The Detention Club (12 page)

I
T FELT WEIRD TO WALK BY MYSELF
to school the following Monday. Even though I was mad at Drew for accusing me of being the source of all our troubles, I had to admit that I already couldn't wait for the experiment to be over so Drew and I could go back to being best friends. What the heck was he thinking? He'd never been good at coming up with ideas on his own. He was just going to make a fool of himself, like that new kid last year, Pierre something, who moved to Fenwick midway through fifth grade. He tried to get everyone to like him the first day by bringing in a box of fancy French cookies, and it worked for a little while, but by the end of recess he'd run out of cookies and everyone went back to not being friends with him. He's not in middle school now, and nobody knows what happened to him.

At the same time, I realized that I didn't have a solution, myself. I pictured the way classmates seemed shocked that I was with the Sweet brothers at the mall. None of them had tried to talk to Hugh and Hank, though. I thought about what Sunny had said about them—maybe she was right. In which case, being friends with the Sweet brothers would only solve the bullying problem, but me and Drew would still be losers. How could I use my new friendship with the Sweet brothers to become popular? I suddenly felt really depressed that there was no obvious answer, but it turned out the answer was right around the corner. I walked into the lobby before homeroom, and Trent immediately approached me.

“I saw you last week at the mall,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I scratched the top of my head. “I don't recall that at all.”

“Were you with the Sweet brothers?”

“They're friends of mine,” I said.

“Can you get me in tight with them?”

“I suppose I could try.” At first I wanted to immediately bring him over to the Sweet brothers and introduce them, but then I thought, that would be the end of that, just like when poor ol' Pierre ran out of his fancy French cookies. “It's not that easy. I can't just introduce you right now—they might beat you up or something.”

Trent looked scared.

“Don't worry,” I added. “I'll figure something out. You just have to earn their respect like I did.”

“How do I do that?”

“I think I have a plan,” I said. “Are you free this afternoon?”

Trent nodded. The bell rang, and we trudged upstairs. I almost ran right into Sunny—she was lugging her yellow inventor's duffel bag around, even though she had her backpack on, too.

“Why are you carrying that thing around? That's what the cubbies are for.”

“I was working on my prototype last night, genius,” she said. “Besides, I'm not leaving my bag overnight here—there's a thief, remember?”

“The thief's not going to try to steal something from you again. It's like lightning—if you got struck once, then you probably won't get struck again.”

“There's a forest ranger who got struck seven times, actually, it's in
Guinness Book of World Records
,” she objected.

I rolled my eyes.

“Whatever—have fun lugging that thing around for the rest of your life.”

* * *

When I showed up at social-studies class after lunch, Trent was sitting in his usual spot, staring intently at his desktop. I waited for Mrs. Farley to get into her lecture about whatever it was we were supposed to be learning before I commenced with what I later thought of as the conversation method. The teacher turned around to scribble something on the chalkboard, at which point I said loudly, “What's that, Trent?”

He looked up at me with a confused expression on his face.

“And so these people from this country attacked the people from this other country, and . . .” Mrs. Farley rambled on, writing some weird names I'd never heard of onto the chalkboard. Trent stared back down at his desktop.

“I'm sorry, come again, Trent?” I said.

Mrs. Farley turned around.

“No talking, boys,” she said.

I shrugged my shoulders at the teacher and squinted at the chalkboard, scribbling lines into my notebook in a way that suggested from a distance that I was writing actual words. She went back to talking about some war or meeting overseas that took place a really long time ago, and I said a third time, “What did you just ask me, Trent?”

“I didn't say anything!” he said.

“I said, let's stop the chitchat, Trent,” Mrs. Farley said.

“It's not me, teach!” Trent's face was turning bright red.

She sighed disappointedly at him, then resumed writing something on the chalkboard. I turned to Trent.

“What is it you're asking me?” I whispered loudly.

“It's not me, I'm not saying anything,” Trent shouted. “What the heck's wrong with you?”

“That's it, you two,” Mrs. Farley snapped. “You can continue your conversation in detention after school.”

Will do, I thought.

“Mrs. Farley, Street Magic's Assistant here keeps talking to me, but I swear I'm not saying anything!”

“And how do you respond to that, Street Mag—er, Mr. Lee?” she asked me.

“Agree to disagree,” I said, trying to look confused. “I was merely asking Trent to repeat what he was asking me.”

She sighed, then turned and continued writing things on the chalkboard.

“What's wrong with you?” Trent whispered to me.

“Shh,” I whispered back. “You're going to get us in more trouble.”

Trent's face turned red.

When the bell rang at the end of the day, I practically sprinted off to detention class. As I turned the corner, I almost crashed into Sunny, who was sitting at a desk in the middle of the hallway, wearing her stupid hall-monitor sash.

“Are you still trying to glom on to me?” she said.

“No!”

“Well, you can't run in the halls,” she said. “I'm going to have to write you up.”

“But it's after school!” I shouted. “Why do they need a hall monitor after school, anyway?”

“I volunteered,” she replied. “We have band rehearsal soon, so I figured I'd squeeze in some minutes.”

“That is incredibly nerdy, you know that?”

“Why are you running in the first place?”

“I have detention,” I said with a big smile on my face.

“And you're happy about that? Right, so
I'm
the nerd. . . .”

“I'm proud of you—it takes courage to be able to admit something so lame about yourself,” I said, taking off.

“You know that's not what I meant—
slow down!
” she shouted after me, but I ignored her.

I opened the door to room 12, and Trent was already there, staring at his desk in the back row. He stared at desks a lot, for some reason. He looked up and waved me over—already the power of the detention force field was working!

“Aloha, Trent,” I said. “So what was that thing you were asking me in class earlier?”

“Dude, I wasn't saying a word, you were talking to me!”

“I'm kidding. I did it on purpose.”

“Why would you do that?” he asked, fuming.

“You said you wanted to get in tight with the Sweet brothers, didn't you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, but then the door opened, and in walked Hugh and Hank.

“Hey, guys,” I said cheerfully. “Do you know Trent?”

They glared at him.

“Did you come here to bring us our allowance?” Hugh asked him.

Trent looked at me. I shook my head, so Trent shook his head at them.

“What are you in here for?” Hank asked.

Trent looked at me again.

“Let's just say the teachers aren't crazy about him at this point,” I said. “And leave it at that.”

Hugh laughed, and sat down next to Trent, who noticeably stiffened. But by the end of detention it seemed they were getting along famously, and Trent leaned over and whispered to me, “Thanks, bro. So you think they like me?”

“Honestly, I don't think so,” I said.

“How can you tell? We were talking the entire detention!”

“I know those two. They're not sure about you. Just keep getting detentions and I'll work on them from my end.”

Trent sighed, and I patted him on the shoulder.

“It's a good start, I know they'll change their mind about you eventually. But for this to work, you can't tell anyone how I'm helping you. If the Sweet brothers were to find out, we'd both be toast, and I can't have that.”

“I owe you one, man,” he replied.

The detention theory worked! Maybe Drew was right, in a way. We had to break up in order for me to figure out how to finally solve things.

I
GOT HOME FROM SCHOOL AND
Mom was sitting in the living room with her sewing kit out. She waved me over. “Look, I'm making you something.”

A pile of my clothes was lying in a heap next to her. I frowned.

“You're not trying to make me clothes again, are you?” I asked her.

When I was in fourth grade, I went through a mini growth spurt and my mom was upset that clothes cost so much, so she tried making me clothes that winter. I went to school in sweaters that looked okay in the morning, but if they got caught on a nail or on the edge of a desk, they would unravel, and I'd come home with half a sleeve missing and a ball of yarn trailing behind me like a colored tail. She would've kept making me shoddy clothes for the rest of my life, but then I stopped growing and haven't grown since, so I guess there's one good thing about being so little.

“I'm sewing your initials on every piece of clothing you own,” she said. “I got an email today from the vice-principal. He said they were emailing all parents to alert them to this thief problem at your school.”

“Why are you sewing my initials into my underwear?” I asked her, and she stared back at me. “How could I ever possibly have my underwear stolen in school?”

She frowned.

“I suppose that would be a little difficult,” she admitted. “But better safe than sorry. Think about those poor students who have had iPods and cell phones stolen. Imagine losing a cell phone—those are expensive!”

“First I'd have to imagine actually owning a cell phone,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

I sighed.

“I feel sorry for whoever it is that's stealing these things,” she said.

“Are you crazy?” I asked her. “You feel sorry for someone who steals everyone's stuff?”

“The thief is clearly a very sad young person crying out for help,” she said. “Imagine what is driving someone to steal like that.”

“I hear it more like someone crying out for a beating,” I said.

She shook her head sadly at me and went back to sewing. I picked up a pile of my T-shirts and started walking away.

“What's going on?” Sunny asked, entering the living room.

“I'm stitching Peter's initials into his underwear,” Mom explained.

Sunny got a big grin on her face.

“That's a good idea,” she said, patting me on the back. It stung. “Then when he gets confused, he can just look at his underwear and remember his own name.”

“That is really funny,” I said, staring at her. “Don't you have to study for your SATs? They're only three years away.”

“He's right, Sunny. If you have spare time right now, you could do a practice test. Hey, Peter, look,” she said, holding up a pair of my underwear. “I sewed a little smiley face next to your initials! Isn't that adorable?”

“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I'm sure everyone in gym class will love it.”

For once I actually knew that I had an English test the next day, so I took the digital camera into my dad's office that night and uploaded all the pics I'd taken in my classes the last few weeks. I made separate folders for each class, then opened up a slideshow of the English chalkboard photos. Uh-oh. They were low resolution, and when I zoomed in, the writing on the chalkboard got all grainy. I tried to copy what I could make out into my notebook, which felt annoying—I was ending up having to take notes, anyway.

For the rest of study time, I worked on my plan to start using the detention theory at school, brainstorming ways to get popular kids into detention. I'd already developed the conversation method, but the problem with it was that it gave me a detention, too, and as useful as detention was these days, I didn't want it to last forever. I thought about it for a while and eventually came up with what I called the passing-notes method. The goal was to make it look like my targets were passing notes in class, which is something the teachers at Fenwick Middle hate more than anything, it seems.

That night I sat at my desk during study time, figuring out who I should frame next. I made a chart of who I figured were the most important popular people in the sixth grade, listing the reasons why being friends with them could help me. Here's an example of what the finished chart looked like:

Those were the main targets besides Trent, who I'd already worked my magic with. I also planned on framing Heidi Markowitz because she was friends with the field-hockey girls, and Shawn Jacobs, who hung out with all the skateboarders, and Dylan Armstrong, a Hemenway kid who actually wasn't all that popular, but I'd heard that he owned a snake that ate live mice, and I'd always wanted to see that in person.

The next morning I raced around the hall before first period looking for the Sweet brothers. How things had changed—now I was actually
trying
to find them instead of avoiding them at all costs. I saw Hank shoving Donnie, into his locker, and I ran right up to them.

“Hey, Hank,” I said, and we high-fived. “See you this afternoon.”

Sure enough, Donnie approached me just before English class.

“Hey, Peter—you're friends with the Sweet brothers?”

“Sure, we go way back.”

“Can you get them off my back?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

I sat in class trying to come up with a simple fake note. I worried that I'd never bothered to check out Donnie's handwriting style, so I ended up writing in a robot font:

 

This adult human bores me. I am wasting my internal lithium batteries listening to this unintelligent human instructor tell me things I already know. I will keep my eyes open but otherwise put myself in sleep mode. —Donnie

 

I carefully folded it into a self-contained square, the way I'd seen girls do when they expertly pass notes all class long. The plan was to drop off the note somewhere in plain sight so Mr. Vensel would find it once class was over. When the bell rang, I stayed in my seat while everyone else got up. As the students filed toward the exit, I made the drop-off as subtly as possible, but it wasn't even necessary. Mr. Vensel had his back to me, erasing stuff he'd written on the chalkboard. Was it really this easy? I wondered.

The Sweet brothers and Trent were waving me over from the back of the detention room when I arrived at the end of the day, but I told them I had to figure out some homework first and sat down by myself at the front. The sound of the buses pulling out of the lot filled me with sadness—my plan hadn't worked. But then a moment later the door opened, and in walked a terrified Donnie, who immediately gaped at the sight of the massive Sweet brothers in the back. I nodded at the empty seat next to me, which he took gratefully.

“What's the human Pez dispenser doing here?” Hank snarled at Donnie.

I patted the human Pez dispenser on the back.

“Let's just say this guy and Mr. Vensel are no longer on speaking terms,” I said, and Hank seemed impressed.

Donnie looked confused. I leaned over and whispered, “The key to getting them off your back is to get to know them better.”

“Thanks,” he whispered, and I hid the smile forming on the inside of my mouth.

By framing students into detention, I quickly became an expert on what would get you in trouble and exactly how much trouble it would get you in. I even made a little guide on a piece of paper that I kept hidden in my desk drawer at home, which looked like this:

 

The Conversation Method = 1 detention

The Passing-Notes Method = 3 detentions

The Having-Candy-in-Class Method = 3 detentions

The Tic-Tac-Toe Method = 1 detention

The Writing-on-the Desk Method = 2 detentions

 

I preferred leaving fake notes, because it was easy and I could prepare the fake note the night before. The candy method was equally effective, but I didn't use it much (because I hate wasting perfectly good candy, obviously). The tic-tac-toe method was easier to prepare than coming up with a fake note—I'd just draw a bunch of games of tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper and then at the bottom write something like “Shawn Rules!” but it was worth only one detention. That it was even worth detention says something about how much teachers hate tic-tac-toe—they hate that kids don't pay attention, but they hate it even more if you don't pay attention because you're playing a game that's so stupid it always ends in a tie. Writing on the desk was risky—basically I'd just write someone's initials followed by a really positive word and an exclamation point (like “H.M. Rules!”) on my desk. When the teacher saw it, they'd assume Heidi Markowitz had sat there, and she would get two detentions just like that. But it was risky—it depended on the teacher not paying close enough attention to realize I'd sat there.

What I eventually figured out was that I could combine methods to get students in even more trouble. For example, if I wanted to get Heidi Markowitz into detention for a week, all I had to do was use the passing-notes method, but have the note read, “Kerri, I am loving eating candy right now, do you want to play tic-tac-toe? —Heidi.” And like that, boom, Heidi had seven detentions!

I realized that I didn't even have to use my friendship with the Sweets to get closer to popular people. Just being in detention with them made us suddenly chummy with each other. It was like there was an invisible force field surrounding room 12 that made everyone inside it get along, no matter what. I used the passing-notes method to frame Sally into detention, and when she showed up I just sat next to her and we chatted as if we were back in elementary school together. By the end of detention I even impressed Sally when she discovered how talented I was at drawing her favorite animal in the entire world—the unicorn.

I made sure to draw Sally a unicorn every detention—I figured the key to getting invited to Angie's parties was my expertise at drawing unicorns, and I tried to work in subtle hints as she sat there watching me produce art.

“You're so good at drawing them,” she said one time. “Don't forget the tail this time.”

“Of course,” I said, scribbling in a silky tail. “You know, Sally, in addition to drawing, I'm also really good at interior decorating—you know, for, like, awards ceremonies and, um, more casual social gatherings.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Okay, so my hints weren't working, but the fact that we were friendly made me think it was just a matter of time before I got invited to a party.

No matter what type of students they were—nerds, jocks, bullies, or princesses—they all were instantly friendly with me in detention. Trent started saying hi to me every morning in the lobby before homeroom, Heidi waved as I passed her locker between periods, and even Donnie and his brainiac Hemenway pals nodded at me in the hallways. My plan was
working
!

Meanwhile, from what I could gather watching him in the hallways and during lunch, Drew's only plan for becoming popular was going up to popular kids between classes with a hand covering an eye and asking them if they'd come across his left contact lens. I guess there was one perk to being a nobody—no one but me seemed to know that he had perfect vision. I snuck up on him after third period one morning.

“You do realize that it's pretty ridiculous to ask someone if they happened to see a contact lens on the floor,” I pointed out to him. “How would anyone ever stumble across a tiny piece of see-through plastic on the ground?”

“Well, that's what makes my strategy so sound,” Drew said after a couple of seconds. “I don't actually want them to find a contact lens, now, do I?”

He had a point there.

“Are you just going to ask kids to help you find your contacts for the rest of your life?” I asked him.

“At some point they're going to add up how much time we've spent looking for my contacts over the years and realize we've kinda become close friends,” he replied.

“That has to be the lamest idea I've ever heard in my life.”

“You sit by yourself at lunch, so I don't think you're in a position to mock me,” he replied.

“You sit by yourself, too!” I said, but then at lunch I sat down at our old table and watched in horror as Drew pulled the ol' lost contact method on Trent's table, and they had no choice but to let him sort of sit with them. I say “sort of” because he didn't eat anything, and technically he didn't ever sit in a chair—for the entire lunch period he was on his knees, crawling around their table in circles, pretending to look for his left contact lens. At first I felt kinda bad for him, he looked so pitiful, but then Trent got out of his chair and started looking, too. I sighed.

I turned back to my tray and made eye contact with one of Heidi's Hemenway girlfriends, who looked at me, then at the empty chairs around me, and even though it made no sense I suddenly picked up my banana and pretended talking into it as if it was a cell phone, laughing into the peel at something an imaginary friend had said.

Okay, so trying to get popular people to like you by having them help you find your lost contact lens was the
second
stupidest method in the world.