Chapter Twenty-Five

The next morning, the sky decided to join me in my wretched mood. The dark, gray clouds dripped a freezing mix of snow and rain, which covered Grantleyville in a clumpy coat of misery. Pops dropped me off at school barely on time.

I skirted through the trails of slush in the hallway, chucked my stuff in my locker, and made it into my homeroom class just as the bell rang. Ms. Kowalski looked up, raising an eyebrow. “Skin of your teeth, Howard Wallace,” she tutted. “Skin of your teeth.”

Sliding into my chair, I took a gander back at Ivy’s seat. Empty. Ms. Kowalski took attendance, skipping over my partner’s name. I flung my hand into the air, straining forward as Ms. Kowalski studiously ignored me. She continued down the list, her eyes never leaving the paper. I spread my fingers out as far as they would go to make a bigger visual target. A muscle began to twitch in her cheek. After the last answer of “Here” she slowly lowered the page and stared at me. A loud squeak cut through the classroom chatter as I inched forward in my chair.

“Yes, Howard?” She bit each word off, grinding the last syllable to dust.

“Where’s Ivy?”

“You don’t know the whereabouts of your own partner-in-crime?”

“I’d say it’s partner-in-crime-solving at least ninety percent of the time, but we can argue about that later. Where is she? Is she sick?”

“The office marked her absent, so your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “If I may continue with our day?”

I nodded, lost in thought. It wasn’t like Ivy to miss school. Although, she also usually wasn’t trying to conceal evidence of thievery. I’d have to swing by her place after school and knock on the door until she answered.

When lunchtime rolled around, I followed the flow of traffic to the cafeteria. It felt weird going by myself. I’d gotten used to having Ivy around to talk my ear off. Maybe I’d go eat with Pete. Before I could ponder tracking him down, an arm whipped out of a doorway and hauled me by the collar into an empty classroom. I caught myself on a desk before I could topple over. Straightening up, I came face to face with the last person I expected to be hauling me around by the collar.

“Scotty.”

“Howard,” he smiled sheepishly.

“What’s going on?”

He nodded over my shoulder, and I spun around. Nearly a dozen seats were filled with vaguely familiar kids. Ashi waved from the front row. Standing by the window was an imposing figure, backlit by the faded winter sun.

“Welcome, Howard,” the figure said, pushing away from the sill and walking toward me. Black hair framed a narrow face that watched me with calculating eyes. “Glad you could make it.”

“What have I made?” I took in the scene and adjusted my rumpled coat. “Secret society? Howard Wallace Appreciation Club? Is there punch and pie?”

“I heard you were funny.” She came to stand next to me, wiping a speck of lint from my collar. “I suppose rumors do get blown out of proportion.”

The room and the face had been my first clue, but the theatrics clinched it. “Ellis Garcia,” I said, holding out a hand. “Nice to finally have the pleasure. What does the head of the Arts Council, and I’m guessing the rest of the council, want with me?”

She gave my hand a solid shake and smiled.

“A détente, if you will,” she said, spreading her hands out wide. “We’re hoping the opportunity to hear our side will make things progress a little more . . . reasonably.”

“I prefer not to be manhandled into negotiations,” I said.

“My apologies for that,” Ellis said. “We didn’t think you’d come for a chat willingly.”

Pops’s words wound their way back through my brain. Ivy wanted to hear them out, so I’d hear them out. “I’m listening,” I said.

Ellis gestured to the nearest table, and we sat. Everyone else scooched their chairs in closer. “This is the GMS Arts Council,” Ellis said. “We represent all the clubs from Drama to Writers’ Workshop. Banding together was the best bet to make ourselves heard.”

“Not that it worked,” someone griped.

“The goal is to get more support for our programs,” Ellis continued.

I sat back in my chair. “What does this have to do with Spartacus?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said. “Since the beginning of the year, our already pitiful budget has been slashed and redirected to the basketball team.”

The other kids chimed in all at once.

“They took half of our spring musical money to put toward the new scoreboard.”

“They needed a bus for an away game, so they bumped our field trip.”

“We still haven’t rescheduled.”

“All of our fund-raisers get booted out of the gym for games and practices.”

Ellis stood up, slamming a hand down on the desk. “We get shoved to the side again and again, and no one cares. Mrs. Pamuk tried to help, but she’s no match for the Parents’ Association. They only want sports and more sports.” She sat back down in her chair. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she said. “If we didn’t do something to get people to take notice, all of our programs were going to fold.”

The “why” was starting to make a lot more sense. Except . . .

“How did Scotty get roped into all of this?”

“I’m in band,” Scotty said. “Oboes before b-balls, Howard.”

“Of course,” I said. “I should have realized.”

“Except I play trumpet, but there’s no good sports rhyme for that. But you know what I mean—”

“Scotty, I get it.” Clearer motivation didn’t make this any less of a mess. “What was your plan outside of kidnapping Spartacus? Were you really willing to let Carl take the fall for everything?”

“We wanted to let the basketball team fail,” Ellis said. “Let them get a taste of being second-class citizens. We’d figure out a way to get Carl cleared before it went too far.”

“Getting kicked off the basketball team and threatened with suspension is pretty far,” I said.

“I said we were working on it,” Ellis muttered.

Despite their ever-so-slightly higher moral ground, the Art Council’s bad methodology was burying them up to their necks in repercussions. Someone needed to take charge.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” I laid out a plan on the fly—a last-ditch effort to clear Carl, help the team, and keep the Arts Council kids out of a lifetime of detention.

Ellis shook her head. “That’s a terrible plan.”

“Happens to be my speciality, sweetheart,” I said. “Besides, it’s better than what you’ve got.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart.” She paused and gave me a piercing look. “You’re really going to help?”

“Gonna try.” I stood up and nodded to the group. “I’ll be in touch.”

I made my way out of the room and into the hall. Pulling a notebook out of my pocket, I jotted down some ideas for how to proceed. I wanted to make sure I had everything set when I talked to Ivy. Movement to my left caught my eye. Quick as lightning, the door to the girls’ bathroom opened and a hand snaked out, hauling me inside. I grabbed onto the sink to prevent a face plant.

“Whatever happened to a nice ‘Howard, may I speak to you?’ Everyone’s all hands today.” Righting myself, I came face to face with Carl and Leyla. Disconcerting on many fronts.

I shot a look at Leyla. “How many of my offices are you going to steal?”

“Haven’t decided,” she mused. “Might check out your home digs and make it a hat trick.”

Not sure if that was a sports reference or a dig at my wardrobe. Either way I was annoyed. “It’s always a slice with you two, but in case you’ve forgotten, I’m working a case. I don’t have time for shenanigans.”

“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” Leyla said. “I thought you were bringing Spartacus to school today?”

I cursed our info-sharing agreement and the random fit of cooperation that had me filling her in before we left for Scotty’s place yesterday. “About that,” I said. “Change of plans. Ivy’s got Spartacus right now, and we’re working on a plan to bring him back to the school.”

“Why do you need a plan? You bring him back. Boom, done,” Leyla said. Carl nodded.

Checking the stalls quickly for interlopers, I bought myself some time to come up with something reasonable. A tiny voice that sounded suspiciously like Ivy’s piped up in my head. You know what’s reasonable? The truth.

“That’s rarely the case,” I murmured.

“Tick tock, Howard,” Leyla said. “I’ve got a deadline to meet, Carl’s got a game to play, and I assume you’d like to solve this case, but I’m not putting any money on that one.”

I did want to solve this case, but it was proving easier said than done. Especially without my partner.

Carl was watching me with a steady gaze as Leyla continued her lecture on follow-through. “What’d you do?” he asked, cutting off the barrage.

“Excuse me?”

“No Spartacus, no Ivy,” he said. “Kind of suspicious you’re the one left standing.”

Why was it that whenever Carl chose to speak, it was to make things more inconvenient for me? “Here’s my question for you guys,” I said. “Do you trust me?”

“No,” Carl said.

“Not even a little bit,” Leyla added.

Wrong tack.

“Okay, Leyla. Do you want the biggest story this school has ever had?”

Her eyes lit up. “More than anything.”

“Carl, do you want to return to the basketball team, not merely as a player, but as a hero?”

“No, I just want to play.”

“Two out of three ain’t bad.” I held up a hand before they could ask. “I’m counting myself because I need the boost and obviously I agree with my own plan.”

“Which. Is. What?” Leyla tapped out an impatient tattoo on the sink.

“I need more time. I’m going to talk to Ivy after school, and then I’ll meet you guys at Marvin’s. Six o’clock?”

“If you’re not there,” Leyla said, “I’m leading with ‘bumbling pi loses beloved mascot’ for our weekend edition.”

“Noted.”

We staggered our exits, and I took stock.

Plan. Right.

I had a plan. It stretched the limits of rule number six, but it was a plan. If Carl and Leyla stuck with me, I had the muscle and the media. Now I needed an inside man.