Don't Get Caught(26)

Oh shit.

Ellie’s eyes aren’t closing. In fact, they’re growing wide with horror the closer I come.

Shit, shit, shit.

Now Ellie’s on her feet and backing away from me, looking mortified.

“I’m sorry, Max,” she says. “I mean, I like you and all but…”

“No, it’s okay,” I say, hoping I fall over the edge and die so I don’t have to think of this moment ever again. “I just thought, uh, you know…”

“It’s just we’re friends, and I don’t want that to mess that up. And right now I don’t want anything that could distract us from our Chaos Club plans. Is that okay? I’m sorry if I made you think this was anything more than just friends. Good friends, Max.”

Well, if we’re good friends, then maybe you can douse me in gasoline and light me on fire so I don’t have to hide in shame the next time I see you.

“I can live with just being friends,” I say, one hundred percent lying. “We’d better get back. It’s probably close to ten.”

? ? ?

On the return trip to town, Ellie has on the local college station down low, a slow instrumental song all echo-y that would make everything seem like a dream if this wasn’t all nightmare-y. It takes all my self-control not to throw my body from the speeding car.

At quarter past ten, Ellie pulls into my driveway, and I open the door before she’s even in park.

“Max, I’m sorry,” she says before I can escape. “You’re really a sweet guy.”

No, Just Max is a sweet guy. And sweet guys don’t get girls like Ellie Wick.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll see you Monday.”

Unless I can find an Ebola patient to lick.

Inside the house, I head upstairs, where Mom and Dad are in their room, the lights still on. I try to creep by without being heard, but Mom has bionic ears and calls for me to come in. She’s in bed reading, and Dad’s in the bathroom, probably on the iPad, a habit that drives Mom crazy.

“Get your work finished?” she says.

“Yeah, sorry I’m late,” I say. “We stopped at Becca Yancey’s for her notes.”

“I’m glad it worked out. She seems nice.”

“Ellie? Yeah, she’s great.” Great at tearing my heart out of my chest and tossing it into a wood chipper. “I’m going to crash,” I say. “It’s been a long week.”

“Okay, sweetie,” Mom says. “Good night.”

I turn, ready to escape into the safety of my room, when she says, “Oh and, Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Research project my ear,” she says. “You owe us an extra day for that. Get some sleep.”

Awesome. First humiliation, now time added on to my sentence. What’s next? A paper cut on my eyeball?

I throw myself onto my bed and stare lifelessly at the knobs on my dresser, wondering how I could’ve been so stupid. That’s what I get for following the lead of fictional characters in unrealistic movies. I’m not sure for how long I stay zombified, but at some point I fall asleep, and I don’t move from that position until my phone buzzes at 2:37 a.m. with a text from Wheeler.

Have epic prank idea for the aerial photo. Details on the way.





Chapter 10


Wheeler calls it Operation Schlonger, and Ellie assigns us code names matching our jobs: She’s Right-Hand.

Adleta is H2O.

Malone’s Pornographer.

Wheeler’s Architect.

And me, I’m Mole.

Generally, capers fall into one of two categories:

1. Those like the Stranko Caper, where most of the work occurs during the heist’s execution.

2. And those where the majority of the work is done in planning and the actual heist is mostly hands-off.

Operation Schlonger is the second type.

The five of us have put in two weeks of prep work planning for today. As one thousand juniors and seniors leave the building at 10:00 a.m. to shoot the aerial photo, there’s really nothing to do but hope it all goes according to plan.

Malone and I walk near the front of the stream of students heading across the parking lot for the football field. All one thousand of us are wearing brand-new, district-paid-for yellow T-shirts with Asheville High displayed across our chests. It’s a perfect fall day with a cloudless, pale-blue sky overhead and just warm enough that no jackets are needed. Ellie’s ahead of us at the front of the line with Stranko and Jill Banks, the district’s public relations’ officer. Mrs. Banks is in a business-y skirt-and-jacket deal and always walks like she’s clenching a walnut between her ass cheeks. This whole let’s share the awesomeness of Asheville with the world stupidity is all her idea, but really it’s just a way to justify her existence and paycheck. When Mrs. Banks got out of her car at school this morning, Ellie was waiting for her, ready to explain she was to be her student ambassador during the shoot.

It’s Heist Rule #12: Have an insider.

“Should be anytime now,” I say, watching as Ellie nears the gate.

“And if it doesn’t work?” Malone says.

“Shh, don’t jinx it.”

The line suddenly stops as Mrs. Banks and Stranko get to the stadium gate and see what Adleta was assigned to do last night. It’s five full minutes of standing around, the words “soaked” and “a swamp” drifting back from the front of the line. I watch Ellie the whole time, and she’s watching Banks and Stranko brainstorm a solution. It’s been two weeks since my disastrous failed kiss. In that time, I’ve done my best to avoid her, and when we have been together, she’s spared me more humiliation by never mentioning it.