Top 8 (17 page)

“Is this really the best time to have a party, when you got into so much trouble for your last one?”

“No thanks to you,” Brian pointed out.

“Fake me,” I countered. “I'd love to go to your shindig, I just don't want you to get into any more trouble.”

“Thanks,” he said, “but I've got it under control. I've told our housekeeper that I'm having a study group over, so she's going to take the night off. And it's really just a small party — so don't invite anyone, okay?”

“But Ruth can come, right?”

“Doesn't she always tag along with you?”

“Awesome,” I said. “We'll be there.” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if Justin would be there too. It was a pretty safe bet—he usually showed up at Brian's parties. But I didn't ask, because suddenly I wasn't sure that I wanted him to be there.

A second later, my brain started functioning again. Of
course
I wanted Justin there. But whenever I tried to picture his face, I couldn't seem to get a clear picture of it. He kept becoming taller and darker-haired somehow.

I sent a quick text to Ruth to let her know about the party, and went to history to turn in the World's Worst Paper.

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, except for a surprising request for an essay rewrite from Ms. Patterson, my Latin teacher. Apparently, she had not appreciated the theory that the Trojan Horse had been civilization's first prank, paving the way for such luminaries as Johnny Knoxville, the College Humor guys, and Ashton Kutcher. She also hadn't seemed to like my theory that Q.E.D. was actually just the first TLA.

When we'd gone over the declarative tense and she'd berated us for our “frivolous” essay topics, we were allowed to leave fifteen minutes early. I took full advantage of the fact that the food court had just opened, and the good chips were still available. After I'd gotten lunch, I headed to my locker to retrieve my laptop.

I spun my combination and opened my locker to find the usual messy array of papers and gym clothes.

But my laptop wasn't there.

I stared into my locker, frozen, for a few seconds.

I really didn't understand what was happening. I checked to make sure it was, in fact, my locker. It was.

And also, how would I have been able to open it if it wasn't?

Oh, my mother was going to
kill
me.

But how had my laptop been stolen? My locker had been locked — I remembered locking it. The lock didn't look tampered with.

“Oh my God,” I murmured, my heart pounding. I shut my locker door and leaned back against it.

“Mad?” Schuyler bounded up, looking excited. My face must have betrayed some of what I'd been feeling, however, because she immediately stopped looking excited and started looking worried. “What's wrong?”

“My laptop,” I said, feeling like I was about to cry, “isn't in my locker. I think someone stole it.”

Schuyler blinked at me. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean, did you check under all your gym clothes or whatever?”

I spun my combination and opened the locker again, lifting up my gym clothes and piles of paper. The laptop had not miraculously appeared.

“You should go to the office,” Schuyler said after we'd stared into my locker for a few moments. “They'll know what to do.”

I shook my head. “I doubt that highly.” I was trying to hold back my panic. My laptop had been stolen. What was I going to do? Even if it didn't type the letter
Q,
it was still my laptop, and who would have wanted to take it? I mean, it was
pink
.

“Go to the office,” Schuyler said. “Who knows, maybe there are hidden cameras by your locker and everything was caught on video! Like in Vegas!”

“Okay,” I said. I couldn't think of what else to do. “I'll go.”

“I'll tell Lisa and Ruth, and then we'll meet you there, okay?” Schuyler said.

“Okay,” I said again, feeling a little dazed. Then I remembered that the bell still hadn't rung, and yet there was Schuyler. “Why aren't you in class?” I asked.

“I had an open,” she said. She pointed down the hallway. “Go to the office! They say the first few hours after a crime are the most crucial!”

Following Schuyler's advice, but feeling strongly that she'd been watching too much
CSI
, I walked down to the office, only to find the desk vacant and the office deserted except for Glen Turtell.

“Sup, Mad?” Turtell asked, as the bell rang.

“Sup, Glen,” I said, sitting next to him on his bench, and careful not to sit on his name, or on the small portrait of himself that had been rendered since the last time I'd been there. As I admired the portrait, I caught a glimpse of his black backpack between his feet. It was open and, I could see, filled with Metallica CDs.

“How'd you get your CDs back?” I asked. “I thought you said Shauna stole them.”

Before he could answer, Stephanie came in, carrying a sandwich. She sighed when she saw Turtell and raised her eyebrows at me. “Miss MacDonald,” she said, “twice in one week. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“My laptop was stolen out of my locker,” I said. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Turtell look up suddenly.

“Are you sure?” Stephanie asked.

“Yes,” I said, wondering how anyone could be mistaken about something like that.

She glanced toward the door of Dr. Trent's office. “Dr. Trent is with…a student right now, but let me tell him what's happening. This is the third theft this week.” She disappeared into Dr. Trent's office, leaving me sitting next to a suddenly agitated Turtell.

“Glen?” I asked, as I looked over at him, cracking his knuckles again and again. “Everything okay?”

“No,” he said. “Mad, this locker thing —”

Before he could finish, Schuyler and Lisa walked in, talking loudly.

“Did you find out who did it? Did they have it on video?” Schuyler asked me. She saw Turtell and her eyes widened. “Omg, was it Glen?” she whispered loudly.

“You know, I can hear you,” Turtell said.

“
J'accuse!
” Lisa said, pointing a manicured nail at him. “Why did you do it?”

“I didn't steal Madison's laptop,” Turtell said in a serious, measured voice that seemed to shut Lisa up. “Or any of the other stuff!” he said this loudly, and toward the direction of Dr. Trent's office.

“I just can't believe this,” Lisa said, sitting next to me. “I mean, is there no safety in our own school? We need to call in the
gendarmes
!”

Turtell stared at her. “The who?”

At that moment, Dr. Trent and Stephanie came out of his office, with Dell following behind them.

“I have to attend to something,” Dr. Trent said to Dell. “We'll finish this later.”

“Certainly,” Dell said. As he left, he nodded at me and exchanged a loaded look with Turtell that I couldn't quite read.

Dr. Trent, looking grimmer than usual, turned his attention to me. “Madison, you're reporting a theft?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, and told him the details of my discovery of my empty locker.

“But how would someone have gotten in?” he asked. “Did any of your friends have your combination?” His eyes slid over to Schuyler, who hid behind Lisa.

“No,” I said. “None of them have my combination.” Suddenly, I remembered Liz. She knew my combination, but she couldn't have done this, could she? Was she
that
mad about the hacking? I decided not to tell Dr. Trent, and just try and talk to Liz myself later. If it wasn't her, there was no reason to get her in trouble.

Looking around at my friends, I suddenly realized that Ruth hadn't come down with Schuyler and Lisa. But I had bigger things to think about at the moment.

“Was your lock broken?” Dr. Trent asked.

“No,” I said. “It looks like it was just opened normally.”

“But how could somebody have gotten your combination?” he asked.

“Exactly!” Lisa said.

Dr. Trent frowned at her. “All the combinations are stored in a secure database,” he said in a very clipped voice. “There's no way that anybody could have accessed them.”

I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Turtell look up suddenly, then begin cracking his knuckles again.

“Don't you have a video surveillance system?” Schuyler asked hopefully. “You know, like they do in Vegas?” She looked around eagerly, as if expecting to see the door to the crow's nest behind Stephanie's desk.

“No,” Dr. Trent said shortly. “We don't. Madison, if you could please take me to your locker?”

“Sure,” I said. I led the way, with Dr. Trent, Stephanie, Lisa, Schuyler (still muttering about how tighter security saved laptops), and Turtell, who apparently had decided to come, following behind.

I spun my combination, opened the door — and saw my laptop sitting inside, exactly where I'd left it.

I gasped.

Dr. Trent glared at me. “Is this some kind of prank, young lady?” he asked. Stephanie then told him that, according to the new school-board-approved, gender-neutral language codes of conduct, the phrase “young lady” was no longer acceptable. Dr. Trent then said some other things that I also don't think would have been on the school board's list of approved language.

“No, no,” I said, staring into my locker, my laptop sitting there, looking pink and innocent, as though it had never been gone. “It wasn't here, I swear.”

“It wasn't!” Schuyler, bless her, piped up. “I saw it. I mean, I saw that it wasn't there. And I saw Mad put it in there this morning.”

“Me too,” Lisa added, “we both did.” The presence of the Assistant Headmaster seemed to scare her into using English.

Dr. Trent frowned at all of us. “I don't know what you and your friends are up to here, Madison, but if your laptop's no longer missing, this is not a matter for the administration to deal with.” Then he turned to Turtell, who had been trying to slink away. “As for you, young man, you're not going anywhere.”

As they headed down the hall, we could hear Stephanie telling Dr. Trent about the gender-neutral language policy again, and Dr. Trent snapping “I
know
!”

Turtell turned around and gave us a salute, then disappeared down the hallway.

I stared at my laptop again, then looked at my friends. “This is weird. I mean, it's weird, right?” I asked. “Who steals something, then returns it?”

Schuyler shrugged. “Considerate thieves?”

Lisa peered into my locker. “Are you both sure it was missing? I mean, maybe it was just under your gym clothes.”

Were people under the impression that my gym clothes were particularly voluminous, or something?

“No,” I said, “it wasn't there. We checked.” I pulled my laptop out of my locker and looked at it. It looked okay — the hard drive and the battery were still both there. I put it in my canvas bag, and I looked around the rest of the locker for anything valuable.

Whoever this thief was — considerate or otherwise—I didn't want to give them the opportunity to steal anything else. There was nothing much else of value in the locker — I really didn't care if anyone stole my gym clothes. In fact, if they did get stolen, I would have an excuse not to attend gym, so that would be fine with me.

“Hey guys!” Ruth rushed up, looking out of breath, her normally sleek hair a little flyaway. “Sorry I'm late. Did we look at the profile yet?”

I'd almost forgotten that looking at Nate's profile was the whole reason I'd brought the laptop to school to begin with. “No,” I said, “not yet —”

“Where were you?” Lisa asked, frowning at Ruth. “We had
une situation grave
here.”

Ruth smoothed down her hair, looking worried. “What happened? I was taking my AP Physics test,” she said with a groan, “and I don't know what I did — I think I spent too much time on the lab portion or something,
because I didn't finish in time. I had to beg for fifteen extra minutes. And I still don't know if I passed.”

“I'm sure you did great,” Schuyler said encouragingly.

“I don't know,” Ruth said, biting her lip. “I'll find out, I guess. Anyway, Mad — what happened with your laptop?”

Lisa and Shy filled her in, and Ruth listened quietly, not asking any questions until the end. “But why would they return it?” she finally asked, when they were through.

“Exactly!” Lisa said.

Schuyler frowned. “Could it have been Turtell?” she asked after a moment. “I mean, I know you're friends with him, Mad, but he
is
in the office a lot. And in detention a lot. And didn't Stephanie say they'd had some problems with locker thefts?”

I shook my head. “Turtell wouldn't steal from me.” Ruth and Lisa raised their eyebrows at me. “He
wouldn't
,” I insisted. “Turtell has my back. And if, for some reason, he did steal something from me, he certainly wouldn't return it.”

The end-of-lunch bell rang, and I realized that none of us had eaten anything. “Guys, I'm sorry,” I said. “None of you got lunch. I feel awful.”

Lisa waved a hand impatiently at me. “
Bof
,” she said. “We'll figure out who did this.
Je te
promise!”

The second bell rang, and Schuyler and Lisa headed to class with promises to “get to the bottom of this.” But I didn't know what we were getting to the bottom of. The whole thing just left me feeling unsettled.

This must have been pretty obvious, because Ruth touched my sleeve and said, “Mad, are you okay?”

I rubbed my eyes. “I don't know,” I said. My head was spinning as I tried to figure all of this out. Something had just happened, but I didn't understand what yet. Or why.

The final bell rang and Ruth bit her lip. “I'm happy to stay with you,” she said, “but I have Spanish, and —”

“No, go on,” I said. “
Vayas
.”

“Text me if anything happens.”

“You got it.” Ruth then gave me a quick hug and hurried down the hallway.

I had an open, which normally would have been cause for celebration, but right now I could have used a class, even English, to distract me from my own thoughts.

As the hallway cleared out, I took my lunch out to our rock, contemplating the situation as I walked. My contemplation (which may, admittedly, have veered into a brief fantasy of slow-dancing at the prom with someone who looked suspiciously like Nate) was interrupted by Connor, looking out of breath and staring up at me.

“Madison?” he called.

“Hey, Connor,” I called down. “Come on up.” I opened my laptop, preparing to check that everything was still on my computer and that nothing had been tampered with. I really didn't want to have to make an emergency trip to see Dell.

Connor hoisted himself up onto the flat surface of the rock, and I was glad for the opportunity to talk to him about his date tonight, and to subtly remind him that if he broke Schuyler's heart he'd have to answer to me. “What's up?” I asked, once he'd gotten settled.

“Bad news,” he said gravely.

My jerk-dar immediately went up. “You're not canceling on Schuyler tonight, are you?” I asked him. “Because I know she's really looking forward to this, and —”

“No,” he said. “Not that. It's your profile, Mad. It got hacked again.”