Chapter 1
May 4, 2015
This was going to be a bad day.
Luke Harris just knew it; he could just tell. So many mornings he just had a sense that nothing really good was waiting for him at school, and so many times he'd been right. It hadn't always been that way; he'd made it through most of the fall semester without too much trouble. Luke was in the 7th grade; the second of three years he was expected to spend at James Fenimore Cooper Middle School, part of the Fairfax County Public Schools, serving the area Luke lived in with his foster parents- David and Wendy Harris of Great Falls, Virginia. Up to midway through his 5th grade year, Luke had been having a pretty good time at school and a pretty good life.
That had changed abruptly when somebody at school figured out first that Luke was a foster child, which brought on some insults and mockeries, and then that he was of Arabic descent, which brought more. When word spread that Luke and his 'real' parents were from Iraq, a nation that had been associated with many strong feelings and opinions as the United States waged a counterinsurgency war there from 2004 to 2011. Yet even with the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops by 2011, the instability and violence in that troubled country had not ended. The rise of ISIS, a new development in the continued threat of Islamic terrorism, was steadily drawing the U.S. back in. Everybody seemed to have an opinion on Iraq and the war there, and more than one kid at school thought the Iraqi people themselves were the enemy, or that all Muslims were.
So when word got around Luke Harris was an Iraqi, he became increasingly stuck with the label of "the enemy". He saw heads turn as he passed students standing by their lockers in the halls; eyes were narrowed in suspicion. Rumors that Luke Harris was packing a bomb or a grenade made the rounds and became very popular with some of the students. Kids would ask Luke when he was going to join up with ISIS, or what he planned to do with the many kids who sensed Luke didn't like them when his "ISIS buddies" took over Virginia. The label of "terrorist" made Luke an increasingly freakish outcast, and in the world of the middle school student, very few labels were worse for you socially- or harder to get rid of- than "freak", and "terrorist" was an especially bad version of that. What was amazing was that as time passed, nobody among the student body seemed to really care whether Luke was actually a terrorist or not, or how he felt about ISIS. No one even asked him.
And if Luke ever tried to argue, tried to insist that none of the things being said about him were true, he was laughed at, mocked, and sometimes literally shouted down. Nobody wanted to hear what he had to say about any of the labels he was being stuck with, or the nasty rumors some of his classmates so gleefully spread. The few attempts Luke made at telling any teachers or administrators did no good at all; on the occasions where he was even believed, the bullies he named simply denied everything and little to no action ever got taken. Telling his parents was more helpful; they were caring and supportive, and did what they could to make Luke's home life a good one. But they could not be there when he had to face those kids in the halls, the classrooms, gym class, the cafeteria. They had called the principal and met with Luke's teachers, but that had gotten the same result as when Luke had tried it.
Worse yet, after trying to go to the adults numerous times, Luke had more than earned a new label in the eyes of his peers: "snitch". When that stinging mockery began to be flung his way, Luke gradually slackened off his attempts at reporting the bullying directed at him, and before long gave it up entirely. It just wasn't worth it. Reporting any of the trouble made for him just earned Luke even more.
Luke kept up appearances as best he could at home. His foster parents cared, and they showed it all the time, in even the littlest of things. They didn't micromanage or coddle him, but merely cared a great deal and didn't mind saying so through words and actions. They were consistent, and unlike too many of the kids at school, David and Wendy didn't seem to care at all that Luke was of Iraqi descent. David had even been in the war at some point; Luke had seen the cased triangular-folded flag, the display case holding a set of ribbons and shiny silver badges the teen didn't recognize, and some commemorative coins for DESERT STORM and IRAQI FREEDOM in David Harris' office in the Colonial-style, two-story house the Harrises owned in Great Falls. But David never talked about it. He just remained firm in his expressed opinion that the Iraqis were not the enemy, that only a select few of them were as members of Islamic terrorist groups, and that people tended to think in terms of stereotypes and generalizations, unfortunate as that was.
It was better not to worry his foster parents, if Luke could avoid it. They didn't need to deal with this while they both tried hard at managing their own careers. This was Luke's problem. He had already tried every means he could of asking for assistance, and though Mom and Dad had begun taking him to a therapist last fall, and that had helped some, it didn't help enough. Nothing helped enough. Luke was on his own. Even his increasingly lengthy, increasingly-daring forays into the depths of the internet only did so much good. Luke came home every day now and did all he could to forget about the cruelty of kids he didn't even know by retreating a little further into his own world… but he still had to face those kids at school the next day. Some days were better than that; some were even quite pleasant. But the bad ones were always waiting, and a day could start out okay and then turn bad on short or no notice. It was even worse, somehow, that they almost never laid a hand on him.
Luke had learned to act more in the past two years than he'd ever imagined he'd need to know; to keep his parents from trying to help him and, as he knew from experience, only making things worse, Luke had to make them believe things were getting better- or at least not getting worse.
But they were. They were getting worse.
To keep Mom and Dad from knowing that, Luke had slowly but steadily learned to put up walls, hide things, keep the worst of what was happening to him from his parents. He controlled his expressions and his tone of voice as best he could, and when he had to lie, he learned to lie in such a way that at the moment he said it, Luke believed the lie himself.
It helped. Some. At the very least, Luke was achieving his goal. But success was often mixed, because his foster parents were pretty perceptive. They cared, and their love only made Luke want to hide the living hell he was experiencing in middle school from them even more. If they only knew the full depth of what he was going through every day, the stress of merely knowing what might be waiting for him when he so much as got on the bus, they would storm the school all by themselves and be in the principal's office the next day. Dad especially.
Luke wasn't even sure what service he'd been in, but Dad had the tough-as-nails, always loyal and constantly faithful, responsible and disciplined manner the stereotypical veteran was perceived to display. Dad would have eaten any of the adolescent tough guys who made fun of Luke so mercilessly at school for breakfast, but Dad could not take them on himself. Luke had to do that on his own, and had resolved to. It was a problem he was stuck with. Nobody could do anything about it. These days, his primary focus was on staying below the radar as much as possible, on getting by and waiting out the last of his days in middle school. Soon enough it would be over… after one more year. And this one wasn't done yet.
The dark-haired boy did his best to stay upbeat at breakfast, and accepted a bear-like hug from his father and a gentler but equally caring one from his mother before heading out the door and down the street to the bus stop. The kids there mostly ignored him, which was usually what happened if they didn't directly pick on him. Luke had few friends. He had tried to make some, and managed to keep a few, but most students seemed to want nothing to do with him. Even other downtrodden and outcast students generally avoided Luke, maybe thinking that they could still outrank him in the social pecking order if they shunned the "terrorist" as well.
The bus ride was unremarkable. He had some balls of rolled-up paper thrown at him by some snickering boys further back in the bus, but Luke just stayed still and let them do it. He had learned by now that if you turned around, you would never be able to spot your tormentor in time. Even if you did, they would just deny it if you tried to tell the bus driver, turning it into a game of who said what. The boys throwing the paper balls snickered as they did it. They knew Luke hated it, and wished they would stop. But they went ahead and did it anyway, enjoying the fact that they were getting a reaction out of him and he continued to do nothing to them in return.
They tried something new as the bus finished the last of its rounds and was heading in towards the middle school; one, then two, pieces of tin foil rolled up in a narrow, pointed cone were zipped like darts at the back of Luke's head. He gasped in pain and slapped a hand to the back of his head, and now he did turn around.
Nothing. The rear quarter of the bus' load of kids just stared out the window, back at him, at their notebooks or iPods or whatever they were doing before Luke turned around. After a few seconds of staring around, wishing for once he could see who it was with his own eyes, catch someone with a ball of paper still in their hand, Luke gave up and turned around.
Some kids snickered.
Then, right as the bus came to a stop at the bus ramp at school, a point when Luke was usually home free for the morning bus ride stage of things, another ball of paper smacked him right behind his left ear. An exposed edge of the rolled-up piece of paper gave Luke a paper cut on his ear, and this time several kids laughed.
As Luke got up to finally get off the bus, he realized, far too late, that someone had put ketchup on his seat and it was all over his khaki shorts. It was hard to believe he hadn't noticed before, but Luke figured they had just known not to use too much. Just enough to smear his shorts good, but not enough to really soak through and make him notice. Luke waited to be one of the very last off the bus, as he often did. He didn't want anyone to try tripping him or something like that.
Yeah. Today was going to be a bad day.
XX
If there was anything Luke hated besides middle school and the numerous cruel, judgmental kids in it, it was P.E. class; physical education. It was a glorified 45-minute jock-show-off period, a block in which the boys who hated Luke the most could mock him most cruelly, and the girls who thought skinny, shy, nervous Luke Harris was a joke could laugh at him louder than ever. Luke had already become well used to associating PE class, and indeed sports of any kind, with embarrassment and humiliation, so he did as little as possible, stayed off to the side unless forced to do differently, and then left the minute class was over. His bullies knew he didn't enjoy this class, and took pleasure in his eagerness to leave.
Worst of the bunch was a boy he'd been putting up with since last year. He wasn't the tallest, strongest, or richest kid in school, but he was confident and talkative, and played soccer and ice hockey with great determination. He was into weightlifting, running, playing around with his friends and asking out girls. He was a cadet staff sergeant in the school's Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps unit, and delighted in mocking Luke every chance he got. Luke hated PE class in no small part due to the attention devoted to him by this boy, and English and Math, Geography and History were made so much worse by knowing that PE was waiting come 5th Block, right after lunch.
Luke sat by himself in the cafeteria. Once he got his food, he stayed with it until he was done; more than once Luke came back and found somebody had stolen his food, knocked it on the floor, or thrown it in the nearest trash can.
Zack Owens came by and dropped a heavy geography textbook right next to Luke's tray just before lunch ended. The noise made Luke jump, as it did every time, and he hated how he couldn't stop that natural startled reaction the way some kids seemed able to do. It just scared him a little, that was all. He couldn't help it.
"Score one for the Corps!" Owens crowed, and Luke looked up to see the taller boy, muscular if on the lean side, grinning down at him, a few of his buddies with him.
"Please stop that," Luke said, trying to sound reasonable. The sandy-blond-haired boy with the buzz cut and Marine dress blues on- it was Monday, dress blues day for the JROTC kids- laughed and looked at Luke as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.
"Please stop that. What, is that an order?"
"I'm asking. Just- just please stop. Okay?"
But Owens was now doing one of the other things he loved doing; starting a conversation with Luke like this and then suddenly having better things to do. The older boy was brushing some fuzzy piece of lint off the red-bordered, gold-colored, sewn-on staff sergeant's stripes he wore in his dress uniform- a uniform that he wore as a walking rebuke to the all-too-many JROTC students across America who only took it so seriously. Owens took wearing a military uniform damn seriously, and it had been said more than once that Owens was actually trying to wear his Marine JROTC uniform with the exact standards of a real Marine, and wasn't doing too bad at it, either.
"What?" Owens said, seeming to snap out of his reverie as he brushed at his right arm. "Oh, you said something. Cool story, brah. You should tell it at parties. See you in five minutes, loser."
With that reminder that PE was up next for both of them, Zack Owens laughed again and headed on his way, his friends chuckling alongside him.
Luke didn't find any of it funny. But what he thought was and wasn't funny meant very little around here these days.
XX
Like some cruel god of fate had specifically targeted Luke this year, the locker for gym class that Luke was given was directly across from Zack Owens'. He'd gone unnoticed, miraculously, for the whole first week. Luke had even gotten to listen to the other boy bitch about how much he disliked his full given name, Zechariah, but how he was stuck with it since his parents loved it. The professed dislike for his full first name seemed a little forced, though; it was hard for Luke to put his finger on it, but that was how it sounded to him. There was almost an undertone of pride, too- Zack Owens tended to sound proud when he talked about anything to do with his family. Regardless, Luke's grace period ended at the end of that first week, when Owens came back from the showers and saw Luke closing up his locker, and put two and two together. Luke had been ripe for public humiliation in the locker room ever since.
XX
"Hey, hey," a cheerful, mocking voice called out as Luke headed through the crowded locker room and towards his locker. He felt so awkward and self-conscious in here; his shoes felt like cement. They got even heavier when he heard that voice. Sure enough, Zack Owens was grinning at him, halfway in the process of getting into his gym uniform. He always took his time getting the shirt on.
"Hey," Luke answered- not like an actual response was required.
"Tanner and Josh and me were just talking about that fucking kid who blew up that bus in D.C." Owens paused, making sure his audience was listening in. "I figured you knew him."
"I don't," Luke said.
"What? Stop mumbling, dude," Owens snapped.
"I said I don't know him."
"Really?" the sandy-blond-haired boy replied, surprise all over his face. "I mean, from the sound of things he was a fuckin' loser, and he was a terrorist, so I thought you and him must hang out a lot. You two have so much in common."
A bunch of the boys cracked up laughing; Owens grinned and chuckled, slapping palms and bumping fists with some of his friends.
Luke just went over to his locker, doing his best to ignore the derisive hoots and jeers when he started to change. Somebody came up behind him and yanked down his underwear, prompting more laughter and mocking jeers.
Face burning with shame, Luke just reached down and pulled his briefs back up. "Ignore them," school authorities said in those generic talks about bullying. But that only did you so much good. Lay on enough humiliation, kids knew, and they'd get to you whether you reacted or not.
"Nice one, man," Owens said in tones of clear approval, addressing whoever had done it.
"Better be careful," a boy said. "He's gonna bring a bomb to school tomorrow and kill us all."
"This kid couldn't even carry a bomb. He can't bench ten pounds," Josh Grace replied.
"I can bench two hundred," Owens boasted.
"No, you can't."
"Bull-shit."
"Hell yes, I can," Owens insisted. "Listen! Anybody wants to see me do it, come hang out with me at the Y after school." He paused. "Oh, but junior ISIS members aren't invited. That means you, Luke. You should just go back to Iraq, you know? Maybe there somebody will actually like you."
Luke let them laugh, let Zack Owens grin savagely at him; the 8th grade boy was really enjoying this today. Luke thought about the new friends he'd been making online. He'd told them about Zack, and SS_BUILDER-48 had made this really amazing speech in the chat room about how bullies like him were the worst kind of oppressors. They were tyrants, and one day, they would answer for their crimes as surely as Mussolini and Hitler had in the past. "Zack," SS_BUILDER-48 said, "is going to pay in full for his immoral crimes. One day soon he'll regret how he's treated you. They all will."
The teenager had been wavering about whether he really wanted to sign on with The Calling; in spite of how lousy school was, they wanted him to not just reject his teachers, but his parents. And Luke knew his foster parents loved him. From the day he'd arrived in their house they'd treated him as their own.
But like a sign from God himself, here was Zack Owens, an agent of the liars and the oppressors, a bigoted and mean-spirited bully, urging Luke to just go ahead and do it. Join up. Break the chains that age, the enemy of enlightened youth, had already placed on him through the adults in his life- including his foster parents, as caring as they seemed.
Luke was a pleasant enough boy, but he had his limits, and the last two years of increasingly-miserable life at school had frayed his nerves considerably. He spent the rest of the time in PE class today wondering what The Calling might do to Zack Owens if Luke joined up and proved himself to them.
Zack, overconfident and brash, had no idea how close he was to the truth by saying Luke and Bradley Simek had a lot in common. They did. They'd talked in the same chatrooms several times, and when Simek had blown up that bus and killed himself, Luke had been watching from a safe distance. He'd seen it. Bradley had shown not only his own courage and resolve, but the kind of work they did in The Calling. It was an all-or-nothing outfit. Luke wondered what SS_BUILDER-48 had in mind, coming from such a group, for people like Zack Owens. It was actually getting to be a lot of fun imagining what The Calling was going to do to such people once they were finally brought to justice.
They played basketball on the outside court today; naturally, Luke got picked last. And as usual, the class took three hours even though it only lasted forty-five minutes.
XX
Luke was able to get away with not showering because he barely did anything during gym class half the time. He didn't work up a sweat the way a lot of the boys did, giving it their all and showing off for the girls that were also in PE for this block. Getting to avoid the showers was great. If the time he had to endure in the locker room in general was embarrassing, the showers were humiliating. The mockery and laughter got much worse when Luke's whole scrawny form was there for everyone to see. He was not only a terrorist, but a pitifully small and unimpressive one.
Still, the day's embarrassment in gym class seemed to be over when the coach dismissed them and they headed for the lockers. Then, while he was getting ready to get changed, a boy's arm reached in front of him and slammed Luke's locker shut.
It was Zack Owens. Of course it was him. He was just back from the showers, his buzz-cut hair still wet, and he was actually pretty buff for a middle schooler, so the fact that he looked really pissed off made Luke genuinely worried. Nobody had gotten very physical with him in their bullying before, but there was always a first time.
"Hey, 'Luke'. Did you hear me earlier? Go back to Iraq, man. You're just fucking around pretending you're an American. Just stop faking and go back where people actually want you."
"I am American," Luke answered in a small voice, trying not to be intimidated and not doing very well at it. "I live here just like you-"
"Uh-uh," Owens interrupted, shaking his head, gray eyes staring hatefully at Luke. "Don't you ever say you're like me. Ever. You realize how much money my country has spent kicking the shit out of your country's army in two wars? Trying to rebuild your loser army and protect you stupid fucks for ten years? You realize how many good people have died in your shitty little country because we got suckered into going there to save stupid little kids like you?"
"Zack, come on-"his buddy Josh said, sounding a little uncomfortable at the heat coming into Zack Owns' voice. But Owens just smacked Josh's hand away when his friend tried to set it on his shoulder. "Shut the fuck up, Josh."
The guys in the locker room started to quiet down. Zack Owens was not the biggest or tallest kid in the room, but he was one of the fittest, and when he got angry he sure was the meanest. It was dawning on Luke that Zack Owns was not just angry today; he was pissed off.
"Can't you just leave me alone?" Luke asked, aware that hurt and pleading was in his voice, on his face.
"Can't you just get outta my country?" Owens shot back, keeping a hand against Luke's locker as he leaned on it, leaning in and glaring at him. "You people have said that you are literally going to kill us all if we don't do what you say, and you keep fucking moving here and expecting us to act like you. This is my home, you fucking camel jockey- not yours. Muslims and Americans don't mix. You get that we've brought four thousand Americans home in bags because of you fucking rag heads?"
Luke started to look around, having this sudden, crazy, desperate desire to ask any number of the bystanders on this little scene for help. So many boys were watching, so many could see or at least hear what was going on. Yet none of them did anything, and some even seemed to approve. And in any case, Zack Owens dealt with Luke's diverted attention swiftly. He grabbed Luke's chin and jerked him back to looking straight at Zack.
"Nah, nah, nah, man, don't look at them," Zack admonished, shaking his head. "They're not your buddies. They won't help you. They're sick of you just like I am. You get it yet, kid? This whole country hates you."
Helpless and small, Luke said nothing. He trembled with rage, burned with shame. Zack Owens was saying all this stuff that Americans weren't supposed to believe in, and no one was saying a word or raising a hand against it. Gradually, Luke noticed that while some expressions of boys looking on were approving, most were anxious, or simply gave away nothing at all. Many of them didn't seem too sure what to do. They were uncertain, so they did nothing. Somehow that was worse than if they'd all been plainly on Zack Owens' side.
Suddenly Zack Owens was shouting. "Dragging us halfway around the world, interrupting our lives- what the hell were you people thinking? We spend ten years training and fighting for you people; what thanks to we get? ISIS! Fucking ISIS! How does feel, Luke, knowing you assholes got half my family killed for nothing?"
Zack's two buddies grabbed him at exactly the right moment; the taller boy was visibly losing control, and was in fact taking a swing at Luke when Tanner and Josh grabbed him.
"Let me go!" Zack yelled. He twisted and fought, but they held onto him. Zack never took his eyes off Luke as he shouted, and he became increasingly hysterical as they started to hustle him out of the locker room, headed for an exit door. "You got some nerve, kid! You got some nerve! You fucking towel head!"
The boy shouted some more, but he was crying as much as yelling by then, so not much of what he said made sense. He'd made his point, though. Soon after Josh and Tanner got him around a corner and out a door. When it closed again, cutting off Zack's profanity, the locker room was dead silent.
A door banged open, and Coach Richardson stormed in, looking around.
"The hell's going on here? The hell was all that racket?"
He glared around, staring hard at each of the boys.
"Nothing, Coach," a boy said after a few moments. "Just, you know, a little argument."
"Oh, yeah?" Doubtful, but thinking about buying it.
"That's all it was, Coach," another boy said.
"Talking about sports, you know, sometimes, people get a little mad. It's good now, though."
Coach Richardson listened to all that, still looking around. He glanced at Luke a few times, but didn't say anything. Finally, he started to nod. "Okay. But keep your voices down next time, guys." He shook his head. "Sports arguments, yeah. Those'll get a man's temper up."
Nobody said anything to contradict that, not even Luke. Coach left, Luke changed and got the hell out of there, and while most of the boys were glancing at each other or whispering, wondering what the hell had got into Zack Owens today and where his two best friends had hurriedly dragged him off to, they all seemed to have lost interest in bothering Luke. They were too confused by everything to resume laughing at him like they usually did.
As far as Luke was concerned, then, whatever had made Owens get hysterical just now was essentially a good thing. Maybe he'd even get through the rest of the day without being picked on anymore.
Maybe.
XX
Josh and Tanner wound up being very glad they'd thought to grab Zack and get him out of there when their friend suddenly lost it in the locker room after basketball. They didn't like Luke Harris or kids like him either, but Zack had been especially gleeful about going after Luke today, and suddenly, the glee had turned to anger, and then hysteria. When they got Zack outside through a fire exit door whose alarm had never worked, the boy was alternately crying miserably and shouting furiously. It took them five whole minutes to calm him down.
Zack hated the Middle East and everything to do with it. His father, his father's brother, his older brother, plus no less than three of his many cousins had died during the fighting with and in Iraq, and he'd lost another cousin in Afghanistan. The effect this had on Zack was to make him loathe both countries and anyone from either of them; as far as he was concerned, the whole War on Terror was their fault.
The Owens family was a Marine family; nearly every male in his family, living or dead, had been in the Marine Corps for the past one hundred and fifty years. Zack both loved and hated the family legacy. It was more or less assumed that he would be joining the Marines himself when the time came, and while he'd never said he intended not to, it weighed heavily on Zack sometimes.
"What the hell got into you, man?" Josh asked, wide-eyed.
"You frickin' lost it, dude!" Tanner exclaimed. "Come on, what's eating you? If it's a guy, let's go kick his ass."
"Dude. It's obviously Luke Harris."
"Then let's go back in there and fuck 'im up. Never liked him anyway."
"I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry." Zack's chest hitched, and he buried his face in his hands. "I'll be okay."
"What's going on, Zack?" Josh asked. "Come on. We just want to help."
"David's birthday is today. I had a dream last night that he came home and he was all right. I was so happy. Then I woke up and he's just fuckin' dead." Zack stood there a few moments, gazing miserably at nothing. "I miss him." His chest hitched a few more times, and he wiped at the tears rolling down his cheeks.
Captain David Owens had died on his own birthday while deployed in Baghdad in 2010; five whole years ago. His death had hit Zack even harder than his father's death at the hands of a sniper in 2009 had, because at least when he'd lost his dad, he still had David. There hadn't been any such consolation when David's luck ran out the next year. Now, it was down to him and his mother.
Josh, who had lost the oldest of his three elder brothers to a Taliban mortar in Afghanistan, more than sympathized. And Tanner, whose father had spent several years in Iraq and Afghanistan before getting promoted and posted to the Pentagon, certainly understood. Not all of the kids from military families, or families who'd otherwise lost members in the War on Terror, saw things the way these three boys did. Josh, Zack and Tanner had all come to see the Muslim-dominated nations of the Middle East as the enemy until proven otherwise, and the same applied to everyone who lived in them. To these three, it was a cut-and-dry issue, and their dislike for Muslims, Arabs, and anyone else they lumped in with Islamic terrorism was influenced by and rubbed off on other kids their age here at school. After more than a decade of war with an Islamic extremist enemy, they were far from the only Americans who tended to see anyone who was from the Middle East and not an Israeli as a potential foe at best. And some of them weren't so sure about the Israelis.
"So, that's rough, man. Bad dreams, huh?" Tanner said sympathetically.
"No, good dreams," Zack replied. "It got bad when I woke up." He cleared his throat, further composing himself. "Listen, I'm fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm good."
"Hey, guys," Josh said suddenly, looking at the other two boys. "You know what I think'll help? I bet we can get that Harris kid real good. I mean, really get the fuckin' point across that nobody likes him, you know?" He looked at the boy with the sandy-blond hair, who was straightening up and drying his eyes. "You up for some action, Zack? We're already skipping class at this point. We can make it count for something."
"If it's about Luke Harris, you bet I am," Zack said. His voice was gripped with anger again, and the fire was back in his eyes. "But how are we gonna get him?"
Josh grinned. "Let's get changed back into our dress blues. First things first."
Once they'd gone back inside to the empty locker room, quickly changed, and got out of there, Zack's status as the highest-ranked of the three JROTC cadets- Josh was a corporal and Tanner a lance corporal- soon asserted itself. For a boy who was normally well-behaved, Zack knew a remarkable amount about how to be smart while you were up to no good, and rarely had the three of them been caught while Zack was in charge of the mischief.
But Josh had proposed the idea in the first place, and kept smugly insisting the other two boys needed to wait. Finally, after all three of them narrowly managed to duck into a bathroom- a girls' bathroom- to hide from the vice principal as he headed down the hall, they made it around the next corner and stopped at locker 277.
"So what the fuck have you got for us, Josh?" Zack demanded. He was inwardly embarrassed at his outburst earlier, and determined to protect his macho rep if he could, even among his best friends. "You sure kept us waiting long enough."
His eyes darted around as he glanced left and right in the longest hallway in the school. It started at the two-roomed cafeteria and ended at the bus ramps, running the length of the building. The upside of this was that if their little prank worked, everybody would see it. Everybody. The downside was if the chances of being seen were higher than usual because of the sheer number of directions a teacher or custodian or administrator could come from.
"Chill, brah," Josh said, that smug smirk back on his face. He got on one knee, quickly unzipped his backpack, and took out two paint spray cans- red and black- and two bottles of Aunt Jemima syrup.
"Dude." Tanner stared, and then blurted, "You had this planned!"
"Yeah, you know I did," Josh agreed. He held up the red can and shook it, tossing the black one plus a syrup bottle to Zack.
"Why do I get a fuckin' syrup bottle?" Tanner protested.
"Because I only got two cans and two bottles," Josh replied.
"That little rag head freak made me look like an idiot in front of everybody," Zack hissed, staring at the locker hatefully, like it was Luke Harris himself. "I bet he thought it was funny. I'll show him something funny. Let's do this, guys."
A/N: This chapter was uploaded on 2-19-2017. The second chapter of this story will be uploaded on 2-25-2017.