Fourteen

JASON

Operation EagleFly wouldn’t be cheap.

During Friday lunch, the team met backstage in the auditorium. We passed around Dakota’s iPad to check out her budgeting spreadsheet detailing our expenses.

Alice had already paid for the Pwn device, and she wanted to be reimbursed a thousand bucks. There was the cost of gas and transport to and from the “venue,” as Dakota called it. There was some wiring and circuitry and whatnot. Benny said he needed three thousand for the wheels, and another eight hundred for the blank RFID cards.

“Eight hundred, really?” I asked him.

He nodded. “They’re not easy to come by. I gotta call around to some people, and that means the price is whatever they feel like charging that day.”

I read down the column. “And what’s this ‘miscellaneous?’”

“You know, incidental costs. Things we haven’t accounted for,” Dakota said. “For instance, we still don’t know what our cover will be going into the building. We’ll probably need disguises.”

“For six hundred dollars? That’s pricey for something that’s incidental.”

“Come on now. You can afford it,” Benny said to me.

If only he knew. “I can’t, actually.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, with a smile.

“I’m serious,” I said. “There’s nothing left. We’re dead broke.”

Everyone was quiet in this tense kind of way, until Benny broke the silence. “I don’t think you know what broke is.”

That bugged me. What, we were gonna compete about who had less money now?

And also, there was something else—his tone, maybe. The fact that Benny was absolutely unafraid to say who he was and where he came from. Alice was kind of like that, too. I wished I shared their confidence. Even if they were total misfits.

“Never mind. We’ll just deduct these costs from the take,” Alice cut in, trying to break the tension, and I was super relieved.

The total cost, which she sussed out in her head even though Dakota had already calculated it electronically, came to $2,532 per person.

“I guess I can use my card—my parents never really check it,” Dakota said. “But that means I’m playing banker. I’ll manage and distribute the funds once we have them. One coin is all we need for our overhead. We’ll only use a portion, and we'll put the rest toward the school fund.”

“Of course you get to be the banker,” Alice muttered. I kind of agreed with her on that score.

“I’m taking a risk, you know, by charging this stuff. Plus I’m the most experienced at managing things,” Dakota said. “Who do you think made the presentation to United Way after last fall’s pie sale?”

“So you know how to smile behind a gigantic check?” Alice said.

“There’s more to it than that,” Dakota said.

“I trust her,” Benny said. “Come on. You guys know she’ll be honest.”

He was right, of course. We all trusted Dakota.

“Shake on it?” she said, holding out her hand. All four of us took turns shaking.

Then a weird silence fell over us.

“Why does this feel so serious?” Alice said, which was exactly what I was thinking.

“Because we’re locked in now,” Dakota said. “There’s skin in the game.”

I was sitting in the passenger seat on the way home from school when a text message buzzed in my pocket.

No practice today. The guys say they’re done.

I had to read it a couple of times to be sure I understood. Zack didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person that the band—the band I cofounded—was breaking up?

At least then we could have had a real conversation. Instead I was muttering “You’ve gotta be kidding me” at the piece of plastic in my hand.

“What?” my mom said from the driver’s side. She felt guilty for stealing my car, so she’d volunteered to pick me up from school on her way home from her new job, which was working the espresso counter at the Beany Baby in Ardmore. Never mind that she had a PhD—now she was taking orders from a 20-year-old manager named Mason who had Daffy Duck tattooed over her right boob.

I waved my hand for her to be quiet as I called him. At least Zack could tell me with his own voice.

As soon as he answered, I launched into it. “I said I was working on it. Can we at least get together to talk—”

“Naw, man, it’s not just the practice space. Me and Chaddie are going to play with the Uh-Ums. And Max said he wanted to spend more time at the skate park.”

“But why? I can fix this. You barely gave me a chance.” I hated how my voice sounded.”

“I tried. I tried to tell them.”

I knew instantly that he hadn’t. He hadn’t done crap. “So that’s it, then?” I asked, vaguely aware that I sounded like Alice had the other day when I was ready to give up our plan. “I thought we were in it to win it.”

“Dude, we have personnel issues. I just don’t think we can work around them. Chaddie said . . . his voice trailed off.”

“What did he say?”

He coughed. “He said you were unreliable, like your old man.”

“I’m unreliable? What about you, the guy who never shows up on time?”

“I’m only quoting what he said. I would’ve told you at lunch but I couldn’t find you, man.” That was because I was working with the EagleFly team, which of course he didn’t know. “You’re never around anymore. What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” I said. I would have to be more careful or he was going to get suspicious. Then again, it wasn't like the band would be hanging out at lunch anymore. It occurred to me then that it wasn’t just the band—I was losing my social life, too. Just when everyone else at the school hated my guts. Jesus. The only people who talked to me anymore were the EagleFly team, and they had to.

I was afraid I might say something I’d regret later, that I might break down. “Thanks for the update,” I snapped and hung up.

“Who was that?” my mom asked.

“Zack,” I said, staring out the window in disbelief. I was too stunned to make something up. Besides, my mom could usually see through me when I tried to lie. “He just broke up the band.”

“Oh no, honey. I’m sorry.” She glanced over at me with her concerned face. “Are you okay?”

“Me? Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t working out. S’cool,” I said, trying to gather what was left of my pride.

“What are they going to do about prom? Isn’t it only a couple of weeks away?”

“I don’t know. Guess it’s not my problem anymore,” I said, like it was a big relief. Even though it really wasn’t.