33
Preparations

Ira wasn’t kidding. He has hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of video on his laptop. And I’d be surprised if he didn’t have footage of nearly every member of the St. Cathopher’s family. Since I’m still big-time grounded, he’s over at my house, and we’re scouring his computer for suitable “gotcha” material.

“You could nail every kid we know,” I say, shaking my head.

“Every teacher, too.” He smiles.

We’ve only been searching his library for five minutes, and already I’ve seen: a fifth-grade Greg Vargas wetting his pants during a handball game; Mr. Miller leaving the john without washing his hands; even Angela Gudrun, obviously unaccustomed to her fancy high heels, taking a nasty spill at Spring Fling.

“Is this mostly hidden-camera stuff, or what?”

“The Mr. Miller one in the bathroom? Yeah. But that was just an experiment. Mostly, though, I just walk around with the camera. When something interesting happens, I just keep it at my waist and press record. See, no start-up noise whatsoever.”

“Uh, yeah, I noticed.” It’s hard not to remember one of the more recent occasions when Ira used this keep-it-at-the-waist-and-press-record method.

“Alex, really, I’m sorry. I never—”

“What’s done is done,” I say. While it’s tempting to get mad at him all over again, I try to focus on the present. “I know you never would have put it out in the world on your own, and you couldn’t have predicted that Rocky and Trevor would steal it.”

“Yeah, but now I know how to handle security better. I used to leave videos on the camera for a few days at a time before uploading them to my computer. But I’ll never do that again. The videos go straight to my laptop, and the laptop stays far away from school.”

We check out some more videos. The wide-scale embarrassment potential is epic, but Ira hasn’t named the files or organized them in any way, so locating stuff on our specific targets is tricky, to say the least.

“One question,” I say. “Why do you do this?”

“Well, you know I want to be a director one day, right? But it’s not only that. It’s the weird stuff people do when they think nobody’s looking at them. I find it … fascinating.”

“And you really shoot all this stuff without anybody noticing you?”

“The time in the bathroom with you was the only time somebody caught me in the act.”

“That’s nuts. I mean, I get it, the camera’s at your waist, not balancing on your shoulder, but still … it’s not that hard to notice.”

“The camera’s not hard to notice, but I am.”

“Huh?”

He thinks for a second. “As soon as our entire class became completely obsessed with girls—which happened pretty much overnight, with zero warning—it was like I became invisible. Not just to girls, but to my friends, too.”

“That’s so untrue.” It is, isn’t it?

“Oh, come on, Alex. Take Spring Fling as an example. You basically told me to get lost as soon as the girls came over. Go talk to the geeks, you said.”

“I did not,” I say, my stomach churning. I, Alex Schrader, may be a wee bit selfish at times, but I didn’t abandon one of my oldest friends as soon as I became interested in girls. Or did I?

“ ‘Friendship can walk the plank, matey,’ right?”

Wow, he remembers that line as well as Nomura does. “Okay, we’ve both done some stupid things in the last five weeks,” I say. “Truce?” I know a bro-shake won’t make up for my behavior, but hopefully it’s a start.

“Truce,” Ira says. We squeeze wrists and go through the elaborate handshake that Nomura concocted when the three of us were eleven. We still remember every last grip, every sweet little palm slide, ending on a down-low clasp that’s way slicker and slier than the jocky high fives of Rocky and Trevor.

“Okay, so we’ve at least got some time stamps to work with here,” I say, turning my attention to the file folder on Ira’s laptop again.

“That, we do.”

“Let’s stick with the night of Spring Fling.”

Ira chuckles wickedly and rubs his hands together. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asks.

“I do believe we’re on the same page.”

But before we can find what we’re looking for, I hear a key turning in our front-door lock. I look at my watch. It’s already five fifteen! Dolly and my mom aren’t supposed to be here, not yet, but Ira definitely isn’t. Not while I’m grounded.

“Hello?” I call, trying for a friendly tone. I pray it’s only Dolly.

“Hi,” two voices call. Ugh. My mom’s with her. Dolly’s cello must have needed a ride somewhere, so Mom provided it. If I’m going to pull this off, I’ll need to keep better tabs on their schedules.

“Should I hide?” Ira asks.

“No,” I say. “I’ll tell her we’re working on a project.” I give a sad laugh. “After all, how much more grounded can I be than I already am?”

After Ira leaves, I wonder if hiding him might have been a better strategy.

“So what’s this video project about?” Mom asks, having finally calmed down about Ira’s being here at all. I’m down-stairs now, talking to her while she puts away her coat and her briefcase, and she seems to have accepted the fact that I couldn’t tell her about the “assignment” Ira and I were working on, because I don’t have a phone.

“It’s for this human-behavior project,” I say. I don’t know where I come up with this stuff, but it’s not a flat-out lie (I’m back into “omitting the truth” territory, I guess). We are, in fact, doing a human-behavior project; it just happens to be completely extracurricular.

“After Mrs. Eagleton’s phone call,” she says, “the last thing I want to see in this house is you and Ira hunched over a laptop and a video camera.”

“This is important,” I say. “You’ll see.”

“More or less important than your incessant practicing on that idiotic drum?” Dolly breaks in, as if anyone had asked for her opinion, nodding toward the rada standing discreetly in the corner of the room.

“Nine times out of ten, I’m done practicing by the time you get home.” Mom outlawed any contact with Bijou or her rhythm-virtuoso brother, but she did give in after I begged her to let me stick with my practice routine during my grounding. I guess she doesn’t have the heart to make me give up the one thing I’ve ever been halfway good at.

“Yeah, it’s that one time out of ten I’m concerned with.”

“You know how many thousands of times I’ve lost sleep ’cause of that plank of wood you’re constantly screeching away on?”

“Kids, please,” Mom says. “The last thing I need at the end of the day is to hear the two of you bickering.”

Behind Mom’s back, I stick my tongue out at my obnoxious sister. In the last week, I’ve lost my phone, my freedom, and the first girl I’ve ever liked. I’m not going to let Dolly take away my rada, too.

“Hey, Alex. Haven’t heard from you in a few days,” Jou Jou says, sounding genuinely happy to hear from me, as opposed to coldly suspicious of a kid who recently humiliated his sister (even if he didn’t mean to). Could Bijou possibly not have told him? “I was starting to get worried, man. Everything cool?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” I say. And, figuring it’s better to come out with it, I take a chance. “Although I don’t know if everything’s cool between your sister and me.”

Jou Jou can’t see me, but I’m cringing like I’m about to receive a blow. I’m taking a risk here by even bringing up the issue of the video; if he knows there’s something wrong between me and Bijou, all trust between the two of us will evaporate instantly. Because blood is thicker than … cow skin. Right?

He takes a while to answer. “Listen, Alex, Bijou don’t tell me anything about this, and my aunt and uncle didn’t say nothing, either. But I think if you and I are gonna keep going with the lessons, you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

So I do. I tell him everything about the video, about Rocky and Trevor, and about how I plan to get them back. And I tell him about how Bijou was the unintended victim of Rocky and Trevor’s stupidity, and Ira’s, and mine. I even tell him about the letter I finally (!) got from Bijou, figuring that if I leave out even a single detail and he finds out later, I’ll look like a jerk. (Okay, Mom, I guess I’m starting to see how “omitting the truth” really isn’t the way to go, after all.) I tell him that I understand why Bijou wants to push the pause button on our friendship, but that, for now, anyway, I still don’t want to take no for an answer.

“This is bad,” Jou Jou says. “I can see how it happened, but I wish it hadn’t happened to her, you know? She’s the last person in the world who deserves it.”

“Believe me, I know,” I say. “It sucks. It’s been … a nightmare.”

Then, I tell Jou Jou about how I plan to get Bijou back, too. About what she means to me, and how I have to try to win her friendship back one last time. I won’t be able to do it without his help, after all.

“Alex, you did say she wrote you and said she didn’t want to see you anymore, am I right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“And you still think it’s a good idea to keep pushing like this? What if she’s right?”

“Listen, if this doesn’t work, I will never so much as look at Bijou again. I will leave her completely in peace and not have a problem with it.” I have to pause for a second, because the idea of never even getting to talk to Bijou again makes me all emotional. “I can’t explain it, but I … need to do this.”

Jou Jou takes a deep breath. “Alex, you’ve got a sister, am I right?”

“Yeah. Dolly.”

“Okay, Dolly. Try to imagine if somebody you had only known for a few weeks came to you with a plan like this in mind. Would you trust that person?”

I don’t know what to say. Obviously, he’s got a serious point here.

“Bijou is all I’ve got, Alex. She’s the most important person in the world to me.”

“I know…. I’m sure she is. I’m really sorry I even—”

“I can really trust you, you’re saying?”

“Yes,” I tell him. “I swear it.”

“Okay, Alex, I’m in.”

“That’s awesome! But you won’t tell her we’re … collaborating?”

“No, man. It won’t work if I let the secret out now, will it?” He pauses. “But I’m putting my trust in you, Alex. You understand what that means, right?”

“I do. And I won’t let you down. Promise.”

“And you’d better be practicing your raboday pattern, man. Because it won’t work unless you’re sounding tight. Got it?”

“I’ll be ready,” I say.