The Final Exam (19 page)

“Theo, I totally support this whole hall-monitor thing,
but the roof is pretty high. I’m worried you’ll get vertigo and fall off or something,” Garrison answered, pushing his hair out of his face.

“Celery thinks this is a bad idea, seeing as you’re super clumsy on the ground; she doesn’t even want to know what could happen on the roof,” said Hyacinth.

“Don’t do it. They can handle this kind of thing; you can’t,” Lulu added with a frightened expression. “You could really hurt yourself, like, permanently.”

“Now I know how soldiers feel heading off to war,” Theo said dramatically, dabbing his eyes with his sausage-like fingers.

“Mister Theo, you really don’t need to do this—those boys are not your responsibility,” Schmidty said genuinely.

“Oh, you’ll be fine. Just remember to ask them about the bird,” Mrs. Wellington whispered to Theo, completely disregarding the warnings of Schmidty and the others.

“I will do my very best,” Theo stated stoically before saluting Mrs. Wellington and marching off.

Theo darted around the side of the Contrary Conservatory, where Bard, Herman, and Fitzy had leaned an extended ladder against the structure. But as the house
was so very tall, the ladder didn’t quite reach the area of the roof where the boys were standing. This left a large portion of the wall for Theo to scale with neither a harness nor a safety net. If he fell, he would definitely injure himself, perhaps even require a trip to the emergency room. However, as Theo was miles from civilization without access to a phone, reaching a hospital would be nearly impossible.

“What am I doing, risking my life for these hooligans?” Theo muttered, assessing his highly perilous position atop the ladder. “Have I lost my mind?”

As the clammy-handed boy prepared to back down the ladder, he caught a glimpse of his hall-monitor sash, which stopped him dead in his tracks. Theo had to at least try to stop the Contrarians, or he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Or even if he could live with himself, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his hall-monitor status. And frankly, Theo wasn’t sure life was worth living without a sash.

After pausing to catch his breath, Theo ventured cautiously off the ladder and onto the wall. Although visibly petrified, he was also deeply impressed by his uncharacteristically brave behavior. It certainly wasn’t
every day that Theo threw precautions by the wayside, but since he had become a hall monitor he could no longer ignore the safety illiterates of the world. He now saw it as his job to educate them, regardless of the danger to himself.

Small ledges of unevenly laid bricks were all Theo had to hold on to as he slowly made his way up the wall. White-knuckled and sweaty-palmed, he maneuvered carefully from one spot to another. The already-perilous scenario disintegrated quickly when the brick beneath Theo’s left foot dislodged. Pins and needles pricked his left leg as he grappled to find another step. Hysteria took hold, blurring Theo’s vision and incapacitating his muscles. Thoughts of broken bones, internal bleeding, and hospital food passed frantically through his mind. He was spiraling out of control and would soon lose his grip, both literally and figuratively, if he didn’t do something. Unable to back down the wall and afraid to climb higher, Theo paused to release a whimper. Only it wasn’t a whimper that came out, it was a song.

“
If you want my tummy, and you think its yummy, come on girl and let me know
,” Theo warbled quietly until he found the courage to take his next step.

By the second verse of his highly questionable song, Theo had managed to pull his rotund body safely atop the roof. While the climb had taken only seven minutes, he had sweated out every last drop of moisture in his body, leaving him with dry eyes and a parched mouth.

Highly dehydrated, Theo quickly surveyed the rooftop terrain, a dangerous mishmash of valleys and peaks. Then, meticulously watching his footing, he made his way toward the Contrarians. First in his line of vision was Herman, who stood eerily still, with his toes dangling over the edge. While Theo knew the boy was alive, his physical demeanor offered nothing to support that fact. Bard, on the other hand, was moving about manically, twirling his arms in circles. So continuous was the movement that Theo actually felt a touch of motion sickness just watching him. And finally, sandwiched between the two tall and lanky boys, was a smiling Fitzy. He was clearly thrilled Theo had come for the takeoff.

All three Contrarians sported homemade jet packs constructed out of cardboard, wire hangers, and batteries. Most disturbingly, the jet packs appeared more like a child’s science project than an actual technological feat.
For example, all the keys and buttons had been poorly drawn on with markers. Rather astonishingly, despite this, the Contrarians still appeared wholly confident in their contraptions’ ability to support them in flight.

“What are you guys doing? You could kill yourselves!” Theo chastised the three dimwits as he slowly approached.

“No way,” Fitzy grunted, clearly not believing Theo’s dire assessment of the scenario.

“Yes, Fitzy, it’s the truth! You guys could die if the jet packs don’t work, and I’m pretty sure they won’t since you made them!”

“The packs will totally work. Just see for yourself,” Fitzy said before turning to Bard and yelling, “Go for it!”

“I’m flying!” Bard called out as he leaped off the roof without so much as a second thought. Of course, he wasn’t so much flying as plummeting to the ground. As expected, the red start button, drawn on with a pen, failed to ignite the device. Within seconds Bard boisterously crashed, instantly igniting both terror and guilt in Theo.

“Oh, no! Bard’s dead, and I’m an accomplice!” he cried. “I’ll never survive jail! I can barely handle the cafeteria! My life’s over! And so is Bard’s!”

“Relax,” Fitzy admonished Theo. “It takes a lot more than that to kill someone, right, Herman?”

Herman nodded his head, marking the first time he had moved since Theo arrived on the roof. The statuesque boy then stepped casually off the edge while pushing his jet pack’s red start button. Once again, it failed to work, leaving Herman at the mercy of gravity. A most painful and raucous sound erupted as the boy crashed to the ground seconds later.

“I guess we should have tested the jet packs before we came up here,” Fitzy muttered to himself before casually shrugging off the thought.

“You didn’t test the jet packs? Why wouldn’t you test them while you were safely on the ground?” Theo asked in horrified amazement.

“Test runs, thinking ahead, and all that kind of stuff feels like a waste of time. It’s not like anything
really
bad has ever happened to us. Sure, we’ve broken bones and ruptured organs, but who hasn’t?”

“Fitzy, you are in deep, deep denial about the dangers of life! This may actually be the worst case I’ve ever seen. You need an intervention! Right now!” Theo screamed, wiping his brow. “Life is dangerous. Did you know a
woman once died from eating watermelon because the waiter had used the same knife to cut raw meat? A fourteen-year-old boy died after kissing his girlfriend, who had eaten peanut butter two hours earlier; he was allergic! And don’t even get me started on the number of people who fall in the bathtub and die all alone, naked and wet! The world is filled with tons of ridiculous, stupid ways to die, and yet you guys feel it’s necessary to tempt fate by jumping off a roof with homemade jet packs. I just don’t get it.”

“I hate it when peanut butter sticks to the roof of my mouth,” Fitzy said idiotically before stepping right off the roof. However, unlike Bard and Herman, he didn’t even bother to push his red start button.

Theo lunged futilely after Fitzy as the boy’s tree trunk–shaped body plunged out of sight. Feeling the need to confirm that all three Contrarians had in fact survived the jump, he inched closer to the edge until Bard, Herman, and Fitzy came into view. Luckily, they had landed atop a cluster of interwoven topiaries, which broke their fall and prevented any serious injuries. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, the boys appeared to be all right, not to mention downright happy. But then
again, as they were adrenaline addicts, risking their lives always had a rather positive effect on their mood.

Relieved that the three foolish Contrarians had survived, Theo quickly scanned the fortress perimeter for any signs of pink. Surprisingly, he saw neither sprinkle nor spot of the nosy reporter’s luminous skin. Then, after almost a full minute, a terribly obvious fact dawned on Theo. Not only had he forgotten to ask about Toothpaste, he was stuck on top of the roof without even the faintest idea how to get down.

M
arooned on the roof, Theo did what any normal boy would do; he broke into a cheer. With imaginary pom-poms in hand, he began projecting his voice loudly to the garden below: “Give me an H! Give me an E! Give me an L! Give me a P! HELP! I’m stuck on the roof! Help, I’m stuck on the roof! Save Theo! Save Theo!”

A short while later Abernathy rigged an extension to the top of the ladder and aided Theo in his return to the ground.

“It was like I was Rapunzel up there!” Theo said dramatically to Lulu, Madeleine, Garrison, and Hyacinth as he happily stepped off the ladder and onto solid ground. “All I can say is, thank Heavens for Abernathy, aka my platonic prince, or I’d still be up there.”

“Okay, now is a good time to stop this whole fairy-tale analogy before it gets too weird,” Lulu said, craning her head to watch the Contrarians, who were still splayed out atop the well-sculpted shrubs.

“Celery loves fairy tales! She even dressed up as Rapunzel for Halloween last year. It was impossible to find a wig that fit her small head, so I had no choice but to shave my sister’s doll and make my own. But it was all totally worth it when Celery won best ferret costume at the carnival.”

“Were there other ferrets at the carnival?” Madeleine asked quizzically.

“Um, hello? It was a ferret carnival!”

“Kansas must be a terribly odd place to live,” Madeleine muttered to herself.

“We’ve got movement,” Garrison interrupted as he watched the Contrarians crawl slowly off the topiaries.