Ainsley’s first-period class was social studies, and it was definitely a social class.

“Why hasn’t he been expelled?” one kid shouted as soon as Mr. Martin, the teacher, walked in. “The guy’s a menace.”

Another kid shouted, “It’s not just him—it’s his whole crew! You know they’re the ones doing all this stuff.”

“Who exactly are we talking about?” Martin asked innocently.

Most everyone shouted out, “Nate Christmas!”

The class went chaotic with everyone shouting out their opinions. Nobody was defending Nate.

I sat at a desk in the back row, trying to be invisible.

Ainsley was sitting quietly in the first row, looking straight ahead, her hands folded on her desk.

“All right, all right!” Martin called out, his hands raised, trying to quiet the class. “One at a time.”

Martin was a young guy with longish blond hair that he kept sweeping out of his eyes. He wore jeans with a blue shirt, tucked in, and a thin tie. Unlike my social studies teacher at home, Mr. Winser, this guy looked fairly human. He wasn’t getting all bent because the kids in the class were going out of their minds. He had a calm way about him that allowed for their anger to boil over while he still kept things in control.

“Parker,” Martin called out, pointing to a girl in the third row.

“I saw Nate’s friend Logan in the window right after the glass fell,” she said. “He must have pushed it. They planned the whole thing.”

The class chimed in with various shouts of agreement like “Yeah!” and “I saw him too!”

“That’s a pretty serious accusation,” Martin said, trying to sound evenhanded.

A girl in the front row shot to her feet. “I heard Nate was buying lighter fluid and matches at the 7-Eleven. Then the next day, there was a fire in the cafeteria kitchen. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”

Everyone grumbled in agreement.

“Noah,” Martin said as he pointed to a guy near me who was waving his hand in the air, begging to be called on.

“Nate set off those firecrackers under the bleachers at the pep rally,” Noah said. “And he’s got a lot more than that. The guy has, like, an arsenal of explosives. He brags about it all the time. Cherry bombs, M-80s, you name it. That’s why the bleachers fell down.”

“Firecrackers don’t cause bleachers to collapse,” Martin said. “And nobody proved Nate set off the firecrackers.”

“How can you defend him?” Parker shouted in frustration. “It’s getting scary to come to school!”

“I’m defending someone who hasn’t been proven guilty,” Martin said. “Civics 101. Until the investigation plays out, we have to assume Nate is innocent. That’s the way it works in this country.”

Noah said, “Until he’s proven guilty I think he should be thrown out of here. Or locked up. If the teachers don’t do something, maybe us kids should.”

“Yeah!” Parker chimed in. “Before somebody really gets hurt!”

Most kids liked that idea and chimed in with applause and whoops.

Martin held up his hands again to calm the class. “This isn’t the Wild West, people. You’re making an assumption of guilt based on incomplete evidence. Hearsay. Rumor. You’re seeing the facts the way you want to see them, to support your own theories. What about the car that crashed through the window? How could Nate have done that? And when the power went out? Could a kid blow up a transformer?”

Nobody responded.

“What are you suggesting, Mr. Martin?” Ainsley said calmly, speaking for the first time. “Somebody has to be responsible for what’s going on. If it isn’t Nate, then who? Evil spirits?”

That got a couple of nervous chuckles.

Martin smiled patiently and said, “No, there’s no boogeyman at Coppell.”

He was right about that. The boogeyman was trapped in a metal box at the bottom of the Long Island Sound, thank you very much.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Ainsley said ominously.

“All I’m saying is we can’t rush to judgment,” Martin said. “We don’t even know if these events are connected. It could all be a series of unfortunate coincidences. We’ll get to the bottom of it soon enough. We just have to let the process play out.”

“And hope nobody gets hurt in the meantime,” Ainsley said.

That sobering thought left the class speechless.

Martin scanned the room and finally spotted me. “I see a new face in class.”

Busted.

“Who might you be?” Martin asked.

All eyes went to me.

Showtime.

“My name’s Marcus O’Mara. My family just moved here and I think I’ll be going to Coppell. I’m not registered yet, so Ainsley is letting me follow her around to check the school out.”

It was amazing how easily the lies flew out of my mouth. I suppose I should have felt guilty. I didn’t. I was undercover.

“Well, Mr. O’Mara, have you heard much about the string of accidents we’ve had?”

“A little,” I said. Lying again. I knew all about them. Maybe I had a future as an undercover cop. Or a spy. Or a politician.

“Coming from the outside, do you have any theories about what we’re dealing with?” Martin asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “But I’m working on it.”

That got a chuckle out of some of the kids. They had no idea that it was the only totally honest thing I’d said.

“Well, best of luck, Mr. O’Mara. I hope you can solve our dilemma.”

I hoped so too. More than he’d ever know.

Martin spent the rest of the class talking about ancient Rome and the construction of the Colosseum. It was actually kind of fun to be in a classroom and not have to worry about remembering anything the teacher was saying. I took the time to think, and to plan my next move.

The kids blamed Nate Christmas for all the dangerous doings. Ainsley was dead-solid certain it was him. Since she seemed to know everything about everything, I figured I should definitely consider the possibility that this was Nate’s story. The real question was, why? Had he done something that caused the disruption? Or was he a victim?

Or was he just a plain old jerk?

As the class lecture went on, I kept my eye on Ainsley. She sat up straight, paying strict attention to Martin, as if whatever he was saying was the most important thing in the world. She took lots of notes too. I wondered if her parents put the same kind of pressure on her about school as Lu’s parents did.

When class ended I walked with Ainsley through the crowded halls to her next class. Maybe I was imagining things, but I felt serious tension in the air. There wasn’t the normal loud chatter when classes passed. It was like everyone was constantly glancing back over their shoulders, waiting for the next boom to be lowered.

“Why does everybody blame this Nate guy?” I asked Ainsley.

“Because he’s a stupid thug,” she replied with more than a drop of venom. “This is his first year here and he’s already threatened to beat up half the student population. He’s a bad apple and he’s gotten other delinquents to join him. I’m the class president. I wish I could, like, expel him or something. This school was so awesome before he showed up.”

“What is it you do as president?” I asked.

“Everything. I organize dances, plan fund-raisers, arrange pajama days, map out all our festivals, including the Halloween Fright Night dance and the Spring Fling party. I’m basically in charge of school spirit, which means I run the pep squad and the cheerleaders and arrange for our band to play at events and—”

“Whoa, okay. I get it. When do you sleep?”

“I don’t” was her totally serious answer. “Not much, anyway.”

We passed a row of lockers, where the girl Nate had been harassing that morning was getting her books.

“Hi, Kayla!” Ainsley called to her as we passed by.

Kayla gave her a weak smile and then buried her nose back in her locker.

“What’s her deal?” I asked when we were out of earshot.

“She’s shy,” Ainsley said. “I mean, painfully so. I’ve known her for a couple of years and I’ve never heard her say a single word.”

“Is she, like, special needs or something?” I asked.

“Not that I know of. She’s in all the regular classes. But she doesn’t have any friends. I looked it up once. Her silence has to do with extreme shyness. I’ve tried to get to know her, but it’s hard when she won’t give anything back.”

“And you look out for her,” I said.

“Sometimes, and today I nearly got killed because of it. It’s just another reason for me to hate Nate Christmas.”

I didn’t know if I was any closer to figuring out whether Nate was responsible for the accidents, but he was definitely the most hated guy in school. I had to learn more about him, and I got my chance in Ainsley’s next class, biology. When we walked in, I saw that Kayla was sitting near the back of the room. Seeing her made me laugh to myself. I was already getting to know this school and the kids. Instead of desks, there were tall stools and black-surfaced lab tables with built-in sinks and gas jets. There was no way I could blend into that crowd, so I walked right up to the teacher, a lady named Miss Britton, and gave her the same bogus story about checking out the school before I transferred in.

“Then welcome to Coppell!” she said with a bright smile and a thick Southern accent that sounded more Georgia than Massachusetts. “Sit anywhere you’d like!”

I walked to the rear of the room and took the gunfighter’s seat, the farthest seat back, so I could see the entire class. The stool I chose was close to the lab station where Ainsley sat. She was leaning over the table and talking to a friend, until Nate Christmas walked into the room.

Ainsley saw him and stiffened. She didn’t even want to be in the same room as the guy—that’s how much she hated him.

I glanced to Kayla. She kept her head buried in her biology book, like it was some kind of page-turning thriller.

Nate surveyed the room. When he focused on Ainsley, he tensed up as well. The little guy’s jaw muscles worked as if he was holding in anger as he strode directly toward her lab table like a confident rooster.

Ainsley ignored him, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

A guy was sitting on the stool behind her. Nate went up to him, grabbed his shirt, and forcefully pulled him off the seat. The guy resisted until he saw who it was, then abruptly backed off and took another seat.

My pulse quickened again. I was beginning to see why everybody hated Nate Christmas.

Nate took the vacated stool a few feet behind Ainsley and moved it a little closer to her.

Nothing good was going to come of this.

Miss Britton’s lecture was on algae, not exactly a fascinating subject under any circumstances. I was way more interested in Nate and Ainsley.

“You coming after me?” Nate whispered. He was being quiet enough so that Miss Britton couldn’t hear, but Ainsley could. She sat up straight, as if his words had put her on full alert.

“I dare you,” he growled in a low, menacing voice. “I want you to.”

Everyone else’s attention was on Miss Britton. There was only one other student aware of the low-key drama playing out.

Kayla. She sat at the lab table to our right. She was no longer focused on her book. Like me, she had her gaze fixed on Nate and Ainsley.

“You’re telling everybody it’s my fault, aren’t you?” Nate said.

Ainsley never turned around. But it was clear that she heard every word he was saying, because she sat there as rigid as a mannequin. I wanted her to spin around and smack the guy. Or at least move to another seat. I thought about saying something, but I didn’t belong there and didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. That definitely ruled out my punching Nate in the head, which was what I really wanted to do. I had to sit there and take it, just like Ainsley. If her blood was boiling as hot as mine, I don’t know how she kept from slugging him.

“Where do you get off blaming me anyway?” Nate asked. “You think you’re something special. Trust me, you’re not.”

I heard a faint sound. It was like a gentle rattle. I took a quick look around but didn’t see anything that could be making it. I thought maybe it was the ventilation system and tried to ignore it.

The lab table where Ainsley sat was near a wall and next to a long counter. Over the counter were shelves filled with glassware and bottles of…whatever. Science stuff.

“I didn’t start this,” Nate whispered. “This is all on you.”

The rattling grew louder. It sounded like glass bottles were lightly tapping against one another. Kayla heard it too. She was no longer staring at Nate and Ainsley. Her gaze drifted to the counter and up to the shelf of bottles above it. I looked in the same direction and saw a row of brown bottles with stoppers and warning labels.

“You best keep looking over your shoulder,” Nate said. “Or you won’t see me coming.”

The rattling got so loud that the entire class heard it, including Miss Britton. She stopped her lecture and looked around.

“Now, who is doing that?” she asked, annoyed.

CRACK!

One of the brown bottles on the shelf burst, sending clear liquid pouring onto the counter below. The sharp odor hit me instantly. It smelled like the strongest chlorine treatment you could ever put in a swimming pool. My eyes started watering and my nose burned.

“Look out!” Miss Britton shouted. “That’s hydrochloric acid!”

Ainsley and Nate dove away. Other bottles on the shelf started shaking as if a mini-earthquake were centered directly under it. Many more bottles of acid were lined up, side by side. They all started to shake and bounce. If they broke and their contents splashed down, kids would get burned.

Over the shelf was a large silver showerhead, there for just such an emergency. We were told in science class that if you spilled something caustic, use the shower. I figured this qualified as an emergency, so I dove for the metal chain next to the showerhead and yanked it. Water instantly sprang from the round showerhead, cascading down like a mini-rainstorm. It made a total mess, but when the water hit the counter, it diluted the acid enough that the smell went away almost entirely. The bottles stopped shaking too.

“Everybody back off!” Miss Britton yelled, losing her cool. “Don’t touch anything.”

I backed away quickly. I didn’t want to be splashed by acid, diluted or not.

The rest of the class was huddled together against the opposite wall, watching in stunned wonder.

“How did this happen?” Miss Britton shouted. “Who did this?”

There were no answers because nobody knew. I had been sitting right there and I didn’t know. Nobody had touched anything. It was as if the bottle just decided to break on its own.

The kids looked shell-shocked. There was no screaming or sobbing. I guess they were getting used to having strange things like this happen.

Ainsley stood in front of the others as if to shield them. She stood defiantly straight and tall, as if to say she would not be defeated by a little bit of acid.

Nate, on the other hand, looked pretty shaken. He had run all the way to the front of the room to escape the acid and was checking his clothes for burns.

The only kid who wasn’t staring at the mess was Kayla. She sat in the back of the room, leaning against the wall, twirling her long hair around a finger.

One good thing came from the scary event. It helped me narrow down my search for the cause of the disruption. I felt pretty certain that whoever or whatever was causing it was in that room. All I had to do was figure out what it was.

Yeah. That.