1
Madeline
Best friends ought to have your back or at least be happy to sneak into the boys’ locker room to commit crimes with you. But no. As we walked there to pull an epic prank on Cooper Nash—reigning football jock—my best friend Selena peered nervously down the hall, her eyes darting around. “If I get suspended, my parents will kill me.”
“If we get caught,” I said, “I’ll just say I meant to go into the girls’ locker room and got lost.”
Selena, ever too logical at the wrong times, said, “No one will believe that. We’re seniors and neither of us even takes PE. And how are you going to explain that you’re carrying a bag full of clown clothes?”
I shrugged. “The teachers don’t know what I do in my spare time.”
“This isn’t spare time,” Selena hissed. “We’re skipping class for this.”
I held up the clunky bathroom pass I carried. “That’s why we’ve got these. And technically the locker roomisa bathroom.”
She fidgeted with her pass, twisting it in her hands. “I’m probably missing something important in calc right now, and my next homework assignment will reflect that.”
With Selena, life revolved around grades. “You mean you might get a ninety-eight percent instead of a hundred?”
She moaned and sent me a pointed look. “It’s a new school year. Can’t you just let everything from last year go instead of being obsessed with getting revenge on Cooper?” She said more, but it was all in Spanish and even though I’ve taken Spanish for three years, when Selena talks fast, I can’t understand most of what she says.
I held up a hand to stop her. “The guy covered my convertible with plastic wrapthisyear.” Specifically, a week after school started. Granted, that was because I’d smeared Vaseline on his locker handle the day before, but that was a nearly harmless prank, and I’d only done it in retaliation for the glitter bomb he put in my backpack on the last day of our junior year.
I didn’t find it until I was home in my bedroom, so that was a fun discovery. When the air conditioner turns on, I still get puffs of glitter floating through my room. “It took me forever to get the plastic wrap off my car. I can’t just let that go.”
“You’re going to get caught one of these times. The pranks have to stop somewhere.”
The popular people already thought they could do whatever they wanted at school and the rest of us would just grin and bear it. Someone had to stand up to them.
I adjusted my shoulder bag. It contained not only a clown outfit but a wig, red ball nose, and oversized shoes. I mean, what’s the point in doing things halfway? “Right, and the pranks can stop after I steal his clothes and leave him these. Or in eight short months when the two of us graduate and neverhave to see each other again.” I patted the bag. “He’ll look cute in the shoes.”
She let out a martyred sigh. “I’ll stand as a lookout for you, but the first time a guy comes down the hallway and even seems like he’s thinking about going into the locker room, I’ll hightail it back to calc before you can answer your phone to hear my panicked warning.”
We reached the locker room door. Her head swiveled back and forth, making sure the hallway was still empty.
“You’re supposed to look natural,” I told her.
She glared at me and planted a hand on her hip. Selena took drama class with me last year, so you’d think she’d be able to pull off the character of a normal senior girl out in the hallway for no nefarious purposes.
I edged toward the door. “Find your motivation. Pretend you’ve got a crush on one of the jocks, and you’re waiting for him to come out of weight-lifting class. Channel your inner stalker.”
Her hand didn’t leave her hip. “Half the football team will probably catch you. If you get stuck in a locker, don’t ask me to storm the room to save you.”
Well, that went without saying. Selena was five foot four and so unathletic that people still talked about freshman PE when she did a face-plant while trying to clear a hurdle. After that, the teacher let her skip the rest of the unit and gave her a pity A in the class for effort. Selena still considers that the best bloody nose she ever got.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “I bet the jocks have opinions about girls rummaging through their underwear.”
“Ew. Do guys keep their underwear in their lockers?” Thatcould be a serious drawback to this plan ... or an added benefit if I could find someone to run Cooper’s up the flagpole.
“I don’t know,” she huffed. “I’ve never broken into a guy’s gym locker.”
“But you have a brother.”
“That’s not the sort of conversation I have with Diego.”
I only had an older sister. How would I know what brothers talked about?
Selena’s gaze swept the hallway again. “If I hear you screaming, I’ll call 911.”
