Нил Шустерман - The Shadow Club

Sure, now I was fastest on the team, but all at once I didn’t care anymore. Believe it or not, I cared more about Austin’s feet.

I followed Austin and Mr. Diller to the nurse’s office and watched as they tended to Austin’s feet, until they shut the door. Still, I could hear his sobs. I stood there for at least five minutes, without realizing I had no shirt on. My shirt was ruined now, but there was another shirt in my backpack; my track team gopher shirt. I put it on, and sat outside the door. Soon Cheryl showed up, and the nurse suggested that I go to class, but I refused. I let Cheryl go, and I waited.

Finally the nurse let me in the office to keep Austin company while she called his parents. Inside, it smelled like alcohol and blood. Austin’s feet were all wrapped up now; the white gauze was the same color as his Aeropeds. They had splinted the broken one. I still held his Aeropeds, and I placed them on the chair next to him.

“Thanks for helping me, Jared,” he said, his eyes still a bit wet. I smiled. It was the first time he’d called me Jared all year.

“It’s OK,” I said. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

He swallowed. “I guess I’ve been a real snot to you,” he said.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “It’s OK, though.”

“I guess it’s because I’m real competitive, you know. My father says it’s good to be competitive. I don’t know. I guess all these years you were the only one who came close to being as fast as me. It scared me. It was like if one person could come close to beating me, then I wasn’t good enough for the Olympics.”

He looked at me, and I just listened.

“I guess . . . I guess we could have been real great friends,” he said, “if I gave you the chance.” I nodded, and Austin looked at his bandaged feet. His eyes began to tear again, and his face turned red.

“I’m never going to the Olympics now, am I?” His tears rolled right off his face and onto the gauze. I sat with him until his mother arrived to take him to the hospital.

News had spread through the school at lightspeed, and by the time I got to class, everyone was buzzing about what had happened to Austin. It didn’t take long for people to figure out that it wasn’t just an accident. I was so blown away by the whole thing that I didn’t even think about looking for Tyson. I was so spaced out by it that I didn’t even realize until lunch that I was the prime suspect.

“I DIDN’T DO IT!” I screamed into Mr. Greene’s face. I’d never screamed into a teacher’s face before, but now I couldn’t control myself. It was sixth period, just after lunch, and Greene had me called out of class to go to his office so he could accuse me of planting those rocks for Austin to fall on.

“I don’t believe you!” he said, standing in front of his desk.

“I swear I didn’t!”

“Oh, then it was just a coincidence that you were there when it happened?”

“Right!”

“And it was just a coincidence that you had a big fight with Austin yesterday?”

“It wasn’t big!”

“And I suppose you’re going to tell me you and your club had nothing to do with Vera’s bike, or David’s trumpet, or Drew’s fish tank?”

“Right!”

“Come off it, Jared!” He pounded his desk. He was so sure he was right, it scared me. “It took me a while, but I found out exactly who’s in your club. And you know what? Everyone in your club has a grudge against the very people who have been victims of this . . . this terrorism!”

“That’s right,” I said, “we’re being framed!”

“Framed? By whom?”

“By Tyson McGaw!”

Greene wasn’t ready for that. It took a few seconds for it to sink in, then he said, “If you think you’re going to foist the blame on Tyson ...”

“But it’s true!”

“Tyson wouldn’t do that, I know he wouldn’t.”

“But we have a witness,” I said.

“Who?”

“Ralphy Sherman. He saw Tyson blow up the fish tank!”

“Yeah?” said Greene. “Ralphy Sherman also says that his mother had puppies. Do you expect me to believe a thing Ralphy Sherman says?”

“It’s the truth! Why don’t you bring Tyson in here, and accuse him like you’re accusing me?”

“Because,” said Greene, with nasty sarcasm in his voice, “Tyson didn’t come to school today, Jared. Last I heard, he was being terrorized by a kid who beat him up and chased him out of school yesterday, screaming ‘bed wetter’ at the top of his lungs. Any idea who that was, Jared?” He looked at me as if I were a criminal. “You know, lots of people have spent years helping Tyson overcome a miserable childhood, and what you’ve done may have destroyed everything we’ve done to help him.”

Greene gave me the evil eye for just a moment longer, then he sat down, pulled a gold pen out of his shirt, and began to write.

“I want you to take this note to your seventh-period teacher. It will excuse you from class. I’m also giving you a list of the classrooms in which each member of the Shadow Club can be found during seventh period. I want you to get them all out of class and bring them to my office so we can settle this once and for all.” He handed me the note, just as the bell for seventh period rang. “And I think a talk with all of your parents tomorrow is in order as well.”

I turned to leave.

“You have ten minutes. I’ll be waiting for all of you. If you don’t show, you’ll be in even deeper trouble.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You can trust me.”

“Can I?”

“Of course.”

Ten minutes later the Shadow Club was nowhere to be found. Greene must have scoured the school for us, but he didn’t find us and wouldn’t find us that day.

This was war now, and if we were going to prove our innocence, we had to treat it like a war. As soon as I had gotten everyone out of class, we split up and snuck out of school, all to meet in twenty minutes at Stonehenge.

Greene seemed to know an awful lot, and if he knew where Stonehenge was, then we’d all be in for it, so we just had to hope he didn’t know.

Although it was cold and windy, with thick clouds blowing across the sky, for once my hands weren’t cold; they were hot with anger. Anger at Tyson McGaw. If I never did anything else as president of the Shadow Club, I was going to make Tyson pay for what he had done.

Cheryl and i were the first at Stonehenge, since we ran all the way. One by one the rest began to trickle in: Darren, Abbie, Jason, and then O.P. Only Randall didn’t show, and that made us worry. Generally speaking, Randall was the type of kid who might decide to go play video games instead, but maybe not—maybe he got caught. Maybe he was sitting in Greene’s office right now. Maybe he’d talk and tell Greene where Stonehenge was.

“Would Randall give us away?” I asked Cheryl.

“Only if Greene grants him immunity” was her response. That sounded like Randall—he’d give us all away as long as he didn’t get in trouble.

There was no fire in Stonehenge today; no fun stories and no good times. There were just six kids, standing, pacing, not sure of their next move.

“What do we do now?” asked Darren. “We’re all on Greene’s most-wanted list, and we’re all in trouble. We all may be suspended from school!”

“Don’t say that!” said Cheryl.

“It’s true!” said Abbie. “Darren’s right.”

“Yeah,” said Darren. “So what do we do now, Mr. and Mrs. Club President? Hmm?”

“I’m scared,” said Jason. “I can’t be suspended—heck, this is the first time I’ve ever cut class!”