AN:starfishbeliever and Darkchilde guessed the classic correctly! YAY! Congratulations! Your prizes are ... um ... the satisfaction of a job well-done? That's really all I've got. Anyway, I won't say what the classic is yet in case anyone really wants to figure it out for themselves. But if you want to know what the classic is, just go read their reviews for chapter six. I'll stick with my plan to reveal the classic at the end of the last chapter (which is the next one) so if you're just too lazy to check but still want to know you can find out then.
A Little Bad
"You got detention again?" Tom bellowed.
Frankie chuckled. "You guys are in so much trouble."
"Don't taunt your brothers, Frankie," Tom muttered. "How could you get detention again? You barely got out of it the last time!"
Joe shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the dining room table. "Kevin's hamster was scaring Stella," he said, not quite looking his father in the eye.
Tom turned slowly to face Kevin. "Since when does Kevin have a hamster?"
"I couldn't help it!" Kevin cried. "He was so cute and helpless and he needed a home! How was I supposed to know he would cause so much trouble?" He buried his face in his hands, wishing he could disappear.
Tom rolled his shoulders back with a sigh. He looked to Nick, who only shrugged and continued his work making the cookies he'd promised Kevin. The four boys watched as their father began pacing from the firemen poles to the door.
"I can't believe this. You're playing at the White House in less than three days! I told you boys to be on your best behavior. What happened? How hard is it to not get in trouble for one week?"
"Um, no you didn't, Dad," Nick pointed out. "You never told us to be on our best behavior."
"Well I should have! And you three should have known that I should have and acted as if I had!"
"And it's not our fault!" Kevin said. "Angeletti's evil!"
"No one's evil, Kevin," Tom said. His phone went off and as he pulled it from inside his coat pocket he lifted his eyes to the heavens and muttered, "Please let this be the White House calling to cancel. Please." He put the phone to his ear and said, "Tom Lucas here." He sagged down into one of the chairs around the table as the person on the other end spoke. "Listen if this is part of some harebrained -- … Oh. Well, I was just going to say I was all for it, so this is actually even better. Be safe."
Tom ended the call and returned the phone to his coat pocket, glancing around the room at his sons as he did so. He shrugged, said, "Okay," and went upstairs.
Joe stared at the now empty chair as if his father would suddenly reappear there, angry at them once more. "What just happened? Was Dad not just yelling at us?"
"Maybe that was the White House calling to cancel," Kevin said hopefully.
Frankie scoffed while Nick said, "If it was he'd have said something."
"But what could have --" Joe gestured wildly at the chair with both hands -- "done that!"
"No clue," Nick said and began spooning dough onto cookie sheets. "Whatever it was though, let's hope it was good news."
"Oh no," Macy said as she descended the steps of the school bus. Even though she'd just run over three miles she still jogged to where Stella was sitting, nestled close to the railing on the stairs leading up to the school. "What happened?"
Stella looked up from Macbeth, clearly startled. She'd been too interested in the whole walking forest thing to hear the bus arrive. "Oh," she said, sliding her bookmark into place and tucking the book into her bag, "that hamster you and Kevin have been secretly keeping ended up crashing lunch." Stella fully enjoyed the look of shock and horror on Macy's face. She lifted her arm and Macy pulled her up. "Thanks. Long story short, Angeletti's giving Piebald to the science department and Joe, Kevin, Van Dyke, and I have detention on Saturday."
"WHAT?" Macy cried.
Stella put a comforting hand on Macy's shoulder. "Don't worry, everything's gonna be okay."
The look on Macy's face was one she reserved for long-standing rivalries and state championships. Even though Stella was standing several steps higher than Macy was, she couldn't help but feel small compared to her friend.
"How?" Macy demanded.
Stella stepped down and put her arm around Macy's shoulders. "I have a plan. A good one!" she added at Macy's incredulous look. "And phase one requires one of two things."
"Why do I think I'm not going to like either of these things?" Macy asked as they walked slowly down the stairs.
"I'm the one who doesn't like one of them. The first option involves me flirting with Bobby Warbley," Stella said with a shudder.
"Bobby Warbley?" Macy asked, equally horrified. "He's the president of the AV Club which, usually, I wouldn't be so down on, but he embodies every negative stereotype there is about nerds. Including the bad fashion sense."
"I know," Stella said shortly. "But these are desperate times. Option two though," she said with a bright smile that worried Macy, "only requires you to call one little phone number."
"Why do I have to call it?"
"Because you're the only one I know -- and can speak to without wanting to kill -- who has it."
Macy stopped at the foot of the stairs and pulled out of Stella's embrace, crossing her arms over her chest. "Who's number?"
Stella's Cheshire grin did nothing to quell the foreboding in the pit of Macy's stomach.
The entire school seemed dour on Thursday. The news that someone had been punished, unpunished, and then punished again had everyone down. No one was safe and everyone seemed afraid to get on Angeletti's bad side. The halls were eerily silent, with students shuffling to their classes in near silence, some even too afraid to close their lockers because of how loud it would be.
"This is insane," Joe hissed, watching Van Dyke help a freshman get his locker closed without slamming it.
"Yes, it is," Nick said, jotting down a line on a notepad.
"Dude!" Joe snapped, his voice sharp in the quiet hallway.
"What?" Nick asked, glancing around in annoyance as if fearing Angeletti would spring from the lockers to give Joe a double detention for being overly loud.
"You're writing a song about this? While our people are suffering?"
Nick let the full force of his "seriously?" look settle on Joe before saying, "I'm recording Angeletti's offenses. He's struck fear into the heart of the student body -- and not in the cool Batman way. I'm going to present my evidence to the school board at their meeting tonight."
"You're going to a school board meeting?"
"If it'll stop this, yes."
Kevin wandered down the hall towards them, casting confused glances over his shoulders as he came.
"Looking for Angeletti, Kev?" Nick asked, pen poised over his notepad.
"No," Kevin said, frowning seriously. "I just thought I saw someone really familiar by the administration offices."
"You mean like one of the hundreds of students we go to school with and see every day?" Joe asked.
Kevin either didn't understand the dig or didn't think it worth responding to. "No, they're everyday-familiar, this guy was once-in-a-while-familiar."
"Could it have been someone who works at the school?" Nick asked.
"No, he was wearing a uniform."
"So he was a student?" Joe asked.
Kevin sighed and leaned against the lockers. "No. I don't think so. This is gonna bug me."
"Psst!" someone nearby hissed. "No loitering!"
Nick smiled down the hall at Emma. "Thanks," he mouthed and pulled his brothers towards the offices. "Come on, maybe we can find your mystery man and ask him who he is."
Student traffic decreased dramatically as they neared the offices until the three were alone in the hall.
"There's no one here," Joe said.
"It was worth a sho--"
"Is that Stella?" Joe asked sharply, pushing Nick aside to get a better view of the blonde head of hair just visible around the nearest corner. The head turned at the noise, just enough that Joe was certain that was Stella's profile. He speed walked past the slowly opening door to Angeletti's office just as she disappeared from view.
"That's not gonna go well," Nick sighed.
"Neither is that," Kevin said, looking and sounding like he'd just found out the original Lassie had died over half a century ago.
Nick paled as well when he saw who was coming out of Angeletti's office: Macy.
"What happened?" Kevin asked, coming up behind her.
"Whoa!" she cried, jumping around and clutching her chest. "Don't do that! You scared me half to death!"
"Good thing she wasn't holding any sports equipment," Nick muttered, feeling the need to fill the sarcasm void since Joe was gone in search of Stella. Kevin elbowed him. Hard.
"Did you get in trouble?" Kevin asked with a sympathetic wince.
"Kind of," Macy said, not meeting his eyes.
"Are you still gonna be able to play on Saturday?"
The corners of Macy's mouth pulled up slightly. "We'll see."
Nick and Kevin exchanged confused glances. Macy didn't usually act so weird and Kevin had never seen that look on her face. Of course, if she had gotten detention and been forced to sit out Saturday's game, she was probably really mad. And holding in that anger would explain her strange behavior.
"Well," Kevin said cautiously, "if we both have detention we could sit next to each other."
Macy's strange look faded to a happy blush. "Really?"
"Yeah. It could even be fun!"
The bell rang through the hall and Macy muttered something the boys couldn't hear before rushing to her first class.
Once she was gone Nick punched Kevin lightly in the arm.
"What was that for?"
"Being a dork. Let's go before we're late and Angeletti gets another chance to punish the Lucas brothers."
"Stella!" Joe called. Stella was already turning another corner and Joe thought he saw her talking quietly to a guy as she did. That did it, Joe ran down the hall, his tennis shoes slipping on the slick floor when he turned the corner. "Stella!" Joe snapped.
Stella whirled around, letting the bathroom door fall from her hand. "Joe! Hi!"
Joe approached her cautiously. The hall was nothing but office windows on one side and science classes on the other with no lockers in sight, which meant no one had any reason to come this close to Angeletti. So what was Stella doing here?
"What are you doing here?"
Stella smiled at him the way she did when Frankie was acting younger than his years to get on her good side. "I go to school here, Joe."
"I mean in this hallway," Joe said. "And who were you talking to?"
"I wasn't talking to anyone."
Joe crossed his arms over his chest and did his best to stare Stella down. "I saw you walking with someone," he insisted. "A guy."
Stella's light expression faded instantly. "That's what this is about? Your stupid jealousy?"
"I'm not jealous! I'm just concerned for my best friend's heart and, as her best friend, feel that I have the duty to pass judgment over all possible suitors. I don't care if you're having some sort of secret rendezvous, but it would make my job easier if you'd just let me see the guy."
"First of all," Stella said, "to that whole passing judgment thing? No. Second of all, if I was having a secret rendezvous with a guy, why would he go in there?"
Joe glanced up at the circular placard on the door. "Oh," he said, gulping nervously. "Well, he could have gone into --" he stopped, realizing that the boys' and girls' bathrooms were at opposite ends of this particular hallway so any would-be suitor couldn't possibly have disappeared into the guys' bathroom quickly enough. "Sorry?" he said sheepishly.
The bell rang and Stella smiled at him sweetly. "It's okay, but you'd better get going before you're late again."
"I'll walk you to your next class," Joe said, offering her his arm.
"Uh, actually, Joe, I kind of need you to leave."
"Why?" Joe asked, his earlier suspicions rising up again.
Stella pointed over her shoulder. "So that I can go in there without you noticing."
"Oh. Sorry."
He hurried away and Stella ducked into the bathroom. Once the door had shut behind her she put her hands on her hips and met the eyes of the room's single occupant with a sigh. "That was close."
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