no Bonaparte.

Whenever Compass got angry, fresh fields of whiteheads sprouted across his cheeks. “You've got a lot of nerve contradicting our captain.”

“All I'm saying is—Peashooter's twisting Napoleon's words around. If you listen to the whole speech, you'd know he makes his soldiers promise to
respect
their enemy.”

“
Respect?
” Compass huffed. “Our enemies don't deserve our
respect
.”

“Napoleon even says to the people he was about to conquer,” I continued, “
We are waging a war as generous enemies, and we wish
only to crush the tyrants who enslave you
. While
you
just want to get back at everybody because some students made fun of you a long time ago.”

Peashooter pulled out that grin of his. But this time, I could see his eyes slightly tightening.

I'd hit a nerve.

“Sorry, Spence,” he said. “Stick with your fibbing. Leave history to me, okay?”

“Spencer's got a point,” Sully spoke up.

Didn't see that coming. Nobody did. Not even Peashooter.

We all stared at her.

“It's true, isn't it?” she asked. “You're talking about revenge.”

Peashooter turned back to me. He didn't look all too happy.

I think this boat just got rocked a bit
.…

• • •

Witherspoontificate kick-started our class the following morning with a discussion on the decline of Napoleon.

“What could've caused the downfall of this once-mighty emperor?” she asked. “Can anybody think of an example of what lead to Napoleon's demise?”

Sarah Haversand's hand shot up. “The invasion of Russia?”

“Yes—the disastrous Russian invasion in 1812. What else? Anyone have any thoughts?”

I raised my hand.

That's right:
I actually raised my hand.

“Spencer? You have something constructive to contribute?”

“Seems to me like he got a little carried away,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Maybe he wore out his welcome and should've called it quits while he was ahead and before somebody else overthrew him and sent him and his men to juvie hall for the rest of their lives.…”

“That's…
mostly
true. Napoleon was overextending his army because of his ambition to control more and more of the European continent. Sometimes your desire to control can lead to your own defeat.”

I hoped somebody up above was listening.

“Mr. Simms.” Pritchard's voice sputtered out from the intercom. “Please come to the boys' bathroom. We have another busted pipe.…”

I raised my hand again.

“Something else, Mr. Pendleton?”

“May I have a pass to the bathroom, please?”

• • •

I finally broke the administration's code.

Took you long enough, Spence.

Whenever Pritchard mentioned a “busted pipe” over the intercom, it meant Mr. Simms had to slog through the aftermath of another tribal act of sabotage.

Talk about employee of the month.

Peashooter had pilfered the master list of locker combinations from the office, then gutted the lockers and stuffed their contents down the toilets.

Homework assignments. Notes from class. Graded test papers.

All soaked.

“Any idea who did this?” I asked.

Mr. Simms glanced at me, then turned back toward the mess.

“Bathroom's out of order,” he said. “Best you use another one.”

“Mind if I help?”

“Don't you have some class to go to?”

I nodded. “Probably.”

“Suit yourself.”

Mr. Simms got to work on mopping up the flood of toilet water.

I picked up a sheet of loose-leaf paper floating on the floor, the ink bleeding across the page. “Do you always clean up after them?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.…”

“You know
exactly
what I'm talking about.”

He turned around and looked me dead in the eyes. “What if I do?”

“So all this time I've been saying there's a tribe of kids running around school and you acted like you didn't believe me, like I was crazy,
you knew they were here
?”

Simms went back to his mopping without saying another word.

“Who else knows about them?”

“Just us, far as I can tell,” he admitted. “That's probably how they want to keep it.”

“Are you gonna let them get away with this?” I whispered, wondering if there were eyes staring down at us from the ceiling.

“You mean rat them out?” Mr. Simms huffed. “Who'd believe me?”

I knew how he felt.

He checked to see if the coast was clear, then whispered, “I hear they've asked you to join.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just because I'm a janitor doesn't mean I don't see what's going on.” He sounded a little offended. “My advice? Not that you asked.”

“What?”

“Better know what you're getting yourself into.”

• • •

Mrs. Royer started off our English class by scribbling
THE CALL
OF THE WILD
BY JACK LONDON across the blackboard.

“Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety,”
she read from her book.
“All was confusion and action, and every moment life
and limb were in peril
…
”

I peered up toward the ceiling, not surprised to see the fiberglass panel pulled back.

Of course.

For the last part of the passage, Mrs. Royer placed her copy down on her knee and looked out at the class, reciting the rest by heart.
“They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the
law of
…
”

I recited right along with her:
“
…
Claw and fang.”

“Spencer!” Mrs. Royer's eyes widened. “I'm impressed. You're one of only two students to have read this book before I assigned it in class.”

“Who was the first?”

Of course I knew who it was.

“You wouldn't know him.… He wasn't here for long.”

“What was his name?”

All I needed was to hear her say Peashooter's true name. Research for Operation: Tribal Identity Retrieval had hit a brick wall with him, and I was desperate to know.

The other members of the Tribe had been a cinch to pinpoint. It had taken a little sifting through the yearbooks in the library, sure—but eventually I'd stumbled upon their pictures.

Sporkboy, Compass, Yardstick.

Even Sully.

I had unearthed photographs of their former sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade selves. Dressed in regular clothes. No arsenals strapped to their chests.

Not Peashooter, though. No photos. No records of his middle-school existence whatsoever.

Mrs. Royer swallowed. Her lips parted. She took in a quick breath:

“His name was—”

Bells shattered the classroom.

The fire alarm. Somebody had pulled the fire alarm.

I'll give you one guess who.

“Well, everybody,” Mrs. Royer called out over the clamor, “you know the drill. Out into the parking lot!”

Students were herded through the hallway. I straggled at the back of the line.

Passing the boys' room, I heard something inside.

An oink.

Could've been my imagination—but I stepped inside. Seemed empty. The doors to each stall were shut.

Another oink.

“Who's there?”

I walked over to the first stall and pushed it open. Nothing behind door number one.

“Sully—that you?”

Opening the middle stall door, I suddenly came face-to-face with Sporkboy.

Guess I should've gone with door number three.

His face was masked with the kind of hairnet that the cafeteria ladies wear.

He was brandishing corn dog nunchucks.

I repeat: Corn dog.
Nunchucks
.

As in, Sporkboy had taken two frozen corn dogs from the cafeteria deep freeze and tied them together with a shoestring. He swung them through the air in total ninja fashion. Those petrified hot dogs blurred into a battered haze until one of them landed directly on my shoulder. The cold sting rang through my bones.

“Ow!”

“That's from Peashooter,” he said, jabbing me in the chest with his corn dogs. “Stop sniffing around.”

“How do you keep those things so frozen?” I rubbed my shoulder.

“Liquid nitrogen from the science lab,” Sporkboy said. “Compass came up with it. It freezes things superfast and for hours.”

“Compass has way too much time on his hands.”

“Follow me,” Sporkboy said, dragging me out of the bathroom. I spotted the graffiti scrawled across his arm:
MODEL
STUDENT
. “We don't have much time.”

“Wait—where are we going?”