The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [13]
“I thought that was a tough one,” he said with a grin.
Joe was waiting outside my office when we got back. Tanzeem was not with him.
“What happened?” I asked as we went inside. Brady was reading a book and Fred was playing his Nintendo DS.
Then I looked at Joe. He was green, like cartoon characters look when they’re sick. I thought he might blow chunks right there in my office. Right in the only stall in the school with no toilet. But he swallowed hard and I was pleased that words came out of his mouth and not his lunch.
“They got to him,” he said.
“Who?”
“Must have been some of Staples’s guys. Tanzeem got jumped outside of school this morning; they were just waiting for him. I saw him in the nurse’s office, Mac, and he was pretty messed up. It was so bad that the nurse sent him home,” Joe said.
“Whoa,” I said. The school didn’t send kids home unless it was really bad.
Joe nodded, looking ill again.
Staples had taken out Tanzeem before I could even talk to him. Which meant that he had known about my plan to hire him. Which led me to believe that Staples possibly had a spy or maybe an informant, or some other way that he was getting information.
“Well, we’re just going to have to do this ourselves, then. We’ll be Fred’s personal bodyguards. He’ll just stay here with us every lunch and recess,” I said.
I didn’t like where this was headed. It almost made me want to go to the principal, but I couldn’t. Mr. Dickerson wouldn’t get it. He would only make things worse somehow.
Chapter 6
After school that day Joe, Vince, and I walked Fred home. We were two blocks from our school and two from Fred’s house, exactly halfway, when they stepped out from behind the shrubs and onto the sidewalk. There were five of them total: Barnaby Willis and four high schoolers.
Two wore baggy clothes and had long hair. They had a dangerous look to them, like they wouldn’t think twice before punching a little kid in the face. The other two were athlete types with spiky hair and polo shirts. Barnaby wore the same clothes he had on this morning and also a look of revenge.
Now, Joe is a big guy, the biggest at our school. In fact, he was even bigger than two of the four high school kids in front of us. But he is only an eighth grader, and there is only one of him. We weren’t going to be able to fight our way out of this.
“Hey, hey, hey, look what we have here,” one of the high schoolers said.
“Yeah, I thought I smelled a rat,” said another.
“Oh no,” Fred said, tugging at my sleeve. “That’s Staples’s posse. They do all of his dirtiest work. We’re in trouble now, Mac.”
I already knew that we were in trouble.
“Who are your new friends, rat?” asked another of the high schoolers.
“Wait, wait . . . I know you. You’re that problem-solver guy,” said a spiky-haired kid. “It just so happens that I have a problem. Can you help me?”
I just stared at him.
“You see, my problem is that I have a rat and a quitter to deal with, and I don’t know how exactly to go about it. On one hand, I could set a trap. I could trick this quitter-rat-snitch and then squish him when he’s least expecting it. Or on the other hand, I could just get a stick and take care of this rat problem right out in the open. What do you think, Mr. Problem-Solver Guy? MacGyver, isn’t it?”
The other high schoolers laughed at this.
I just kept staring at him. At this point I figured he must be PJ, the guy Fred had said was second in command to Staples.
“Yeah, that’s a tough one, isn’t it?” PJ continued. “I guess the best way might just be to pound him into the ground. After all, the more simple a plan is, the less that can go wrong, right?”
He started walking toward us. The other four followed. They walked slowly but with a purpose.
“Split up,” I yelled, and grabbed Fred’s arm.
Fred and I ran to our right, across the Andersons’ front lawn. I didn’t see where Joe and Vince went. I pulled at Fred’s arm to help him keep up with me. We ran around the side of the house to the backyard. Fred breathed hard, struggling