The next morning at recess I made the spot behind the Shed the most dangerous place in the school. Only one other time before had our school seen such an epic gathering of bullies, punks, tough kids, and psychos. And I had been responsible for that incident as well. I was starting to feel like I was kind of like the school’s favorite potato chips. Like, on the surface I was awesome and the school loved me, but in the end too much of me would eventually kill it.

But, anyways, both meetings of bullies felt necessary in their own way at the time. Except that this time I had to arrange the meeting much more secretively. The first thing I did at school that morning was to find Ears. Ears was the best gossiper in the school now that PrepSchool had transferred to some private academy a few hours away.

I told him to start a rumor that any bully or tough kid or anybody who just generally loved wreaking havoc should show up behind the Shed at the start of early recess. Anybody who came would get five dollars just for showing up.

It didn’t take long for Ears’s handiwork to pay off. By my second class that day I had overheard a few kids talking about it in the hallway. Sometimes you had to love the power of the Werk. The Werk was the name given to our school’s web of gossip and rumors. You know, as in “network.” Why they’d decided to spell it with an E is a mystery, even to me. With gossips you never really can know for sure why they say or do anything that they do.

Anyways, at early recess that morning, the crowd of bullies that gathered was pretty impressive. In attendance were all of my occasional employees like Nubby, Great White, Little Paul, Kevin, Kitten, Snapper, and iBully, as well as several other bullies who I’d never worked with before.

Like Spitball Chad. Spitball Chad was this strange kid with curly red hair and ears that were small but still poked out of his hair like little antennae. It kind of made him look like a wombat. Anyways, as you might guess, Spitball Chad was known for always sitting in the back of the classroom and shooting spitballs at kids. He even had different-sized straws for different calibers of spitballs. His were especially soggy, too, which was as disgusting as it sounded. He always seemed to have saliva crusted around the corners of his mouth like dried frosting or something. Needless to say, we all assumed Spitball Chad would never find a girlfriend on account of being just kind of gross.

Then there was Dead Bolt, a fifth grader with a lightning bolt shaved into the side of his head. He was a big kid and pretty intimidating, but that’s all he had. He was all talk and no walk, if you know what I mean. But the thing was most kids didn’t know better. So when he threatened them, they just gave in and gave him their lunch money or whatever it was he was bullying them for. If anyone were ever to stand up to him, he always backed down.

Near the back of the crowd of kids was the Mantis. He was an eighth grader but was already like six feet five inches tall. The problem was that he weighed only like ninety pounds. Seriously, he was all angles. But he always had the leverage on you. And he was as mean as he was skinny. One time I had seen him using two fourth graders as crutches just for the heck of it. His signature move, though, was stealing kids’ backpacks and shoes and cell phones and then sticking them in the rain gutters along the roof of the portables where no one else could reach them.

I passed out the five-dollar bills to everyone in attendance. Dead Bolt took his cash and started to walk away. I was annoyed, but this had been expected. I figured some kids would show just for the cash and then take off. I was actually pretty pleased that he was the only one.

But Great White charged after him.

“Hey, where do ya think you’re running off to, ya git?” he said in his awesome British accent.

Dead Bolt turned and sized him up.

“I got what I came here for.”

“My chum here paid you that money for a spot of your time. Now you’re going to listen to him or I’ll have to take that fiver back and keep it for myself.”

Great White got right in his face. They were about the same height, but Dead Bolt easily had a good thirty pounds on him. I really did appreciate the gesture, especially coming from a kid like Great White who had never shown himself to be particularly chivalrous, but the last thing I needed was for a fight to break out. If one punch got thrown in front of a crowd like this, we’d have a full-scale prison-grade riot on our hands in less than thirty seconds.

Dead Bolt made a quick motion toward Great White as if trying to scare him, trying to get him to flinch. But Great White didn’t budge an inch. Instead he smirked.

“That it?” he asked.

Dead Bolt paused, and for a second I didn’t think he would back down. I could have smacked myself for being so reckless. Holding this kind of meeting was like taking a bath in a tub full of unstable sticks of dynamite.

But then Dead Bolt, true to form, shook his head and started walking back to the group.

“Fine. I’ll listen to his stupid speech thing or whatever. But I’m keeping the money.”

Great White nodded, and they both rejoined the lineup and everybody turned back toward me. I started by taking out a roll of twenties, just like I had a year ago in the East Wing boys’ bathroom.

They gathered around a little closer, their eyes wide like those of a pack of feral lions picking up the scent of blood in the air.

“How would you all like to get paid to wreak some havoc?” I asked.

The expected ripple of excitement passed, and then Great White, who I’d hired for a similar job a year ago asked, “Who are we targeting this time?”

“This time,” I said, “there is no target. I just need you all to create chaos here. Pull fire alarms, get into fights, pull pranks, graffiti the place, anything and everything you can do to get the full attention of the Suits. I want you to keep the principal so busy that he doesn’t even have time to eat lunch every day.”

This time it was more than just a ripple. This time the group of bullies almost cheered like they were at a football game. I saw excited and scary grins as well as some knuckle-cracking.

“And definitely play to your strengths,” I continued. “Like you, iBully. Don’t feel like you need to try and get into fights. Instead, you should hack the school mainframe. Delete important school files, kids’ grade reports, attendance reports, whatever. Turn the school network into a piece of Swiss cheese.”

“What’s in this for you?” Little Paul asked, not even trying to hide his suspicion.

“I just need the Suits’ attention off of me while I try to make some money this week. It’s for a good cause.”

“How much will we get paid?” Nubby asked. “I mean, we’ll get detention for this stuff, probably a lot of it. Maybe even suspended.”

A few other bullies nodded in agreement.

“For one, most of you already get detention every week anyway, right? You might as well earn some free cash while you’re at it.”

Many of them nodded reluctantly and grinned. Most bullies were proud of how much detention they got. Like, the more time served, the more bully-cred it earned you. Reputation was everything.

“But,” I continued, “you get two dollars for every confirmed distraction you create. That might not seem like a lot, but I’m paying you guys to do what you love to do. Stuff that you’ll probably do anyway, eventually.”

I would’ve added that they would also be helping out the school and all the kids here in a major way, but this was probably the one crowd on which that argument was likely to backfire.

“When do we start?” Kitten asked.

Kitten was calm, quiet as usual. He normally almost never talked unless it was absolutely necessary. But beneath the calm question, I could see what was driving it; this was a dream assignment for him. He couldn’t wait to unleash some frustration on this place.

“Right now,” I said, and smiled. “Operation Chaos commences immediately.”