mouth. He hears his name spoken, but at that moment isnât quite sure what heâs done.
Mr. O stands up. âIs that true, Jenkins? You set the stink bomb?â
âWhat?â Carl stops chewing. He struggles to sit up in his desk. âWhat are you talking about?â
âYou did so!â insists Danielle. âI saw him making it. He set it off while you were passing out the worksheets.â
Carl finally clues in. âI did not! Higgins, youâre full of it. Donât listen to her. Sheâs making it up.â
Mr. Overhand frowns as he looks from one to the other.
âOh, yeah? Well, I can prove it. Mr. O, look closely at that pen in your hand. My guess is itâs an aqua-blue Paper-Mate.â
Mr. O looks at the pen. It
is
an aqua-blue Paper-Mate. But then, so is mine. And so is Danielleâs. Weâd all been given them by Mr. Bartell. Heâd set out a box during our last exam.
âSheâs right, Jenkins. This bomb was made froma Paper-Mate. Alright, all of you can go. Except you, Jenkins. You stay right where you are.â
Danielle is the first one out the door.
âAnd donât forget your homework, the ten review questions at the end of chapter fourteen.â
âBut sheâs lying! Sheâs making the whole thing up! Look, Dannyâs got a Paper-Mate! Lindaâs got a Paper-Mate!â
Save your breath, Carl. Reasoning at this point is useless. By now, half the class has left the room. No one is going to listen to you. Mr. O has his culprit. And we have our freedom.
âCarl Jenkins, you and I are going down to visit Mrs. Lofts.â
Why didnât I tell Mr. O what I knew? I watched Justin Randall look up and notice for the first time that everyone was gone. He placed the winged hot rod he was drawing in a notebook. He slowly packed his books away and wandered out the door. Maybe I should have. But I knew Carl Jenkins had enough going for him that he could take it. He was sharp. Heâd get out of it. Justin Randall wouldnât have a chance. If what he did had hurt someone, then definitely, I would have said something. But a stink bomb? It was the work of a childish mind trying to have some fun.
FOURTEEN
June 7th
Do you ever get so sick of everything in your life, you just want to quit? Like when you look in the mirror in the morning and you see the same dull face stare back. Or you go into the kitchen and you hear your dadâs same old voice. Or you walk down the hall at school with your so-called-friends, talking about the same old stuff. Or you go from boring class to even more boring class, predicting with one-hundred-percent accuracy whatâs going to happen next. Like, Mr. Bartell is going to tell Rudy Lantzto put his penknife away. Rudyâs going to ignore him. Mr. Bartellâs going to say it again. Rudyâs going to say, âMake me,â and Mr. Bartell is going to march him down to see Mrs. Lofts. And youâre thinking, like, so, this is it? My big excitement for the day is watching Rudy Lantz butt heads with Mr. Bartell? Maybe you donât get like that. Itâs probably just me.
Thatâs how Iâve been feeling this week. Iâm lying on my bed with my headphones on. Iâm listening to The Wallflowers. Not even the jars of nature on my bookshelf can cheer me up. I look at them, sitting there, classified by material. You know, like earth, water, minerals and stuff. Then alphabetical by place. I just realized something. I donât have a jar of Ninety Foot. I never thought to get one. Maybe thatâs what Iâm missing in my life.
I donât have any friends again. Ever since Joanne and Tony Lasserman stumbled onto each other in the Canyon. Theyâve been hanging around together every night. Getting to know one another after all this time. So near, and yet so far. âHe picks his little sister up from day care after school. He helps her on with her coat. Pam, heâs
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