The Revenge Playbook (30 page)

3.
  
   
Paint the David Bowie statue at Old Lady Howard's corn maze. (Everyone)

4.
  
   
Chair race through Walmart. (Everyone)

5.
  
   
Get a picture of the team with the Ranburne Panther. (Everyone)

6.
  
   
Go to the Dawsonville football field. Find that stupid rock they touch before their games. Pee on it. (Everyone)

1.
  
   
Visit the illustrious Delta Tau Beta fraternity at Vanderbilt. Have a beer with Panther alum TJ McNeil and take a picture of the legendary scar he got during a game-winning play against Dawsonville. (One person)

2.
  
   
Go to LP Field and reenact the “Music City Miracle.” (Everyone)

3.
  
   
Go to Centennial Park and jump into the pond behind the Parthenon. (Everyone)

4.
  
   
Go to The Jackrabbit Saloon. Walk to the very middle of the dance floor and attempt to do the worm. (One person)

5.
  
   
Go up to a girl who is totally out of your league, get down on your knees, and ask her to marry you. (One person)

6.
  
   
Go up to a fat girl and tell her “You're so beautiful . . . for a fat chick.” Bonus points if she throws her drink on you. (One person)

7.
  
   
Hug a biker. Bonus points if he has a mullet. (One person)

8.
  
   
Get a girl to give you her thong. (One person)

DARES REMAINING:
0.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

2:25 A.M.

ANA

Melanie Jane is frantic. “Ana, slow down! You're going to get us killed!”

I ignore her. “We can't let them beat us! We're so close!”

I feel like I've downed about eight
cafezinhos
. Are the guys right behind us? Are they already there? We spent too much damn time splashing around in that water. And stuck in Nashville nightlife traffic. Now that we're back on the highway, I fly. I don't bother finding a real parking space when we reach Catcalls. I don't bother checking for football players. Let the other girls worry about that. I race to the bar to meet Destiny, weaving in between dirty old men because things have really picked up since we were here earlier. Destiny is still there, but now she's serving up drinks rapid fire.

“Did we beat them?” I'm panting and clutching the bar like a life raft. “Did we?”

She finishes the complicated drink she's pouring with excruciating slowness. The lines of her face tell me nothing. That can't be a good sign. She sets the bottle down, and only then do I see the hint of a smile. “You might have.”

“Woo!” I yell, causing every person in the club to stare at me. Oops. If there are any football players in here, I am screwed.

Melanie Jane elbows me. “Way to be discreet.”

I feel the blood drain out of my face. “Are there—?”

“Nope,” says Liv. “We already checked.”

Whew. I have a moment of relief, and then we are falling all over ourselves trying to show her the camera and list all at once.

“Whoa,” she hisses, her voice sharp. “Not here.” She gestures for us to follow her to a back room. Not the one where the strippers get ready. This one is more like a large closet filled with boxes of alcohol. “I don't want anyone in there telling Ranburne I gave away their football. I'll give it to you here, and you'll sneak out the back. If you've done everything on that list.”

We show her our pictures and video, and she checks them off. I think she's impressed with some of our changes. When she gets to the video of us in the pond, she nods.

“Everything seems to be here.” She pulls an old paper sack from behind a box of Jack Daniel's. “I'd say you earned this.”

She drops the bag in my lap. “I gotta get back to the bar. Make sure to go out that way.” She points to the glowing, red exit sign.

I open the bag with trembling fingers. It doesn't look like much—just a dirty old football. But when I
think of the weeks of planning, and everything we did tonight. When I think of what it will mean to the Panther football players. The girls crowd in from all sides, laying their hands on the football as I hoist it over my head. Maybe it could be more.

We have done it. We have beaten the football team. We head to my house for our celebratory sleepover, stopping at Waffle House on the way because victory celebrations aren't complete without carbs. Then we camp out on the floor of my bedroom. I'm trying to laugh and chatter with the other girls, but it's hard. I thought this would feel different. Better. Instead, I feel like not a whole lot has changed. I tell the girls I'm going to get some water, but instead go to my backyard and curl up in our hammock.

It isn't long before Melanie Jane finds me. “Can I sit with you?” she asks.

“Sure.”

I scoot around so I'm sitting sideways in the hammock instead of longways. She crawls in beside me, nearly flipping us in the process. After a few tense seconds, during which I think we might sustain head injuries, we're able to dangle our legs over the side and stare up at the stars.

“You don't seem very happy,” she finally says.

I sigh. “It isn't enough to make them walk onto the field at Homecoming naked or have the shame of losing the game ball of '76.”

“Well, damn, what do you want to do, light it on fire during halftime?”

I picture Melanie Jane blowtorching the football on the fifty-yard line as generations of Panthers look on in horror. I can't help but smile. It doesn't last though.

“No, I mean, it isn't enough to punish just this set of guys. Yeah, it'll suck for them and pay them back for what they've done to us, but it won't change anything. What about the next set of guys? And their next set of victims? How do we change that?” I try to figure out the words for how I'm feeling. “I don't know what I was expecting. It's like getting revenge on Chad doesn't mean as much since I never got any answers.”

She turns to look at me, and the hammock shifts dangerously. “What are you talking about?”

Telling ruins everything. “Nothing.”

“I don't think I believe you.” Melanie Jane has these eyes that cut right to the truth. I feel like they're giving me an autopsy right now. I also feel like, this time, letting her see my insides might be okay.

I start at the beginning and tell her everything that happened. I don't leave anything out. To her credit, she doesn't cry or hug me or do any other kind of sappy thing that people do when they feel sorry for you. She doesn't interrupt me either. Not until I get to the part where everything went dark.

“So, I don't even know if I'm a virgin.” I scratch a scab off my arm. “I guess he had sex with me because that's what everyone says.”

“He didn't,” says Melanie Jane.

I clench my teeth. “Yeah. That's what the school counselor said too. She didn't want me to ruin his chances at a scholarship.”

“No, I mean, I was there.”

If I was a different kind of person, there would be a swell of hope in my chest right now. I remember
she took me home, after, but I thought— “What did you see?”

“I saw”—she can't even say it—“what you told me about. But he still had on all his clothes, and his pants were zipped and everything. I freaked out. And he ran away.”

“I'm still a virgin?” The hope is real this time but fragile. It's not like being a virgin is the most important thing. It's not like I have these grand plans about it like Melanie Jane. But it's my body to decide what to do with and when. And I thought that choice had been taken away. “He didn't—”

“He would have,” she says, squeezing the threads of the hammock like they're to blame. “I'm sorry. I didn't know enough to understand that you didn't want to be there. I didn't start to figure that out until later.” She looks so defeated. “Why didn't you tell me?”

She doesn't mean it as an accusation, but that's how I take it. “Right. Like you would have listened.”

“I know. I was a total bitch to you. But if I knew—I mean, if you had told me—it would have made all the difference.”

I think about what I've learned tonight. “Yeah. It would have.”

Neither of us says anything for a while. Her hand reaches out to hold mine. But in a fierce way. Like our locked fingers have taken a stand against the entire world.

“What if we
could
do something?” she says to the sky. “To change things.”

“Like what?”

“I might have some ideas.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

D
id you hear what happened?

“Somebody
stole
the Football of '76.”

“Do they know who did it?”

“I don't think so. The football team's crapping their pants right now.”

Excited whispers follow me around school on Monday. They don't know they're about me. But they are. It's more than the usual flurry over a good piece of gossip though. The air is laced with revolution. The football team may be idolized by our town, but that's the problem with being gods. It makes everyone else a mortal.

It's all anyone is talking about when I get to geometry. Coach Mayes can't make us calm down, but a school announcement during the first five minutes of class shuts everybody up. Coach Fuller's face appears on the television.

“As I'm sure most of you have heard, the game ball of '76 was stolen this weekend. We here at Ranburne know this is more than just a football. It's Panther tradition, an important piece of history. We are asking that anyone with any knowledge of the theft come to my office or Principal Corso's office. We need to get that football back before Friday's Homecoming game. It can be left at the office—we won't ask questions. It is our hope that those involved will understand the seriousness of what they've done and we will be able to put an end to this tragedy.”

Tragedy?
Really?
I think that's going a bit far. You wouldn't know it looking at the football players though. By their somber faces, you'd think our town had been the victims of a terrorist attack.

“I don't know what we're going to do.” Weston hides his face in his hands.

“You're gonna walk onto the football field naked on Friday unless you find it, that's what you're going to do,” says Casey.

“It's more than that.” Nate sits on his desk with the manner of a politician delivering a speech. “What if we never get it back?”

A girl comes up and touches his shoulder. “How did it happen?” She's all soft words and big eyes, the way girls are when they ask a guy how he broke his arm as a way of flirting.

Nate nods at Weston. “Some other guys did the scavenger hunt list first.”

Casey narrows his eyes. “Stupid stripper couldn't tell the difference.”

I badly want to say something, but before I get a chance, phones buzz around the room. Right on schedule. An email from an anonymous account has just been sent to every player on the Ranburne football team. We even created the account and the email at the Ranburne Public Library so it couldn't be traced back to us (us = best spies ever).

“Did you just get one too?”

“Yeah, what does yours say?”

“Mine's just a link.”

“Mine too.”

The whole class, even Coach Mayes, huddles around the guys as Nate clicks the link.

“It's a video,” he says.

Even though I know what's on it, I can't help but crane my neck so I can see the screen of Nate's phone. Everyone gasps as four figures dressed all in black with grim-reaper hoods appear.

“They've got the football!” yells Casey.

He doesn't miss a thing, that one.

We made the video at Ana's after we drove two hours to an out-of-the-way Party City to get the costumes. We put on extra clothes underneath to make us bigger and wore our dads' work gloves. Sparkly nail polish is kind of a giveaway. Melanie Jane's the one holding the football. Ana's holding a set of white card stock signs beside her. The first one is blank. She flips it to the back.

We have the Football of '76.

Flip.

You can stop peeing your pants. We're going to give it back.

People snicker all around me.

Flip.

There are some things we need to tell you first.

Flip.

Check back tomorrow if you want to know more about your Ranburne Panthers. Same time. Same site.

The video goes black.

The classroom explodes. People are excited, shocked, impressed. A few of them are angry.

“I'm going to find out who those guys are. And I'm going to murder them,” says Casey.

“How do you know it's guys?” It slips out before I can help myself.

He gives me a look that clearly says he doesn't think a girl could have pulled it off.

Coach Mayes moves back to the front of the room. “All right. All right. We
do
have class today. I finished grading your quizzes.”

There's a chorus of groans, but only for a second. The video is all anyone can talk about. Best of all, sympathy for the football team is nearly nonexistent. Now that people know they're getting the football back, they just want to see what happens next. I can't wait to see what school is like for the rest of the day. I am buzzing on the inside. Man, did we look cool.