The Thief

class before us this afternoon, and left after us. How could he have stolen it while he was in a room with us on the other side of school?”

“That...he was...look, stop being logical. Hyde did it.”

“You have a vendetta.”

“Of course I do!” I hiss. “How could I not have a vendetta?”

“So you’re admitting that this Hyde conclusion could be born of bias.”

“Of course it is! What’s your point?”

Destin makes a motion for silence and points to the classroom window. I stand on tiptoe to peer over the edge. There’s...maybe...is it just a shadow? Branches waving across windows? It’s totally silent.

Then...the faintest metallic sound. I curse the janitor for keeping the hinges oiled. It isn’t enough to spring for.

I squint. There’s definitely a shadow hovering over my locker. Too small to be a person, it seems to cling to the grate. I hear a faint trilling noise - like a cat - and then the shadow melts into the locker door and vanishes.

“What the hell...?” I murmur.

Then the traps go off. The pops echo loudly in the empty hallway, along with a screech from inside the locker. If there’s anyone still in the building, they’ll definitely have heard the racket.

“Come on!” I tell Destin, shoving open the door we’re hiding behind. We burst into the hall. The shadow vaults out of the locker - candy bars and popped traps scattering everywhere - and zooms down the hall. Is that a...a tail? I take off after it. Destin follows, calling “Wait up!”

It turns a corner in the atrium. I skid on the tile floor, turning with it. By the light of the moon shining through the windows I’m only in time to see what is a tail, long and slender, as it leaps through one of the glass panes in the door. It shatters, the high crack resounding throughout the atrium. So the shadow is solid after all.

“What is going on out here?” I hear behind me.

Oh crap, I think. Principal Umino is in her office. But I keep going. I don’t want to lose this thing – it’s our ticket to innocence. If she’ll believe it. I push through the front doors even as I hear Destin behind me, “Um, good evening ma’am...”

Avoiding the broken glass, I leap over the stairs and take off running across the parking lot. The shadow is making for the tree line. I’ll definitely lose it if it gets into the forest. I speed up, sprinting between the only two cars in the lot.

Thwack. I collide with something, and fall on my back. Stars explode in front of my eyes. Hyde stands over me, grinning. “Never clotheslined someone before. First time for everything. Guess what I found, principal?” he yells up to the school.

I struggle to sit up, but the shadow has already vanished. Hyde hoists me to my feet by my collar. I shove him away, though I’m still a little unsteady. He keeps a grip on my shirt and pulls me toward the front doors. “This is a first,” he says. “Lots of firsts tonight. I’ve never busted someone else for vandalism before.”

“I didn’t do anything!” I snap.

“No?” he says, looking at the broken glass as we climb the stairs. “The evidence isn’t on your side, munchkin.”

“You set this up!” I accuse, as he pushes me through the door. “You sent that - that - ninja monkey thing just to get me in trouble!”

He laughs. “You clearly don’t need my help to get in trouble, Dupree.”

Principal Umino stands in the atrium, with Destin at her side looking sheepish. “Thank you Mr. Hyde,” she says, regarding me narrowly. “You’re free to go home now.”

“I don’t know, I think I’ll stick around for a minute,” he grins, leaning back against the stairwell.

The jackass just wants to stand there and gloat. My fingers curl into fists.

“Well?” the principal addresses me. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“We’re totally innocent,” I state fervently.

“Is that right? I’ve been receiving complaints about stolen items for the past week. Many of them suggesting you as the culprit.”

“Why would I steal from my own locker?” I protest. “And Destin’s was cleared out just this afternoon!”

“I’m sure it was,” she says dryly. “Tell me why. Are you looking for revenge on those who’ve wronged you? More importantly, how did you do it? Not a single lock showed signs of entry. If you tell me how you accomplished it, I may be more lenient.”

“I didn’t do it,” I state. “We were here tonight trying to catch the thing that did!”

“The thing?” she says, expressionless.

“He was making up something about - what was it Dupree - a ninja monkey?” Hyde chuckles. “Seriously, you can do better than that.”

“And I suppose you saw it too, Mr. Heron?”

Destin colors under his curtain of hair. “It was...a shadow...” he murmurs lamely.

“How helpful,” she says coldly. “I’ll tell the staff to beware a loose shadow.”

“It’s real, I swear!” I exclaim. “It set off all the mousetraps I stuffed in my locker and then it broke the window - ”

“Mr. Dupree,” she interrupts. “You and Mr. Heron are going to pay back the damages you have incurred. You will spend your free period assisting teachers with whatever odd tasks they assign you, until the end of the semester.”

“This is unfair!” I shout. “We didn’t do anything!”

“You broke into school after hours,” she states. “A transgression on its own. If you insist on continuing to protest, I will bring the matter before your parents.”

I swallow. Umino’s wrath was bad enough. My mom thinks I’m in my room doing homework right now. If she even heard I had snuck out of the house at night...

“Fine,” I grumble.

“If your...shadow turns up, your names will be cleared, of course,” she smiles condescendingly. “Until then, someone must pay the debt to society. You understand. Now go home, all of you,” she orders, with a glance at Hyde as well. She turns on her heel and strides back into her office.

“You’re a groveling kiss-up, is what you are,” I hiss at Hyde, the instant her door shuts.

“And you’ll be mopping the science lab for the next two months,” he leers. “You kids have fun with that.” He strides out the front doors, laughing.

“We’re doomed,” Destin sighs.

I’m inclined to agree with him. “Oh, come on, let’s at least take your comics home,” I grumble. This has not turned out well. This is the opposite of well.

I stuff a couple of the candy bars into my pocket. No sense in letting them go to waste. Destin picks up his comics. He frowns over one bent page but remains silent as we exit the school.

I’m lost in thought as we cross the parking lot. Which means I’m saying everything I’m thinking.

“This is hands down the weirdest thing that has ever happened to us,” I groan. “What kind of ninja monkey would break into a school to steal chocolate and books? Who would train it to do that? And what the hell is it?”

“Did you get a good look at it?” Destin asks.

“It was too dark. I mean I saw a tail, and I think there was fur...”

A light tug at my back pocket distracts me. I spin, but a dark creature about the size of a cat is already sprinting for the trees with a candy bar in its mouth. It leaps for a high branch and disappears, gliding into the forest.

I stand with my mouth open. “Those were wings.”

“Underarm webbing, actually,” Destin says, with the kind of calm that only comes from being totally stunned.

“Like a bat. But it ran like a cat...”

“I thought you said it was a monkey!” He’s starting to freak out now.