“My convertible?” A sudden worry gripped my stomach. “What did you do to my car?”
He shrugged. “Blame Miata. If they didn’t want people to pick up their cars and play hide-and-seek with them, they wouldn’t have made them so light.”
I scoffed. “You’re bluffing. You couldn’t lift a car.”
He waved a hand in the direction of the school’s front doors. “Check the parking lot.”
I narrowed my eyes, searching for signs he was lying. The boy looked far too confident.
He smiled at me. “I think it’s a fair deal. My clothes for your car.”
It wasn’t a fair deal. It was a clear escalation. If what he said was true, he’d taken this to a whole new level.
My eyes ran over him. Nah, he was bluffing. If he’d manhandled my car somewhere, he’d be a lot sweatier. “You really should dump PE and switch to theater,” I said. “Maybe with some training, you could pull off a convincing lie.”
He snorted and opened his mouth to speak, but a familiar voice cut him off. “Mr. Nash! Ms. Seibold!”
We turned to see the principal bearing down on us, fire in her eyes. “Would you like to explain why Ms. Seibold’s convertible is underneath the bleachers?”
Maybe I was jaded by all of the pranks. My first thought wasWow, Cooper must have a great brand of deodorant.
“You were saying?” he retorted smugly.
I didn’t answer because Mrs. Tsuru reached us. She pointed at me and then at Cooper. “I’ve had enough of this. You two will go to my office and remain there until your parents come to discuss your behavior with me.”
Dang. Busted. My dad would not be happy about this.
Cooper usually could turn on the charm to sway any teacher—including Mrs. Tsuru. He hung his head in penitence. “I’m sorry, but my mom can’t come in. She has to work.”
Like my dad didn’t. He was a lawyer. He couldn’t just leave his clients to come to the school.
“That’s too bad,” Mrs. Tsuru said. “Because neither of you is going anywhere until your parents come.”
I blinked innocently. “Why do I have to go to the office? I’m not the one who illegally stole a car and hid it underneath the—”
“Ms. Seibold,” the principal cut in. “I saw you earlier near the boys’ locker room carrying a bag of clothes, and now Cooper is here in his PE uniform. I’m suddenly doubting your explanation. So in the office. Now!”
My dad really wouldn’t be happy to get a call. How much trouble would I be in?
All the way to the front office, Mrs. Tsuru lectured us. She told us how in Ghana, where she grew up, students considered education a privilege. They didn’t waste their opportunities on frivolous tricks that made things harder for everyone. And the two of us, being leaders in the school, should know better than to set this kind of example.
Which went to show you how well she knew me. I wasn’t a leader. Cooper was the popular one. Since drama rehearsal was at the same time as sports practices, it mostly involved peoplewho weren’t athletically inclined. That alone practically made theater kids oddities and outcasts.
“Don’t think I don’t know about your other pranks,” Mrs. Tsuru continued. “The video of his football fumbles, which could be considered cyberbullying, the raw chicken in her locker, and the water balloons in his. That’s damage to school property.”
First off, the video was anonymously uploaded under the very neutral title Funny Football Moments, so it couldn’t technically be considered bullying or be traced back to me. Also, school jurisdiction doesn’t erase students’ First Amendment rights of free speech. I know enough about the law—thanks, Dad—to cover myself in that regard.
The water balloon prank hadn’t done damage to property because I’d taken all of Cooper’s books out beforehand and put them on random shelves in the library. They’d been perfectly safe. The water balloons had just fallen out, splashed onto him, and given the janitor one more reason to hate teenagers.
I didn’t point any of this out. Not antagonizing the judge is courtroom survival 101.
We reached the front office. Mrs. Tsuru was still going on about our crimes as she ushered us inside. “And the current cricket invasion of our school—I’m assuming those originated from one of your lockers.”
Cooper and I exchanged a look. “I never had any crickets in my locker,” I said.
Cooper shrugged. “I never had any in mine either.”
Instead of being happy that we hadn’t been tormenting each other with crickets, Mrs. Tsuru huffed. “Great. That means we have an unrelated infestation.” She pointed to a couple of chairsin the front office lobby. “Sit here while I call your parents. And an exterminator.”
