The Detention Club Read online

  The next morning I raced around the hall before first period looking for the Sweet brothers. How things had changed—now I was actually trying to find them instead of avoiding them at all costs. I saw Hank shoving Donnie, into his locker, and I ran right up to them.

  “Hey, Hank,” I said, and we high-fived. “See you this afternoon.”

  Sure enough, Donnie approached me just before English class.

  “Hey, Peter—you’re friends with the Sweet brothers?”

  “Sure, we go way back.”

  “Can you get them off my back?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I sat in class trying to come up with a simple fake note. I worried that I’d never bothered to check out Donnie’s handwriting style, so I ended up writing in a robot font:

  This adult human bores me. I am wasting my internal lithium batteries listening to this unintelligent human instructor tell me things I already know. I will keep my eyes open but otherwise put myself in sleep mode. —Donnie

  I carefully folded it into a self-contained square, the way I’d seen girls do when they expertly pass notes all class long. The plan was to drop off the note somewhere in plain sight so Mr. Vensel would find it once class was over. When the bell rang, I stayed in my seat while everyone else got up. As the students filed toward the exit, I made the drop-off as subtly as possible, but it wasn’t even necessary. Mr. Vensel had his back to me, erasing stuff he’d written on the chalkboard. Was it really this easy? I wondered.

  The Sweet brothers and Trent were waving me over from the back of the detention room when I arrived at the end of the day, but I told them I had to figure out some homework first and sat down by myself at the front. The sound of the buses pulling out of the lot filled me with sadness—my plan hadn’t worked. But then a moment later the door opened, and in walked a terrified Donnie, who immediately gaped at the sight of the massive Sweet brothers in the back. I nodded at the empty seat next to me, which he took gratefully.

  “What’s the human Pez dispenser doing here?” Hank snarled at Donnie.

  I patted the human Pez dispenser on the back.

  “Let’s just say this guy and Mr. Vensel are no longer on speaking terms,” I said, and Hank seemed impressed.

  Donnie looked confused. I leaned over and whispered, “The key to getting them off your back is to get to know them better.”

  “Thanks,” he whispered, and I hid the smile forming on the inside of my mouth.

  By framing students into detention, I quickly became an expert on what would get you in trouble and exactly how much trouble it would get you in. I even made a little guide on a piece of paper that I kept hidden in my desk drawer at home, which looked like this:

  The Conversation Method = 1 detention

  The Passing-Notes Method = 3 detentions

  The Having-Candy-in-Class Method = 3 detentions

  The Tic-Tac-Toe Method = 1 detention

  The Writing-on-the Desk Method = 2 detentions

  I preferred leaving fake notes, because it was easy and I could prepare the fake note the night before. The candy method was equally effective, but I didn’t use it much (because I hate wasting perfectly good candy, obviously). The tic-tac-toe method was easier to prepare than coming up with a fake note—I’d just draw a bunch of games of tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper and then at the bottom write something like “Shawn Rules!” but it was worth only one detention. That it was even worth detention says something about how much teachers hate tic-tac-toe—they hate that kids don’t pay attention, but they hate it even more if you don’t pay attention because you’re playing a game that’s so stupid it always ends in a tie. Writing on the desk was risky—basically I’d just write someone’s initials followed by a really positive word and an exclamation point (like “H.M. Rules!”) on my desk. When the teacher saw it, they’d assume Heidi Markowitz had sat there, and she would get two detentions just like that. But it was risky—it depended on the teacher not paying close enough attention to realize I’d sat there.

  What I eventually figured out was that I could combine methods to get students in even more trouble. For example, if I wanted to get Heidi Markowitz into detention for a week, all I had to do was use the passing-notes method, but have the note read, “Kerri, I am loving eating candy right now, do you want to play tic-tac-toe? —Heidi.” And like that, boom, Heidi had seven detentions!

  I realized that I didn’t even have to use my friendship with the Sweets to get closer to popular people. Just being in detention with them made us suddenly chummy with each other. It was like there was an invisible force field surrounding room 12 that made everyone inside it get along, no matter what. I used the passing-notes method to frame Sally into detention, and when she showed up I just sat next to her and we chatted as if we were back in elementary school together. By the end of detention I even impressed Sally when she discovered how talented I was at drawing her favorite animal in the entire world—the unicorn.

  I made sure to draw Sally a unicorn every detention—I figured the key to getting invited to Angie’s parties was my expertise at drawing unicorns, and I tried to work in subtle hints as she sat there watching me produce art.

  “You’re so good at drawing them,” she said one time. “Don’t forget the tail this time.”

  “Of course,” I said, scribbling in a silky tail. “You know, Sally, in addition to drawing, I’m also really good at interior decorating—you know, for, like, awards ceremonies and, um, more casual social gatherings.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  Okay, so my hints weren’t working, but the fact that we were friendly made me think it was just a matter of time before I got invited to a party.

  No matter what type of students they were—nerds, jocks, bullies, or princesses—they all were instantly friendly with me in detention. Trent started saying hi to me every morning in the lobby before homeroom, Heidi waved as I passed her locker between periods, and even Donnie and his brainiac Hemenway pals nodded at me in the hallways. My plan was working!

  Meanwhile, from what I could gather watching him in the hallways and during lunch, Drew’s only plan for becoming popular was going up to popular kids between classes with a hand covering an eye and asking them if they’d come across his left contact lens. I guess there was one perk to being a nobody—no one but me seemed to know that he had perfect vision. I snuck up on him after third period one morning.

  “You do realize that it’s pretty ridiculous to ask someone if they happened to see a contact lens on the floor,” I pointed out to him. “How would anyone ever stumble across a tiny piece of see-through plastic on the ground?”

  “Well, that’s what makes my strategy so sound,” Drew said after a couple of seconds. “I don’t actually want them to find a contact lens, now, do I?”

  He had a point there.

  “Are you just going to ask kids to help you find your contacts for the rest of your life?” I asked him.

  “At some point they’re going to add up how much time we’ve spent looking for my contacts over the years and realize we’ve kinda become close friends,” he replied.

  “That has to be the lamest idea I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  “You sit by yourself at lunch, so I don’t think you’re in a position to mock me,” he replied.

  “You sit by yourself, too!” I said, but then at lunch I sat down at our old table and watched in horror as Drew pulled the ol’ lost contact method on Trent’s table, and they had no choice but to let him sort of sit with them. I say “sort of” because he didn’t eat anything, and technically he didn’t ever sit in a chair—for the entire lunch period he was on his knees, crawling around their table in circles, pretending to look for his left contact lens. At first I felt kinda bad for him, he looked so pitiful, but then Trent got out of his chair and started looking, too. I sighed.

  I turned back to my tray and made eye contact with one of Heidi’s Hemenway girlfriends, who looked at me, then at
the empty chairs around me, and even though it made no sense I suddenly picked up my banana and pretended talking into it as if it was a cell phone, laughing into the peel at something an imaginary friend had said.

  Okay, so trying to get popular people to like you by having them help you find your lost contact lens was the second stupidest method in the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  IT TURNED OUT I WAS CELEBRATING my victory over Drew a little too early, because on Monday morning I overheard everyone talking about another party at Angie’s on Saturday that I hadn’t been invited to! Trent had gone, of course. So had Donnie. Even the Sweet brothers had gone! Which meant that I wasn’t becoming popular through the detention theory like I’d thought. Heck, I was no different from poor ol’ Pierre Something and his box of fancy French cookies, and like Pierre Something, I’d run out of cookies. It simply wasn’t enough to just get them all in detention. I needed to step it up with Sally in order for Angie to consider inviting me to her next party, then everyone would mistakenly assume I was popular like them and all would be right in the world. I made a mental note as I walked to detention that I was going to draw Sally the most amazing unicorn ever; she’d be so impressed and grateful for my art skills that, heck, she’d invite me to the next party herself.

  I tried to picture what the most amazing unicorn ever would look like, but at first my ideas were kinda pitiful. A two-horned unicorn? Nope. A three-horned unicorn? I pictured it and it looked like a really skinny triceratops. I reminded myself to think outside the box, and that’s when the solution came to me—the answer wasn’t adding details to a regular unicorn, but to use multiplication. I’d simply draw her a picture of a tiny teenaged unicorn riding atop another unicorn. That’s right . . . double unicorn! I guess there is a time and place for math in the real world, after all, I thought. I showed up at room 12 that afternoon and immediately saw that my fears were true. Hank was talking to Trent, and even worse—Donnie was already drawing a unicorn for Sally!

  It suddenly occurred to me that maybe drawing unicorns wasn’t the key to getting invited to parties on the weekends.

  I sat down at a desk and nobody even looked up at me because I was no longer their savior; I was just another kid in detention, that’s all.

  A minute later Hugh walked in, and he looked really mad. I felt nervous for some reason. “What’s going on?” Trent asked him.

  “The thief stole my baseball cap,” he replied.

  “I thought you lost your hat a long time ago?” I asked him.

  “That was Hank’s hat,” Hugh said. “How could you confuse us?”

  “Well, you are twins—,” I started saying, but he glared at me.

  “We have to catch the thief,” Hank said, pounding a fist against a desk. Mr. Tinsley looked up at him. “Sorry, teach.”

  “It’s impossible,” Trent said. “There are three hundred students in the school, how could we possibly figure out who the thief is?”

  Hugh groaned, but my heart skipped a beat. Maybe this was an opening, a way I could get everyone to really like me? My unicorn-drawing plan was a bust, and Trent and Donnie were just as chummy with the Sweet brothers as I was, so, without thinking, I said, “It’d be pretty easy to deduce who did it, actually.”

  “I’m listening,” Hugh said, staring at me.

  Mr. Tinsley got up from his seat. “I have a student conference, but I’ll be right next door—if I hear anything, you all get another detention. Everyone stay in your seats, and I’ll be back before the end of the period.”

  With the teacher gone, I went up to the front of the class and got their attention by scraping my nails down the chalkboard. They winced.

  “That wasn’t really necessary,” Hank said. “We were already paying attention to you.”

  “Anyway—look,” I said. “The first thing we have to do is narrow down the list of possible suspects.”

  “But the thief could be anyone,” Hugh said.

  “Are you the thief?” I asked him.

  “Why would I steal my own hat?”

  “How about you, Sally—are you the thief?”

  “I didn’t steal my own key chain!”

  “So that’s two of the three hundred we just ruled out,” I said.

  They all murmured approvingly, recognizing my genius deducting skills.

  “See, you’re looking at it the wrong way. To narrow down the list of possible suspects, we need to make lists.” I took out my notebook and opened to the first blank page—which, sadly, given the fact that it was over a month into the school year, was page 3—and started ripping out pages and passing them around. Once everyone had a page, I said, “Okay, for a couple of minutes, work on a list of possible enemies. Then we’ll go over the lists and see if any of the names turn up more than once, and those would then be our main suspects.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Donnie admitted.

  I started feverishly writing down names of people who’d picked on me, or laughed at me, or ignored me the start of school, which was practically everyone. I looked up and noticed nobody else was writing. Instead they were all staring at each other with confused looks on their faces.

  “Why aren’t you writing any names down?” I asked.

  “I don’t have any enemies,” Sally said, and I felt my ears redden.

  “Sally’s the most popular girl in the entire school, practically,” Hank said. “Her birthday party at Angie’s house this weekend was the biggest party, ever.”

  “Same goes for Trent,” Donnie added. “The basketball guys rule the school.”

  “And everyone respects you, Donnie,” Trent said. “You’re like the Hemenway version of the Human Calculator.”

  Frankly, I was disgusted that they were saying this. Were they really this full of themselves? I looked over at the Sweet brothers and was appalled to see that they were drawing mazes instead of making a list!

  “Really, you two don’t have any enemies?” I asked. “You guys bully everyone in school!”

  “Exactly,” Hugh said. “But we’re equal-opportunity bullies, we bully everyone, so we’d have to list everyone, which would be a complete waste of time.”

  “Well, you have a point there,” I admitted. I turned to Sally. “Did everyone in school go to your party, Sally?”

  I blushed, realizing I was pointing out that the thief would probably be someone who didn’t go to the party, and I’d momentarily forgotten that I was one of those people!

  “Of course not. Angie’s basement can’t hold that many people. You know that.”

  How would I know that, I wondered?

  “Street Magic’s Assistant has a point—wouldn’t people who didn’t get invited to your party have a reason to resent you?” Donnie asked, and I started feeling nervous again.

  “They probably didn’t even know about it,” Sally replied.

  “Yeah, they’re probably doing other stuff and could care less about going anyway,” Trent said.

  “This is too hard,” Sally said. “I can’t handle thinking about such big numbers. I can’t remember everyone who didn’t go to my party. You’re good at thinking about this stuff, Peter, just try to remember who didn’t go.”

  I blushed. What the heck was she talking about? Didn’t she know I didn’t go to it, or any party Angie and Sally ever had? Or was this a trap? I tried to keep a straight face.

  “You want me to remember who wasn’t at your last party?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I was busy hosting the thing, you’d know better than I would.”

  It was weird—I felt lucky and relieved that they mistakenly thought I went to these parties, but at the same time it almost made me feel more mad that they didn’t even realize I hadn’t gone.

  “Well, you can’t accuse us, Peter, because we hung out at the party, remember?” Hugh said. “Didn’t we?”

  I panicked that he was going to realize I wasn’t there. I had to mention a detail about the party to prove I was there, but I had no idea what a midd
le-school party looked like, having never been to one; all I had to go on was me and Drew’s fake party. I pictured Drew in a dress, sitting up in Corbett Canyon, and sighed. I took a stab in the dark. “Oh yeah, we were drinking that weird drink together.”

  He didn’t say anything at first, and I was positive he was going to point out that the rule at Angie’s house was that they served only solids, no liquids, and I’d be busted.

  “Right!” Hugh said, a moment later.

  I exhaled softly.

  “That drink was gross, it’s safe to admit now, right Sally?” Trent said.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Sally said, smiling.

  “I was too hyper from that weird drink so I probably didn’t notice everyone. Instead, let’s try another method,” I said, ripping out a new page and crumbling up the previous list.

  “No more lists, this feels like work,” Sally whined, and she got her wish, because a moment later the bell rang.

  “To be continued,” I said, but everyone was rushing out the door already.

  I suddenly got an idea, so instead of heading home I jogged through the school to the top of the back stairway, where I saw Sunny lugging her yellow duffel bag out of the library.

  “What happened—did you fall asleep?” I asked her. “School’s been out for over an hour.”

  “I was doing extra work on my invention, jailbird,” she said. “How was detention? I’m surprised you’ve survived this long.”

  “Actually, I get along great with the Sweet brothers,” I said proudly.

  “That’s a good thing, because you’ll already have friends if you ever end up going to prison.”

  “I was thinking the exact same—,” I started saying, before realizing she was being sarcastic. I headed into the library and found Ms. Schoonmaker pushing all the chairs into the table. She looked up at me. “I just had an idea. If I could catch the thief of Fenwick Middle, could I get out of detention on Wednesdays so I can come back to T.A.G. sooner?”