Don't Get Caught(11)

Clever.

“You know what pisses me off?” Malone asks. “Knowing the Chaos Club is probably down there laughing at us.”

We all stop painting and look over the side again.

“I’m going to find ’em and kill ’em,” Adleta growls.

“And who exactly are you going to kill?” Malone asks. “No one knows who’s in the Chaos Club.”

“Oh, someone knows. I’ll find out who,” Adleta says.

“How? By beating people up until you get a confession?”

“It’s an idea.”

“Yeah, a dumb one.”

“Like you’re one for good ideas. What’s your answer? Text everyone another nudie?”

Malone holds Adleta’s eyes a lot longer than I’d be able to. Or maybe he’s holding her eyes. Regardless, I haven’t heard Adleta say that many words in all the years I’ve known him.

“Look, everyone just needs to chill out,” Wheeler says. “This isn’t a big deal.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Ellie tells him. “You don’t care about how this’ll look to prospective colleges.”

“Or how Stranko’s going to make your life hell during practice,” Adleta says, then adds, “with your father’s blessing.”

“Or what it’s like to give everyone another reason to make fun of you,” Malone says.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Wheeler says. “But let’s remember that if Ellie hadn’t given that quote to the paper about how we didn’t paint the tower, they would’ve thought we were the Chaos Club. We’d be gods. But noooo, now we’re just assclowns.”

“You’re used to being an assclown though,” Malone says.

“Yeah, but on my terms, not someone else’s.”

“What I can’t stop wondering is why us?” Malone says. “Of everyone the Chaos Club could pick for this prank, why the five of us?”

“Because we’re stupid,” Adleta says.

“Thanks for sharing. But seriously, hasn’t anyone else thought of this?”

I have. A lot. If there’s anything positive about my self-imposed isolation in the theater, it’s that I’ve had a lot of time to think. And all those thoughts haven’t been bad. I feel different, like whoever went up the tower isn’t the same person who came back down. And I do have an answer for Malone. I’m just not sure how to answer her without someone tossing my body over the railing. But regardless of the shameful way Just Max had me hiding out today, Not Max has definite opinions on what needs to be done in this situation, and he’s not about to shut up. So while I’m nervous to say anything, I have to.

“We were picked because we’re easy targets,” I say.

Malone stops painting and looks at me.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re easy targets,” I repeat. “Adleta’s right. We were stupid. We made it easy for them.”

“How am I an easy target?” Malone says. She’s not holding the paintbrush like a knife, but considering her tone of voice, she might as well be.

“Because of what happened last year with your picture. It made you a victim, so of course you’d want to join the Chaos Club.”

Now Malone’s coming at me, ready to paint me blue, and I back up with my hands out.

“Whoa, hold on,” I say. “We’re all that way. We all have reasons we’d fall for that invite. I went because I don’t have shit going on in my life. Ellie’s in the same boat as you, but with her dad and the book thing.”

“What about him?” Malone says, pointing to Wheeler. “How’s he a target?”

I don’t have to answer because Wheeler does it for me.

“Are you seriously asking that question? An invitation to join a club known for pulling pranks and, by their very name, causing chaos? They could’ve written ‘This is all a setup’ on the card and I still would’ve shown up.”

“Okay, that was dumb of me,” Malone says.

All of us have stopped painting now, and from the base of the tower, Stranko shouts up, “Get back to work!”

“Asshole,” Wheeler says.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Adleta says. “So what about me? How am I a target?”

Actually, the answer to Adleta’s question is simple. But answering him is hard. No one wants to die young.

Still, Heist Rule #8 says, Recruit a strong crew, and no one is stronger than Adleta. Literally.

“People have been talking about you behind your back ever since you screwed up in the tournament game last year,” I say, then brace myself. If death comes, I hope it’s quick and painless.

But Adleta doesn’t murder me.

At least not yet.

“What do people say?” he asks.

Wheeler says, “That you have anger-management issues that would make the Hulk jealous.”

“Is that so?”

“Sorry, dude. It’s the truth.”

Last year during the state lacrosse regional semifinals, Adleta, doing his best impersonation of his father, screamed at a ref and got thrown out of the game. The team was already playing shorthanded, and losing him sealed their fate. I didn’t see the game, but supposedly, his dad had to be restrained by security from murdering the ref, then Tim.