Chapter 12: Rob

We got to Art’s basement dorm/lab just before dawn on Thursday morning, but there wasn’t much to see. A few tables turned over. Some sticky stuff on the floor. Art turned the lights on and we looked through every detail we could find. But there was no clue where Laura might have taken everything.

“I’m calling her,” I said, and pulled out my cell phone.

Art stopped me with a shake of his head. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Was I calling her because I was mad at her or because I felt a little bit of the excitement of the chase that Art felt?

“She’s not going to tell us anything. It will just be a waste of time. And embarrassing, for us to beg her.”

Right. And also I didn’t want to talk to her. Not now, when I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt. “But how can we find it otherwise? She could have taken it almost anywhere. She could be hiding it in some storage unit somewhere.”

“I don’t think so. She’s going to want to give us a chance.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she’s Laura Chevely and if we didn’t have a chance, she wouldn’t enjoy her victory so much. You think I didn’t learn anything, watching you date her those two years?”

That was a little scary to me. I guess I never really asked Art’s opinion of Laura. “Well, she always did like to win,” I said.

In a way, this reminded me of my dad. He liked to beat me at chess, taunting me the whole time about which moves I should be making and giving me reasons that made sense. When I finally learned not to listen to him, and to just play my own instincts, I did a lot better.

“So, where would she think that we would think that she would take it?” said Art.

My mind hurt. “Hey, Art, just one favor to ask, OK? Once we find the stuff, would you let me use it myself?”

“All right. If we’ve got time, you can have some,” said Art. “As long as there aren’t sirens or anything blaring.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

When Art and I met, we were in seventh grade and it was just after the hunting trip that made me decide to look for friends who had luck. Art had plenty, and I did everything I could to make him like me. I pretended to like everything he did, the same bands, the same TV shows.

Secretly, I had been so envious of him I would go home and throw darts at a picture I made of him in my room. Then I would rip up the picture and put away the dart board so he wouldn’t see anything when he came over.

But gradually, I started to like him for himself. He was smart and he always seemed to get what he wanted, but he listened to me complain about my parents and he made fun of people who had luck with me. Somehow, things had changed and he stopped being my friend for all the wrong reasons and started being my friend for all the right ones.

“What do you think about the gym at school?” asked Art.

“Huh? Oh, your lab equipment? Well, it’s big enough,” I said. “And it would be plenty publically humiliating.”

“But she hates sports,” said Art.

“Maybe the debate room?” I asked.

Art nodded. “I can’t think of anything better at the moment. So let’s try it.”

We hurried over to St. James. At 5 a.m., it wasn’t easy to get in. We wandered around the school until we found an open window on the second floor. Then I got to stand on Art’s shoulders (because I’m a half inch shorter than he is) and climb through the window. I think I scraped off about ten pounds doing it. All muscle, because that’s what happens when you’re unlucky. The muscle goes first.

I went downstairs, let Art in one of the non-alarmed secret doors that the teachers can come in and out of, and we went to the debate room.

There was a big sign in it that said, “Nice try, suckers!” It had Laura’s signature lips in ink at the bottom, too.

“I knew that was too easy,” I said. It seemed like my bad luck was getting the better of us. Maybe Art would be better off doing this on his own. “She is really having fun with this, isn’t she?”

Art waved at the sign. “She knew we would come here. She’s saying we’re on our way. So we have to keep playing the game.”

I stared at him. It had been too long since anyone as smart or as lucky as he was really challenged him, I guess.

He rubbed his hands together. “This is getting really interesting now. Where else do we think she might have put it?”

“In a sewer drain? In a ditch somewhere off the road? In a mine field?”

“Hmm,” said Art. “Mine field—sounds like Laura.”

I choked. “Uh, art, I don’t think there are any mine fields around here.”

“No, but there might be something like a mine field,” said Art. “Something that blows up and spews blood everywhere?”

I cringed.

“Paint ball,” said Art.

“Oh. Doesn’t seem her style, really.” She’d always complained when Art and I had gone off to play paint ball when she and I were dating.

“I think it’s exactly her style. She’s definitely a killer behind those pretty eyes,” said Art, grinning.

I didn’t argue with him.

We headed off to the nearest paint ball place. We had to break in again, this time with Art’s mad code breaking skills. He sat in front of a number key pad for about twenty minutes trying random combinations one after another. I had never seen his fingers fly so fast before. They had a strange elegance.

“You ever consider learning to play an instrument?” I asked him.

“Don’t have the patience for it,” said Art.

Right.

The doors opened and in we went. It was dark inside, but then we saw the red lights like on a runway or something.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. And then I tripped and fell. I made a strangled sound and Art came back for me. He almost hit me in the face trying to help me get to my feet again.

“What happened there?” asked Art.

“I fell,” I said, too tired to think up some excuse for how it was what I wanted to have happen.

“Well maybe you don’t need to get rid of so much luck, after all,” said Art.

I felt my heart thump against my ribs.

Art laughed. “Kidding, dude,” he said. He pointed to the neon sign flashing right ahead of us. “You stopped just in time for us to see that.”

The neon sign said, “Losers Die Here.” There was also a big kissing lips symbol flashing red underneath.

Laura again. “Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“We’ve got to think more like Laura,” said Art. “She doesn’t want to make this easy. It’s a test, in a way.” He sat down in front of the sign, and seemed to meditate for a while. Then he stood up. “I think I know where it is.”

“Where?” I asked him. I had no idea.

“My dorm,” he said.

“What?” Had he gone insane? “We were just there, a few hours ago.” I checked my watch. It was nearly seven a.m. now, and school would be starting soon. Someone would notice us missing.

“That’s why I know it’s there. It’s the last place we would look. And she knows how aggravating it would be to see it there again. Back where we started, no point to anything we did and all that. Doesn’t that sound like Laura’s brand of torture?”

“I guess,” I said, and we headed back to the lab. Art had the keys to it, so we didn’t have to worry about breaking in. I was sure he was going to be wrong, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

Then we walked in, and Art turned on the lights.

Now the room was filled with tables, refrigerators, paper, graphs, and monitors. “Is this it?” I asked.

“This is it. All of it.” Art fell down on his knees, laughing. “So it was all a joke? We’re going to have a really long day at school now.”

I wanted to believe that Laura wasn’t that bad, but I wasn’t sure that I did.

“Think we’re going to be late?” I asked, looking down at my clothes and wondering if I could get away without taking a shower. Would Trudy ask me what had happened? Would we argue again?

I found a spot on the floor to curl around, just to get a few minutes’ shut-eye. I could hear Art going around the room, checking off everything, humming to himself. And then he stopped.

I was half asleep, so it took me longer than usual to realize that this was bad news.

“What?” I asked, shaking myself and trying to sit up.

Art didn’t answer.

I had to stagger to my feet and move over to stand next to him. I looked at what he was looking at. It was a weird arrangement of pencils on the tabletop.

“What’s that?”

“It’s binary code,” said Art.

“What does it say?”

“It says ‘Gotcha.’“

I didn’t get it.

“This isn’t it,” said Art. “It’s not my lab. It looks just like my lab, but it isn’t. It doesn’t work.” He went over to the petri dishes with the bacteria cultures and started touching them.

“What are you doing!” I shouted. He said those took away luck. Why would he touch them all at once?

“Nothing,” said Art. “Nothing at all. This isn’t the right bacteria. It’s probably streptococcus or something equally common.”

I stumbled back to sit with my back against the wall and thought about all the things Laura had done to hurt other people that I’d seen. This was the worst of them, saved up and planned for, just for me and Art and Trudy.