“I WISH I had like a cat-burglar suit,” Zeke said as we walked toward the dorms. We hadn’t even said hi to my dad yet. Zeke believed—and he was probably right—that my dad had no idea what time I got home from school and wouldn’t notice if we got out to the fields ten minutes later than usual. But this, sneaking into a student’s room, was really something Zeke shouldn’t do. Why didn’t he know that?
“MacSophal’s in Group H, right?” he said.
“I’m not answering. The whole reason I’m here is to get you to stop doing what you’re doing. And you know what? Why don’t we just go play catch or something? I’ll even let you pitch. From the mound.”
I never offered that, because it meant chasing a ball all afternoon, but I was feeling a little desperate. I had definitely gotten his attention, because he stopped walking. But then he said, “Nah. I just need you to be my lookout.”
“No,” I said. “Seriously, you could get me into a lot of trouble with this, and I really—”
“Hiiiii!” we heard. And then saw. Sly. Oh, I felt like maybe I loved her in that moment. She was a little one-girl superhero, whose superpower was the ability to rescue me from my best friend’s bad judgment.
“Hello, Sylvia,” Zeke said. “Where’s your grandma?”
“It’s Sly,” she said.
“Don’t you have school today?” I asked. I had stopped following Zeke and was standing right behind the school office’s back door—so happy to not be walking toward the dorms. And trouble.
“I did, yeah.”
I could see Zeke beginning to tense up, like a supercharged energy ball, desperate to get away.
“But doesn’t elementary school end at three fifteen?” I asked, determined to make this conversation last forever.
“I go to St. Luke’s now,” she said, as though that explained everything. “What are we doing?”
“Important and dangerous things,” Zeke said and began to walk away. I didn’t follow.
“I’ll help,” she said.
“Do you want Sly to help?” I asked Zeke in an innocent voice. “That’s a pretty good idea. Sly could totally help us.”
“No, that’s okay,” Zeke said. “Come on, Casey, let’s let her, uh, do homework.”
“No, listen,” Sly said. “I have no homework, which is weird, but I’m really happy. So let me help you guys.”
“No,” Zeke said.
“Well, I’m coming,” she said, and started walking toward him.
“Whatever,” he said.
And they both took off.
Great.
So now I was following two clowns instead of one and wondering if it was even possible to keep this from turning into a huge disaster. Like it wasn’t bad enough getting in trouble with Zeke—now I had to be responsible for turning Mrs. G.’s granddaughter into a criminal.
“I got a cat,” Sly said. The kid was random. I usually enjoy random. I like Zeke, don’t I?
“If you’re coming, you have to be silent,” Zeke said.
“No, I don’t,” Sly said.
“Then don’t come.”
“I’m coming, and I’m talking, and I got a cat.”
“Great,” I said, speed-walking to catch up.
Zeke walked into the back door of the dorm. “Which room?” he asked me. I was pretty sure it was on the second floor, somewhere in the middle, but I wasn’t about to make this easy for him.
“So when we first got Tiny—that’s my cat’s name, because he’s tiny? So when we first got him, my mom was sneezing a lot, and I was just thinking that it reminded me so much of that Brady Bunch episode? The one where Jan keeps sneezing whenever she’s near Tiger? Do you know the Brady Bunch? My grandma got me all the DVDs. Except on that Brady Bunch episode? It’s not Tiger she’s allergic to? It’s Tiger’s flea powder? Except they don’t realize that until it’s almost too late? And the dog’s going to have to leave the family? But then they—”
“Sylvia?” Zeke said.
“SLY!”
“If you’re coming with us, Sly, you must accept that this is a silent mission.”
She made a face.
“But I want to talk to you about your cat later. Would you like to try to get your cat on TV?”
I saw Sly’s jaw drop, and at that moment, I saw a way out, like a lit-up neon arrow pointing away from trouble. “Why don’t we talk about that now?” I said.
“You know what? Forget it. I don’t need help here. Casey, you and Sly can hang here. I’m going to go up by myself and see if I can figure out which room is his, and—”
“Which room is whose?” Sly asked. “My grandma knows all this stuff. I can help.”
Oh, great. So now Sly was starting to understand what we were doing. “Nice work,” I said. “Listen. Let’s just say Mission Aborted, okay? This is a bad idea. I can feel it, you know?” I tilted my head toward Sly, raising my eyebrows. I realized my shoulders were practically in my ears—I was all scrunched up with nerves and fear. Fear of my best friend.
“What? I don’t get what you guys are talking about.”
Zeke turned and headed up the stairs, but I called after him, “I have a better way of finding out, but you have to stop what you’re doing now.” After a few seconds, I heard his feet slowly coming back down.
“What’s your plan?” he said.
“Yeah,” Sly said.
Excellent question. I had no plan. This was what was known as bluffing. “Not now,” I said with a slight tone of mystery in my voice. Zeke nodded knowingly.
Then I asked, “Sly, how old’s your cat?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s a baby to me, because we just got him, but the vet says he’s three, which isn’t really a baby.”
Zeke’s eyes were about to roll back in his head—he was never known for his patience.
“So Zeke,” I asked, “how are you going to get Tiny on TV?”