Have you ever seen a movie or TV program that shows the stock market? Not like the scrolling thing on the bottom of the screen on news channels with a bunch of numbers and symbols. I mean, like footage of something called the stock exchange floor. Well, if you haven’t, basically it’s a bunch of people wearing dress shirts and suits running around with papers in their hands, waving and screaming and climbing all over one another.

If there was such a thing as a video dictionary and you looked up the word “chaos,” the definition would be footage from the stock market exchange floor. One time I caught my dad watching some news show on CNN where they were talking about the stock market and they were showing footage of the exchange floor that day. It was madness; I swore I even saw one guy standing on a desk holding a live chicken. He was threatening to douse the chicken with a glass of water while doing some sort of weird barefoot dance. And two other guys in the background were on the ground wrestling, and I saw one of them bite the other one in the cheek. And that’s not even mentioning the dude in the panda suit who was starting small fires near the elevators in the background and then putting them out with two-liter bottles of Pepsi.

Anyways, the point is that was exactly the atmosphere of our office that Monday.

There were kids piling in during every recess and all during lunch. Vince and I were in overdrive mode trying to get through enough business to hit our goal, but we knew that the number was within reach. All either of us could think about was later that day, stealing the permanent records.

The main obstacle we faced would be, of course, getting all three secretaries and Dickerson out of the administration offices for at least a full hour at the same time. Something that had never happened before during a school day. In fact, the only time they were ever even out of the office at the same time at all was during fire drills, but that was usually just for like ten minutes at the most. And iBully was adamant that he needed at least an hour.

But luckily, we had Vince. And he had come up with one of the most brilliant plans either of us had ever concocted.

Stage one was for me, Vince, and iBully to head to the library, which was adjacent to the administration offices, where we could watch the plan unfold without looking too suspicious. The plan was for no one else to enter the offices but us three and Tyrell, who insisted on finding his own observation point. If any of us was caught, it would obviously be instant expulsion, so I didn’t want any more kids involved than were absolutely necessary.

I checked my watch; stage two should be starting at any moment.

Sure enough, after about ten more seconds, Dickerson came exploding out of the administration offices. He turned down the hall, walking in that stiff way adults do when they need to move quickly but don’t want to run. Then after a few steps he gave up and just took off running.

So he’d clearly seen his car getting towed. I knew from all the time I’d spent in his office the past year that he sat facing the window and that his parking space was right there, the one directly across from the window.

Getting a car towed was actually pretty easy. We just had My-Me call the towing company pretending to be Mr. Dickerson complaining that an unauthorized vehicle was parked in his spot. The tow company obviously would have no idea that they were actually towing Dickerson’s car. The way towers work is they get a call for a tow, they make the tow. They run a simple business, which means they don’t ask questions; they just make money.

As soon as we saw Dickerson run out the door at the end of the hall, it meant phase three should already be under way. So Vince, iBully, and I left the library and went to the nearest boys’ bathroom just down the hall. We each occupied a stall and stood on the toilet, waiting for the chaos to begin.

By then Matches should have already started his fire just outside the cafeteria windows. I know, I know. I said there was a line and that I’d never actually pay a kid to set our school on fire and blah, blah, blah. But the thing is, desperate times call for crazy stuff to happen.

Just pulling the fire alarm would clear the building for only fifteen minutes maximum. But a real fire would clear it for at least forty-five minutes, maybe even for the whole day. Or so I hoped . . . If I was wrong, our plan was doomed.

You might be wondering why we had Dickerson’s car towed when the fire thing would work to clear out everybody. Well, the thing is Dickerson’s job when there was a fire was to keep sweeping the building for any kids left behind. So, this way, if he was distracted with the tow-truck guys, he wouldn’t be able to do that. Or so I could only hope.

Anyways, we didn’t have to wait long before we heard the fire alarm. Matches assured me that he could start a fire big enough to cause a panic, yet one that would stay reasonably under control. I hoped he was right. If the fire spread inside, the four of us would all get cooked like holiday hams.

We waited in the bathroom, standing on the toilets. Pretty soon the door burst open and a teacher made a pass-through, checking for any kids who might have been in there. He got down on his knees to check for feet and then was gone. We waited for five more minutes to make sure the school was cleared and then we made our move.

Out in the hallway we could smell smoke. I was suddenly very concerned that Matches had started a fire that would actually burn the whole place down. I shook it off and joined Tyrell at the door to the administration offices. He was already working on the lock with his trusty lockpick gun.

In just a matter of minutes he had us inside the administrative office area and then a short time later into Dickerson’s actual office. We stayed low so we wouldn’t be seen by everyone outside.

“Okay, do your thing,” I said to iBully.

He sat down at Dickerson’s desk, making sure to stay hidden right behind the monitor. He plugged a flash drive into the computer and started clacking away at the keyboard.

I poked my head up just enough to see outside. There were throngs of kids milling around, laughing and joking. Teachers doing head counts. And Dickerson was still out there simultaneously arguing with the tow-truck driver while trying to deal with the mess of his school being on fire. I saw two fire trucks coming up quickly from down the street.

I slid back down and looked at Vince. Now all we could do was wait and hope that it took the firefighters a while to get everything under control.

After what felt like forever but was only a little over half an hour, iBully finally said, “Almost done. I just need like ten more minutes.”

I grinned at Vince. We were actually going to pull this off. I didn’t believe it. But then Tyrell, who had been keeping watch in the hallway, poked his head inside the office.

“Uh, guys, Dickerson is coming! The fire chief must have let him back in for something. ETA like seventy seconds.”