Slob - Ellen Potter [13]
I almost lost my nerve. By morning, though, the prospect of being carved up by Mason’s switchblade seemed less likely. Slightly.
I checked the Jaws of Anguish several times that morning using a section of old pipe as a “wrist.” It worked like a dream.
That morning I sat at the math station with Rachel Lowry, the girl who looked like she might be in GWAB but wasn’t, and Aidan Overbeck, who is as hyper as a gerbil and about as intelligent. His leg never stopped jiggling as he tried to work out an equation. He was making the entire math workstation jiggle too until Rachel finally clamped her hand on his knee and squeezed hard. Aidan squealed (much like a gerbil) and said, “What was that for?” And Rachel said, “You are a one-man earthquake.” And he said something idiotic like, “It’s better than being a one-woman ugly.” It was so stupid that Rachel didn’t even bother to roll her eyes. I sort of like her.
While I was working on a math problem, I kept glancing over at Mason. He caught me once and his twisted mouth stretched into an expression that was hard to define. When half a person’s face is all messed up like that, it’s really had to tell if that person is smiling at you or scowling. I was thinking it probably wasn’t a smile. I attempted to shoot back a cool, stony stare, but I couldn’t quite manage it and wound up shrugging at him and going, “Heesh.” I have no idea why. He looked away with what I assume was disgust. Again, hard to tell.
At 11:07, Mason got up from the global studies station, quickly walked to the front of the room, and got the bathroom pass from Ms. Bussle. My heart started thumping. My veins were crawling with adrenaline. This is what it feels like to be powerful, I thought. This is the revenge feeling. It was so different from the squashed feeling I usually felt at school. The victim feeling. Why hadn’t I thought to use my brains for combat before this? All those times when I’d been humiliated . . . when my hair had been set on fire during assembly and when a girl had stuck pins in me to see if I bled brown because of all the chocolate I ate. I might have had revenge back then.
“Nima won’t like this.”
That was the little voice in my head speaking.
Sometimes little voices in your head should be ignored.
I waited and listened. There might be a yelp of surprise or a howl of anger. I looked around for a weapon, just in case I had to defend myself. It was slim pickings, but I spotted a protractor compass in a tray in front of Rachel and casually picked it up. One side was a pointy metal stick. That would do. I pretended to measure some arcs, my eyes flitting to the door every other second. He was taking forever. Finally the door opened. Mason walked in. There was no lunch sack attached to his hand. He didn’t look angry. In fact, he looked sort of calm.
Again, hard to tell with his face being what it was.
I put down the protractor compass and rushed up to Ms. Bussle.
“Bathroom pass,” I said breathlessly.
“A please would be nice.”
“Please.”
I hurried out the door to the sounds of snide giggles from my classmates, who must have thought I was having a urinary emergency. I didn’t care. I ran to the wide, door-less closet that was recessed in the wall a few yards from my classroom. There were rows of hooks where we kept our coats and backpacks, and above that was the shelf on which our lunches sat. My lunch sack was where I left it. It looked untouched. Very carefully, with my right hand supporting the bottom, I took it off the shelf. Putting it on the floor, I peered inside. The spiked handcuff was in place, open and poised against the side of the sack. Directly below it was the eco-container.
The cookies were gone.
I took the thick wooden-dowel bathroom pass and inserted it in the sack, then pried the edge of the eco-container with it. Snick! The cuff snapped closed on the imaginary wrist, just as it was supposed to, and I slipped the dowel out. There was no way Mason could have bypassed the mechanism . . . yet he had!
I heard footsteps down the