Just Another Hero (16 page)

Arielle waited so a few girls got to the locker room before she did. Then, slowly, she turned the corner toward the row of pale green, rusty lockers. Her purse was sitting on the bench exactly where she'd left it, with the flap up and the insides clearly visible. But the fifty-dollar bill and the ancient iPod were gone.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10

ARIELLE SHIVERED IN THE CHILLY CLASSROOM
—partly from the cold and even more from nervousness. She and Osrick, who sat up tall without his hoodie, sat in the front row and waited quietly. She had no classes in this room; it felt odd to be in someone else's space. The faded posters of American heroes and the vocabulary words on the board in an unfamiliar handwriting all added to the tension of the morning. Officer Hammler stood in uniform by the front door, his face stern.

It was the first bell of the day, the time when students got books from lockers, teachers ran off tests on the copy machine, all school attendance was taken, and announcements were made. Home Base, the time was called, and it really did serve as a relaxed launching point for most school days. But not today.

Arielle usually used this as her own personal quiet time—to scribble out some lines to a poem, finish up her
chemistry homework for that next class, or grab a doughnut and some juice from the free breakfast line. But today was different. When the morning announcements came on, she jumped, startled by the sudden noise on the TV monitor.

The student camera operators had chosen to use a close-up lens this morning, so Mrs. Sherman's large face and body filled up the whole viewing area. She was dressed all in black and looked every bit as stern as Officer Hammler.
“The following students should please report to room 123 for a special meeting. Repeat. If you hear your name called, please bring your books to room 123 for a special meeting IMMEDIATELY.

In addition to those who'd had items stolen, or who had been impacted by the thefts, she had also read off the names of all the students who were enrolled in that last-bell gym class.
“Additionally,”
Mrs. Sherman continued,
“I'm requesting all teachers who are not assigned to a class the last bell of the day or the first bell of the day, to come to room 123 to assist with this very important meeting as well. It should take only a few minutes of your time. I appreciate your swift response.”

Arielle could imagine the whispers that would be flying around the school as students whose names were called packed up their gear and headed to room 123.

“What's up with this?”

“Anybody know what the meeting is for?”

“Is it time to announce who got into National Honor Society?”

“Not with Eddie Mahoney on the list!”

“Somebody's in trouble, that's for sure.”

“Weird Osrick? What could he do bad?”

“Maybe he sneezed on somebody.”

“Maybe it's a bunch of people who treated the little dude bad.”

“That would be a much longer list, man!”

“Maybe they're prize winners.”

“Scholarship announcements, you think?”

“Naw, some of the kids whose names she called are not the tallest trees in the jungle. You know what I'm sayin'?”

“Well, maybe they're checkin' for drugs. I saw Officer Hammler down by Room 123 early this morning.”

“He got the drug-sniffing dog with him?”

“I don't know. I didn't see the dog.”

“I guess we'll find out soon enough.”

The teachers who walked into the room looked annoyed, because they'd probably been preparing for their morning classes.

“What's this all about, Thelma?” Mrs. Witherspoon asked Mrs. Sherman. “I'm trying to calibrate my computers for the day, and I really need this time.”

“Give me five minutes, Maggie, and I'll explain it all. I promise,” Mrs. Sherman assured her.

Miss Pringle came in next, carrying her ever-present mug of coffee, then Mr. Tambori, the music teacher, and Ms. Hathaway, another English teacher.

Eddie was the first student to arrive. He sat in the back of the room and folded his arms across his chest. Then came Jericho and Olivia, along with Kofi and Dana, all dressed alike in red and white school sweatshirts.

Arielle smiled at them as they sat down next to her. “Did you guys plan that?” she asked.

Kofi rolled his eyes. “When you let your girls be your fashion planners, there's no telling what they might make you do!” Dana just punched his arm.

“You know why they called this meeting?” Dana whispered.

Arielle shook her head, feeling bad that she'd had to keep all this a secret from her friends.

November slipped into the next row of seats, along with Roscoe and Luis and Cleveland. “Maybe we all won scholarships!” she whispered.

“Not likely,” Kofi replied.

“Maybe they're sending us all to Disney World!” suggested Luis.

“You trippin', man. You know how cheap the school board is. They wouldn't send us to the corner drugstore!” Cleveland told them.

“For sure.”

When Brandon walked in, wearing tailored slacks and a cashmere sweater instead of the jeans and sweats that most of the kids wore, he winked at Arielle. She could swear she caught a whiff of that cologne he wore.
He looks out of place here—as if he should be in some private boarding school instead of raggedy old Douglass. I can't believe he's making my gut do flip-flops!
she thought.

Mrs. Sherman checked off each student's name on her clipboard list as they arrived. Susan Richards, still wearing her dance clothes from morning rehearsal, slipped in quietly. The last student to arrive was Jack Krasinski. His hair was uncombed, and he looked as if he'd slept in his clothes—they were wrinkled and slightly sour smelling. But then, sleeping in one's clothes is sometimes necessary, Arielle thought ruefully.
Who am I to talk about somebody else?

“Crazy Jack is here and the party can begin!” he announced, loudly crashing his ever-present cymbals,
startling everyone. “Who brought the chips and dip?” He laughed loudly at his own joke, but nobody else seemed to think it was very funny.

“Put those things away, Jack,” the principal said sternly. “Now!”

Arielle and the other students turned to see what he would do.

He cocked his head, stared hard at Mrs. Sherman with red-rimmed eyes, then dropped the cymbals to the cement floor with a loud clattering commotion. She chose not to challenge him further.

“That's crazy, even for Jack,” Kofi whispered to Arielle.

Mrs. Sherman closed the door to the classroom and began the meeting. “All of us here at Douglass High School have been concerned with the recent thefts of money and property.”

“You find my stuff?” Cleveland called out, interrupting.

“Please let me finish,” the principal said tersely. “We have called you here this morning to do a routine check. No one is under suspicion, and no one is being accused.”

Officer Hammler spoke next in his gruff, no-nonsense voice. “Please understand that this is strictly voluntary, although we are fully within our rights to conduct this search. We are not looking in your personal property—just checking your hands. All we are asking is that you pass your hands under this black light. If nothing appears, you are free to go back to class.”

“What's supposed to show up?” asked Jericho.

“Dirt if it's
your
hands!” Roscoe said jokingly.

Officer Hammler did not answer. “Let's begin,” he said.

“Please walk to the front, pass both hands under the light, then get your gear and head back to your classrooms,” Mrs. Sherman instructed. “Would anyone like to volunteer to go first?”

The room was silent for a moment, then Eddie stood up and slung his backpack over his left shoulder. He walked slowly and deliberately to the front, everyone seeming to squeeze tighter into themselves as he passed. “I know everybody thinks I'm a thief and criminal, so I'm goin' first to show you how wrong you are!” He dropped his book bag on the floor and passed both hands under the UV light. Nothing showed except for the line markings on his palms. Eddie then turned to face the class. He stared directly at Dana and said, “I'm outta here. Later, losers.” The door slammed as he left.

“Why am I in here?” Paula Ingram asked. “I got my stuff stolen! I'm not the thief.” She put her hands under the light and left angrily.

When Kofi walked to the front, Arielle remembered what Dana had told her about Kofi's receiving the Freedom Achievers Scholarship. He deserved it, she thought with pride. She'd known him since seventh grade—he was no thief. His hands tested clear as well.

One by one each student passed their hands under the strange blue light. Roscoe. Jericho. Cleveland. Dana. November. Olivia. Brandon. All were clean.

Dana waved at Arielle as she left. “See you in chem,” she said.

Luis Morales, Wendy Bartles, and Rudy Amadour were next. Clean. Susan Richards's hands also came out clean.
Arielle noticed that Osrick bit his fingernails as that group hurried out of the room. No one who had that last-bell gym class, and no student aides who had been in the hall that bell, had shown any signs of the antitheft powder on their hands.

Most of the teachers were checked. Mrs. Witherspoon hurried out to finish setting her computers, Mr. Tambori left for the band room, and Ms. Hathaway said she had to finish grading a set of tests.

Just four students remained—Rosa Gonzalez, Arielle, Osrick, and Jack, who stomped up next. “I
hope
you find something on my hands,” he shouted, much louder than necessary for the small room, Arielle thought. “It's just first bell and already I've had a
really
bad day!”

Here it is!
Arielle just knew Jack would prove to be the thief.

Jack placed his hands under the ultraviolet light, screamed as if he were in extreme pain, and pulled them away violently. “Eeeeeeh!” he yelled. “What did you put in that blue stuff? It burns! It burns!”

Mrs. Sherman, her eyes wide, reached out to touch Jack on the shoulder, but he jerked away from her. “Jack,” she said calmly, “it's just light. It can't hurt you.” She put her own hand under the light to show him. “See? It's okay.”

He looked at her warily, then let her guide his hands under the glow. Jack's hands tested as clear as the others, but Arielle continued to watch him. His reaction to the light was way weird in her book. He looked like he hadn't slept for days. But he seemed to have calmed down, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

But then he shouted, “Don't
ever
accuse me of anything again! I am
not
a thief!”

“Jack, stop by the cafeteria and get some breakfast before you go on to second bell,” Mrs. Sherman suggested gently. “Sometimes a little food in the morning helps me manage my day so much better. And stop by Nurse Thornton's office as well, you hear?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jack mumbled. He grabbed his cymbals and his extra-large book bag and left.

“Maybe you were wrong, and the person was able to wash that stuff off, Osrick,” Arielle whispered.

Osrick, looking quite sure of himself, shook his head.

Mrs. Sherman put down the black light and flexed her fingers. “Whew! My hands are cramping up on me. Peggy, would you finish up for me? Thanks.” She handed the small black light to Miss Pringle, who seemed reluctant as she picked up the light's handle with her thumb and forefinger and nodded to Arielle to come forward. When Arielle came through clean, Miss Pringle motioned to Rosa Gonzalez. Arielle noticed that she did not go back to class as she was told, but lingered in the hall.

Osrick came up next, his small palms shining clean and bright under the light. Then he did something odd. He bumped the light with his left hand, and it slipped from Miss Pringle's grasp onto the table. As she reached to pick it up, her right hand slid under the luminosity of the UV light.

Glowing a blue-white bright, the iridescent imprint of the antitheft powder on Miss Pringle's fingers and palms screamed the accusation in the suddenly silent room.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10

ARIELLE GASPED. MISS PRINGLE DROPPED
the black light onto the floor and the bulb shattered into tiny pieces. She looked at Officer Hammler and Mrs. Sherman, and then at her hands, which under daylight looked perfectly normal. She touched a key on the lanyard around her neck. Her eyes darted around rapidly, as if she were looking for an escape, or trying to figure out what to say.

“Peggy,” Mrs. Sherman said gently, “let's go to my office and have a little chat, shall we?”

Miss Pringle nodded mutely. Officer Hammler put his hand on her shoulder as he walked out of the room with her. She did not pick up her coffee cup, so it sat there on the table, looking oddly out of place.

Arielle noticed Rosa still hovering in the hall, listening for any tidbit or detail.

“Osrick,” said Mrs. Sherman, “thank you for your wonderful detective work. Until we get to the bottom of this,
I'm asking that you and Arielle keep what just happened to yourselves.”

“Okay,” Osrick said. Then he added, “If you check that storage room in the back of the chem lab, the one she keeps locked twenty-four/seven, I'll bet you'll find some of the stolen stuff.”

Mrs. Sherman looked mildly surprised, then nodded sadly. “Go on to class now, kids.”

“Okay, but we're in Miss Pringle's class second bell—there's no teacher up there!” Arielle protested.

“I'll send the building sub up in a few. You guys are seniors—I trust you to behave yourselves for five minutes. Understood?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Mrs. Sherman hurried toward her office. Rosa scurried a few paces behind the principal.

Arielle and Osrick headed in the opposite direction down the mostly deserted hall. “How did you know?” she asked him.

“I sit close to that storeroom door, you know. So I noticed that Miss Pringle was, like,
really
diligent about locking that door. Even if she went in there ten times during class, she'd lock it back up every single time, and double-check it by jiggling the lock to make sure.”

“Well, she keeps chemicals and stuff in there. I guess she's required to keep it locked.”

“No, there was something not normal—kinda like obsessive—about how she kept locking that door,” Osrick said, shaking his head. “I made a kind of game of it—trying to peek into that storeroom before she could
lock it back. Sometimes I'd catch glimpses of things.”

“Like what?”

“I saw an iPhone on a shelf.”

Arielle inhaled sharply. “You did? Why didn't you say something?”

“She
could
have brought her own iPhone.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I also saw a camera, a couple of cell phones, and a laptop—all neatly organized on a bookshelf.”

“Lots of teachers have that stuff,” Arielle reasoned.

“I know. I just had this funny feeling at first,” Osrick explained. “But then I saw her take Paula Ingram's Game Boy.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. She was real slick and quick about it. Remember when she was messing with Roscoe about copying off the Internet? While she was talking to him, I saw her slip her hands into Paula's book bag and drop the Game Boy into the pocket of those baggy pants she wears.”

“Why didn't you say something?” Arielle asked.

“Be for real, Arielle. Who am I to accuse a teacher? You gotta have proof! That's when I started searching the Internet.”

Arielle frowned. “I don't get it. Why would a teacher steal stuff? They make lots of money—at least more than any of us do.”

“It's a sickness, I guess,” he replied. “Like alcoholism or drug addiction.”

“Freaky,” she said, shaking her head. “Hey, I gotta make a bathroom stop. I'll see you upstairs. You all right?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” As she turned toward the girls' restroom, Osrick called out to her, “Hey, Arielle. Thanks for believing in me. This was the most fun I've had since I've been in high school.”

“You're okay, Osrick. Really okay.” She smiled, waved, and disappeared into the girls' bathroom.