Chapter 17

David

“Do you always wear that?” I asked Jake at school the next day.

He nodded and gripped the necklace hanging around his neck. “Never take it off. Even when I shower.”

“Oh.”

We glided (more like stumbled in the mess of people) through the halls glancing up at the bulletin boards, and the signs labeled “Attention!” that nobody reads anyway. We slipped into science 2 minutes early, and crawled onto Rebecca’s desk (she was still sitting there reading The Davinci Code). Jake fished out an apple from his back-pack, and started eating it in front of Rebecca, even though our backs were to her.

“Get lost.” She grumbled. But, of course, we didn’t, because who  purposely gets lost?

The classroom filled up with chattering students, and our teacher Belinda Kean stood up from her desk.

“Okay, okay, get settled down.” She said. “We’re starting chapter 17 today.”

I glanced over at Josiphina. She hadn’t talked to me all day, let alone looked at me. She opened her textbook up, and he must of felt the pressure of my gaze, because she looked straight up into my eyes. I quickly looked away, but instantly regretted it. She wasn’t mad. More like… mysterious? She had a mischievous glint in her eye. Where had that come from. I risked another look at her, but her eyes were already back to the textbook. Back to the girl I thought she was.

“Pass this to David.” The voice was barely above a whisper, but I recognized it as Jake’s. He leaned over and passed the note to Jessie who sat next to me. She giggled as their fingers touched. I rolled my eyes as the note plopped on my desk.  Picking it up I instantly knew it was from Josiphina. I carefully unfolded the paper and peeked inside.

  19-23-9-14-7-19 H 8-15-21-18

Code. Now she’s testing me. It was an easy code, the letters are numbers and the numbers are letters. So A would be 1, and 26 would be Z. It was simple, but would take a while. I had most of the code memorized, but I made a list of A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. I quickly but carefully decoded, bringing back memories of my first year at the YBYS association. It read, swings 8 hour. She wanted me to meet her at the swings during 8th hour. She wanted to tell me a secret, the one she tried to tell me before.

“David.” I barely flinched, too absorbed in my own thoughts.

“David Fisher!” My eyes shot up to meet Mrs. Kean’s black ones staring down at me through inch-thick glasses. “Can you answer that question?”

I grinned. “Of course, Belinda, 66.48%.”

She stumbled back a little and cocked her head, which begged me to add, “Did you think I wasn’t paying attention?”

“No…”

“Good.” As I brought my head back down I saw Jake’s gaping mouth. Even he thought for sure I was in my own world. But I was paying attention. In the back of my head I was doing mental math, multiplying, regrouping, simplifying…  

I turned my attention to the note.

What do I have 8th hour today?

 Physics, Grammar… study hall, of course I can miss that.

I bit my tongue to keep from smiling too hard. Finally.

Two more minutes. One minute and forty-five seconds. one minute and thirty seconds. I counted down the last minutes until 8th hour with a mischievous grin on my face. One minute… thirty seconds...fifteen seconds… RING!   

I grabbed my books and bursted through the door into the world (or into the halls). I would have to make it outside before a river of kids comes my way. I passed the principals office and didn’t look back. I would seem suspicious.

I lowered my head as the fresh air filled my lungs. Then, by memory, I trudged to the swings.

“You’re late.” I looked up to face Josiphina, smiling brightly. I smiled too and set my books on the grass.

“You seriously brought those.”

“Yes, but can you get on with whatever I should know about CJ?”

She frowned and I heard her mutter, “Aw, I was in such a good mood.” She leaned her crutches up against the swing set, and sat down (not very gracefully) on a swing.

“Well… to start… do you know Gary Clark?” I shook my head. “No? Oh, well he’s the head of YGYS. So, anyway, I was at this play for Berkely Carrol and I saw them both.”

“CJ and Gary?”

“Yes. And they were whispering quietly so I thought I’d see what’s up.”

“Uh huh.”

“CJ was talking. He said that Gary couldn’t tell me anything and that the rest of the boys couldn’t even hint to you.”

Huh? “Hint about what?”

Her head drooped.

“Exactly.”

    “And then when you confronted CJ he ran off.”

    “Yep.”

    “So,” I didn’t know what to make of it, “you're saying that CJ and Gary are involved in something secretly together and we’re their guinea pigs?”

    “Am I not?”

    “No, I just…” I still didn’t understand.

Chapter 18

Josiphina

What did I have to say to make him understand?

    “They’re using us.” Simple as that. “They think we’ll cooperate because we’re good students.”

    “Are you saying that you don’t want to cooperate?”

    I rolled my eyes about six times.

    He smiled. “You don’t want to because they’re using us for their benefit, not ours.”

My eyes continued rolling.

“Well then.” He started to stomp off.

“Wait!”

He turned.

“Are you in?”

He stared up at the sky for a long time and I wondered if he was asking the angels. Finally he locked eyes with me.

“Why not.”

Yes!

“What do we do first,” he said.

“First,” I smiled, “we have to steal your permanent record.”

The hardest part wouldn’t be sneaking into the school. No, it would be getting out of the house without waking up Gloria.

I uncovered myself and stood up from the bed. A floorboard creaked under my feet and I held my breath. Nothing. I bent down and pulled away the rug. Last night I had marked all the squeaky floorboards with a post-it note. I followed the path with a flashlight and soon reached the bathroom door. Swinging the door open I peered inside. Nobody. And the window was still open! I quickly looked down to make sure I wasn’t wearing my favorite pajamas. Then I crawled to the window sill and jumped for it.

I have a two-story house. I have a boot on my leg. Did that stop me? Not a chance. I had blow up two air mattresses and stacked them below the window (because I’m not stupid). So, the fall wasn’t bad.

There I stood with my boot on my half-healed leg staring up at the window I just leaped from when what did  hear?

“Hey Jo.”

David. David was there. David was standing right behind me acting like he wasn’t a stalker but he still got here somehow.

“How,” was all I could say.

He just raised his eyebrows and set off to the school.

It was going to be a long night.

“So you aren’t afraid of getting caught?” He eyed me as we reached the top step of our school.

“No way, our school has the worst security system there is!” We both laughed out loud, and he pulled open the emergency exit door. Not a sound.

We made our way easily to the principals office and scanned the room. I slid to the file cabinet and looked under “F”.

  “Fisher, Fisher.” I mumbled searching through, “ah ha!” I pulled David’s record out triumphantly. David looked up at me sort of shocked.He didn’t think I could find it?

“That was easy.” I grinned.

I didn’t see the hand that came smashing down on my head.