"...Stanford Filbrick Pines!"
The ruler came down hard on the desk and he jumped. Normally Stan nudged him or something when a teacher called his name, but Stan was in the office again and Ford had forgotten to pay attention.
Ms. Harding towered over him, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. "And just what is so fascinating that it takes precedence over paying attention in my class?" She grabbed for his book.
"Hey!"
"'Properties of Expanding Universes'...what is this, more science fiction trash?"
The class turned to look at him. Crampelter snickered.
Ford's face grew hot. "It is not trash, it's a scholarly paper written by –"
"Maybe if you focused more on the task at hand, Ford, you wouldn't be failing in school." She sniffed contemptuously. "Mr. Burk tells me you received another D in Physical Education."
The class laughed again. Crampelter had turned around in his seat and was mouthing insults behind the teacher's back. He and Gordo high-fived.
"I am confiscating this. You may have it back after class." Ms. Harding turned sharply and stalked back to her desk.
Ford slunk low in his seat. Great. The dissertation had only recently been published and it had taken him forever to get his hands on it. And he was at a good part, too! If this was anything like last time, Ms. Burk wouldn't give it back and he'd have to ask Stan to break into her desk again. That was what had gotten him sent to the office today in the first place.
Something sharp hit the back of his head. A pencil. Followed by an eraser. He pretended not to notice. By the time school let out, he was usually covered in spit wads, anyway.
"I can just go get it."
"Please don't."
"Sixer, c'mon, I can be in 'n' outta there in –"
"Seriously. I'd really rather you not."
They were walking home. Taking back alleys, too, because Crampelter had a new paper route and he liked to chase them on his bike and try to run them over.
They walked behind a restaurant. There was a huge dumpster in the back with piles of garbage bags all around it. It stank of rotting fruit. He moved to step around a nasty-looking puddle that might once have been a tomato, and suddenly a cat jumped out at him from nowhere.
He startled, stepped in the puddle and almost fell. Stanley caught his arm.
"You know, that stuff looks lethal," Stan mused, eyeing the puddle. "You think you could gimme whatever you scrape off of your shoe?"
"Ew, Stan, what would you even use it for?"
"You kidding? This stuff has tons of pranking power! It could be vomit, it could be accidentally placed in sealed ketchup packets, it could be the mysterious squishy thing at the bottom of someone's desk drawer!"
"Stan, if someone actually did eat that stuff, I'm pretty sure you'd get in actual legal trouble for that."
"Yeah, right!" He started searching the bags around the dumpster. "Anybody with a working nose would straight-up gag before they'd eat – ah-HA!" He found an empty soda can and held it up with a look of triumph. "Perfect!"
"You're not seriously taking that home?"
"Trust me, Sixer." He scooped up the evil-smelling goo, careful not to let the stuff touch his hands. "Stan the Man has an Awesome Plan."
"Those words never lead to anything good."
Pa put them to work dusting the Pawn Shop as soon as they got home, and then they overheard Ma with her clients and Stanley insisted on being the one to do Tarot Readings. (Sometimes they'd sit next to her and blurt out stuff they thought they should say. Ma found this hilarious and called it their "quality conning time".) After that it was dinner, homework, sneaking out to work on the Stan O' War before it got dark, sneaking back, and dropping into a dead sleep. By the time he woke up the next morning, Ford had forgotten all about the puddle of toxic ooze.
Ms. Harding gave Ford a cutting look when he walked through the door for class, but he was used to that. Stanley noticed.
"You still upset about yesterday?" he asked quietly.
Ford shrugged.
"Cheer up, Sixer. Here, I'll sharpen your pencils for you."
Ford pulled his tin pencil case out of his backpack and handed it over. The sharpener was allowed to be used by each student once a day, and only before and after class. It was a great sharpener. It hardly ever got used...since it sat right next to Ms. Harding's desk.
Ford sat down nervously and watched Stan go to the front of the room.
"Mornin', Ma'am!" he said cheerfully.
She narrowed her eyes. "You sassin' me, boy?"
"No ma'am!"
"You watch your tone with me, boy."
"Yes ma'am!"
Her eyes narrowed so much they were practically slits. She knew Stan was never that nice unless he was up to something.
"Front of the room today, Pines," she said coldly, pointing to a desk right next to her own.
"Yes ma'am!" Stan said, and started back down the aisle towards Ford.
Ms. Harding stood up. "Where do you think you're going, boy?"
"To give these pencils back to my brother."
"I said sit down, or the only place you're going is straight to detention!"
Ford was dismayed – no Stan, and now no pencils. What was he supposed to write with, his face?
But Stanley actually looked delighted. "Yes ma'am!" he said cheerfully, and flashed Ms. Harding his brightest smile. He took a seat, slung his backpack underneath his chair, and lined up his pencils as the rest of the class came in.
Ford stared at the back of his brother's head, nonplussed. What on earth is he up to?
It didn't take long for the rest of the class to become equally suspicious. After all, Stan was the best (or worst) prankster in the school. And yet he was acting like a model student! He had to be up to something – a prank bigger and juicier than he'd ever pulled before. The class watched him with growing excitement.
"Betcher brother's gonna get expelled," Crampelter muttered to Ford, grinning evilly. "Betcha he's gonna get thrown in military school."
Ford swallowed.
It got worse the longer it went. Ms. Harding started grinding her teeth so loudly Ford could hear it from the back of the room. She knew Stan was up to something, but she couldn't find out what.
"Stanley!" she'd snap. "What's the answer to the problem!?"
"I think the answer's 59, ma'am," he said politely.
"Wrong! It's 61, I've told you to pay attention!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Don't you 'yes ma'am' me!"
"No, ma'am!"
"And watch your tone!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
The class sputtered with barely hidden laughter.
"Silence!"
On and on, for every problem. Ms. Harding's face was turning a rather ominous shade of purple, and there was a muscle bunched in her jaw, and her hand was wrapped so tightly around the pointer she was using that she snapped it against the blackboard. And Stanley remained completely and perfectly polite. The excitement and tension reached a fever pitch. Ford thought if it went on for one more second Ms. Harding would expel them on the spot.
And then it happened.
Ten minutes before recess, Cathy Crenshaw, one of the nicest and prettiest girls in class, projectile-vomited all over the kid in front of her.
Instantly the whole class started screaming.
"SHE THREW UP! SHE THREW UP!"
"IT'S ON ME! IT'S ON ME!"
"IT'S RED! SHE'S BLEEDING BLOOD!"
"SHE THREW UP! SHE THREW UP!"
"IT SMELLS!"
The smell hit him and Ford felt his nose hairs curl. The smell was foul, putrid, and utterly disgusting, like a waterlogged corpse left out in the sun for a week and covered in ketchup. Ford covered his mouth with his jacket and tried not to throw up.
"Stay in your seats!" Ms. Harding screeched. But it was anarchy. The class, wound tight as piano wire from watching Stanley, just completely and fully lost their minds. People were scrambling to get away from the vomit zone, working each other into a frenzy, pressing like a human wave against the far wall. Crampelter jumped onto his desk and started throwing everything he could at people, yelling at them to get back to their desks (so he wouldn't get in trouble for disobeying, himself). His side kicks Gordo and Roman mysteriously disappeared, but several people seemed to trip over nothing and went sprawling, hitting their chins on people's desks, splitting their lips.
Two people closest to Cathy had gotten a face full of the smell and started gagging. They dropped to their knees, drooling and choking.
Stanley leapt to his feet, turning towards Cathy and the other downed students with a look of perfect concern on his face.
"Oh, no, are you feeling alright? Let me help –"
"YOU. STAY. BACK," Ms. Harding snarled, and her eyes practically shot sparks. "I know you're behind this and you're going to stay right where I can see you. Now stand up against the wall and don't you dare try any funny business with me! As soon as I get this sorted out I am marching you straight down to the Principal's Office myself!"
Ms. Harding stalked toward Ford. He finally unfroze, leaping from his seat and stumbling backwards (immediately tripping over Gord's extended foot). But Ms. Harding went right past him and started yelling at the four people covered in vomit.
Stan saw him fall and looked like he was going to move forward to help him. Ford quickly waved his brother back.
"Stay put," he mouthed. No use getting in even bigger trouble.
Stan nodded.
Ms. Harding was yelling at the students. "You pick yourselves up and go straight to the bathrooms and clean off!" she shouted. "And you! Cathy! You're heading to the nurse. Don't come back until you've got a doctor's note. And stop eating whatever made you throw up – that!" She stabbed a finger at the goopy mess, then whirled to face Stanley. "And YOU. You're coming with me. Sanchez, you're in charge until I get back. Everybody get back to your seats and do lines! Go on, chop chop!"
She grabbed Stan's shoulder and steered him out of the room.
As soon as the door banged shut, the class went nuts. Sanchez, didn't even try to maintain any semblance of order. He just sat down at his desk and started drawing footballs.
Ford had no interest in getting pelted with spit balls, or waiting until Crampelter tried to make him eat the vomit on the floor. He slipped quietly out the back door of the classroom and stood in the hall. Anyone who saw him would think he was in trouble, and would probably leave him alone.
He looked down the hall. He'd be able to see if Ms. Harding was coming back so he could duck inside. From the way her hand looked on Stan's shoulder and how he stiffened, Ford guessed she'd been holding him pretty tightly. Ford's stomach squirmed.
He wished Stan wouldn't get himself in so much trouble. Stan was always saying how they'd stick together. But then he went and pulled some stunt and got sent to the office anyway. How exactly was that "sticking together"? It was Stan doing whatever Stan wanted, that's what it was, and Ford hated it when Stan got punished and he was alone out here by himself without even a book to keep his brain from going in worried circles. It felt like it would be years before Stanley came back.
"Stan, where are you," he muttered, without realizing that he'd spoken out loud.
But Ford had only been out in the hall for a few minutes before he heard the tell-tale scuff of Ms. Harding's loafers. They turned a corner and Ford saw them coming down the hall, her hand still on Stan's shoulder. She looked boiling mad.
Ford slipped back inside the classroom and hurried to his desk (avoiding outstretched feet) just as they walked through the door.
"Take your seats," she snapped, and her voice was so cold the whole room froze. The students quickly hurried back to their desks. They knew better than to test the limits of Ms. Harding's stress medication.
All the same, Ford was practically dying of curiosity. Ms. Harding had practically shoved Stan back into his usual seat next to Ford. He tried to catch his brothers eye.
"Stan," he mouthed, but his brother cut his eyes at the teacher.
"Later," he mouthed back. He stayed as quiet as possible for the rest of the lesson, since Ms. Harding kept giving him the evil eye, but Ford could tell he was practically vibrating in his seat. Had Stan pulled off whatever prank he had planned, or was something else still coming?
But Stan refused to talk about it all the way up until the end of the school day. When the bell rang, Stanley instantly jumped to his feet and was out the door so fast his feet practically blurred like a cartoon.
"Hey – wait for me!" Ford shouted, running after him.
But Stan ran full-tilt for the beach, backpack bouncing on his back, zooming like a bullet down the sidewalk.
"Wait, wait!" Ford panted, but Stanley was oblivious.
Crampelter's steel-gray bike came streaking out of nowhere.
"Well well, if it ain't the teacher's pests!" he shouted, and turned the bike straight for Stanley.
"OUTTA THE WAY, CRAMPY!"
Stan didn't even slow down. He slung his backpack off his back, swung it by one strap and hit Crampelter's bike right on the edge of his front tire.
The timing was perfect. The front wheel turned at a crazy angle, forcing the bike to brake, but Crampelter had been going so fast that his own momentum slung him up and over the front wheel. He flipped over and landed on his back with a nasty crunch.
"OH MY GOD HE'S DEAD!" Ford shouted, slowing down.
Crampelter sat up. "WHEN I CATCH YOU YOU'RE DEAD!" he screamed, shaking his fist.
Oh sweet Sagan! Ford sped right back up again, pumping his skinny legs for all he was worth. Stan had disappeared from sight, but Ford had already calculated his brother's trajectory. He headed straight for Glass Shard Beach.
He reached the sand a minute later, a knife in his lungs, ever breath rasping like hot sandpaper in his throat. And there was Stan, down by the waves, shrieking and hollering like a hooligan.
"Stan," he gasped, limping up to his brother. He dropped like a rock next to Stan's backpack, sitting down with his head thrown back. "Geez, you – run like a – cheetah or – something –"
"I AM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!" Stan bellowed, and plunged into the waves. A second later he leaped back out, soaking wet. "'Yes, ma'am!' 'No, ma'am!' 'Please, ma'am!' AAAAAH!" He hurled himself at the sand and flailed around like he was trying to burrow into it. "Never never never never never never –"
"Whoa, hey! Stanley!" Ford quickly rolled away and held up an arm to shield his face. "Cut it out already! What's the matter with you?"
Stanley's head popped out of the sand like a ticked-off seagull. "If I ever have to act like a prissy teacher's pet again I will stab myself in the foot with a glass shard! How do you stand it?!"
"Excuse you, I am not a teacher's pet," Ford said indignantly.
"I am so gross and covered in nerd cooties oh sweet Moses whyyyy!" He flopped back down and rolled back and forth until he was thoroughly covered in sand.
Ford rolled his eyes. "Well now you're covered in cooties. You know how many species of bacteria proliferate on a typical beach?"
Stan lifted his head and inhaled deeply. "NEEEEERD," he said loudly, and then dropped his head back down.
Ford snorted.
"Mhmfmffm fmf," Stan said, still face-first in the sand.
"What?"
He raised his head. "I said, I have something for you." And he reached over, yanked his backpack close, and pulled out –
"The dissertation?!" Ford took it, staring disbelievingly at the paper. It was really wrinkled from being in Stan's backpack (and hitting Crampelter), and there were a few mysterious stains on it. But other than that, it was in great shape. Ford held it reverently. "I told you not to get this back! Now she's gonna know you did it!"
"How?" Stan pushed himself up off the sand and sat down. "Look, everyone in class saw me being – ugh – all well-behaved and junk all morning. It's not my fault Cathy decided to tango with the toilet, and when she did, everybody saw me standing up against the wall. With my arms raised, no less. Why d'you think they let me outta that office so fast? She couldn't pin a thing on me!"
Ford looked up. "It was you, though, right?"
Stan looked offended. "Do I detect a hint of doubt? Is my brother, Stanford Pines, actually questioning my pranking abilities?"
"But how'd you do it?"
Stan shrugged. "Easy. That cat we saw at the dumpster was Cathy's, I saw her 'Lost Cat' poster a week ago. I told her that if she did a little favor for me, I'd tell her exactly where she could find her cat."
"And she did it, just like that?"
"Yep! Well, there was a little persuasion involved. But mostly yep! Relax, she didn't actually eat the tomato guts," Stan said, catching the look on Ford's face. "I just had her stick in a zippy bag and squirt it out real fast."
Ford's mind was racing. "But – the drawer –"
"You asked me to sharpen your pencils," Stan reminded him.
"You're kidding. You picked the lock on the drawer and stole it? No, wait, but we were watching you! Ms. Harding was sitting right there at her desk and we were both watching you..."
"Exactly. But nobody was watching my feet. All I did was block the drawer so she couldn't shut and lock it all the way. And then when vomit went flyin', I got up to help, and she told me herself to go stand by the wall. Which meant taking a little detour near her desk and slipping my hand into a conveniently unlocked cabinet. Nobody was looking at me then, that's for sure. All's I had to do was stuff it up under my shirt and presto!"
Ford remembered the stiff way he'd walked out of the room. "You were hiding it in your shirt," he repeated wonderingly.
"No easy thing, lemme tell you," Stan said. "I gotta pack on some muscle or something if I wanna hide bigger stuff under there. I thought she was gonna feel it any second, but I think she was too mad or just thought it was my scrawny shoulder blade or something." His eyes sparkled with laughter. "Best part was, the principal's already sick a lookin' at me, so when she told him the story and how she hadn't actually seen me do anything this time he told her to get out and not send me back 'till next year!" He laughed. "I figure that's good for at least a month!"
"And you planned out all of that?!" Ford asked, disbelieving. It was just so – so thorough and intricate and skillful and – and –
"Well shucks, yer makin' me blush," Stan said drily. Only he really was blushing, and Ford realized he'd been talking out loud.
"I mean normally you talk out your pranks with me so I can point out where you might get caught!"
"Ugh, I know. But you got more tells than the sea's got salt, and I had to make sure I could pull this off without giving it away. I mean, no offense or anything," Stan added quickly.
"What? No, no, that's just – it's so impressive, Stanley! You planned the whole thing like something out of The Sibling Brothers! It's – it's phenomenal!"
Stan was now redder than a fresh tomato. "C'mon," he muttered, ducking his head and grinning. "I mean, it was no big deal. And this way I'm guaranteed to hang out in class for a month and keep Harding off your back."
Ford shook his head. He still couldn't believe it. It had to be the most thorough prank Stan had ever pulled. Of all the stupid, reckless, crazy stunts Stan could think up...and now Ford could read whatever he wanted because he knew Stanley would watch out for him –
"Don't get sentimental." Something hard chopped Ford in the back of his knees and he collapsed with a yell.
"Ow! Stanley!"
"There we go!" Stanley laughed and dodged when Ford tried to smack him with the dissertation. Then he settled back down and dusted the sand from his hair, brushing it back so it looked windswept and actually kind of cool. "Alright, what's so special about this super-secret paper, anyway?"
Ford smiled. "It's a dissertation," he began, "by a man named Stephen Hawking..."
