The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [61]
“Oh, shoot. Fred, you sneaky little punk!” Vince yelled.
I peeked out of the closet and looked at the screen. Fred had just sniped Vince’s guy from the old church tower. Fred always used the sniper strategy. He was pretty good for a third grader.
After they finished their game, I turned off the machine.
“It’s time,” I said.
They reluctantly agreed. None of us wanted to face the truth: There was a snitch among us, and we had to find out who it was.
We all went down to the basement, where my mom had milk, soda, chips, and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies waiting for us. My dad had rented us some action movie to watch. It was a reward for helping him clean off the house. He also gave each of my friends five bucks.
“Oh, you guys are so cute,” my mom squealed as we came down the stairs to the basement.
“Mom!” I said.
“Oh, Christian, relax. I just think it’s great that you’re having Fred over. I spoke to his mom earlier and she is just thrilled that he found some new friends. You boys enjoy your movie.”
“Mom! Please?” She could be so embarrassing.
“Okay, okay,” she said, heading for the stairs.
“Thank you for the cookies, Mrs. Barrett,” Vince said.
She smiled at him and went upstairs.
“Dude, your mom is cool. My mom would never make me and my friends cookies,” Joe said.
“Yeah, I know, whatever,” I said.
“Just wait till you’re fourteen, like me. Then she’ll be nagging you all the time to clean your room or take out the trash or not to slouch or chew with your mouth open or to say thank you and ‘don’t be disrespectful’ and ‘call me and let me know where you’re going’ and blah, blah, blah, blah. Dude, you’ll miss the days when she makes you snacks and stuff.” Joe bit into one of the cookies.
“Okay, okay, let’s just get down to business,” I said, turning on the TV.
I hit Play and turned up the volume. The movie had lots of explosions and guys rolling around shooting huge guns and lots of slow-motion shots of bullets zooming around. It looked pretty good. But we weren’t there to watch it.
“Okay, the reason I wanted to hold this meeting is because we need to figure out who the rat is.”
We all brainstormed for a while and tossed around name after name. We didn’t really get anywhere, especially since Joe and Vince were afraid to accuse each other since they were both sitting right there. But it didn’t matter to me; this meeting was just a cover to distract everybody while Tyrell did his thing.
“Now then, I guess for the time being we should just lay low, let things cool off before we make our next move.” It had been a half hour of pointless speculation.
They all nodded whether they agreed or not, and either way I didn’t care.
I felt really bad lying to them all. It wasn’t like me. But I just needed some time to execute my own plan, to let Tyrell do what he does best. I needed to get to the bottom of this, and I didn’t know who to trust anymore.
After our discussion we all settled in and tried to watch the movie and have some fun. My face was starting to throb again, but I didn’t want to ask my mom for more Tylenol because then she would bother us. So I just ate some cookies and tried to distract myself with the explosions and whatnot.
Toward the end of the movie I saw Fred look down at his watch. He jumped up.
“Oh man! I gotta go now. My mom said she’d pick me up at seven and it’s seven oh five. See you guys later.”
“Yeah, I better go, too,” Joe said. “I told my friend David that I would hang out with him tonight. I’ve been so busy lately that we haven’t hung out much.”
“All right, see you tomorrow at morning recess,” I said.
Vince nodded good-bye and then Joe left. I sometimes forgot that Joe just worked for me. We weren’t his best friends or anything.
So then it was just Vince and I. We switched it to the Cubs play-off game at 7:15. The best moment of the game was when the Cubs executed a perfect suicide squeeze play. Vince jumped up and yelled and screamed like they’d just won the World Series. He loved the suicide squeeze. If you let him, he