33

Vân Ước just smiled when she saw Billy at the gate so early the next morning. Last week was outrage and suspicion. This week was irrationality and going with the wish flow. How far she’d traveled from the land of common sense.

Billy glanced up at the windows of the apartments and risked giving her the swiftest kiss on the cheek.

They walked along Albert Street, talking. Billy was ridiculously pleased about the common room prank he was about to set up, then he wanted to hear all about her portfolio work, and she admitted that she hadn’t told her parents about her plans to study art.

“Nice con,” he said.

“It’s not exactly a con; I wouldn’t need to be selective truth-telling if I had normal parents.” It felt disloyal to speak of her parents in those terms, but as far as her study choices went, her parents weren’t normal.

“No such thing,” Billy said absently. “Not that I’ve ever come across, anyway.”

Closer to school, Billy stopped at a cafe to get a takeaway coffee. “What would you like?”

“I’m okay.”

As they entered the small and, to her, intimidatingly cool place, Billy started ordering, “Can I please get a large double-shot…”

“… latte, to take away,” said the man making coffee.

“Total recall,” said Billy, admiringly. “Better get a toasted cheese and tomato on sourdough to go, too. Thanks, man.” He turned to her again. “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

She shook her head.

While they waited for the two slices of bread to be crisped and browned, and the cheese to melt, she tried to figure out why this place intimidated her. Too cool sort of summarized it, but that meant what, exactly? The interior: expensively minimalist design. The staff: black wraparound aprons, defined biceps, hipster ink and piercings. And the clientele: Lululemon-ed, with high Wi-Fi expectations.

Then there was the absence of a visible price list. The chalkboard had a range of food and drinks written in arty, spiky script—no prices. The printed menus had prices, but by the time you asked for one of those, you were committed to buying something, weren’t you? Or could you just browse the menu, register that a toasted cheese and tomato was going to cost you twelve bucks to go and sixteen to eat in, and back out of there, slowly? How much better was it going to be than the toasted cheese and tomato on Albert Street for less than half the price? Or the one you could make yourself, after school, for about a twentieth of the price? Billy paid and they left.

She looked at him, happily eating and walking, and decided it was unlikely that he had ever, even once in his life, had to make that kind of calculation. Whereas her life was full of those little lists of impossible figures—how hourly pay rates would add up to a new lens or more prints for her portfolio or a return airfare to Sydney or winter boots or Chanel instead of a cheap brand of nail polish (once, just once).

Billy had finished the coffee and sandwich by the time they got to the common room. He dumped his rubbish into the bin.

“What are you calling that meal?”

“A post-breakfast, pre-recess snack, I guess,” he said, burping. “Sorry, that’s gross. I think I know how we’re going to get this up.” He walked over to the camera zone and pulled a table right up underneath the corner of the ceiling to which it was fixed. He put a chair on the table and balanced a stool on the chair. He then put another chair on the table next to it. He jumped down and went to the cupboard in the kitchen area where he’d stashed a tripod with telescopic legs.

“Did you nick that from the art room?”

“Borrowed it,” he said.

“Did you sign it out?”

“Nuh.”

“Then you nicked it.”

“But isn’t nicking something for a defined and finite time pretty similar to borrowing?”

“Similar, except in the detail of the owners not knowing where it is or who’s got it.”

Billy smiled. “They’re always telling us that the student body is the school, so if I am the school, don’t I sort of own it?”

Michael walked in to hear her ask, “Won’t they see us? Like, now? On the screens?” As she spoke, she carefully placed herself out of viewing range, kicking herself that she hadn’t thought of it earlier.

“The full-time security dude doesn’t get in till eight. I can’t imagine them looking at earlier footage unless there’d been some sort of break-in overnight.”

Billy gave Michael a cool look. “Hey, man—you’re turning up a lot, lately. Are you actually following us? Or is this just a whole lot of bad luck?”

Michael put his bag down. “In this case, I am following you.”

“Just so you know, it’s creepy.”

Vân Ước gave Michael an apologetic shrug as Billy got a folder out of his bag, and from the folder a print of the photo Vân Ước had helped him shoot of the empty room, which he’d stuck onto a piece of cardboard, so it was rigid.

He got a roll of tape out, made some tape loops, and stuck the print on the plate of the tripod where a camera usually went.

“Okay.” He climbed up on the table, and onto the chair on the table, then pulled out the tripod legs to their maximum length and positioned them so they’d fit on the stool. He maneuvered the tripod until the photographic image was close to the camera on the ceiling.

“What do you think?” he asked Vân Ước.

“Should be about right.”

“Why are you getting Vân Ước involved in this?” Michael asked. “She could get into trouble purely at the service of your weak joke.”

“Yeah, only she has this thing—free will?” said Billy.

“If you expect this to work, you’ll have to go and check that the photo edges are out of shot on the security screen,” said Michael. “And you also have to know you will definitely get caught within a couple of days, and Vân Ước can’t afford to be part of that.”

Billy climbed down carefully, so as not to move the chair/stool/tripod assemblage. “Okay, now can you go?”

Michael ignored Billy and said to Vân Ước, “It’s not a smart idea for you to be involved. Think about it.”

She was already involved. “Billy said he’ll take the blame.”

“That’s not always the perpetrator’s call, unfortunately,” said Michael.

Billy pulled a Sharpie from his bag and wrote a note—DON’T MESS WITH THIS—IT’S SHOWING THE COMMON ROOM EMPTY ON THE SECURITY CAMERA. YOU’RE WELCOME—and taped it conspicuously in front of the chair/stool/tripod tower.

A few people were starting to straggle in.

“What’s that meant to be? Art?” asked Annie suspiciously, looking at the setup. But on reading the sign, she was thrilled. “Classic, Billy. Classic.”

Billy headed off to training, late again, and Vân Ước to rehearsal.

By morning break everyone knew that the rebels had taken the common room, and people were freely lighting up cigarettes in there—“Just like the good old days,” as Pippa said, blowing smoke out the window with a dreamy all’s right with the world smile.

Billy had a look at the security screens on a bogus visit to lost property and reported that it looked completely realistic. An innocently empty room was all that appeared on the screen.

More deceptive appearances.

And Michael, of course, was right; being part of a popular funny-boy prank involved more anxiety than fun.