“What?” Ryan exploded. “Those idiots?”
“Think about it,” I said. My stomach protested at the thought of them. “They took my schedule yesterday. Ryan, what do our schedule sheets have on them?”
He squinted at me. “Our classes?”
Penny slapped her hand down on the table. “Our student info. It’s at the top.” She dug through her backpack and gutted all her books out in search of her sheet. “Let me see. Here.” The schedule sheet appeared in her hand, folded in a neat square. After smoothing it out, she slapped the table again and pointed down at it. “These have our addresses on them.”
“Hide that,” Ryan said, swallowing.
Penny shredded her schedule into thirds, then sixths, then into whatever comes after that. Soon confetti covered her section of table. “You should shred yours too, Ryan.”
He dug out his schedule and tore it in pieces in record time.
“That’s why Josh and Kristina were on my case yesterday. I had this out, looking at it.” Wow, I wanted to bury myself. “They waited for the right time to come grab it, so that’s why they came over here.” Bile rose in my throat as I remembered Kristina taking my schedule. “Then she gave it to the shadow people.”
“Wait, Rita. We can’t be sure they’re working for the Shadow Regime,” Penny said.
“Then how do you explain all the new stuff they’ve got? Those bikes? Those blue and silver bikes? And the cell phones? They got those this morning. Right after A. Gist found me.”
“So they’re getting rewards for selling us out?” Ryan asked, hugging himself. “Yikes.”
Penny opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.
“And my mom told me Jerry hung that sign up after having problems with a couple of kids. Remember that? Three guesses as to who those people were. I bet they got rewarded with the bikes for that one.”
“Are you sure it’s not still Mr. Gorfel?” Penny asked. “He still could’ve had something to do with it.”
“He’s not the one who stalked me to get my schedule sheet,” I said. “I hope I’m wrong about all this, by the way.”
Ryan shrugged and leaned back. “One problem. W…why would the Shadow Regime hire teenagers to work for them? I thought they were waging war on us?”
He had a point. But so did I. “Josh and Kristina are the reason things like Jerry’s sign happen. Well, some of it. People like them are the reason people like us get pushed down. Why wouldn’t the Shadow Regime want to use them as a weapon?” I’m not sure how I thought of that one. It was weird. I just kind of…knew.
Penny made her humph sound. I think she was jealous that she hadn’t thought of this first. “Okay. You’ve made your case. I think you may be right. It just irks me. Not you, Rita, I mean.” She cleared her throat. “Josh and Kristina don’t care that they got all of us punished. They never do. They’re only for themselves.”
“They always are.” If I had a tray in front of me, I would’ve stabbed it until my fork went through to the table. I’d never, ever hated Josh and Kristina more. They brought suffering to most of the school before, but now this? Now they made a career of putting their classmates in mortal danger? Even the time Kristina had dumped an entire bottle of barbeque sauce in my backpack when I dared to stand up for Penny sounded like a trifle now. So did all the times Josh tried to shove Ryan in a locker and I had to stop him.
No one said a word. I think we were all taking it in, wondering if it was really possible. I knew they hated me, for pretty obvious reasons. Josh and Kristina sat on the other side of the room, fiddling with their phones again. The A on my forearm burned a little, but I ignored it. So those phones had been the price put on my head.
Penny’s jaw started to quiver, which hadn’t happened in my memory. Usually I was the one who got mad. “This is just so wrong. We can’t control their behavior but we get punished for it. Mr. Gorfel can take his ‘collective responsibility’ lecture and shove it right up his—”
She went dead silent like an invisible hand had crept up and started choking her. Her eyes grew wider and wider as she peered over my shoulder.
Ryan’s jaw dropped. “Uh…”
Both of them stared past me and at the window.
“What?” My voice sounded weak to my own ears as a prickle ran over my skin. “There’s something behind me, isn’t there?”
No answer. Translation: yes.
I gulped and twisted around on the stool.
Standing on the other side of the window was a figure I’d seen in the Kool Spot the day I learned about the Shadow Regime. A square face grinned at me from under a head of gray and blue hair. His metallic blue armor vest shined in the bright sunlight.
The Shadow One smiled wider, raised one hand, and waved.