The Thief

Ahha! I found you!” Dent was back in action.

Someone had to save the Galaxy from the Hildebeast. The beast was even smellier than usual, its back covered with different tufts of neon hair. Still, as Dent got closer, he realized something was wrong with the Hildebeast. It sat on the green dirt of the planet making a sound like someone hitting all the keys on a piano at the same time. Could it be? Dent could barely believe his eyes. The Hildebeast was wounded.

As I open the front door after school, my backpack feels weighed down with all the things that have happened in the last few days. All I want to do is go to my room, pull my favorite science fiction book off the shelf, and read it until I fall asleep. I sense something is off, though, as I step inside and start hanging up my coat on one of the pegs. Somebody is crying and sniffling. Since my parents aren’t home from work yet, it’s not very hard to figure out whom. It’s Hildy.

At first, I decide I’ll just ignore her and go straight upstairs. I take off my shoes super quietly and start creeping across the carpet. She doesn’t have her rescue dog show playing, which is unusual.

“Damien?” Hildy calls from the living room. I can practically hear the snot in her voice. Caught!

“Yes . . .” I reply, sighing. I guess I’m going to have to go in there now, and like, pat her on the back or something. I think I’d rather deal with the Hildebeast than a crying, real-life Hildy.

“Damien. I can hear you!” Hildy wails. “You have to come in here.”

Could this day be any more insane?

I trudge into the living room. “What is it?” Hildy is watching her show, but it’s on mute. The camera is moving over a row of dogs’ faces. They look almost as sad as her. She sits, surrounded by wadded-up tissues. Her nose is red and leaky, and her eyes are all squinched up. Her chin is resting on her knees, and she’s already changed into pajamas. Like everything Hildy owns, her pajamas are covered in a dog print. Bursting into a huge sob, Hildy reaches behind her back and slams a notebook down onto the floor in front of her.

I stare at it. It has a soft leather cover and the initials D.O.S. burned onto the front. I blink a couple of times. I almost can’t believe it. There it is. My notebook.

“I’m sorry!” Hildy sobs, releasing a fresh wave of tears. “Mom’s mad at me. She told me I had to apologize to you. ALONE. But I’m sorry, okay?”

That does sound like something my mom would say.

I can picture her now: “Hildy, it’s time to take some proper responsibility for what you’ve done.”

For now, I’m so shocked that I can’t even be mad. I carefully pick up the notebook and flip it open. There they are: the Saramus Dent adventures and all my other scribbles. Every page is still there, even my notes about Samantha Cho. A feeling of relief washes over me and I hold the notebook very, very tightly to my chest. That’s where I always hold it: right over my heart.

As she watches me cradle the notebook, Hildy rolls her eyes through her tears. “Like I could even read it, anyway! Half of the words seemed made up, and the rest were so messy, I could barely tell a ‘p’ from a ‘g’!”

Hildy seems so upset that I don’t want to yell at her. Plus, the energy I would’ve used to punch her in the arm has been taken up by my dash from the lunchroom earlier today. She keeps sniffling. I can tell that she’s feeling sorry for herself. Hildy hates it when people yell at her. She hates being wrong and having to say, “I’m sorry.” So, actually, this is kind of a big day for her.

“Why . . . why did you take it?”

She shoots me a scowl, her eyes almost swollen shut with tears. “Because at first I wanted to see what you wrote about me! I took it from your bag when you left it in the backseat. On the way to school.” So, that’s why it had been in my backpack in the morning, but gone by the time I went to my locker!

“And also, I wanted to get back at you, okay?” Her voice is small and mouselike.

“But for what? What did I ever do to you?” A little flicker of anger finally flares up.

“Do you ever think how I feel? Like, oh, here’s perfect Damien. He’s so responsible and so smart and look at his amazing imagination. How do you think it feels to be the stupid one? I mean, just last night, you called me ‘the stupidest person in the world.’”

“But I didn’t mean that.”

“Sure, sure. But everyone knows I’m going to have to like, re-take English, and meanwhile, you’re just dreaming away upstairs. And Mom and Dad let you off completely off the hook.”

I have to admit, she has a point. Mom and Dad tend to let me skip out on chores as long as I keep getting A’s. All I have to say is, “I need to go work on my writing,” and they nod and smile. No questions asked.

“I guess I just wanted to get back at you,” Hildy repeats. “But then Mom found the notebook in my room and figured it all out. And told me I was being very hurtful” “Hurtful” is another favorite word of Mom’s. Maybe her second favorite after “responsible.” “She said I had to apologize to you and talk things through. Even though she knows I hate that!” A couple more tears trickle down Hildy’s cheeks.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe seeing Hildy break down like this, or maybe just the relief of knowing my notebook is safe makes any anger seem pointless. I mean, I have to live in the same house with Hildy, after all. That’s at least five more years of my life. “Well,” I say, “I’m sorry I called you stupid. I don’t think that. You’re not.”

Hildy nods. Her chin wobbles. “Oh,” she adds, “and I’m sorry about making up that whole crush or whatever.” She waves her hand in the air.

“What crush? You mean, about a certain someone?”

“Yeah, it was dumb, right? I knew you wouldn’t fall for it. But, still. I’m sorry. I made it up.”

“So . . . there is no certain someone?”

“Nah.” Hildy shrugs. I guess I should be glad. This means that Samantha never knew I have feelings for her. Until today, when I ran away without speaking, we really had been friends. And only friends. Weirdly, now that I know that Samantha and I are only friends, I almost feel disappointed. There had been a little excitement, buried deep inside, that maybe she knew. And that perhaps her knowing might lead to . . . well, I guess anything would be better than me running away from her table and avoiding her in the halls.

Hildy has finally stopped crying. She’s hiccupping and wiping the rest of her tears with a snotty tissue.

“Can I un-mute my show now? It’s almost over.”

“Sure,” I say. The camera is now just focused on one dog—a black and white fluffy one with a patch of brown over his eye.

“Look at that dog, Hildy,” I say. “That’s my dog.”

She smiles. “Let’s name him Billy Jo.”

As I walk in through Halsey’s doors the next day-Friday—I know I have things to face. I have to apologize to the Doomsday Geeks. And Glenn. I have to figure out who was passing me notes. And I have to say something . . . anything . . . to Samantha Cho. In homeroom, I take out the little sheet of paper where I was keeping track of my suspects. Now, I know who stole the notebook— Hildy—so this time I’m only thinking about the identity of the mysterious note leaver. I cross out every name. Except one, that is. Only one person had really seen me with that notebook, and would know it was important to me, besides Hildy. Only one person could honestly write you shouldn’t ignore me. There was only one person I’d been avoiding. I look at my new list:

Suspects

1. Glenn (Why else would he act so nice?)

2. Samantha Cho (

3. Ms. Arple (She was staring at me pretty

hard today.)

4. A stranger

5. Mrs. Pruggle?

6. Anyone in Mrs. Pruggle’s fifth period math class

I know, finally, what I need to do. I rip a page out of my newly-found notebook.

Dear Samantha,

Meet me by the old tetherball pole at recess. Sorry I’ve been weird

- Damien

It’s probably not the most moving note I’ve ever written, but it’ll have to do. On my way to math class, I stop by Samantha’s locker and Swish!, the note slips inside the door. No backing out now.

During math, I notice Mrs. Pruggle staring at me again. I see her eyes narrow as she notices that my notebook is back.

“I hope I still have your full attention, Damien Seeley.” She’s writing a long equation on the board in a string of x’s and y’s, and has paused mid-x.

“Yeah. I’m listening.” She nods, satisfies, and turns back to the board. I slip the notebook back into my pack. No need to be drawing that kind of attention from the scariest teacher at Halsey School.

During recess, my heart is racing again. I keep trying to compose what I’ll say to Samantha when . . . if . . . she comes outside. I try to use all my best words and put them together in a nice, flowing speech in my brain. I picture them all like one of the commander’s spacegrams: rows of glowing green words. I rearrange them; try out new combinations. “Dearest Samantha . . . Samantha, I’ve always thought there was something special about you . . .” I want to sound like Saramus Dent. Or someone from one of my books. But I have a sinking feeling that I’ll only be sounding like Damien Seeley, squeaky voice, thin arms, and all.

I’m so lost in my mental spacegram that I almost miss Samantha coming my way. She picks her way lightly over the frosty pavement. She’s wearing a pink, puffy coat that goes down almost to her knees. On one arm, she’s stuck a pin with a peace sign on it. She must be switching things up. Usually she only likes math symbols. Samantha has always been direct. She walks straight up to me, her cheeks reddened from the fall air.

“So. You wanted to talk to me?” My mental spacegram vaporizes, just like I knew it would. I’ll have to wing this one.

“Yeah. Um, I’m sorry that I ignored you. I know it was you. You were the one who sent me those notes. In Mrs. Pruggle’s math class and in my locker. I didn’t even think it could be . . . I mean, you’re in advanced math, not Mrs. Pruggle’s class . . .”

Samantha interrupts me, holding up one of her small hands. “Correction,” she says. “I’m not in your class but I asked Glenn to pass it to you. He’s in that class.”

“Glenn?!”

“Yeah, he passed it to someone that passed it to you. Though he said you never talk to him.”

“I didn’t even know he was in my class! I thought all of you were in advanced math. I never even noticed Glenn before.” And that’s the truth. Had he really been there the whole time? For all those weeks!? I have to admit to myself that I’ve been a total jerk. I never even said “hi” to Glenn or paid attention to him when he must have answered one of Mrs. Pruggle’s questions.

Samantha shakes her head impatiently. “Look. Why are we talking about math? Yes, I did pass you both notes.” Samantha looks down, rubbing at a pebble on

the pavement with the toe of her shoe. “I was worried about you. I saw you looking all stressed out that day, and I just knew you had lost something. And I thought, what’s the one thing Damien wouldn’t want to lose? It was pretty easy to figure out. I wasn’t trying to scare you with my notes, honest. I thought you would know it was me! It seems like you never talk to any of us. Or to me. I mean, I know we’re ‘geeks,’ but still . . . you’ve been acting different. So, since you wouldn’t talk to me in person, I tried talking to you in writing.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Samantha. I thought someone stole my notebook, but I was totally wrong. Of course. It was my sister who took it.” I snort a little bit, remembering Hildy’s tearful confession yesterday. “No one in sixth grade really even knew it was gone. Or cared. Except for you.” I take a deep breath. This is the longest I’ve talked to Samantha in a very long time, and it seems to be going okay. I still can’t figure out the look on her face, but I don’t think it’s bad. “I’m always in my own little world, I guess,” I continue. “Always in my head imagining my stories and everything. But once I lost my notebook . . . I realized, um, that maybe that’s not such a good thing.” My face feels warm, though thankfully a full-on Fire Blush isn’t happening yet.

“Maybe not,” Samantha says, doing that shrug that she does. “But I like what you write. That’s what we wanted to ask you yesterday, me and the other guys. At lunch. We were going to ask you to join the group.”

“To do math?!” I can barely conceal my horror.

“No! Geez, Damien, everyone knows how much you hate math. No, it was to be our club secretary. We were going to show you the blog we made.”

Suddenly, the laptop and the whole group of them sitting at the lunch table makes sense. So, that’s what Glenn wanted to talk to me about. I had almost missed my shot at having friends who actually wanted me around—who thought I knew something. I had missed the point like an asteroid whizzing miles away from Earth.

“I was sure someone stole it! Can you believe that? My notebook, I mean. I thought everyone was out to get me. And that even Mrs. Pruggle was in on it. I was, like, delusional.”

“Wait,” Samantha says, holding up her hand again. “What does ‘delusional’ mean? And what about Mrs. Pruggle?”

“It means I was making everything up in my own head! Mrs. Pruggle said something weird to me yesterday about being stronger without my shield. I don’t know. That lady confuses me.”

“Idiot,” Samantha laughs. “She was talking about your notebook! She meant your notebook is your shield. And she meant, probably, that you’ve been using it as a shield to keep people out.”

I blink, mouth open.

“Seriously, Damien, I thought English was your best subject.”

For the first time in, I don’t know, a century, I feel myself start to laugh. And the good news? Samantha is laughing, too.

The next day at lunch, I walk straight to the Doomsday Geeks table.

“Hey, guys!” I say, waving.

From out of nowhere, I think of that phrase, “Fake it till you make it.” Must be something my mom says. Well, today, I’m using it. I walk up to their table, smile, and take a seat. They scoot over, and from across the table, Glenn smiles.

“Mrs. Pruggle is intense, right?” he says.

“Yeah, she won’t leave me alone!” I offer Glenn half of my sandwich.

“Yo,” comes Samantha’s breezy voice from behind me. “Scooch over, Damien.”

Well played, dude, I think Dent would say. Well played.

Now, when Saramus Dent approached Cafetariana, he didn’t feel like such an outsider. He was from that planet. Its smells and bizarre creatures didn’t bother him so much anymore. Sure, the Green Forces were weird, but then, Dent was kind of weird himself He had no birthday, never sneezed, and never had to use the bathroom. Definitely weird. After learning this, Dent was almost enjoying this time of general peace in the Globorz Galaxy

Of course, he knew another adventure was only a blasto-shot away. . .