Take Me There

  “Rhiannon,” I tell him.

  “Sweet. Let’s do it.” He scans the hallway for a surface we didn’t cover. There are none.

  We stand there, surveying our work. The copies are everywhere. Karmic retribution is almost complete.

  I see the swirling ambulance lights from all the way down the street. I start running. When I get to my building, there are EMT people and a couple police officers on the stoop.

  “What’s going on?” I ask everyone in general.

  An EMT turns to me. “Do you live here?” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “What floor?”

  “Third.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Schaffer?”

  My heart stops beating entirely. Then it starts again, extra fast. “Yes.”

  “It seems she had an accident.”

  “Is she okay?” This is the one thing I’ve been so worried about lately. Mrs. Schaffer hasn’t been herself. I’ve been afraid that one day I’ll come home and she’ll be gone. Permanently.

  “She’ll be all right,” the EMT says. “But apparently she fell.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Hard to say. She may have fractured her hip. We won’t know until she’s taken in.”

  A police officer comes over to me. “James Worther?”

  My mouth gets all dry. “Yes?”

  “Will you be riding in the ambulance? Or would you rather ride with me?”

  “Uh.” How do they know my name?

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us. She’s in no condition to fill out the necessary paperwork at the hospital and”—he consults his tiny notebook—“do you have a copy of her insurance card?”

  Why would I have a copy of her insurance card? “No. I—why would I?”

  The officer analyzes my face. “Are you aware that Mrs. Schaffer has you listed as her In Case of Emergency contact?”

  My mouth gets even drier. She never told me that. Did she? “Uh . . . no. I didn’t know that.”

  “My apologies. It shouldn’t take that long. We just need you to answer some questions at the hospital.”

  “Questions?”

  “A social worker will be meeting us there. We need to determine if Mrs. Schaffer is healthy enough to live in an unsupervised setting.”

  “Are you—do you mean like putting her in a nursing home?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  I can’t believe this. Mrs. Schaffer would die if she had to live in a place like that. And it’s not like she has money. If you’re a regular person, you can’t get quality care. And she’d be all alone. At least here she has me.

  “I don’t think she’d like that,” I tell him.

  “I’m sorry, son. But it’s not up to her.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Friday

  THE PA SYSTEM broadcasts, “Rhiannon Ferrara to the principal’s office.”

  That’s my cue.

  I cough.

  Mr. Martin is waxing rhapsodic about the importance of air and light in stimulating worker productivity. Which is why you have to design office spaces with as much air and light as possible.

  I cough some more.

  Mr. Martin stops. He zeroes in on me, the source of this rude interruption of his profound thought process. He asks, “May I help you, James?”

  “Can I get some water?” I gasp. Cough, cough.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Can you?”

  It’s one of those ancient teachers’ jokes they all think is still hilarious ten generations later. I wonder if they’d still tell those jokes if they knew how tired we think they are. Probably.

  “May I? Please go get some water?”

  Mr. Martin has this smug expression. “You may,” he informs me.

  I walk calmly across the room. But the second I hit the hallway, it’s showtime. I zip down the halls, round corners at lightning speed, and hurl myself into the main office. The secretary barely looks up. She’s seen it all.

  “He called me,” I tell her.

  She nods me in. Doesn’t even question me. Because why would someone voluntarily show up at the principal’s office and want to go in?

  I burst through Mr. Pearlman’s door. Rhiannon’s already sitting there. They both stare at me.

  I say, “I did it.”

  They’re shocked.

  “You?” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “You did it.”

  “Yes. I take full responsibility.”

  He turns to Rhiannon. “You’re free to go, Ms. Ferrara.”

  Rhiannon is about to blow it. I can tell from the horrified look on her face. I send her a telepathic message to stay quiet.

  She goes, “But—”

  “So you should go,” I say.

  She gets up. I’m nervous about doing this, but there’s no way Rhiannon’s taking the blame. And nothing’s getting in the way of my MIT scholarships or I’m toast. My public-speaking phobia has prevented me from saying a lot of things I wish I said. Now’s my chance to speak up and make a difference.

  This better work. If it doesn’t, we’re all going down.

  Rhiannon shuts the door behind her. Time for phase two.

  “Care to explain yourself?” Mr. Pearlman asks.

  “It’s like I said. I did it.”

  “What are you telling me, James?” The guy knows all about me. Second in my class. Computer geek who can fix any problem with the school’s system. Science League state finalist. Moral. Reliable. Which is why I can tell he’s having a hard time believing me. “That you made all those copies? That you hung them up last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you even get in?”

  “Not all the doors were locked.”

  “Oh? Which one was open?”

  “It was . . . the side one.”

  “Which side?”

  “Uh . . . the left?”

  And then Nicole busts into the office. She says, “I did it.”

  “Actually,” I say, “I did it.”

  “No, I did,” Nicole argues.

  “What’s going on here?” Mr. Pearlman demands. “Is this a game to you? Do you know what the punishment is for this?”

  We watch him.

  “Do you?”

  We shake our heads. I don’t even think he knows what the punishment is for this.

  “Sit down, Nicole.”

  She sits in the chair next to mine.

  “So both of you did this?” Mr. Pearlman says.

  “No,” I clarify. “Just one of us.”

  “Well if both of you are telling me you did it, then both of you will be punished.”

  “But we didn’t,” Nicole says. “James wasn’t even here last night.”

  “When you put up all these copies.”

  “Exactly.”

  “By yourself.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I see.” Mr. Pearlman has one of those four-color clicky pens. He goes click click with the pen. “And how did you get in?”

  “Window.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “There was a window open.”

  “Which window?”

  “To the physics lab.”

  “That’s on the third floor.”

  “Really? Wow.”

  And then Danny busts in. He says, “I did it.”

  Now Mr. Pearlman looks really mad. He doesn’t like Danny. But Danny’s had to take three years of crap from him so he’s been ready for this.

  “All me,” Danny goes on. “Not that you’re surprised to hear it. I know you think I’ve been a nuisance and all.”

  Mr. Pearlman doesn’t respond to that.

  “And even if these guys said they did it, you can’t punish anyone without absolute proof, can you?”

  “Admitting to a misdemeanor is proof.”

  “Even when the person is lying?”

  And then Jackson busts in.

  “I did it,” he says. “And I have proof.”

&nbsp
; It’s a good thing we don’t get searched when we come in for assemblies. Like some schools with their metal-detector crackdown or psycho security officers. So I have no problem smuggling in the remote control. It’s this trigger apparatus I spent all week rigging. Definitely my best work yet.

  Rhiannon finds me and picks a seat to the right of the stage. I sit next to her the same way I did all those other times. But this time, everything is different.

  Danny doesn’t even look nervous, sitting onstage with the other candidates. There are two other kids running against him for president, a guy and a girl. The girl is a ruthless Tracy Flick Election type who would kill her own mother to win. But the other guy doesn’t want it as badly as Danny. He hardly put up any posters, and nothing about him makes him stand out in any particular way. She’s some serious competition, though. But Danny’s just sitting there, as if he’s not about to make a speech in front of the whole school that will be this monumental, revolutionary event.

  Rhiannon looks around the auditorium. Kids are still spilling in. “Do you see Nicole?” she says.

  I scan the seats. “No.” My eyes land on Jessica. Her eyes burn a hole through mine.

  I keep on scanning.

  “Do you know what Danny’s going to say?” Rhiannon asks.

  “Sort of.”

  “Did he practice with you?”

  “Nah. You know Danny. He can do this stuff in his sleep.”

  “Yeah. It must be awesome to be able to talk in front of everyone like that and not even get nervous.”

  “Big-time.”

  “Wouldn’t you be nervous?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Right?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Attention, please!” Keith yells into the mic. “Welcome to the student council election speeches, guaranteed to provide one solid period of mindless distraction from your otherwise abysmal routine!”

  Rhiannon is still looking around for Nicole. I see her sitting up front. I lean over and whisper, “There’s Nicole.” I point.

  “Why isn’t she sitting with us?” Rhiannon whispers back.

  I shrug. I check the remote control in my bag. The power switch tends to be a little loose. I’ve got the nervous excitement thing going on. Unfortunately, we have to sit through the mind-numbingly vapid speeches from everyone else before we get to the good stuff. The only good stuff being Danny. So when he finally goes up to the podium and everyone’s clapping, I’m stoked. I slip the remote out of my bag.

  “In last week’s Random Hallway Poll,” Danny starts, “eighty-three percent of you told me you think elections are whack. Fourteen percent of you think they can make some sort of difference. And the remaining three percent?” He pauses. “Believe, with unfaltering conviction, that I should absolutely stop conducting Random Hallway Polls.”

  Cheers all around. Only they’re fake cheers. Everyone loves Danny’s Random Hallway Polls.

  “But seriously, folks,” he continues. “What can I, as next year’s class president, do for you? I could make promises. But promises can be broken, while actions are the real deal. So the only promise I’ll make today is a promise for action. As your president, I will do something every day to inspire you to revolutionize your lives. Even revolutionize the world.”

  I check the switch again. My hands are shaking.

  “I can cut through the bullshit. I can say ‘bullshit’ when I’m not supposed to.”

  More cheers.

  “And I can summarize the one thing we all want the most—within ourselves, among our friends, and here in school—in one word.”

  He holds up a sign. It says: PEACE. “Let’s have a moment of silence for all of you to reflect on how this word relates to your life, this school, and the entire planet. Because all three of those things are connected.” Then he just stands there like that, holding up the sign, not saying anything. No one talks.

  After a while, Danny continues. “When I’m president, I won’t let you forget about those connections. I want to open your minds to the possibility of something bigger than this, something massive that we can actually have control over. Think about how scared you were on September eleventh.”

  Everyone is riveted.

  “Something like that could happen again. So we need to rethink how we’re living our lives. Because everyone and everything on this planet is connected. You matter. And what you do every day, the choices you make, the way you interact with other people, it all matters. And it all can change the world.”

  Tatyana stands up and cheers. She’s wearing a T-shirt with a peace sign on it that she made. Danny’s wearing one she made for him, too.

  “Think about what you want to do after this part of your life is over. And what kind of person you want to be. Because everything you do now is deciding that for you. There’s no excuse for treating people badly. Especially with everything else we have to deal with. So why can’t we be better to each other and to ourselves?

  “It’s about respect. For others. For ourselves. For our futures.”

  Then he holds up another sign that says: CHANGE THE WORLD. “We’re bigger than every one of us. You all have the power to change the world. Every single one of you. So ask yourself this: What does your ideal world look like?”

  The lights go off.

  Some girls scream.

  Then the music starts.

  Here’s the part where I flip the switch.

  Words are immediately projected onto the walls of the auditorium. And the ceiling. And the floor. And even on the deco moldings from when this school was some kind of studio space in the fifties. The words look cool sliding over their brass surfaces.

  The way I designed it, each word has a different font and color. Words like REVOLUTION. And DREAM. And RESPECT. And BELIEVE. Words that are connecting with everyone in different ways. They don’t realize what’s happening. But it is.

  It’s kind of like a giant mind fuck.

  Plus, Miguel is doing this strobe thing with the lighting. And the music is blasting that Beatles song “Because.”

  At first, everyone’s quiet. Reading the walls.

  Then the clapping starts. And then everyone goes crazy. They’re jumping in their seats, stomping on the floor, whistling.

  Of course it works. It’s genius.

  In the glint of the strobe light, I can barely make out Mr. Pearlman stumbling onto the stage. He grabs the mic at the podium. He yells, “People! People!” But you can hardly hear him over the music. It looks find of funny, actually. He’s all straining and screaming and trying to get us to be quiet, but the resulting volume is mad low. “Can someone check the lighting booth? Check the lighting booth!” I see the AP and some teachers running back in that direction.

  But it’s too late. Miguel is long gone. And the best part is, no one can accuse me of anything, either. That’s the cool thing about this program I designed. When they get to the booth, they won’t find any evidence that the light projection is running from there. But they won’t be able to stop it, either. And the music is programmed along with the lighting. It turns out that the PA system was easier to hack than I thought.

  I’m the only one who can make it stop. I’m the only one who will decide when it’s over.

  And no one can prove it.

  When I heard that Brad was suspended, I immediately thought it was because of whatever went down with Sheila. But that’s not it.

  It was Jackson, man. Jackson is my hero.

  People are saying that he felt all empowered by the attention from Gloria’s note. So instead of feeling embarrassed about it, which we were afraid might happen, he turned it around. He’s like a rock star. And the way he busted into Mr. Pearlman’s office? Dude. I did not see that coming. Nicole said she was the one who told him about our plan, and he immediately wanted to get in on it. He used Gloria’s original letter as proof that he was the one who put the copies up.

  And then there’s the Brad thing. Brad threatened Jackson’
s life during a math test. Which was such a dumbass thing to do. Everyone knows that a verbal threat on someone’s life could get you transferred to another school. And even if Brad was joking around, it doesn’t matter. Intent is irrelevant. So Jackson reported Brad. I’m sure that’s why Jackson only got detention for a week instead of being suspended for the note thing. Mr. Pearlman probably didn’t want news of Brad’s threat to get out. That wouldn’t look good for our school.

  Righteous. I guess karma really does work.

  But this day could not have been any crazier. So I need some tension-release time. And I’ve got all this pent-up frustration and anxiety rustling around for some reason.

  There’s only one solution to a crisis like this: playing Halo 2 on Danny’s sick Xbox 360. After school, we grab all the food we can carry from his kitchen and park in front of the TV.

  Time for some serious action. I’m on fire. I almost rip the controller in half. Nothing can stop me.

  Danny watches me make a sweet energy-sword play. He shrieks, “Tasty!”

  That’s pretty much the extent of our conversation for the next two hours. Here’s what we don’t talk about:• Stuff that I’m starting to hope might happen at the dance.

  • And after the dance.

  • How Danny’s going to deal with Nicole.

  • How Danny’s going to deal with Nicole possibly not wanting to get back together with him.

  • The whole thing with Mrs. Schaffer last night.

  Not that I’m thinking about any of this. I just want to chill in the year 2552 for a while.

  “You’re so in,” I tell Danny at the dance.

  “It would appear so, wouldn’t it?” he yells back over the music. “Not to be an obnoxious prick or anything.”

  “Of course not.”

  Voting isn’t until Monday, but it’s obvious he’s got the election in the bag. We were supposed to go back to class for two more periods after the assembly. Which I guess we did, technically. Or some of us did. A lot of kids bailed after. And those of us who stayed didn’t exactly get work done. The teachers all had this creeped-out look like it was Columbine Part Two or something. All anyone wanted to talk about was who did it? And how did they get the lights to go off when no one was in the lighting booth? And why wasn’t Danny disqualified?