Chapter 11

The following day was the Thursday before the first game of the season which meant that football practice was a light walk-through. It was especially light for Fred, who was third on the depth chart. They finished up by four o'clock and Fred showered and then dressed slowly while his teammates scrambled out the door to make good use of the free two hours.

As a football team member, Fred had 24-hour access to the team's locker room which was connected to the gym which was connected to the rest of the school. He could get in any time but he had to use a code that would identify him and there was a video camera pointed at the door. It had been made clear that, if he used the access to get in for any other reason than working out, he was off the team. And that certainly included letting in non-team members.

Fred left his ID card in his locker and made his way through the school to one of the side doors where he found Daphne, Shaggy, Velma, and Scooby waiting. The halls were empty as they made their way to the front office. They stopped at the glass interior door to the office and discretely peered in through the door.

Mrs. Stanford seemed to be tidying up her workstation in preparation for going home and didn't see the five sets of eyes just outside the door. Mr. Deedle poked his head out of his office and they both looked around as if to make sure they were alone. The five interlopers jerked their heads back just in time to avoid being seen. Mr. Deedle then closed his door and Mrs. Stanford stood and made her way back to the small private bathroom off the main office.

The five heads poked back around the corner and waited. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes until Mrs. Stanford reappeared from the bathroom… wearing a cheerleader's outfit.

Then, Mr. Deedle opened his door and he was wearing a football uniform.

What the…?

Mr. Deedle crooked his finger and invited the woman into his office. She giggled and joined him within before he closed the door again.

Four mouths dropped open. Scooby was clueless. Daphne spoke first. "Did we just see what I think we just saw?"

Fred's mouth was a round 'O'. "Mr. Deedle and Mrs. Stafford are both married—but not to each other."

Shaggy pursed his brow. "Um-m-m-m… huh."

Velma's mind took off on a different trek. "I wonder if this has anything to do with the missing money."

"Why would it?" Daphne was still watching Mr. Deedle's closed door and trying not to picture what was happening beyond it.

"I don't know. The money was in his office, wasn't it? I guess anything strange happening in his office might be related."

Suddenly they heard a muffled feminine squeal followed by Mr. Deedle's voice. "Touchdown!"

Shaggy was shaking his head. "I guess that classifies as strange."

Scooby was now on board. "Bleck!"

They waited for fifteen minutes before Mr. Deedle's door opened and Mrs. Stafford skulked back to the bathroom.

Fred whispered. "Scooby Doo. Position!"

Scooby crawled across the lobby floor and squeezed under the bench next to the office door. He was fully hidden just as the bathroom door opened and Mrs. Stafford—now in her normal clothes-left and headed out to the parking lot.

A moment later, Mr. Deedle's door opened as he was retying his bowtie. He looked around, turned out the lights, and stepped from the office into the lobby.

When he stepped through the office door, Scooby's tail snaked its way out from the bench and blocked the door jamb as the door tried to slam shut. The operative word was 'slam'. When they had made the plan, no one told him how much it was going to hurt. He did his best to stifle a yelp but it still came out as a muffled groan. Mr. Deedle turned for a moment at the sound, saw nothing, checked his watch again, and then headed to his car.

As soon as the principal left the building and was out of sight, Fred jumped out and yanked the door open.

"Good job, Scoob!" Shaggy congratulated his friend. "You were like a spy or something!"

Scooby held up his tail which had been bent into a 'Z' by the door and whimpered before straightening it out with his paws.

Fred took over. "All right. Let's toss Mr. Deedle's office and find his password.

Velma was already entering the office. She sat at the principal's desk and within five seconds yelled "Got it!"

Fred stepped over next to her. "You have his password already?"

"It was on a post-it note stuck to his computer screen."

"That was anti-climactic." Fred seemed disappointed.

While Shaggy and Scooby stayed at the outer office door on lookout, Fred and Daphne gathered around Velma as she typed Mr. Deedle's e-mail address as the username and then the password. The screen came alive. A quick search through the folders found one marked "Security System".

Velma opened it. "And voila! There's the operations manual. I'll just download it to my thumb drive…"

Fred pointed at the screen. "Get the contract with the security company and their proposal while you're at it."

"Sure." She dragged and dropped. Done"

"Guys!" It was Shaggy's whispered from the door. "Someone's coming!" Daphne jumped to turn off the office lights and closed Mr. Deedle's door while Shaggy gently shut the office door.

Shaggy and Scooby watched through the window wall as the exterior door opened and the motion-activated lights came on in The Mall—revealing Mr. Marcus, their homeroom and shop teacher. He walked down The Mall and turned into the hallway where his classroom and shop were.

Mr. Deedle's office door opened a crack and Daphne's voice came out. "What's happening?"

"Mr. Marcus just went down to his classroom."

"Reah. Rassroom."

Mr. Deedle's office door opened wide, and Fred jumped out. "We've gotten what we came for. It's time to leave. Follow me!"

He led them through The Mall to the door through which he had led them in about thirty minutes before. All exited but Fred who returned to the locker room and left as if he had just taken a long shower.

Shaggy's house was the closest, so they all walked there and called their various parents or chauffeurs to come and pick them up. Their cover story was the standard 'school project'. It helped that it was true in a technical sort of way.

xXx

Adrenaline does amazing things. It brought Velma into school the next morning at almost a run, even though there were dark bags under her eyes from a near-sleepless night. It caused Daphne to follow her to her locker even though she might be seen speaking to Velma Dinkley. Fred followed closely thereafter because he continued to keep a close eye on Daphne—having not yet fully comprehended the whole stalker thing.

Shaggy was not at school yet.

Velma was leaning over her locker when Daphne strolled up and casually leaned against the neighboring locker as if she were doing anything but speaking to Velma. Fred came up and struck a similar pose next to Daphne which put Daphne in the awkward position of having to pretend to not talk to two people.

But last night's excitement was too much for her. "What have you found out?"

Velma looked up and noticed that Daphne was speaking but not looking at her. Her therapist had taught her that looking at someone was a prerequisite for conversation. This was confusing. But there was no one else that she was looking at, so Velma proceeded.

She had notes but didn't need them. "Not surprisingly, the School Board bought the cheapest possible system, and it has a lot of weaknesses. The lines are not supervised, and they used simple magnetic switches rather than balance magnetic switches."

Daphne smiled at a passerby and whispered under her breath. "What does that mean?"

"I didn't know myself until a little after midnight last night. But that's not all. They save on computer memory storage costs by having the CCTV cameras tied to the intruder detection system so that the camera only turns on when someone opens a protected door and then runs for fifteen seconds before going back into sleep mode."

Daphne's fake smile was getting strained. "This would all be more impressive if I understood it."

"I'm getting to that. Even unsupervised lines register an alarm if their base mode is changed—like from 'normally open' to 'normally closed'. So, that makes it unlikely that our intruder would try to circumvent the system by cutting or short-circuiting a wire…"

Daphne was getting frustrated. "Does this train of thought have a caboose?"

Velma went on, undeterred. "A magnetic switch is pair of little boxes at the top of the door. One box, the magnet, attaches to the door and the other box, the switch, attaches to the door frame. The switch is held in place by the magnet but, when the door is opened, the magnet swings away and the switch changes which sets off the camera."

Fred was into technical stuff. "So, another magnet can be used to fool the switch into thinking the door never opened!"

Daphne was catching up. "Which means that this would have to be done from inside the building—an inside job."

"That is the most likely theory." Velma pulled out her laptop and placed it on the shelf in her locker. "Last night, I ran an algorithm which looked through every social media post that included pictures or videos of this school since the beginning of the school year and which included a door. Teenagers take lots of pictures. So, I had to run a second algorithm which looked for doors which had magnet switches on them. That was still lots of pictures, so I stayed awake all night sorting through them."

Both Daphne and Fred forgot to be cool and turned to look at the screen in Velma's locker. Velma continued. "This is the side door at the end of The Mall. Pay attention to the magnetic switch." She started scrolling through pictures.

"This is Tuesday afternoon a week ago. Then Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon…"

Fred pointed at the screen. "The shadow under the switch got deeper!"

Velma nodded. "Which indicates that the switch suddenly got thicker. Now look at Thursday morning."

"It's thin again."

"Now Friday afternoon."

"Thick again."

"And finally, Monday morning."

"Thin again."

Fred was engrossed. "Which means that someone stuck a magnet on the switch on Wednesday. Took it down on Thursday. Put it back up again on Friday and then removed it again by Monday morning."

Daphne tilted her head. "Why?"

This was what Velma had stayed up all night to say. "Wednesday night was a test run. And then on Friday, they fooled the switch in order to get in, steal the money, and get out-while framing whoever happened to be in the building at the time. Which was us."

Daphne sucked on her lower lip. "They didn't target us. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

First bell rang and they made their way to homeroom. Shaggy was still nowhere to be found. Daphne sat with her usual entourage.

Sarah Handler smirked. "I saw you hanging out with Robot Girl. Are you two besties now?"

Daphne turned her withering glare on Sarah. "Well, let's see, Sarah. Velma and I and the two boys were arrested on Monday and we remain the prime suspects in grand theft. Maybe Velma and I have some things we need to talk about!"

xXx

When Shaggy had returned from the woods behind his uncle's house the previous night, Scooby had to sleep next to the open window rather than on the bed with his friend because the smell of weed was so obnoxious to his delicate sense of smell. In his drug-addled fog, Shaggy had forgotten to set his alarm, and it was after eight o'clock when his red eyes opened.

A glance at his phone showed him his tardiness and he jumped from the bed and ran out into the hallway and into the bathroom. Both his mother and uncle would be at work which left him alone in the house, so he turned on the bathroom fan, opened the window and lit one up. It was great to be out of jail. Within a few moments, the anxiety of being late was dissipating. As was the last of the roach.

After a few moments, he was dressed and heading downstairs for what he hoped would be a large breakfast when he found his mother standing in the kitchen.

He tried to keep his cool and appear straight. "Hi Mom. What are you doing home?"

Paula Rogers stared at her son in silence.

Scooby stopped on the stairs, seeing the look on Paula's face.

Shaggy tried again. "Mom, are you okay?"

She finally spoke with a hard, bitter tone. "You were in jail three days ago. Your father wanted to leave you there, hoping that it would teach you a lesson and help you get your life turned around."

"It will. I promise."

"You promise?! You think I didn't smell you last night? Do you think I can't smell you right now?! Maybe your father was right, and I was wrong. Maybe you should go to jail and see where this kind of life leads."

"Mom, it's just a little pot…"

"A LITTLE POT! It is doing something that is illegal here and that your father and I have begged you to stop! It is doing something that has made your grades plummet and is threatening your ability to get into any kind of decent college. It is something that is taking over your life and destroying your future. That is not 'a little pot'. That is a huge problem which I can't seem to help you with."

"I'll stop, Mom, I promise."

"I'm calling your father and letting him come back. Heaven knows I can't handle you myself. This is evidence of that."

"I swear! I'll quit. I won't do it anymore!"

"I'm going to work now. Your father and I will talk with you more tonight."

And she left with tears streaming down her face.

Shaggy was shaking and barely controlling his own tears. His anxiety had come back with a vengeance.

"Rar roo really going to quit?"

"Yes, Scoob. I'm really going to quit. Tomorrow. Right now, I just need a little more to calm down."

If Scooby could cry, he would.