Tempestuous Read online

  “Who’s ‘they?’” I asked suspiciously.

  “A bunch of the Eastern Prep kids, including that a-hole, Brian, who was in here before, and his girlfriend. For the record, they’re majorly P.O.d about the whole ‘helicopter’ story.”

  “Who cares what they’re doing as long as they’re at the other end of the mall?” Ariel seemed unperturbed. “We’re just in here for the night. What do we need with all that stuff, anyway?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Derek answered. “We don’t know what’s happening out there with the storm. We could be snowed in here for days. What if we lose power? This could turn into a survival game.”

  “See?” I said to Caleb chidingly. “It’s war. You’re involved now whether you want to be or not.”

  “Wait a sec,” Chad said, “before we get ahead of ourselves…. Don’t we have bigger things to worry about? Like, oh, I don’t know … the computer store thief?”

  “What about him?” I said with a shrug.

  “Well, he’s probably not still here, but what if he strikes again?”

  “Citizen’s arrest,” Troy said, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of his back pocket.

  “Where did you get those?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

  “On eBay.”

  “They aren’t even real,” Caleb said. “We sell some just like those at Got Games.”

  “Oh, they’re real,” Troy said.

  “Let me try them out,” I said in a wheedling tone. Troy snapped one of the heavier-than-expected cuffs around my wrist and I jangled it in the air. “They feel real.”

  “If they’re so real, how come I know the trick to get out of them?” Caleb said.

  He was starting to annoy me so I grabbed his arm and slapped the other cuff around it.

  “Fine, if it’s so easy, do it,” I said, goading him. “Show us your stupid little magic trick.”

  He twisted his wrist a few times even though it was clear there was no way he’d be able to get his arm out of them. He looked confused. I yanked back on my end of the handcuff.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Just give me the key, Troy.”

  Troy stuck his hand in his back pocket, then his front pockets.

  “This isn’t funny,” Caleb said. “Unlock us.”

  “I … what the hell? … I can’t find the key. It was in my pocket,” he said. Caleb and I both looked at him expectantly, our irritation growing. “I’m serious.”

  He looked around the ground at his feet and everyone else did, too, but the key was nowhere to be found. Just brilliant. Brian, Rachel, and the Itneys were going all Lord of the Flies on us, a potentially armed criminal might or might not be somewhere in the mall, and Caleb and I were handcuffed together. What more could go wrong?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  All Men Idle, All. And Women Too

  The last of Ariel’s birthday cake was now a soupy mess, in contrast to the thigh-high-and-growing snowdrifts deposited by the blizzard outside. Sprawled lazily among and atop the tables in the food court, close to two-dozen partycrashers intermingled with our original band of misfits. An apparently intense game of paper football was well underway near the unsuitably formal Baccarat crystal chandelier that hovered over the entrance to the food court, while another congregation of gearheads had accessed the CO2 tanks from a soda fountain. “There’s a pressure-relief valve on that, you dork. No way are you going to be able to make a cannon.” A group of girls braided each other’s hair while sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor, Alfredo critically monitoring them like a drill sergeant with a class of new recruits. I surveyed the scene impatiently from my perch atop the counter.

  “Do you think Randall will pay us overtime for this?” I said, still being jostled occasionally by my cumbersome Siamese twin. He hadn’t stopped scrutinizing the terrazzo tile floor for the nonexistent key. “Dude, you’re yanking my arm from its socket. Give it a rest, already. We’ve looked everywhere.”

  Caleb exhaled loudly, ran his free hand through his thick mane of hair, and brought his surly stare eye level with mine.

  “This blows,” he said, removing a bottle of water from my grasp. “And you’d better ease up, because seeing the inside of a ladies’ room is not on my bucket list. Not today. Not ever.” That particular complication of our conjoinedness had yet to cross my mind. Oh dear. I screwed the plastic cap back on, firmly.

  Dex reached for the cell phone from the backside of his too-tight Cleat Locker shorts.

  “Maybe I can find out the status on the weather. They’ve got to be making some sort of headway with the plows.”

  Lurching past in stops and starts while trying to balance a red plastic tray vertically on his index finger, Troy paused in front of us and brought the tray under his arm like a gym coach with a clipboard.

  “Yo, Einstein, we lost cell reception about two hours ago. Why else do you think we’re all sitting here bored shitless? The ability for anyone in our generation to self-amuse has sadly been bred out of our species. I blame Bill Gates. What I wouldn’t give for a lame game of Words with Friends right about now.” He paused and eyed Caleb. “On the other hand … you’ve got a store full of video games up there. With the whole night in front of me I may just have to answer the ‘Call of Duty.’”

  “Huh?” I wondered aloud.

  “Gamer pun,” Ariel translated, chewing on the straw from her cup of Sprite.

  Chad broke long enough from doing wall pushups nearby to chime in.

  “Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind a little Rock Band action. You in, Caleb?”

  “Not with this ball and chain,” he said, nodding in my direction. “Jimi Hendrix never had a sidekick.”

  Brooke and Riley from the Dress Depot were sitting astride a nearby table, listlessly dipping fries into a paper cup filled with ranch dressing.

  “Of all the things you could do in the mall tonight, you want to play stupid video games?” Riley said. “If I had the run of this place, I’d head straight down to Luxe Labels and try on everything in my size. Maybe raid the cosmetics counter, too.”

  I privately imagined this was exactly what Rachel and the Itneys were currently up to, and then I remembered the larger brigade of my private school classmates, shoppers and mall employees alike, holding dominion on the far side of the building. “Well, we kind of do have the run of this place,” I said. “But first things first. We need to try to claim some necessities from ‘enemy territory’ for tonight. They’ve called dibs on Worthington’s and Camperville, which means they’re not giving up sleeping bags or toiletries without a fight.”

  “Surely they can spare some toothpaste,” said a tatted-out girl I thought I recognized from Wacko, a.k.a. the emo emporium, located on the mall’s upper level.

  “Don’t bet on it. You guys don’t know these people like I know them. But if we’re going to be stuck here all night, we shouldn’t have to be miserable. I say we send some scouts out to see what kind of supplies we can get.”

  “I was a Scout! I can do it!” Ariel said, her face beaming. “Sold the most cookies in the tri-state region four years running.” I pretended to ignore this not-surprising revelation and the fact that it qualified her for absolutely nothing.

  “Troy, you go back out, and take Colin and Derek with you. Grab whatever you think we can use for tonight. Definitely hit up Infinity Homewares for pillows and blankets. Try to score some batteries and flashlights, and maybe a radio, in case the power goes out.” I was fairly certain the mall had a backup generator, but figured it was better to err on the side of caution. “The natives are getting restless,” I said, scanning the rest of the food court. “The theater will probably keep flicks running all night, but swing by Binder’s Books on your way back and bring us an assortment of trashy novels and magazines to help pass the time.”

  Ariel cupped her hand over my ear and whispered in it. I nodded. “The birthday girl is requesting a run to the bulk candy store. Pixie sticks, if you will. And Red Vines for me … oh, o
n second thought, just bring a random assortment for everyone.”

  Quinn had approached now, swinging one of her long bead necklaces in circles from her wrist.

  “If you’re going out, can you keep your eyes peeled for Mike? It’s like he vanished into thin air or something.” She turned her attention on me. “You do know Grady’s not going to like this little Lewis and Clark expedition, right? He told us to stay here.”

  “You do realize that badge is plastic, right?” I said. “In any case, he is putty in my hands. If Grady’s the deputy around here, I’m the sheriff.”

  “Let the looting and rioting begin,” cheered Derek.

  “Hold the phone. Those middle-aged ladies at Infinity Homewares scare the crap out of me,” Colin confessed with alarmed clown eyes. “I don’t think they’re just going to let us have stuff for free.”

  I reflected on the conundrum. Would commandeering a few items on a night like tonight be considered stealing? Certainly not on the same level as stealing computers, right? I couldn’t afford to get into anymore trouble. Yet my classmates bivouacking on the other side of the mall seemed to be helping themselves. So why the hell not? Being stuck for who knows how long without any basic creature comforts was going to be miserable. It was a tough call to have to make, but I needed to let my comrades know they could count on me to see them through this whole ordeal.

  “You don’t have to tear through stores like rabid apes,” said Caleb. He’d been standing by my side silently until this moment. I reddened, feeling like one of those Oscar winners who gets hastily ushered off-stage before they can complete their thank-yous. “The other employees shouldn’t balk,” he said. “It’s a state of emergency, and besides, they’ll need to eat. Tell ’em they can come down here for free food. We’ll help each other out. ‘Special circumstances,’ after all. Just keep your eyes peeled and be swift about it. We still don’t know what’s up with whoever ripped off the PC Pro store.”

  I glanced at the larger group now clustered around us. Everyone seemed to be on the verge of hero worship for Caleb, as if he had just delivered the St. Crispin’s Day speech accompanied by a poignantly heart-pounding John Williams score. “… Be swift about it …” Who talks that way?

  When people began to disperse again, I turned to Caleb in a huff.

  “What are you doing, offering free food to the whole mall? What if we run out and don’t have enough for ourselves?”

  “It’s a snowstorm, not Armageddon.”

  “But if everyone comes down here to score free soft pretzels, it’s going to be chaos. I don’t want to be overrun by outsiders.”

  “Oh, I see. Maybe you’re better off sticking with ‘your own kind.’” He used finger quotes with his free hand, which pissed me off even more. “I’m sure all your Eastern Prep classmates are fine-dining it on fried onion bouquets at Teasers right about now. Maybe you should go join them. Oh … but wait.” He lifted up his arm, dragging mine with it. “That’d mean you’d have to take me along with you, and having them see you with me on your arm would kill you, wouldn’t it? Shit. I meant to tell the guys to find us something that could saw through these before they took off. Maybe Grady can justify his paycheck for once and jimmy these open. We should go look for him.”

  I was too miffed by Caleb’s personal remark to heed his suggestion.

  “Let’s get a few things straight. For starters, I am not friends with those entitled brats….”

  “Oh, that’s right. You only date one of them.”

  “Date-ed. Note the past tense.”

  “Seems like he dumped you, not the other way around.”

  Technically, there had never been an official breakup. There didn’t need to be one after all was said and done. I knew things were over between Brian and me when he stood in the school superintendent’s office with his parents and my dad and accused me of being behind the tutoring service that had run amok. It was the truth, to a point. I had conceived of the enterprise as an entirely legit symbiotic relationship between cool kid and whiz kid. But those most in need of academic help typically had too big an ego to publicly own it, and in a growing number of instances, the geeks preferred a currency other than cold hard cash; namely, an entrée (if only brief) to the higher stratosphere of Eastern Prep’s cool cliques. An exchange of this sort required the utmost discretion. So I ran things on the down-low, a sort of “black market” operation intended to be win-win for everyone. I’ll acknowledge that over time my suspicions were aroused when bobble-headed cheerleaders started making the honor roll and turning up at school dances with skinny “Where’s Waldo?” types. The doormats who used to come to school wearing “My Other Car Is a Tardis” T-shirts started rolling into school acting like big ballers. Wads of cash being furtively exchanged around the lockers seemed to be more on par with drug deals than with extra help in calculus. Of course it occurred to me that more than just tutoring must be at play, but perhaps, subconsciously, I didn’t want to know. Once I’d gotten my thirty-percent commission for making initial introductions to the study buddies, I didn’t concern myself with the particulars. Only when Brian ratted me out as “the ringleader” of the schoolwide scam did I learn the sobering details. Turns out the dunces had started recruiting the brainiacs to take their SATs for them, providing them with fake IDs so that they could easily pass unnoticed at College Board testing sites, where scrutiny was lax at best. Of the eight Eastern Prep students who were eventually caught, one faced felony charges of scheming to defraud (that would be my ex), while the rest faced lesser charges of falsifying business records and criminal impersonation. High-priced attorneys got Brian’s butt off the hook by arranging a deal in which he informed on the “real” mastermind behind the scheme, a.k.a. yours truly. I had my Joan of Arc moment in the district attorney’s office, but they were unable to prove that I had knowledge of the serious scams—because, god’s honest truth, I didn’t! (And I’m not sure even my dad believes me on this one.) Since both popular kids and the geeky plebes were wrapped up in the wrongdoing, I was immediately ostracized by virtually every clique at my school and was a natural scapegoat for the school board to throw the book at. My part in the tutoring brokerage firm didn’t necessarily amount to criminal, but the fact that I’d profited from it made me guilty in their eyes. Being forced to pay back the money I’d earned from the enterprise (to be ultimately deposited in a scholarship fund) sucked, but Brian’s lies were what really hurt. So, too, had my best friend’s betrayal.

  During the two years we’d been dating, I’d adopted Brian’s group of friends as my own, and that had included self-proclaimed “complete fox” Rachel Alonso, whose confidence and general sense of superiority kept pace with my own. When Brian and I first hooked up, she had been dating a senior hottie named Max who ran in the same crowd. Our mutual respect for each other’s ability to manipulate and control people using only the words that came out of our mouths led to a fast friendship, and we spent countless nights cackling our asses off at our own little inside jokes, often made at the expense of others. I know, I know … classic mean girls. And that’s the saddest part of my whole undoing: not being ousted from their social sphere, but being forced to reflect on what a bitch I’d kind of been before all this happened.

  Rachel had been single—a status she decried as wholly unnatural—ever since Max abandoned her for college last year. But mere days after the the SAT scam broke open, my former best friend started cozying up to my ex. They wantonly kissed each other at school, their gaping mouths reminding me of those sucker fish that clean algae off aquarium glass. Whatever, they deserve each other, I continued to tell myself. But despite my outward show of pluck and fortitude, I felt injured in the worst way. Not only had Rachel backed up Brian’s character assassination of me, telling everyone at school I had cooked up the SAT switcheroo to set Brian up, but she’d also made a mockery of our entire friendship when it became clear she had eyes on my man the whole time. And so I found myself with virtually no friends or sympathizers
to speak of, trying to eke out the rest of the school year with at least a feigned degree of dignity. Let me just tell you this: anyone who says leprosy is a disease that’s been eradicated hasn’t set foot in a high school lately.

  After Caleb’s last rude remark I’d been giving him the silent treatment, which somehow seemed less effectual and harder to maintain with him chained to my side. When Ariel sidled up next to us a few minutes later, I welcomed the distraction but ended up only getting more heat. Though, to be precise, Ariel usually didn’t get pissed so much as mopey and dejected.

  “I could have gone with Troy and the guys, you know.”

  “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “But I could have helped!” she said with a whine. “You act just like my mom sometimes. She keeps me under house arrest and you keep me trapped behind this counter like I’m your slave or something.”

  “I’m your first-class ticket to fun, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, but you’re always minimizing me. I know you think you have a way with people, or whatever, but I’m no slouch myself.”

  “So what are you suggesting, Ariel?” I sighed in annoyance and glanced testily at Caleb, who in turn glanced at the ceiling with wide eyes in a mocking “Don’t mind me!” face.

  Ariel leaned closer to me, once again an overeager puppy.

  “Those mean kids,” she said. “Why don’t you let me take a crack at them the next time they come around the food court?”

  I had to hide a chuckle trying to imagine Ariel doing anything that could possibly pierce the armor of my friends-turned-foes. Her quirky disposition would irritate them the way a fruit fly might cause you to bat your hand in the air, but she was hardly a match for the likes of them. Or was she? Ariel seemed as harmless and timorous as a fawn, which would make her the perfect decoy for the plot that was now crystallizing in my brain. I knew my coworker had the prowess, tenacity, and—most of all—loyalty to pull it off.