“Whatcha do?” Bloodbath asked, glancing toward me without the faintest sign of recognition. I realized he had no idea I’d been in the yard last night. He didn’t know, or care, who’d been outside that window. He didn’t care who he hurt. I wanted to grab him and shout, I’m here because you almost killed my friend ! But that wouldn’t do any good.
There was no reason to make him suspicious. As much as I hated the idea of talking with him, I decided the best approach would be to act naturally. “Got in trouble with Parsons yesterday,” I told him, selecting a safe reply. “You?” I figured that if I kept him distracted, he wouldn’t grow bored with the chair and decide to start peeling pieces off of me instead. I really wanted to hit him, but I knew I’d never get away with that.
He shrugged. “I wrote my name in the wrong place.”
“On a desk?” I asked.
“Nah, on some runt’s face.” He laughed, producing a sound I thought could only come from a baboon. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a marking pen. “Want me to show you?”
“No thanks.” I fought the urge to switch seats.
He uncapped the pen, releasing a strong chemical odor into the air. “You sure?”
I could see it was one of those pens with the ink that didn’t come off. This was getting out of hand. I had to get Bloodbath’s mind away from using my forehead for a sketch pad.
Behind Principal Davis’s door, a phone rang. A minute later, I heard the phone being slammed down.
“Ridiculous. They’re moving up the inspection—because of pressure from the town. They can’t do this to us! We were supposed to have the rest of the year. We aren’t ready. They’re coming this Friday.”
Bloodbath and I both turned toward Principal Davis’s door. It was him shouting. No mistaking that voice. I heard another familiar voice—Mr. Langhorn. Maybe they were having their shouters’ club meeting.
“I thought the mayor was on our side,” Mr. Langhorn said.
“Not anymore,” Principal Davis said. “Apparently Mayor Walden changed his mind. I just found out he’s been on the phone all morning calling in favors.”
“Walden has a lot of powerful friends,” Mr. Langhorn said.
“Oh crap,” I muttered, seeing an image of that jacket on the street. Walden. We’d picked a fight with the mayor’s son. Worse, he left his jacket right across the street from where we’d broken that window. One way or another, he was going to tell his father that the school was involved. Even if he had no proof, he could cause trouble.
“If they want to move the date, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Langhorn said. “Let’s hope they like what they see.”
“If they don’t, they’ll approve the merger plan,” Principal Davis said. “I heard they’re looking at a building in Riverside Junction. It’ll save money, and that’s all they care about. Pack everyone together in one huge mess of a school. You know they’ll have more students for each teacher. Half of us will be out of a job when that happens. The worst part is, they don’t care about the students. We’re the only ones who really care.”
I listened to the rest of it. A few minutes later, Principal Davis stepped out from his office. “Go away,” he said. “I’ve got other problems. I’ll deal with all of you later.” He and Langhorn walked down the hall.
“Cool,” Bloodbath said. He slipped out of the chair and headed for the outer door of the office. As he was leaving, he glanced back at me and said, “Guess this is our chance to bring Edgeview down. One huge mess of a school. That’s what Davis said. Sounds like my kind of place.”
Bring the place down? I didn’t like the sound of that. I waited until I was sure Bloodbath was far enough away so he wouldn’t change his mind about writing his name on my head. Then I hurried upstairs and told the others what I’d heard.
“What’s that have to do with us?” Torchie asked.
“If Bloodbath wants something, we want the opposite. No matter what. If Bloodbath wants to screw up the inspection, then we want the school to pass,” I said. I didn’t tell them the part about the mayor’s son. They were so proud about standing up for themselves, I couldn’t let them know that we were probably the reason the inspection was rescheduled.
“Why should we care about the school?” Lucky asked.
“Because we don’t know where we’ll end up if they close Edgeview,” I said. “It could be some big place. They’re talking about Riverside Junction. That’s real far from here. Your parents might not come for you as often. That’s not all. We might get split up. They could put us in different classes. Different rooms. How’d you like to end up with Bloodbath or Grunge for a roommate? How’d you like to have a bunch of teachers like Mr. Langhorn? It could happen. This place might be hell, but at least it’s our hell. We have to stop Bloodbath.”