I woke to the sounds of rustling. Or, well, I wished I could say that it was as quiet as rustling. Then I wouldn’t have felt so guilty for sleeping through it. But the truth was the intruder wasn’t even trying to be quiet. He was digging through my closet with reckless abandon, tossing things aside with loud clatters.

When I first woke, I was still groggy, I mean, I hadn’t been sleeping very long and so I was still severely sleep-deprived. I know, I know, I’m basically making excuses now, but the fact is this: I’m still embarrassed about it all. Anyways, I was groggy, and it took me a while to react to the dark shape of a kid digging through my closet.

And then by the time I’d realized they’d found the briefcase full of cash, it took me too long to get out of bed. I stumbled and tripped over my sheets and ended up face-planting into my carpeted floor. I saw shoes run by me.

I got up and dove at the dark figure in my dark room. I missed and crashed into my desk, slamming my ribs painfully against the corner. All I could do was lie on the floor next to it, holding my aching ribs and watching as the dark figure climbed out of the window and down the slope of the roof.

I collected my breath, and the pain subsided just enough to allow me to get up. Or maybe the pain didn’t subside at all, but rather the power of my anger and shock simply covered it up for the time being.

Questions coursed through my brain as I pulled on a pair of sweatpants two legs at once and then basically dove out the window after the thief. I landed on the roof and rolled to the edge, gripping the gutter and swinging down so I was hanging above the bushes below.

It was still a several-foot drop, and even with the bushes there to break my fall, there was a good chance I could shatter an ankle or femur. But those would be nothing compared to letting this punk get away with our money.

So I let go.

And it did hurt. But, thankfully, it hurt my sore ribs more than anything else when I crashed down into those shrubs. I’d gotten some scratches across my back, I was sure, but I’d avoided landing on a leg or an arm, and it didn’t feel like I’d impaled myself on any of the branches, so I got up, brushed off, and looked around.

Great White was involved in a quiet struggle with two kids just as tall as he was. They must have gotten the drop on him because I was pretty sure there were no two kids in our school who Great White wouldn’t be able to take on his own. The two figures were each pinning an arm, and he flailed in an attempt to get free.

“Mac!” Great White managed to get out when he saw me. “Around front. He went around front.”

His attackers turned toward me momentarily. And then I saw in the pale moonlight that they were Mitch and Justin. The distraction was just enough for Great White to get an arm free, and he used it to land a right hook across Justin’s stupid face. It was over now. I knew Great White had turned the table and would be able to take care of those two by himself, no problem.

So I ran in pursuit of the thief. I went around to the front yard. I saw Little Paul sitting against a tree. At first I feared that maybe he’d been knocked unconscious or worse, but as I approached him, I heard snoring. The little punk had fallen asleep on the job. But I didn’t have time to deal with that just then.

I looked both ways down the street. There was no sign of Kevin, so there was really no telling what his excuse was. But I did catch a glimpse of a shadow moving behind a car a few houses down. And I wasted no time.

As I sprinted toward the car, the dark figure bolted out from behind it in the opposite direction, the briefcase full of cash tucked neatly under his left arm like a football. I was trying to see who it was, but it was hard to tell in the lighting, and in my current state.

But then I realized that the car he was just about to get into before I’d spotted him was a blue Toyota. Staples’s blue Toyota.

It hit me like a slab of school meatloaf across my face. And yet, I should have known all along, really.

Staples had orchestrated the whole thing. It had been genius. First implanting himself back into my life, then utilizing the whole school rivalry and massive debt. Staples had tricked me into amassing thousands of dollars so he could steal it in one swift move. And since he’d stolen it that night instead of waiting for the exchange the next day, I’d have no proof that it was him, and I’d still technically owe Kinko the same amount of money. She’d destroy me and the school.

Really, it had been about as brilliant a double cross as was humanly possible. Whether he was after money or revenge, he got them both.

I pushed myself as hard as I possibly could, and I was actually gaining ground. Staples made a sudden right turn and then hopped clean over a low fence like an Olympic hurdler. There was no way I could do the same, and instead I had to run around it, which gave him at least ten more yards’ ground on me.

It was obvious now that the thief was headed toward The Creek, toward Vince’s neighborhood. Staples’s old neighborhood.

My ribs ached, my lungs felt like they were being set on fire by a mob of angry villagers with torches, and my legs and feet might as well have just been amputated because I couldn’t even feel them anymore. But still I ran on, stumbling through the dark.

I mean, he was carrying at least twenty pounds of extra weight in the suitcase; he had to be just as tired as me. And I was right. As we moved our way farther toward The Creek, darting in and around trees, bushes, cars, through alleys, past barking dogs, I was gaining ground again.

Actually, I was gaining ground quickly. I thought he must have pulled something because his run was more of a hobbling limp now as he approached the Fourteenth Street bridge, a narrow two-lane road that crossed the large creek that made up the boundary, fittingly enough, of the neighborhood known as The Creek.

I was going to catch him now; that much was clear. I think he knew it, too, because he was desperately lurching forward in increasingly clumsy steps. For a second I thought he was going to fall flat on his stupid, backstabbing face.

He ran onto the bridge. The sound of the creek, which was really more like a raging river, was the only noise other than our broken and uneven footsteps. I followed him onto the bridge.

He kept running—or shuffling was probably more correct by this point. I finally caught him and grabbed the back of his hooded sweatshirt. I reached out for the case with my other hand, and he jerked it away from my grasp as he tripped and finally fell, taking me down with him.

I landed on top of him, and we both grunted. That’s when I saw the airborne briefcase. It must have slipped out of his hand when he’d pulled it away from me and tripped at the same time. It soared high into the night, spinning like a Frisbee. It seemed to dangle among the stars for several seconds, as if they were trying to grab it for themselves.

All I could do was lie there on the pavement and watch helplessly as the stars finally released the briefcase and it flew right over the side railing and down into the rushing creek below.