NOT IT

You can put your arms down, kid,” the guard told me. “Just step back into the gift shop, please?”

Mrs. Ling was headed over by then. I could see Matty too. He was standing with the rest of the class now and looking right at me. But he wasn’t coming any closer.

“Rafe?” Mrs. Ling said. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I didn’t do it.”

The guard asked her if he could check the backpack, and Mrs. Ling looked at me, like the choice was mine.

I just handed it over. He unzipped it right there on the gift-shop counter, and a second later he was pulling out one of those stainless-steel pens, still in the package. It was the exact same kind Matty had given me for Christmas, except mine was safe and sound at home.

“Rafe, can you explain this?” Mrs. Ling said.

I kept looking over at Matty, and he was just shaking his head—no, no, no, no, no. Don’t tell. That’s what he was saying. I felt like I was trapped, with my own head on the chopping block.

Except then, I started thinking—

You know how sometimes you can have a whole truckload of thoughts all at once? That’s what happened to me. I remembered all those times I’d gotten into trouble that year—and all those times Matty had gotten away.

I’m not saying I blamed him. Most of it was probably my own fault. Or even all my fault.

But this time I hadn’t done anything wrong. And I couldn’t afford to pretend that I had.

“It’s not my backpack,” I said. “I didn’t put that pen in there.”

“Well, whose pack is it?” the guard said.

“I don’t want to say,” I told him.

“Then you’re going to have to come with me.”

“Rafe, answer the question,” Mrs. Ling told me. “Whom does that pack belong to?”

My heart was bouncing around like a pinball, and I still wasn’t exactly sure what to do. At least, not until I looked out into the lobby one more time. That’s when I saw Mr. Crawley herding the whole rest of the seventh-grade class toward the exit. And you’ll never guess who was right there in the middle of the crowd, trying to make a clean getaway and not even looking at me anymore.

Actually, you probably can guess.

“It’s Matty Fleckman’s,” I said.