He Who Calls
Chapter 18
"All right," Odd said to Jeremy, Emily, Ulrich, Yumi, and Sam. It was four, on the day before Aelita's fourteenth birthday. They were standing outside Tamiya's room. She was in P.E. until four thirty. "We have thirty minutes to get in, find out Tamiya's secret, get proof, and get out. We have to do this without being discovered and we have to make it look like it was never done. Go!" He kicked the door. It didn't open. Sam walked up and turned the doorknob. It opened. "Um, good job Sam," said Odd, blushing.
"It's what I'm here for," she said. They went in.
"All right," said Ulrich. "Check everywhere." After five minutes of searching Yumi stood up from looking in a drawer in the desk.
"Jackpot," she said triumphantly. "I found her journal!"
"Come on! We'll go back to my room and find something there!" said Odd. They put the room back together and ran to Odd and Ulrich's shared one.
"All right," said Yumi. "This is amazing!" she muttered as she flipped through it.
"What?"
"Milo and Aelita are only her latest victims. She was already blackmailing Nicolas and Herb, half the soccer team, every other reporter on the paper besides Milly, and Jim!" exclaimed Yumi. "Here we go. This is right after she finished threatening Milo and Aelita: 'Dear Diary, Today Salian and Stones agreed to pay up. I nearly have enough money to buy the best present in the world for William Dunbar. He's so handsome and mysterious. I hope he likes whatever I get him when I have enough money.' This is perfect! We threaten to tell William2—"
"Why do you call him William2?" asked Sam.
"Because he's… so different from last year!" said Yumi, as she couldn't reveal he was a clone. "So we threaten to tell William2 that she likes him, or she can destroy the photos."
"But if William2 gets involved," said Emily. "And what Milo says is true, he might kill someone."
"We can't let him know," said Ulrich firmly. "And I don't think Milo has ever lied about anything important."
"All right. We have five minutes until Tamiya gets out of class. It should take that long to get to her room. Let's go!" said Emily. They ran out of the room at top speed.
"Aelita," said Milo, as he and Aelita walked out of class. "The payment is due tomorrow. What are we going to choose?"
"Get Tamiya?" said Aelita hopefully. "And tell about how the photos are lies and they're going to try to publish them?"
"We looked at that possibility," said Milo. "Freedom of the press combined with the fact," at this point Aelita started chanting the words along with him in the same depressed monotone, "that we're minors and don't have much slander protection makes it too great a risk that the photos will get published anyway."
"I don't know," said Aelita. "I just really hate this."
"I do too," said Milo. "I do too."
Ulrich, Sam, Odd, Yumi, Jeremy, and Emily were waiting outside Tamiya's door when she showed up.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"For you to stop blackmailing people," said Odd. "Or we might tell William something about you."
"You snuck into my room and read my journal?" she asked, furious. "That's outrageous! That's horrible!" Ulrich had had enough. He walked up, grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her and yelled:
"IT'S THE SAME DAMN THING YOU DO EVERY DAY!"
"No," said Tamiya. "It's entirely different."
"Name three ways," said Ulrich, seething.
"Well… Um…"
"Exactly," he said. Then he dropped her and she hit the floor.
"So what do I have to do? Pay you?" she asked.
"No, that's the way you think. We say all you have to do is destroy those all the copies of those photos and stop blackmailing people. Also, you have to return all the money you blackmailed out of people and explain to people whose relationships you screwed exactly why their boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them," said Odd. "And if you want us to keep quiet about this to the teachers, you can quit the paper."
"All right. I'll do everything you said. You can watch me destroy the photos," said Tamiya. She opened a drawer that no one had seen in her desk. They looked in. It was full of blackmail picture. She took out the ones featuring Milo, Aelita, and Sissi and tore them up. "I never make copies," she said. "I wouldn't want anyone to find them." Odd grabbed all the photos out of the drawer and tore them up. Then he opened the rest of the drawers. One of them was full of cash.
"This all blackmail money?" he asked. She nodded almost imperceptibly. "Is this all of it?" She nodded again. "Keep in mind, if we find out you're lying we tell William. No appeal. No go around and return this stuff." She took the drawer out of the desk and carried it out of the room. "We did it!" said Odd. "Now we go tell Milo and Aelita."