Once Summer had told me her plan for how I could investigate unnoticed, I had to admit it was pretty clever. However, I had to wait before I could put it into action.
I had to go back to school.
I returned the next day, the monitoring bracelet strapped to my ankle. Worried that it looked dorky and branded me as a potential criminal, I did my best to hide it under the cuff of my jeans, but it was still noticeable if anyone looked at my feet. No one said anything—except Xavier, of course—but I got the sense that everyone was staring at me. When I tried to catch them at it, they’d all pretend to be doing something else, but the moment I turned away again, I could feel all their eyes return to me.
I made it halfway through the day before Vance Jessup caught up with me.
I was on my way to lunch with Xavier. We were a little late, as Xavier’s locker had jammed, and the halls had cleared out. We were about to enter the cafeteria when Vance and TimJim blocked our path.
“Hey, Teddy,” Vance said, completely ignoring Xavier. “We missed you yesterday. Where were you?”
“Sick,” I said, trying to duck past him.
He stuck out an arm, blocking my path. “Sick, my butt. You’ve been up to no good, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“That’s a nice piece of jewelry you’ve got there.” Vance pointed at the ankle bracelet, and TimJim snickered. “Where’d you get it?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “I’m late for lunch . . .”
I tried to squirm past Vance again, but this time he seized my shoulder. “It’s not because of our little prank the other day, is it?” he asked.
“No,” I told him.
Vance clapped his other hand under my jaw, then forced my chin up so I was looking him in the eye. “You’re sure? ’Cause if the police are involved, you’d better not rat me out. That’d be a very bad idea.” To drive the point home, he gave my shoulder a menacing squeeze. He barely flexed his fingers, and yet it felt as though he were leaving divots in my shoulder blade.
“Teddy’s not lying to you!” Xavier said quickly, trying to help me. “The bracelet’s not for the shark prank. It’s because the cops think Teddy stole the koala from FunJungle.”
Vance swiveled his giant head toward Xavier, surprised. Then he looked to TimJim. Then back to me.
“Is that true?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted.
Vance let go of me in surprise. And then he broke into his weird, strangled laugh. TimJim laughed even harder.
“You?” Vance asked me, incredulous. “You’re a suspect in that?”
“I didn’t do it,” I said sullenly. “I was framed.”
“Sure you were.” Vance turned to TimJim. “Wow, we get this kid to pull one prank and the next thing you know, he’s off stealing koalas.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Xavier said.
Vance stopped laughing and glared at Xavier. “Bug off,” he snarled.
“Okay.” Xavier scurried into the cafeteria.
Vance returned his attention to me. “Well, Teddy, now that you’ve got a taste for this, my posse and I were just talking about how we ought to pull another prank at FunJungle.”
I winced. There was no way I could do anything like that again. Not when my parents’ jobs were on the line. But saying no to Vance was always a dangerous proposition. I decided to try using logic instead. “We can’t,” I told him. “We almost got busted last time.”
“That’s what made it so classic!” Vance crowed. “When that cow from security slipped in the puke, I laughed so hard I almost busted a gut. Now, we’ve been thinking about what to do next, and we’ve come up with a good one. What if we do the same sort of thing like we did with the shark tank, only with the lions? But this time, instead of just an arm, we could put a whole mannequin in the cage and cover it with ketchup so it looks like there’s a dead, bloody person in there? Maybe we could even get some calf’s brains to really sell it. . . .”
I shook my head, desperately trying to get out of this. “It wouldn’t work. The lion exhibit is completely fenced off. There’s no way for us to get the body inside.”
“Oh,” Vance said, disappointed. “Well, what about doing that with the tigers?”
“All the carnivore exhibits are the same,” I said. It was a lie, but I figured Vance didn’t know FunJungle as well as I did. “The shark tank’s the only one you can get things into, and after our prank the other day, they’ve really stepped up security there. There’s two guards posted full-time now.”
Vance frowned, buying my story. “Okay,” he said. “Then how about this: You know about cow tipping, right?”
I nodded, worried where this was going. Cow tipping was the act of sneaking onto a ranch, finding a sleeping cow—cows sleep standing up—and shoving it over. It was the sort of thing incredibly bored teenagers in the sticks were rumored to do.
“Well, we’re pretty good at it,” Vance said. “In fact, we’re so good, it’s not very exciting anymore. The cows all just lie there after you shove them over.”
I wondered what Vance ever thought a sleeping cow would do after being shoved over that would qualify as exciting. Explode, perhaps?
“But,” Vance went on, “we know there’s all kinds of crazy animals at FunJungle that would be a lot more interesting than cows. Rhinos and hippos and all those weird, freaky antelope. I mean, how cool would it be to shove over a sleeping rhino, right?” He laughed at the thought of this, and TimJim echoed it.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “It wouldn’t be cool,” I said. “It’d be idiotic. Rhinos are incredibly dangerous. They’d trample you to death the moment you came near them.”
Vance stopped laughing. His eyes narrowed angrily. “Did you just call me an idiot?”
I gulped. I’d been so astonished by the insanity of Vance’s idea, I’d forgotten to be properly submissive to him. “Uh, no. I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about your plan.”
“Yeah,” Vance snarled. “You said it was idiotic. Which means you think I’m an idiot.”
“No,” I said. “I just think you don’t understand how dangerous rhinos are. A lot of people make that mistake.” I tried to back away.
Vance didn’t let me go. Instead he clamped one hand on my shoulder again, then shook a fist in front of my nose. “Nobody calls me an idiot,” he growled.
Vance had been in a fight recently. His knuckles were wrapped in bloodied bandages. I stared at them, terrified that in the next few seconds some of my blood was going to be adorning them as well. “I didn’t mean to insult you,” I said. “I was only trying to explain—”
“I ought to punch your lights out,” Vance told me. “But we need you. So I’ll give you a choice: Either help us prank FunJungle again . . . or feel the pain.”
I should have just agreed to the prank. It would have been a lie, of course, but it might have convinced Vance to not hurt me for a little while. But instead I made the mistake of trying to reason with a bully. “We’ll never get away with another prank,” I protested. “We were lucky to get away with the last one. Forget about it.”
“That sounds like you’re saying no to me,” Vance growled. “So I’m gonna give you one last chance to change your mind . . .”
“I’m trying to protect you!” I told him. “You guys try anything else at FunJungle and they’ll be ready for you. We’ll all get busted.”
“Don’t give me that,” Vance said. “You’re just chicken.” He turned to TimJim. “Looks like Teddy here has chosen to feel the pain. Give him a swirlie.”
Before I knew what was happening, Vance shoved me toward TimJim, who grabbed my arms and hoisted me off the ground.
Xavier had told me about swirlies. They were by far the worst of a long list of abuses Vance and his pals were known to dole out. The victim was dragged to the most disgusting toilet in the school and inserted headfirst into it, after which Vance would flush. There was a great deal of competition for the most disgusting toilet at our school. Many of them tended to be clogged and were thus full of more poop than FunJungle’s hippo pools. Although I really didn’t want to cause any more trouble at the park, I wanted to get a swirlie even less.
“Wait!” I said. “Let’s talk about this!”
“You already had your chance to talk.” Vance led the way to the bathroom, grinning devilishly.
“Help!” I yelled, desperately looking around for anyone else. To my dismay, all the other students were either at lunch or wisely staying out of Vance’s sight.
I thrashed about, trying to break free from TimJim’s grip—or to at least boot one of them in the shins—but they held my arms tightly and kept their legs away from mine with the skill of boys who’d performed swirlies many times before.
Vance kicked open the door to the boys’ room closest to the cafeteria. This bathroom was renowned as one of the least sanitary places at school, if not on planet Earth. Someone—probably Vance—had wrecked the pipes with cherry bombs. The toilets still worked, in theory, but they tended to back up and overflow. Thus this bathroom was generally avoided like the plague. I think even the janitors stayed clear. It looked as though it had been several weeks since the last cleaning. Toilet paper was strung everywhere, and water was puddled on the floor. The place smelled worse than anywhere I’d ever been, which was saying something, given that I lived at a zoo.
“Please, Vance,” I pleaded. “Don’t do this. I’ll do whatever prank you want.” I wasn’t proud of myself, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “You want to tip rhinos, fine. We can go tip rhinos.” Maybe I’d made a mistake in talking them out of that before. I should have let them try it and all get trampled.
Vance acted like he didn’t even hear me. He now seemed more excited about the swirlie than about any prank at FunJungle. “Let’s do stall five,” he said. “That one’s been really foul lately.”
TimJim laughed, although rather than the usual sniggering, this sounded almost diabolical. The boys upended me and carried me to stall five.
I knew about stall five. It was the worst of the worst. The kids at school called it the Toilet of Doom.
I stopped pleading. It wasn’t doing any good. Plus, given that I was about to end up headfirst in foul water, I thought it was best if I kept my mouth closed.
Vance opened stall five and faked a gasp of disgust for my benefit. “Ooh. This is even worse than usual. Looks like someone with a disease used it today. And forgot to flush.”
TimJim laughed again and carried me forward. I caught my first glimpse of the Toilet of Doom. It was worse than I’d ever imagined.
I shut my eyes, held my breath, and prepared for the worst.
Before TimJim could plunge me in, however, the bathroom door banged open.
“Put him down,” someone said.
I couldn’t see who was speaking, since I was facing the wrong way and unable to turn around, but the voice was obviously that of a fellow student rather than a teacher.
I could see Vance, although it was a little hard to make out his expression, as I was upside down, looking up his nose. At first he seemed to be a little unsettled by whoever had entered, but he quickly played the tough guy again. “You gonna make me?”
“No,” said a second person, entering the room. “We’re gonna make you.”
Now that he was facing two people, whoever they were, Vance’s tough act faltered, though he struggled to seem imposing. “There’s three of us,” he said. “Try anything and we’ll crush you.”
“I don’t think so,” the first voice said calmly. “Now put the kid down.”
Tim and Jim turned around, taking me with them, so I could now see who’d come to my rescue.
It was Ethan Sokol and Dashiell Alexander. They were eighth graders and, better yet, stars of the school football team. In the Texas middle school system, this meant they might as well have been gods. Ethan was a wide receiver and Dash was the quarterback. Though neither was quite as big as TimJim, they were in much better shape. I had no idea what they were doing standing up for me. Neither of them had ever said a word to me before. Up to that point, I’d have guessed they didn’t know I existed.
“This isn’t any of your business,” Vance told them. “Just walk away.” I noticed that Vance was saying this from safely behind TimJim rather than in front of them.
Ethan and Dashiell came toward us, unfazed. “Put the kid down . . . or we’ll make you,” Ethan warned.
TimJim flipped me upright and set me on my feet, although this wasn’t out of any kindness. They were simply getting ready to attack.
Before I could make a move, Vance locked his arms around me, holding me tight. “Get them!” he yelled.
TimJim lunged forward, as obedient as a hunting dog.
Ethan and Dash were ready, though. Ethan quickly sidestepped Tim, then used the thug’s momentum against him, grabbing his arm and whirling him headfirst into the wall. Tim’s skull bounced off the tile and he went down. Dash took the more direct approach. He simply punched Jim in the stomach. Jim folded like a pocketknife and collapsed to the floor.
Just like that, Tim and Jim were out of commission.
Without his muscle, Vance suddenly wasn’t so tough anymore. “Stay back!” he yelled, his voice cracking, and then turned me toward stall five, using me as a hostage. “Let me go or I’ll dunk Teddy!”
Vance wasn’t as big and strong as TimJim, however, and he was distracted. I had a chance against him—and I definitely didn’t want to end up in that toilet. Before I knew what was happening, my instincts had kicked in. I lifted both legs and kicked off the door frame of stall five, forcing Vance and me backward. Vance, caught by surprise, slipped on the wet floor and tumbled. He landed flat on his back and I landed on top of him, my skull cracking him in the face. That hurt me—but it hurt Vance a lot more. The back of my head caught him right in the lips.
Vance howled in pain, relaxing his grip on me. I quickly wriggled free and scrambled to my feet.
However, Vance got up just as quickly and snagged my arm, spinning me to face him. His mouth was now full of blood—I’d smashed his lips into his own teeth—making him look even more devilish than usual.
I tried to pull free of him. I may have been a lot smaller than Vance, but I was having a major adrenaline rush. Vance tried to keep his grip on me, but his feet slipped on the wet floor and he pitched forward. I leaped out of the way—and as I did, I saw the look on Vance’s bloodied face shift from anger to terror.
He pitched past me, straight into stall five—and landed face-first in the Toilet of Doom.
I didn’t actually see him do it. Even though Vance had made my life miserable every chance he got, I couldn’t bring myself to watch and averted my eyes. The sound was disgusting enough. There was a sickening wet slap as his face plunged in, then a brief moment of silence—and then the sound of Vance pulling himself back out and screaming in horror.
He lurched out of the stall, wild-eyed, wet toilet paper and things I didn’t even want to think about dangling from his hair. He’d immediately forgotten all about me. Now he only wanted to be clean. He raced to the sink, only to find that, as usual, the taps weren’t working. “No!” he moaned, and then bolted from the bathroom, racing right past Ethan, Dashiell, and TimJim in search of clean water. It almost sounded as though he was crying as he ran down the hall.
Ethan and Dashiell turned to me—and then burst into laughter.
“That was awesome!” Ethan cried.
“Classic,” Dashiell agreed. “Students here are gonna be talking about this for years.”
“Thanks for saving me,” I told them.
“You should thank your pal Xavier,” Ethan said. “He’s the one who came and got us.”
“Are you all right?” Dashiell asked me.
I realized my heart was still hammering in my chest, the result of the adrenaline. My whole body felt numb. I had to check the mirror to make sure I wasn’t hurt. “I’m fine,” I said.
“C’mon,” Ethan told me. “Let’s get some lunch.”
After witnessing—and smelling—everything that had just transpired, I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. But I’d learned some rules of middle school, and one of the major ones was, when the varsity football players invite you to lunch, you eat with them.
“Sure,” I said, and we headed for the cafeteria, leaving TimJim sprawled on the bathroom floor behind us.