would want to open a locker that might have a corpse inside? He dialed the combination, and the lock popped open.
Will’s locker was full of months’ worth of stolen goods.
Sometimes he’d steal something from the market, but most of his best finds were the products of his night walks, when he snuck around the perimeter of gang territories looking for anything left unattended. He’d occasionally find something valuable, but the bulk of his stuff was small things: school supplies, old clothes, books, an occasional laser pointer. But when he’d accumulated enough of this stuff, he was going to trade it all to buy the phone charger that David refused to rent for him. Tonight, things had changed. Getting Lucy all to himself was way more important than any phone charger.
Will moved fast, grabbing a garbage bag and stuffing the locker’s contents into it. He locked it up and hurried off to where he knew Smudge would be.
Will and Smudge had been friends since middle school. For as long as Will could remember, Smudge had been frail and bony, but now his face was creased with wrinkles that a kid shouldn’t have. Will had gone through a growth spurt, like most kids their year had at this point; Smudge hadn’t. He was still the size of a child, and he looked about as healthy as an old woman’s finger. But he was a survivor. The kid was a cock-roach.
Will found him in his usual place, the closet of a first-floor computer lab that no longer had any computers in it. A single candle lit up the closet, casting long shadows up Smudge’s gaunt face.
“Willy! How goes it?” he said.
“Same old. Got some big items to trade tonight, man. You’re in luck.”
“Same old, my ass. I heard what happened.”
“What did you hear?” Will said.
“Varsity is going crazy. They want your brother bad.”
“It’ll blow over, probably.”
“I don’t know, they’re all having a funeral for Brad in the quad right now. Your bro is suicidal, man. It’s retaliation, right? ’Cause Sam shut you fools out of the gangs?”
“No, it’s not like that at all.”
“Maybe that’s not what he tells you, but if I was some football star that got knocked down to being a washing machine, I’d want a little revenge.”
“Yeah, laundry this, washing machine that, it’s always the same stuff with you,” Will said.
“They want to kill him. Straight up. I heard they’re gonna cut his head off and play soccer with it in the quad.” Will pictured David’s severed head sailing through the air.
“Hey, you okay? You’re not gonna spaz out on me, are you?
I don’t want you peeing everywhere,” Smudge asked with a flickering grin.
Will tolerated Smudge’s shithead comments; he’d known Smudge long enough to know that he was all right underneath. His meanness was his armor. Smudge mimed a seizure, sticking his tongue out and rolling his eyes.
“I’m fine,” Will said. The truth was Will hadn’t had a seizure in a month, and it was making him antsy. He was due for one.
He wished there was a way to induce it himself. Then he’d be able to relax.
“Yeah, but you guys both gotta be crapping your pants, right?”
“Anyway… you know who’s living with us now?” Will said.
“Lucy.”
“What! For real?”
“She got kicked out of the Pretty Ones. So we’re helping her out.”
“How much you charging for rent? A grope a day?”
“Don’t be such a scumbag,” Will said, and then realized what a pointless a request that was.
“You lucky bastard. Seriously, congrats. It’s high time you closed that deal.”
“It’s not about closing a deal, man.”
“Oh. My bad. What’s it about? Love?”
“No,” Will said.
Smudged laughed so hard that drool spilled from his mouth.
He shook his head and wiped the errant spit off his chin.
“You actually think you love her!”
“Screw you. Just show me what food you got.” Smudge shrugged and spread a bunch of food items across the floor between them. He hooked Will’s garbage bag with his other hand and picked through it. Will looked over the food. It was enough for David to stretch out for a good two weeks.
A gleam of gold caught Will’s eye from inside the closet. He looked closer. It was a grime-covered gold necklace with a sparkling pendant on a pile of stolen goods. Will fished it out of the closet. He held it up, the candlelight glittered up and down its gold links.
“Where did you find this?” Will asked.
“Found it in a clogged toilet in the ruins.” Will grimaced at the necklace and dared to sniff the grime.
He instantly recoiled. He gave the necklace another look. If he could polish it up and make it sparkle, no one would know where it came from. He could see the look of love on Lucy’s face when he placed it in her hand.
“What do you want for this?” Will asked.
“That’s a real top-notch item. I could sell it to a Pretty One for some major loot.”
“It smells like a vulture’s ass,” Will said.
Smudge shrugged, “Well, since you might not be around much longer, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give it to you for everything you brought.”
“Are you kidding? Just the necklace? That’s three months’ worth of snatching right there!”
“Hey, listen. We don’t have to do the deal. I’m sure whoever you were gonna give this to wouldn’t mind a can of collard greens instead.”
Bastard. Will felt stuck. It was either the necklace or the food. His brother couldn’t leave that elevator; he needed food. But Lucy. Will thought of the two of them in the elevator, alone. His mind flared with the image of David and Lucy tearing off each other’s clothes the moment that they noticed Will was gone.
“You got a deal,” Will said.
“You got a necklace.”
Will pocketed the necklace, then reached over and grabbed his garbage bag. He turned it over and emptied all the contents on the floor.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”
“The bag wasn’t part of the deal,” Will said as he scrunched up the bag and stuffed it into his back pocket. “Good tradin’.” As Will turned to leave, Smudge piped up. “Hey where are you guys living now?”
“Ha! Where do you go during the day, Smudge?” Smudge smiled. Neither of them would be revealing any more.
“Keep your ear to the halls for me,” Will said as he walked out.
“I hope she likes it, Willy boy,” Smudge called out.
Will chipped the filth off the necklace with his thumbnail as he bopped down the hall. The necklace would put him over the top. He felt like he’d found a diamond in the garbage. No one could get their hands on a new gold necklace in McKinley-they didn’t exist. Lucy would be floored. He ran faster, with no other purpose but to run, to pump some blood through his veins.
He skidded to a stop when he saw the west entrance of the gym. How had he run that far into Varsity territory without noticing? He nearly darted off the other way, but he noticed the gym was silent. They must be still in the quad.
Will had always fantasized about going to one of Varsity’s legendary parties. The drinks, the girls, the food. A brilliant idea bloomed in Will’s mind, and he shivered from the sheer danger of it. He fingered the crumpled plastic garbage bag hanging out of his pocket.
Varsity had a giant stockpile of food in the gym.
If Will returned with a garbage bag of food on top of the gold necklace, that would be the killing blow. Lucy would forget all about David, wouldn’t she? He had an idea, and before he could decide whether it was a good one, his hand reached out and knocked loudly on the door. He ran back into the shadows behind a line of lockers. All was
