Alibi Junior High Read online

  “Okay.”

  The noise in the background suddenly gets louder, drowning out any thought of either one of us talking. When it gets back to the normal volume he says, “So how’s school?”

  It’s tough for me to change topics like this but I manage to push myself forward. “It’s good. Easy, though, stuff we covered years ago. I think I’m making friends.”

  “That’s good news.”

  I think about what Andy told me. “Dad?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “Do we really work for who you said we do?”

  There’s a long moment of silence. I start to wonder if he’s still there. Finally he says, “Cody, everything’s just the way I told you. I have to go now.”

  “Dad, can’t you talk just a little longer?” I can’t believe he has to go already.

  “Sorry, I can’t. Soon, though, okay?”

  “Dad…” The call disconnects.

  I mutter, “…I miss you.”

  Once again I’m left standing in the kitchen with a cell phone pressed uselessly against my ear. I don’t know why but my eyes tear up. I’m just getting so frustrated. I don’t want to be part of this whole saving-the-world routine anymore. I want a normal life with all the boring normal things that come with it, like a full night’s sleep, school, friends, and a dad who’s got a nine-to-five job.

  I’m so tired.

  The light blazes on. I’m not sure how Jenny managed to walk down the hall without me hearing her. It must have been all that noise on the phone. She’s standing there in her nightgown; her hair pushed this way and that.

  “Is everything okay? Who were you talking to?”

  The light’s so bright that it hurts my eyes. I blink and wipe at them with the backs of my hands.

  “Cody, hon, are you crying?”

  I turn my back to her. I try to hide my frustration but my voice betrays me. “No, I’m…fine. Really. You know, it’s just…the light.”

  She places her hand on my shoulder. “Was that your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I dunno. I guess.”

  She turns me around, gives me a little smile before wiping my cheek. Then she pulls me close. “I’m sorry, Cody. I’m sure everything will eventually work out.”

  When I round the corner I’m surprised to see Albert. Not that it’s unusual for him to be at the bus stop; in fact, he always seems to get there first. No, what surprises me is that he’s wearing a suit. It looks like it’s cheap, something off the rack, and the tie doesn’t really match, but it definitely counts as a suit. I personally think it’s a vast improvement over his old baggy clothes.

  I stand next to him, nod my head in approval, and smile. “Nice suit.”

  “Yeah, not as nice as yours, but I kinda like it.”

  “I can see why.”

  He looks down and kicks a small stone. “Hey, I was wondering. Would you mind if I joined your after-school karate class?”

  “Of course, that would be great! You didn’t have to ask. I just assumed that if you wanted to be a part of it you would come on down.”

  Cell Phone Girl is shaking her head as she approaches us. “I don’t believe it. Now there’s two of you? What is this, some kind of twisted psycho cult with an extreme dress code?”

  She’s standing next to me with a big smile. I don’t understand. Yesterday she seemed terrified to be anywhere near me and today she’s acting like we’re old friends.

  She places her backpack next to mine and holds out her small hand. “Um, I don’t know if I ever told you, but my name’s Debbie.”

  I shake her hand. I’m amazed at how fragile and delicate it feels. I could easily break the bones if I tried. “I’m Cody.”

  “I know. I think what you did was the coolest thing ever.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You know, freeing the mice? I don’t know who made that YouTube video with the puppet but it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all year. I must have watched it twenty times.”

  “Someone made another video of me?”

  “Yes! You mean you haven’t seen it? It’s hysterical. There’s this cute little puppet wearing a suit and tie. He stuffs all these tiny mice into a bag and then releases them in the hall. They run all over the place. You gotta see it.”

  “I guess.”

  The bus pulls up. I’m not even at the top of the stairs when Troy Sampson is barking out my name again. He’s saving me the same seat he did before.

  When I get closer I realize he’s wearing a tie under his leather jacket. He smiles and holds up the tie. “I kind of like the way this looks. Somehow it makes me seem smarter. Maybe a couple of my teachers will finally give me a break.”

  Albert keeps muttering, “I hate that guy,” but he winds up sitting next to him anyway while I’m across the aisle. Troy can be very persuasive.

  Much to my surprise, Albert and Troy spend the whole ride to school talking about baseball. The World Series has been going on all week. You just can’t escape it. The New York Yankees are playing the New York Mets. It seems like that’s a really big deal around here. It’s become this gate that every conversation has to pass through.

  Amber and Nicki squeeze into my seat and chatter nonstop about the YouTube video. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I never saw it, they just keep talking and talking about it. They say I make a very cute puppet.

  Once again school is a welcome sight. I hate riding the bus.

  Frank, Pogo Stick, and the rest of the karate club are waiting for me just inside the front door. For some reason I’m not really surprised when I see that they’re all dressed neatly and wearing ties.

  We stand in the front hall talking. Almost everyone who walks through the door turns and stares at us.

  There are some other groups of kids in the front hall. It’s a common meeting place. I’ve seen people meeting here every day. You meet, you talk, you move along together to homeroom.

  Steroid Steve marches over to our group with that odd way of walking he has. It’s like he’s carrying a large barrel under each arm and squeezing a third between his thighs.

  He barks, “Hey, you guys gotta move along! No gang activity is allowed in the school.”

  I start to laugh. “What are you talking about? We’re not a gang. We’re just dressed up.”

  His voice grows louder. “You’re dressed alike and congregating together—that constitutes suspicious gang activity.”

  I’m really getting tired of this guy. That roundhouse kick is way overdue.

  Troy steps forward and pats me on the back. “Forget about it. I once watched Steve-O here break up a troop of ‘suspicious’ Girl Scouts. The guy’s clueless. Let’s just get going.”

  Troy and Steroid Steve glare at each other. It’s obvious that there’s a long dark history between the two of them.

  We walk away and head on down the hall. It’s almost like we’re moving in slow motion. Everyone turns and watches us parade by. Maybe there’s more to what Steve was saying than I gave him credit for.

  Each day I notice more and more kids wearing ties to school. At first it’s friends of friends, but then I start noticing kids wearing ties that have no connection to us. It’s strange how some things grow without much effort. Like my karate club, which seems to pick up more kids every day.

  Andy also agreed to be Bop’s father’s personal trainer. Within a week he had four more clients. All of them willing to pay big bucks to have an Army Ranger rant and yell at them to push themselves harder.

  We’re all sitting on the cold, damp grass.

  “Frankfurter!”

  “Yes, Coach?”

  “Same drill. Start your lap.”

  Frank reluctantly rises to his feet and starts plodding along.

  I stand up. “Coach?”

  “You have something to say, Teacup?”

  “Yes, Coach. We’ve decided we’re not going to do this to Frank anymore.”

&
nbsp; “And what’s that, Teacup?”

  “This whole ‘pass him so he has to take another lap’ routine.”

  Coach Dinatelli glares at me. I think he expects me to get nervous and back down. Finally he says, “Well, Teacup, it’s not up to you to decide what we do or don’t do in my class.”

  I glare right back at him. “And another thing. We don’t like your stupid nicknames. If you expect to be addressed in a certain manner we deserve the same consideration. How would you like it if we started calling you Coach Blowhard?”

  Mrs. Owens taps her fingernails slowly on her desk. “Congratulations, Mr. Saron. I think you’ve established a new school record.”

  I let a long moment of silence pass us by. It’s become our accustomed manner of communicating. Words followed by long pauses. “What record would that be?”

  “Student with the most teacher complaints. Usually that honor goes to someone with a severe hygiene problem.”

  I smile. I’m starting to appreciate Mrs. Owens’s sense of humor. It grows on you. She’ll never do stand-up but it can work well with a small captive audience of one.

  “Do I get a trophy?”

  She raises her eyebrows. That’s about as close to a smile as you’ll ever receive from her. “No, but that’s an interesting idea. Something to take into consideration.”

  “Um, Mrs. Owens, may I say something about Coach Dinatelli’s complaint?”

  She holds up her hand. “Let me finish reading it.” She reads through the page. Her eyes rise briefly. “Coach Blowhard?”

  “Well, it’s like—”

  She stops me again with her hand and continues to read.

  When she finishes, she places the sheet of paper in a growing file with my name on it. “What class do you have now, Mr. Saron?”

  “Um, Spanish.”

  “See Miss Reed at the front desk for a late pass.”

  I stand up. “But what about the complaint?”

  She walks around her desk and holds open the door for me. “Sometimes, the underdog wins.”

  “So, I’m not in trouble?”

  “Not today.” Her eyebrows rise. “At least, not yet. You still have a few hours left.”

  Were you in the woods last night?”

  Andy signals that I should lower my voice. He’s worried about bugs, but I point at the CD player; it’s loudly pumping out music. It would be impossible to record anything while it’s blasting.

  Still, when he talks his voice is so low I can barely hear it. “I was out early in the evening—was that you that I heard around midnight?”

  I shake my head. “No. You heard it too?”

  “How could I not? Our friend is getting loud. For some reason that worries me.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Andy gestures that I should follow him and we walk across the gym to the storage closet. He squats down and opens a box. I peer inside. “What is it?”

  He grins and talks almost directly into my ear. “I called an old buddy of mine. I think it’s time we start fighting fire with fire. It’s a wireless camera of our own, two of them actually, with night-vision capacity, and this is a silent driveway alarm system. We can set it up in the woods. When he trips the beam we’ll know where he is.”

  Now it’s my turn to grin. “Now you’re talking.”

  Hey, guys.” I place my lunch tray at the end of the table. Most of the karate club is here. We’ve fallen into the habit of sitting at the same table everyday.

  “Cody! I’ve got to ask you something.”

  Why does Pogo Stick always talk with a mouth full of food? I turn my head slightly so I don’t have to look at the contents of his lunch. “What’s up?”

  “Frank tells me you’ve got a thing for Renee Carrington, that right?”

  I look at my plate and start moving things around with my fork. I can feel my face getting hot. I hope it’s not turning red. “I don’t know.”

  He slaps Bop on the back. “Ha! Told ya. That’s a yes.”

  I plead with Pogo. “Come on. Give me a break.”

  “Hey, I’m not giving you a hard time. Renee’s cute. Is she going to the dance next week?”

  “Um…I don’t know.”

  Pogo thinks for a moment, then calls across the table, “Frank, Frank.” He’s talking with the Gomez brothers about the World Series. “Frank!”

  Frank looks over at us. “What?”

  “Renee Carrington’s friend. The little redheaded thing.”

  “You mean Fiona?”

  “Yeah, that’s it, Fiona. She lives on your street, right?”

  Frank takes a sip of his milk. “Yeah, like three houses down. Nice girl.”

  “She at your bus stop?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Could you ask her if Renee’s going to the dance?”

  He shrugs. “Sure, why not.”

  Pogo turns to me and smiles. “There you are. I bet she’ll be there.”

  I push around my food for a while before confessing. “I’ve never been to a dance before. What are they like?”

  “What are they like? It’s time for you to get out of your cave. Hang with us. We’ll be over by the clock.”

  Cody, I wanted to catch you before history.”

  Renee’s standing in the hall with the oddest expression. I can’t get a read on it. I look into her eyes: she seems nervous. I think she has bad news.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No. Well, kinda. I just want to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  She touches my shoulder. “Not here, okay? But I want to know if I can drop by your house tomorrow. You’ve got your karate club going on, right?”

  Why did she touch my shoulder? That’s the type of thing you do when you feel sorry for someone. Maybe she thinks I’ve been getting too friendly. Maybe she wants me to back off. Did Frank say something to her?

  “Cody?”

  “Huh?”

  “So…can I? Can I stop by?”

  “Yes, of course. Stop by anytime. Vegetarians are always welcome.”

  She’s not even smiling. This has got to be really bad news.

  The worst part of waking up in the morning is the getting-out-of-bed part. Not that I’ve got anything against getting out of bed; it’s perfectly fine if that’s what you choose to do.

  Today it’s easy to get out of bed. Today, I can smell Jenny’s pancakes. When she whips up and fries that batter, creating those delicious little golden cakes, now that’s something I choose to get out of bed for.

  I hurry into the kitchen. “Mmmm, something smells great and it’s not even the weekend. I love it!”

  Jenny’s wearing an old pair of sweats, huge slippers that look like furry feet, and a New York Mets baseball cap.

  “Hey, I thought you were a Yankees fan.”

  “I told you that was just a hat. I picked this hat up because you said you hated the Yankees. Tonight’s the big night. Game seven. Whoever wins tonight will be the champs, so…let’s go, Mets!”

  I wave my finger in the air, aggravation slipping into my voice. “Ooooh! Ask me if I care. Really, what is it with people around here? You’d think the fate of the free world depended on this stupid game.”

  Jenny holds up her hands. “Whoa…put that monster back in its box. People work hard, if they want a little diversion, what’s the big deal?”

  “I guess.”

  She sits down next to me. “Guess what? Your mother loved baseball.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, we used to go to the games with our dad. I had a good time but your mom…she loved it.”

  “What was her favorite team?”

  She smiles. “I think it was the Mets, but she’d go to any game. Mainly she just loved going to the ballpark, you know, the hot dogs, the ice cream…the boys.”

  Jenny gives me one of those sideways glances like a shoplifter thinking she’s getting away with something. “And as long as we’re on that subject, how’s Renee?”r />
  Her question doesn’t bother me today, and I’m about to say “fine” but instead I find myself blurting out, “I don’t know. I’m worried; she wants to talk to me about something after my karate club. I get the feeling she wants me to stop talking to her.”

  She places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. If she were going to tell you she didn’t want to talk to you, she’d just tell you she doesn’t want to talk. She wouldn’t make an appointment. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Think about it.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m betting it’s either something good or it’s something that has nothing to do with you. And you know what I want?”

  “What?”

  “When you find out, I want to be the first to know. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, eat your pancakes. How about some orange juice?”

  She walks over to the refrigerator and pulls out the carton.

  “Sure…. And, Jenny?” She glances over her shoulder. “Thanks for everything. You’ve been great.”

  Her eyes light up. “Oh, hon, thank you. I love having you here. When you live and work by yourself you tend to get set in your ways. Thanks for making my life more…interesting.”

  I looked for Renee all day long. I was sure she was avoiding me. It wasn’t until history started and her chair remained empty that I realized she just wasn’t in school.

  All through the karate class I keep one eye on the back door, expecting to see her smiling face any second. It’s all I want right now, everything else can wait. It’s so strange. There’s the café bombing and everything that followed in its path, there’s all this crazy, life-threatening stuff that I should be thinking about, but right now all I can think about is Renee.

  I keep pushing the class, not wanting it to end, not wanting to give up on Renee.

  “Okay!” Andy steps forward. “I think that’s enough for today.”

  The guys practically collapse on the mats.