Don't Get Caught(28)

Ellie waves her arms to get my attention.

I give her a What? gesture with my hands.

She points violently to the far end of the intramural field, where Stranko and Banks are now walking with six beefy football players. Their destination? The thirty-foot-high scaffolding used by the marching band director during practice to make sure everyone is in lockstep with one another. Wheeler must’ve not seen the tower last night. I even missed it today in the daylight.

The five of us break rank from our homerooms and race to each other.

“If Stranko gets up there, we’re screwed,” Wheeler says.

“How much time do we have?” I ask Ellie.

“Five minutes before the plane shows up,” she says.

“We were so close,” Adleta says.

“I sort of wanted to see how it looked,” Malone says.

“I can give you an up close and personal,” Wheeler says, and Malone gives him a shove, but it’s a friendly one.

“No, we’re not giving up,” I say. “We need to stall.”

It’s Heist Rule #14: Be ready to improvise.

? ? ?

“Mr. Stranko?” I say.

“What is it, Cobb? Why aren’t all of you with your homerooms?”

“We just thought you should know there’s something weird with the design.”

“What do you mean ‘weird’?”

“Isn’t it supposed to say Asheville Pride or something like that?” Ellie says.

“AHS Pride, yes,” Mrs. Banks says.

“Well, it doesn’t,” Adleta says.

“No, it does,” Banks says. “I drew up the design myself. The picture is going on the front of the district website.”

“No, he’s right,” Malone says. “We’re not forming letters. There are too many long, straight lines. It’s weird.”

Stranko looks over to the field where one thousand students stand, many of them staring into the sky, waiting on the plane to shoot their picture. We’ve only stalled for a minute. Somehow we need to kill four more.

“Help us push the tower over there, and we’ll see if you’re right,” Stranko says. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

If you’ve ever been in a tug-of-war with a semitruck, then you know what it’s like trying to hold back the scaffolding tower as the varsity offensive line tries to push it forward. Hard doesn’t even begin to describe what it’s like fake pushing when you’re really pulling. I use muscles I didn’t know I had. And I use them poorly too. Because despite our stalling, the wheels on the scaffold roll closer and closer to the intramural field. We’re within twenty yards of the far end of the field when Stranko orders us to stop.

“Are you sure you should climb without a helmet, sir?” Wheeler says, blocking his path. “Like when we repainted the tower?”

“Don’t be a smart-ass, Wheeler,” Stranko says and wraps the bullhorn’s strap over his shoulder and begins climbing. Mrs. Banks goes to follow him but stops when she realizes her skirt has no pocket for her phone. Ellie holds out her hand.

“I’ll hold that for you. We’ll stay down here.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Banks says, returning the smile. “We should talk about you doing an internship this winter. You’re just so pleasant.”

“That’d be super!” Ellie says. “What you do seems so interesting!”

I have to chew a hole in my cheek to stop from laughing.

Mrs. Banks climbs after Stranko, and Malone hits Wheeler in the stomach when he tries looking up Mrs. Banks’s skirt. From the field, a cheer goes up at the sight of an approaching plane from the west.

Mrs. Banks’s phone rings, and Ellie looks at it before answering. I lean in so I can hear too.

“We’re one minute out,” a voice says. “Are you ready for the shot?”

Ellie, doing her best Mrs. Banks’s voice, says, “Roger that, Brent,” before hanging up.

“Brent,” I say. “Like you’re old friends.”

“Oh, we go way back.”

It had taken Ellie two days of calling local photography studios to find the name of the photographer hired to shoot the picture. Once she hunted Brent Whoever down, it was a short conversation, just long enough to make one request as Mrs. Banks—that he tether his digital camera to the school’s Dropbox account. That way, any picture he shot would be immediately transmitted.

“Because I want to be able to update the website right away,” Ellie-as-Banks explained.

“That won’t be a problem,” Brent said to her.

That poor sucker. Because technically, by “the school’s Dropbox account,” she really means the anonymous Dropbox account Wheeler set up.

Just as the plane starts over school property, Stranko bellows a barbaric, “No!”

We all practically give ourselves whiplash looking up. Mrs. Banks is gaping at what she sees. Stranko fumbles with his bullhorn and shouts, “Clear the field! Clear the field!”

But it’s too late.

Banks’s phone rings in Ellie’s hand one more time.

Brent says, “This is what you want a picture of?”

“Take the picture,” Ellie says.

“Roger that…I guess.”