The Elephant of Surprise (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 4) (10 page)

CHAPTER NINE

What a day I'd had! I was dying to tell someone about it.

I still didn't want to talk to Min or Gunnar about Wade. Even now, I was embarrassed by the whole "forsaking love" thing.

So I IMed Otto.

Smuggler: Hello you.

OttoManEmpire: Hello you.

Smuggler: It's possible I'm in love.

OttoManEmpire: What? Who? This Wade guy?

Smuggler: Yes. He's amazing. And I think he might like me back.

OttoManEmpire: Tell me! Tell me everything!

So I did, from the way Wade had been waiting for me at the Dumpster, to the expedition to the warehouse, to the meal of roadkill and wild greens salad, to the game of Ironic Monopoly, to the almost-kiss by the bike.

Smuggler: I'm crazy, aren't I? I mean, this is more star-crossed than that movie about the vampire in love with the werewolf. He's a homeless person.

OttoManEmpire: He's a freegan! It's totally different.

Smuggler: How do you know?

OttoManEmpire: I've been doing some research. They sound really cool.

Smuggler: But still! It's like the movie about the woman in love with a ghost! Or the book about the man who falls in love with himself from another time-line!

OttoManEmpire: You're being melodramatic. It's absolutely nothing like any of that.

Smuggler: I know. But it's fun to be melodramatic every now and then.

OttoManEmpire: What are you going to do?

Smuggler: Can I be honest?

OttoManEmpire: Do you really need to ask that?

Smuggler: I think I'm going to go for it.

OttoManEmpire: Good. Because I would've been COMPLETELY disappointed if you didn't!

*   *   *

The next afternoon between classes, Gunnar pulled me into an alcove in the school hallway.

"So," he said. "I've learned some interesting things about Kevin."

"What?" I said.

"Kevin? You know, the guy you used to date? The one you asked me to spy on?"

"Gunnar! I didn't ask you to
spy
on him!" Okay, maybe I had. But he didn't need to put it exactly like that, especially not where someone—Kevin! or Min—could overhear. I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I don't care about Kevin anymore." I
didn't
care. Wade was the new guy in my life—or at least I hoped he would be.

"You don't care about Kevin?" Gunnar said. "Last weekend, you cared—you cared a lot. What changed between last weekend and today?"

I still wasn't ready to tell Gunnar about Wade. So instead, I said, "Nothing. I just changed my mind."

"That's too bad, because I've learned some interesting stuff."

"That's great. But like I said, I don't think I want to know it. Gunnar, I'm really sorry I got you involved, and I'm really impressed you took it so seriously, but it was a mistake."

"I took some photos too."

"Photos?" This was so like Gunnar—I should've known he would have gotten obsessed. I was an absolute fool to have gone to him with a favor like this. "Like I said, that's great. But it was wrong to ask you. So let's just pretend that I never—"

He started flipping through the photos on his phone, all the ones he'd taken of Kevin earlier in the week. Right away, he came to a shot taken of someone standing in the shower in the school locker room. I couldn't be absolutely sure it was Kevin, because he was facing away. But—how do I put this delicately? It looked a lot like Kevin, especially his ass (which is terrific, if you must know).

"Gunnar!" I said, horrified. I pulled him and the phone close to make sure no one else could see its face.

"What?" he said casually.

"You took pictures of Kevin in the shower?" But even now, and as embarrassing as this is to admit, I didn't look away from the photo. I'd totally forgotten what an amazing ass Kevin had (okay, not really).

"Why not?" he said. I knew that Gunnar wasn't turned on by the pictures. As long as I'd known him, I'd been certain he was completely, totally straight. For him, secretly observing Kevin had just been another project.

"Well, for one thing, it's illegal!" I said. "For about ten different reasons! And it's total invasion of his privacy! What if you lost your phone? What if you accidentally emailed or texted these photos to someone?"

Gunnar scrolled one picture over. It was another shot of Kevin in the shower, but this time Kevin had turned around. He was shampooing his hair, so he clearly didn't see Gunnar. But the picture itself was full-frontal. And as amazing as Kevin looked from behind, he looked even better from the front.

"
Gunnar!
" I said, even more horrified than before. "Delete these right now."

Yes, yes, even now, I wasn't looking away. And there were people passing in the hallway not five feet away.

"
Right
now?" Gunnar said, simpering. He was toying with me. But even now, even after Gunnar had totally busted me for staring at these pictures that I was hypocritically insisting he delete, I couldn't look away.

"I just learned some things about Kevin that I think you should hear," he said.

"Okay, okay!" I said. "I'll listen! But first delete these pictures."

"Are you
sure
?"

"Yes, I'm sure! Do it now!" I reached for the phone to delete them myself, but he dodged my grip.

"You don't want me to email you copies?"

"
Gunnar!
"

"Okay, okay!" His mouth was a vortex of smirks and grins, but I watched as he deleted the naked photos.

It was only after he was done that I realized how hard my blood was pumping. (And yes, the truth is I totally did wish he had emailed me copies first.)

"Well, it was a little surprising," he said.

"What was?" I said.

"Kevin."

"What?"

"I'm telling you what I learned about Kevin." I must have looked at him blankly, because he added, "You promised that if I deleted the photos, you'd listen to what I learned about Kevin. Like, two seconds ago?"

"Okay, right. Yeah."

"So, anyway, Kevin," he said. "At first I was surprised by how boring he is."

"Boring?"

"I don't know. After the way you and Min turned on him last year, I figured that he was some kind of monster, you know? But he's not a monster. In fact, he's really a nice guy. Boring, but nice. At one point, he literally helped a little old lady—not across the street, but he carried her groceries to her car at the supermarket."

So Gunnar hadn't just taken photos of Kevin in the locker room at school—he'd actually followed him off-campus? What kind of Frankenstein's Monster had I created—and how far did his rampage stretch?

"Hey," I said. "You didn't post those pictures of Kevin to your blog or anything, did you?"

"No," he said. "I'm not a complete idiot, and shut up and listen, because this is important: Kevin's not a jerk."

"What?"

"No, seriously. He's a nice guy. I like him. He does volunteer work with kids with autism." So Kevin had Gunnar's approval? On one hand, this was what I'd been wanting to hear earlier in the week. But on the other hand, I was interested in Wade now. Right?

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?" I said.

"Are you going to give him another chance?"

I sighed. "I honestly don't know."

"Because if
you're
not going to date him,
I
will."

I rolled my eyes.

"What? The guy's a total catch. And man, what a body. I mean, I'm straight, but I'm not blind. You really tapped that, huh?"

"Gunnar!"

"What?"

"Look," I said. "I know Kevin's not a jerk. He's even friends with Brian Bund."

"Well, not anymore."

I looked at Gunnar.

"Yeah, that was one weird thing," he said, remembering. "It happened just this morning. Kevin and Brian got into this argument in the parking lot right near me. Kevin accused him of stealing something, called him a loser. He actually was kind of a jerk about it."

"Really?" I said. This couldn't be right: Brian would never steal anything.

Gunnar nodded.

Why would Kevin make an accusation that wasn't true? Because maybe he wasn't such a Boy Scout after all? It would figure. Maybe that thing in the park wasn't so out of character. Or maybe he had some kind of Jekyll and Hyde thing going on.

The bell rang for class, and Gunnar started to leave.

"Wait!" I said, and he looked at me. "What does any of this have to do with those photos you showed me of Kevin in the shower?"

"What?"

"Those naked photos of Kevin. They don't have anything to do with any of the things you just told me."

"Yeah, I know. I just led with those to get you hooked." When I stared at him, confused, he added, "You didn't wanna hear what I had to say! You really think I was going to do all that spying on Kevin for nothing?"

CHAPTER TEN

That Friday, Min, Gunnar, and I broke into Leah's house.

I still thought it was a
terrible
idea, but Min was desperate for answers about whatever secret Leah was keeping—plus, she'd invoked the "friend" bat-signal—so Gunnar and I had no choice but to go along. That said, it meant I'd participated in two break-ins in the course of a single week: the warehouse with Wade and now this. Suddenly, I was living a full-fledged life of crime. What was next—elaborate cons involving the school's football uniforms? Tunneling into the principal's office from the classroom next door?

I know I'd said I'd wanted adventure, but this was ridiculous.

We gathered beforehand in Min's bedroom. The room is pretty dark—dark paint, navy bedspread—and she has a big poster of the planet Earth on a wall and a mobile of Jupiter and its moons hanging from the ceiling, so visiting her there is a little like walking into deep space.

"So tell us your plan, Millicent Min, Girl Genius," I said. This was my new nickname for Min, taken from this kids' book we'd both loved,
Millicent Min, Girl Genius
, about an over-achieving Asian-American girl. But Millicent in the book had just been an uptight genius, not a jealous lunatic like my Min.

Sure enough, Min said, "No."

"What do you mean 'no'?" I said. "You're not going to tell us the plan?"

"No, but don't worry. I've got it all figured out. Trust me."

I rolled my eyes. Then I looked at Gunnar. He stared at Min like an adoring puppy. In other words, he was totally eating up this whole secret spy thing. I didn't even bother trying to enlist him into my demand for details.

First, Min had us dress all in black. Not cat-burglar black: Goth black, with lots of make-up and painted-on tattoos. This way the dark clothes would make us invisible to the residents, but if we happened to get caught by police or security guards, it wouldn’t look like we were thieves, but just a bunch of kids who’d stumbled somewhere we didn’t belong.

I had to give Min full credit for this: it was pretty clever.

We waited until it was dark, then told Min's parents we were going to a costume party (in February?) and drove over to where Leah lived, this gated community on the outskirts of town. It was called Cranberry Creek, but there were no cranberries or even a creek—just a bunch of big, expensive houses. We parked outside, and the gate itself was easy enough to get around: we just had to climb this stone fence and sneak through someone's backyard.

Leah's parents' house was even bigger than the other houses: they were really, really rich. It was one of those sprawling suburban mansions that seems to be all garage doors. It had been built up against a hillside, and the perfectly pruned yard was thick with trees and shrubs. That was the good news, at least from a breaking-in perspective. The bad news was the whole thing was lit up like a carnival, with porch lights and driveway lights and yard lights in rows along the pathways.

"It's fine," Min said. "Leah told me her whole family is away visiting her mom's sister for the night."

But by now even Gunnar was having second thoughts. "A house like that, I'm sure it has a serious security system," he said.

Min's eyes never left the house. "It does. But the windows are only alarmed on the first floor, and the motion detectors are in the stairwell."

"How are we going to get to the windows on the second floor?" I said. "Levitate?"

She looked at me and smiled. "Trust me."

I didn't say what I was thinking, which was if the police caught us inside the yard or house, they'd call my parents, Goth outfits or not. Then I'd be totally grounded for weeks, if not months, and by the time I had any freedom again, Wade would have left town for the big city. If I was grounded, I wouldn't even have any way to let him know.

My relationship with him would be over before it had even begun.

But Min was one of my two best friends. It had taken me a while, but I'd finally learned that my friendships with her and Gunnar were far and away the most important things in my life—more important than any potential boyfriend, that's for sure. Basically, I'd do anything for them. So if my helping Min meant possibly losing my shot with Wade, so be it.

We climbed up the tree closest to the house. It hung out over the roof, so we were able to jump down right onto the shingles. Then we scrambled up toward the chimney. At first I couldn't figure out what the hell Min was thinking: were we going to pull a Santa Claus? But she was wearing a black backpack from which she pulled out a sturdy rope. At one end was a very secure lasso that she threw around the chimney. The other end was firmly tied to a lifejacket that Min slipped on and snapped into place.

"The window to Leah's bedroom is right below us," Min said. "Lower me down."

"Lower you
down
?" I said. "Min, this is crazy! Crazy and dangerous!"

"You're doing a really crappy job of trusting me, you know that?"

"Won't it be locked?" Gunnar asked, meaning the window below us.

"When I was here the other day, I made sure to leave it open just a crack when Leah's back was turned. Once I’m inside, I'll take off the life jacket and yank on the rope. You guys pull it back up, and Russel, you follow me down."

"Wait," Gunnar said. "Why Russ?"

"Yeah!" I said. "Why me?"

"Because you're lighter. Besides, Gunnar, I need you to keep a lookout here on the roof. Hide behind the chimney, and if you see anyone coming, call us on our cell phones. Speaking of which, put your phones on vibrate now."

I knew another reason Min had picked me to come with her was because she needed someone who could stay focused, which was not necessarily Gunnar's strong suit.

Gunnar and I lowered Min down to the bedroom window. Fortunately, Leah's window looked out from the back side of the house. I could see a pool and hot tub down below us. There were plenty of bright lights in the pool area, meaning we'd be very visible from down below. But as long as there was no one home, we were okay.

Once Min was inside the bedroom, I followed her down, hanging like a spider on a web until I somehow managed to scramble my way in through the open window.

I looked at Min in the dark of the room. "It worked!” The subtext to this was: "We didn't kill ourselves!"

"You sound surprised,” she said.

"Truthfully? I kind of am." This whole break-in plan was incredibly stupid—pointless, reckless, and wildly irresponsible. But I had to admit that as incredibly stupid plans go, it was kinda brilliant.

Min handed me a flashlight—she never did turn on the lights—and I aimed the beam around the room. Leah had lots of books, figurines of dragons and monsters on her shelves, and old movie posters on the walls.

Min, meanwhile, was already single-mindedly rifling through her desk.

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Look in the closet."

So I did.

It was a walk-in—a
big
walk-in. Hanging clothes were jammed in tightly on both sides of the closet, but it was kind of funny: the clothes on one side were mostly bright colors, pink and blue and red and yellow, sometimes with frills and lace; and the clothes on the other side were all dark, drab grays and browns and military green. I didn't know Leah very well, but I knew she was closeted at her school. I couldn't help but wonder if her actual closet reflected something about her being
in
the closet, about how she'd created two completely different personalities: her girly-girl self, the role she played at her school, and her real geeky self, the way she was around Min and me.

There was a dresser in the closet, and I opened the drawers, but it was just underwear and socks and t-shirts and swimsuits.

A stack of frayed cardboard boxes leaned against the wall in the back of the closet. I figured that was more promising than clothing, so I started looking through them. Mostly they were shoes, but there were also sweaters and papers and books. It felt weird, wrong, going through someone else's things without their permission—sort of like taking photos of someone naked in the shower, exactly what I'd been so upset with Gunnar about. Before, when I'd vowed to do whatever one of my best friends wanted me to do, I hadn't thought about this.

I found a yellow plastic bag alongside the cardboard boxes. Inside were balloons and streamers and party hats and candles, all still in their wrappers. They were party supplies for a birthday that clearly hadn't happened yet.

There were also buttons personalized with Min's face on them. "Happy Birthday Min!" they said.

I carried the bag out to Min, still frantically going through Leah's desk. She barely looked up.

"Min," I said. "Your birthday's coming up in two weeks, right?"

She still didn't look at me. "So?"

"I think I found something." I opened the bag and showed the contents to Min.

She didn't say anything for a second. She reached down and picked up one of the buttons with her face on it.

"Don't you see?" I said. "She's planning a birthday party. A
surprise
birthday party. For you. That's what she's been hiding." So now it was the Elephant of Surprise Parties. It had all been a simple misunderstanding, like the plot of some stupid old sitcom.

Finally, she looked me in the eye. "Wouldn't she have invited you?"

"Maybe she just hasn't done it yet. Maybe she was worried about me—or Gunnar—spilling the beans. But doesn't she have a bunch of friends from her school that you sometimes hang out with? Maybe it's for you and them. Didn't you say she liked it when you did stuff with them? I bet that's the phone call she was making at the pizza place. She looked guilty because she wasn't going to invite me to the party."

Min melted into her chair.

"She loves me," she said. "Of course she does. I'm such an idiot." She started to sob. I'd never seen Min cry before, and the whole concept was sort of rocking my world. Min was the Spock of Goodkind High School: her general braininess and seeming lack of emotion was just a plot device to make
you
feel more emotional when she finally spilled hers.

"Min?" I said, kneeling down next to her. "Min, listen to me. You let your imagination get the best of you. So what? You had a moment of insecurity. Big deal. It just means you're human. Maybe you even talked me into doing something incredibly stupid and wildly irresponsible."

She flashed me a glare that would dry paint.

"Sorry, I couldn’t resist," I said. "The point is it's okay. None of this matters. You wanted answers, and you got them, and now Leah doesn't ever even need to know that you had this little moment of doubt."

"Really?" she said.

I smiled. "Trust
me.
But let's just get out of here before we do get caught."

She nodded even as she wiped a tear.

But of course that's the exact moment that my phone started vibrating. It was Gunnar calling from the roof.

"There's someone coming!” he hissed.

"What?” I said. "Who?" My panic button had definitely been pushed.

"I don’t know! But there's a car driving into the driveway right now!"

I clicked off my phone. "We have to go,” I said to Min. "Now.” I turned for the lifejacket at the end of the rope. "You first."

"No, you should—"

"Don't argue! Just do it!"

But Gunnar hadn’t even pulled her halfway up when I heard the rumble of the garage door opening underneath me. Up on the roof, Min fumbled her way out of the harness. But by the time she dropped it back down to me, I heard the beep of the burglar alarm being deactivated from the room down below.

Whoever it was, they were home and inside the house. But I could still work my way up to the roof. It wasn’t like whoever this was would be going out into the backyard, which is the only place where they'd be able to see me.

"We don't even need to get in the pool,” said a voice in the room below—a man's voice. "Just the hot tub. Come on, it'll feel good."

They were going for a swim—which meant they’d be in the backyard after all! Who was this anyway? Did Leah have an older brother who decided to come home from college for the weekend?

"It feels weird," a voice said—a female voice. "I mean, what if your wife comes home?"

"I told you, everyone's gone for the night," the first voice said. "Besides, you were the one who wanted to see where I live."

Wait. This was Leah's dad? He'd come up with an excuse to stay home while the rest of the family went off on an out-of-town visit. When the cat's away, the mouse will have sex with his secretary? Or is that "rat"?

Still, I thought, maybe this could work to my advantage. Now that Leah's dad had turned off the burglar alarm, I could sneak my way out the front door while they were out in the pool.

The girl said something else, but I couldn’t make it out.

Leah's dad laughed. "Well, it's not like it's anything I haven't seen before."

"I don't care. It just feels weird."