Don't Get Caught(17)

“I skimmed it, but I didn’t have the time to read it all. It would take a week.”

“That long?”

“Obsesssive’s the word I’d use to describe it.”

Once the files are transferred, I see what Malone means. On my laptop, the folder labeled Chaos Club expands into five subfolders: History, Evidence, Witnesses, Suspects, and Pictures. A quick scroll through each reveals at least seven hundred files total.

“See what I mean?” Malone says. “It’s way too much for any one person to sift through.”

“I’ll do it,” Ellie says. “I don’t really have the time, but I’ll make it. I want the Chaos Club dead.”

It’s the harshest I’ve ever heard Ellie sound. She must see the look I give her because she says, “No, it’s true. And not just for the water tower, but for last year. I couldn’t care less about them calling my dad a Nazi. I might even agree with them. But kids are still doing that whole Seig Heil thing to me in the hall. Someone even keyed a swastika into my car door last week. We had it buffed out, but the outline is still there. I mean, it’s bad enough being known as a goody-goody, there’s not much I can do about that, but I’m being blamed for something I wasn’t a part of. No one hears the fights I get into with my dad about censorship or how the earth isn’t only six thousand years old or how we should be teaching more than abstinence in health class, but I also have to deal with finding pictures of Hitler in my locker. I blame the Chaos Club for all that.”

An awkward silence falls on the room until Malone says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“None of you would,” Ellie says. “You’re not people who would do that. But the ones who would and do need to pay.”

A moment later, a muffled ring tone sounds out. Wheeler fishes into his jacket pocket with his left hand and the ringing stops.

But in his right hand, Wheeler’s still holding his cell phone.

So two phones?

Malone and I understand at the same time.

She grabs Wheeler’s left hand before he can pull it from his pocket.

“Hey, wait,” he says.

Malone goes into attack mode, practically climbing onto Wheeler to get at his jacket pocket. He struggles, pinning his hand against the opening, but Malone pinches his earlobe between two fingernails. Wheeler lets out a shriek that would make a six-year-old girl proud and jerks his hand from his pocket to cover his ear.

Malone thrusts her hand into his pocket, and a second later she’s holding up the hidden phone.

Stranko’s phone.

“You idiot,” Malone says.

“Look, I know it looks bad, but there were too many teachers around, and I got to thinking about the damage we could do, so…” Wheeler trails off.

“So you kept it,” Malone finishes, pissed.

“We’re screwed,” Adleta says.

“Look, it wasn’t my plan to keep the phone, but I couldn’t get it back to the table and thought about leaving it in the bathroom or something, but then I got to thinking—”

“Which is never a good sign,” I say.

“—that everything’s on here,” Wheeler says. “Malone’s right—there’s nothing about the Chaos Club on the phone, but his contact list is a gold mine. It’s all here—Stranko’s home phone number, address, teacher’s numbers, people he emails, everything.”

“I downloaded all that too,” Malone says.

“Yeah, but this is his phone. We can call from it or send texts; they’ll all look like they’re coming from Stranko.”

“Until he has his service discontinued,” I say.

“But until then, think of the havoc we could unleash. You don’t blow an opportunity like this. That guy’s been a pain in the ass for years. We have an obligation to every kid he’s terrorized. His balls are ours now. We need to squeeze them until they explode.”

“Ewww,” Ellie says.

“You have to get rid of that,” I say. “If you get caught with it, you’ll get expelled. And once he figures out how you got it, we’ll be expelled too.”

“Dude, he’s not going to find out. I disabled Find My Phone and turned off the location services. I’m not dumb enough to bring it to school either.”

“But you are dumb enough to walk around with it,” Malone says.

“That was just for tonight. I was going to show all of you that I had it. Seriously, I’m going to hide it in my house tonight. Come on, trust me. We might need it later. Besides, he uses a cloud app for storage. If he discovers anything new about the Chaos Club, it’ll upload into the cloud. It’s like having access to his brain.”

“And if he changes the password?” Adleta asks.

“Then the phone is useless and I get rid of it. But that’s a big if. I doubt Stranko thinks someone stole his phone. He probably just thinks he left it somewhere.”

“He’s not stupid,” Adleta warns. “An *, yes, but not stupid. I’ve known him too long. We can’t underestimate him.”

“Tim’s right,” Malone says. “We need to be careful with Stranko. Ever since this started, I’ve been thinking a lot about him. I don’t think he knows how awful he is. In his mind, I’ll bet he believes he’s helping the school by being such a tight ass that discipline keeps things under control. It’s like when we read The Lord of the Flies our freshman year; none of those kids thought they were doing the wrong thing, even though they were. I think Stranko’s just doing what he thinks is best for the school.”