Don't Get Caught(27)

Ellie waits for a break in the adults talking before tapping Banks on the shoulder and pointing to the other side of the school. After brief words between Stranko and Banks, the front of the line starts marching toward the intramural fields.

“Why do you look so surprised?” I say to Malone. “Adleta said he took care of it.”

“Yeah, color me skeptical.”

We step out of line and take a quick jog to the fence. The football field is more a swimming pool at this point, the result of Adleta’s sneaking into the stadium last night after practice and turning on the sprinkler system. Now the picture will be taken at the intramural fields, which have no bleachers or press box from where Stranko or Banks can get a bird’s-eye view.

It’s Heist Rule #13: Set the rules when you can.

Once we reach the intramural fields, the section leaders, made up of senior student government members, take over. They call the members of their assigned homeroom, and the field becomes a mass of identical gold shirts. This whole prank is Wheeler’s idea, but I helped with the details and planning. One of his final jobs was to spray-paint the area in ten-yard sections like a real football field. It should make this go so much more smoothly and eliminate the chances of being discovered.

“Let’s go, everyone!” Stranko shouts into a bullhorn. “We’re running behind.”

I swear he’s glaring at me as he says it.

“I’d better get going,” Malone says. “I’m over there in Becca’s group.”

“You know what to do?” I say.

“Yeah, I think I can keep it straight, Einstein,” she says. “I already did the hard part anyway.”

“So to speak,” I say.

“Right, so to speak.”

The press release Banks sent to the media showed a diagram of the picture the hired pilot and photographer are supposed to take: AHS Pride, the letters formed by students standing in meticulously prepared positions in our yellow T-shirts. When Wheeler and I went to Malone with his idea and what we needed her to do, she was less than enthusiastic.

“Ew, gross! No way.”

“Come on. It’ll be awesome,” Wheeler said. “You’re the artist. We can’t do this without you.”

“Something tells me you’ve drawn your share of those before,” she said.

“Well sure, but not on this scale. It needs to stretch across the field and be broken down into forty sections, one for each homeroom. There’s no way I can do that.”

Malone looked at me for help, but I just smiled back. Her sigh of defeat came a lot quicker than I expected.

“Let’s just say for a minute I do this,” she said. “How are you going to get them to follow these instructions? Don’t you think Banks will have already sent them the design?”

“Max and I will take care of that,” Wheeler said. “So that’s a yes?”

Malone rolled her eyes and said, “And to think I call myself a feminist.”

“Do you need help? Because I can model if you need me to.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “Let me borrow a microscope from one of the science labs.”

“Ouch.”

I have Mrs. Nally for homeroom, and our position is on the fifty-yard line, close to Banks, just like Wheeler and I planned. Jeff Benz, he of Watson’s-senior-aide fame, is our StuGo, or student government, rep and charged with arranging us on the field.

“You,” he says, pointing to me and showing me the diagram. “You set up on the end here. The line forms behind you.”

The diagram Benz holds looks like something a sick computer would barf out. The sheet is covered with x’s, each representing a student’s placement on the field. Malone designed the layout so each team leader only has one piece of the map, not the whole image of the full design. That way, no one knows what’s being created. At least that’s the hope.

StuGo reps wander from group to group, making sure the sections line up as they should. Adleta’s in the front of his section, ready to intercept Stranko if there’s a problem. He gives me a thumbs-up and a big this is going to be great smile.

Adleta’s right to think that. Like I said, the hard part’s finished. Hopefully, that means never having to attend StuGo meetings ever again. Officially, student government is for kids who want to plan dances and decorate the school for various stupid reasons throughout the year. But unofficially, StuGo is for padding college applications. Normally, you couldn’t pay me enough to go to one of their meetings, but they were put in charge of organizing today’s activity. With the group’s “Everyone is welcome!” philosophy, infiltration was easy. Even easier was switching out the board-approved diagram and replacing it with Wheeler and Malone’s work. It’s not hard to be sneaky when every moron in the room is engaged in a hot, borderline violent debate about homecoming snacks: potato chips or pretzels? These are the heavy questions of the universe StuGo wrestles with on a weekly basis.

Now with the fake diagrams in the hands of the StuGo reps, everything is going beautifully. The juniors and seniors, just happy to be out of class, are following the barked orders, and we’re all well away from where anyone can see what’s really happening. All we need now is the pilot to fly overhead and shoot the picture. Simple. Just like we drew it up.

Then.