Nathan is waiting by my locker at dismissal. “Seems to me the whole school thinks car three is still out there somewhere—”

  “Which is the whole point,” I interject.

  “Supposedly, Candiotti’s talking about renting one of those metal detectors people use at the beach,” he says nervously. “I don’t like it.”

  I roll my eyes at him. “Sometimes I wonder how you and I ever became friends.”

  He doesn’t back down. “You know how Spider-Man has his Spider-Sense? Well, I have a sixth sense too—every time you’re about to get me in trouble!”

  I grin. “And is it tingling?”

  “No, it’s howling like an air-raid siren! I call it the Oliver Alert!”

  “Well, you can hit mute because everything’s going to be fine.”

  The next day, I get to school early to check on prank status. As I head for the front door, a white Toyota Prius turns into the lot and parks. Mr. Perkins is at the wheel, with Mr. Aidact in the passenger seat. It feels kind of backward—not that they’re arriving together, but that the student teacher is giving the regular teacher a ride instead of the other way around.

  I notice that the passenger side of the Toyota is riding low, barely clearing the pavement. “You might have a flat tire, Mr. Perkins,” I call helpfully. “You’re leaning right.”

  He looks startled. “Thanks, Oliver. I’ll get it checked out.”

  I can’t resist adding, “I wonder if they found car three yet.”

  Mr. Aidact fixes me with that steady blue-eyed gaze of his. “There was no car three.”

  My heart skips a beat. “But they found one, two, and four. There has to be a three.”

  “A group of high school pupils performed a similar action involving piglets numbered one, two, and four. It took a week for the school to determine that there was no piglet number three.”

  I don’t pass out on the spot, but it’s sheer force of will that keeps me standing. He’s 100 percent right. I read about those high school kids online—that’s where I got the whole idea. I didn’t have pigs so I used cars. But how could Mr. Aidact figure that out? When I googled top school pranks, there were over thirty-four million hits! How did he find that one out of so many others?

  “Really?” I play it cool. “That’s—a coincidence.”

  The new teacher fixes me with that unwavering laser-like stare that makes you feel like a specimen on a slide. “It wasn’t a coincidence at all. It was you.”

  “But—” I cut myself off before claiming my innocence. A true professional never lets himself get caught in an outright lie. You can be forgiven for pranking a school, but never for lying to a teacher.

  “Handling those toy cars leaves a telltale V mark on your palm,” Mr. Aidact explains. “I noticed it on Mr. Benrahma—and on you.”

  I hold up both hands in a gesture of innocence.

  “Not now,” Mr. Aidact adds. “Yesterday. They were also on Nathan’s hands. I think a week of detentions should be about right for disrupting the entire school.”

  Perkins is writing in his notebook at warp speed. But the look on his face is so angry that I’ll bet he would have given us a month of detentions. Maybe a year.

  “Sorry, Mr. Aidact,” I mumble. Mostly I’m sorry that I have to find Nathan and give him the good news. He’s always so skittish about getting caught. This is going to be like his worst nightmare coming true.

  “I accept your apology,” the teacher says in a voice so flat that I can’t really tell if he means it.

  Mr. Aidact locks the car and the two disappear into the building. I feel like I’m in a Hollywood western: there’s a new sheriff in town.

  That’s when I notice that the right side of the Prius isn’t low anymore. It’s totally normal.

  It must have been a trick of the light.

  5

  CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

  * * *

  To: Department of Education, Washington, DC

  From: Paul Perkins, PE

  Project: AIDACT

  Have been observing AIDACT at Brightling Middle School for four weeks now. AIDACT is performing within the expected range of teaching proficiency. Student progress has been acceptable. AIDACT sometimes has difficulty working with students’ wide range of personalities and ability levels but has shown the capacity to adjust in innovative and sometimes unexpected ways. Future goals include smiling more and recognizing common expressions, such as “hitting the ceiling” and “raining cats and dogs.” There have been no security breaches.

  PROJECT STATUS: Green

  SPECIAL EXPENSES

  1 venetian blind (installed in classroom)

  1 heavy-duty suspension upgrade for Toyota Prius

  6

  Steinke Newhouse

  The three-thirty bell usually means it’s time to go home. And it does mean that for most people. But not for me.

  For me, three thirty means it’s time to go to detention. It’s not that I have detention every day. It’s that every day, I get a detention. I get them one at a time, by the week, and even by the month. I got sentenced to a whole semester of them once, back in sixth grade.

  My detentions always have something to do with arguing. I’m fantastic at arguing, if I say so myself. I don’t think there’s anyone at Brightling who’s half as good at it as me. Principal Candiotti says the goal of middle school is to discover what you’ve got a knack for. Well, I’ve already done that, but do I get any credit for it? No. I get detention.

  Like today. I’m on the second leg of a three-day stretch for fighting with Brian Salazar. He said Young Thug is better than Drake. In what universe? Although to be honest, I like Young Thug too. But just hearing Brian talking about him being the greatest made his songs worse than I used to think they were. And when we started shoving on the stairs, that created “a dangerous situation.” Like it’s my problem Brian has no taste in music.

  Mrs. Rostenkowski, the guidance counselor, is always nagging at me to “turn down the volume.”

  “Why can’t you be more agreeable, Steinke? It’s okay to express your opinion, but nobody likes a person who argues over everything.”

  “I don’t agree,” I inform her. How can I ever explain it? I don’t argue just for the fun of it. I argue because everyone else is always wrong.

  It’s not my fault. If you tell me the sea is blue, I’ll explain why it’s green. If you say it’s green, it’ll start to look blue to me. If you love football, well, baseball is better. If you put down school pizza, I’ll give you an argument about that too. I’m not trying to be a jerk. The minute you complain about it, it just tastes better to me, until it may as well have come from all the great chefs of Italy.

  Mrs. Rostenkowski is always leaning on me to channel my arguing skills in a more positive way. “Join the debate team,” she urges. “Debates are just arguments that follow a set of rules.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” I retort. “They practice at three thirty. You know where I am at three thirty.”

  She just sighs and shakes her head. Adults do that around me. I take it personally.

  When I was little, my parents brought me to a behavior specialist to figure out why the other kids in preschool didn’t like me. The doctor said there’s a condition called oppositional defiant disorder, which means you automatically go against everybody and everything. Turns out I don’t have that. But whatever I do have is the next best thing.

  So I guess no one really knows why I’m like this, but I have to say being named Steinke doesn’t help. Every dentist’s office that has to call me out of the waiting room, every substitute teacher who has to read my name off a list—I’m Stinky. And the other kids—even the geniuses, who can do calculus and think in computer code—can’t figure it out. Stinky. Like I stink.

  I don’t stink. They stink.

  Mom says it’s a family name. The Steinkes were lawyers back in South Carolina in the 1800s. No one could argue like a Steinke, they used to say. So I’m not only carrying on the name, I’m carrying on the tradition.

  Lucky me. I’m carrying it all the way to the detention room.

  That’s Ms. Tapper’s class today—it moves around, and every day a different teacher is in charge. The warden, they all call it—but I don’t. I prefer jailer. You’d think everybody would see how much better that is, but no.

  Inside the room, I’m standing around with a few of the other detention kids. A couple are regulars, like me, plus three randos—normal kids who happened to get caught breaking some rule or other. Ms. Tapper is behind her desk with her back to us. She’s talking on her phone, trying to whisper. But she’s speaking so urgently that everybody can hear.

  “. . . I have to get home to let the plumber in before my basement floods! . . . Well, who else can cover detention today? Isn’t Margie here? . . . Right—I forgot her in-laws were visiting. . . .”

  “We could go home,” I suggest loudly. Wouldn’t that be something? I can’t remember the last time I made it home before five. Mom would probably faint when I walked in the front door.

  “Quiet, Steinke.” Or does she say Stinky? The two names are so close that I never know how mad I should be. She waves me silent and continues her frantic conversation. “Well, there must be someone . . . Him? I know he’s good to go in the classroom, but . . . you’re right—detention is the same thing. Do you think he’d be willing to—” She lets out a flustered chuckle. “What am I saying? Of course he will. Thanks a million. You’re a lifesaver.”

  In a nervous rush, she gathers us together like a flock of chickens and bustles us to a classroom in the seventh-grade wing. There’s a teacher waiting in the doorway—the new guy, Aidact. I’ve seen him around, but I don’t have him for any classes. He teaches mostly seventh grade, and I’m in eighth.

  “Mr. Aidact, you have to cover detention today!” Ms. Tapper shrills.

  Mr. Aidact moves aside to let us into the room. It’s his student teacher—Perkins—who makes a big deal about it. “Nobody told me anything about this—”

  “You have to!” Ms. Tapper cuts him off, her voice moving into the range that only dogs can hear. “It’s an emergency!”

  She begins to herd us through the door, but Perkins blocks our way. Since I’m an expert arguer, it captures my interest. Teachers normally act like one big happy family, and here are Tapper and Perkins brewing up a pretty serious beef.

  “This is not part of our arrangement,” Perkins insists. “You’re taking unfair advantage of the Department of Education.”

  This Perkins guy doesn’t talk like any student teacher I’ve ever had before. So he and Ms. Tapper step out into the hall, and you can hear them fighting it out. I look over at Mr. Aidact, and he’s not even paying attention. He couldn’t care less. The expression on his face is sort of a smile that’s more of an un-smile, like that painting the Mona Lisa.

  Meanwhile, the battle in the hall comes to an abrupt end when Ms. Tapper shrills, “My basement is filling up with water!” And the next thing we hear is the clickety-clack of her high heels as she takes off down the hall and out of the building.

  I’ve been in a lot of arguments, but I never thought you could win one by saying that. Teachers!

  So now Mr. Aidact is jailer no matter what. Perkins shoots him a helpless shrug.

  “All right,” Mr. Aidact tells us. “Everybody choose a desk.”

  “You don’t pick your own seats in detention,” I inform him.

  “Very well.” He directs me to the front row. “You can sit there.”

  “What—right in front of your desk? No way!”

  Mr. Aidact doesn’t get mad, but Perkins practically blows a gasket. “Just sit anywhere!”

  “Weren’t you listening?” I demand. “You don’t pick your own seats in detention.”

  “Let me know which desks are unacceptable,” Mr. Aidact suggests, “and I’ll assign you one of the others.”

  I’m not a big teacher fan, but this guy makes a decent amount of sense.

  Eventually, we all get settled at spots around the room. Besides the five of us, there are a couple of seventh graders—these kids Oliver and Nathan. Mr. Aidact calls the roll from the paper Ms. Tapper gave him. Since this is his first time meeting me, I’m expecting a Stinky that would echo off the ceiling tiles. But he gets it right on the first try.

  A confused murmur goes up in detention. I bet some of those kids have never heard my name pronounced the right way before.

  “It’s Stinky,” Mia Spinelli informs Mr. Aidact helpfully.

  “No, it’s not!” I snap.

  Mr. Aidact tilts his head to one side. “Steinke,” he repeats. “It’s a name that dates back centuries, derived from Middle Low German.”

  “Yeah!” I exclaim, although I didn’t know any of that stuff. “I’m a Middle Low German! And I don’t stink!”

  Most people do homework in detention. I’m not most people. If you do what you’re supposed to, the jailers win. So I just sit there, looking up at the front. All the other teachers hate it, but it doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Aidact. It’s boring, though, so my mind wanders through my Spotify playlist. I have 1,437 songs on it, which is why my dad says my phone is so slow. I skip through them in my head—searching for the Song of the Day—and sometimes I can feel my lips moving as I murmur out the lyrics, clicking my teeth along with the beat.

  The Song of the Day is always different. I don’t really pick it. It’s more like it picks me. I can get through dozens of songs in a one-hour detention period. But eventually, one of them comes back again and again, repeating itself until it’s running on an endless loop in my brain. Today’s is turning into “Rags2Riches 2” by Rod Wave.

  “I put up them millions, I’ll never go broke

  I’m a god in my hood, I give everyone hope . . .”

  The next thing I know, Mr. Aidact is standing in front of me, watching me intently, his head in that tilted position. That’s when I realize that the music in my brain isn’t just in my brain. I’ve been mumbling it out loud.

  I figure now I’m in trouble for talking during detention. But Mr. Aidact doesn’t get mad at all. His mouth opens and he says:

  “I remember the times I had nowhere to go

  Down to my lowest, I turned to a pro . . .”

  It hits me: He’s rapping! He knows the song! He’s picking up exactly where I left off.

  “Mr. Aidact!” I exclaim, stunned. “You know ‘Rags2Riches 2’?”

  The teacher nods. “By Rod Wave—although that verse is performed by Lil Baby.”

  “Right!” I enthuse. “So—you like rap?”

  Perkins hurries over. “Mr. Aidact, can I have a word with you, please?”

  As if it’s his business what kind of music Mr. Aidact listens to! I leap to my feet. “Leave him alone! What’s it to you if Mr. Aidact is into Rod Wave?”

  That’s how I get my detention for tomorrow.

  Well, maybe I can’t tell off a student teacher, but there’s still a way for me to support Mr. Aidact. For English, we’re supposed to write descriptive paragraphs on the person we admire the most. I wasn’t planning on doing it, because I don’t have anybody like that. I hate everybody equally. But today, there’s an exception.

  I sit down, take a piece of paper out of my binder, and start my paragraph:

  The person I admire most is Mr. Aidact. . . .

  7

  Principal Candiotti

  The principal’s office at Brightling has a floor-to-ceiling picture window, providing a breathtaking view of School Street cutting up through the ravine. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it. I was in eighth grade and captain of the girls’ field hockey team—they called us the Lady Bobcats in those days. We had just won the state championship, and our principal, Mr. Stonehart, invited us all into his office for a victory toast of sparkling apple cider. We took turns drinking out of the trophy—not something I’d allow for health reasons, but things were different in the 1970s. The window must have been brand-new back then. I’d never seen glass so perfect and clear. I decided on the spot that I wanted to be a teacher and, someday, a principal, with an office just like this one. I still remember my exact thoughts back then: Success has its privileges.

  Well, here I am, principal of my old middle school, with that very office and that very window. Of course, the view looked a lot better back then, with the sun streaming in through the woods. Today there’s a monsoon out there. Sheets of wind-driven rain are battering my beautiful window, and the only streaming going on is on the driveway, which is ankle deep in water. The privilege part is me being on the inside looking out—sipping my coffee, warm and dry, watching Mr. Aidact unloading the morning buses.

  In twos and threes, he sweeps them out of the folding doors and runs them through the pelting rain to the front entrance. Some of the smaller sixth graders have to be supported, or the wind might knock them over. By the time they make it into the building, thirty feet away, they’re pretty much drenched.

  So is Mr. Aidact, not so you’d notice it. Sure, his hair is plastered to his head, and his clothes are as wet as if he’d jumped, fully dressed, into a swimming pool. But it isn’t stopping him, or even slowing him down. He isn’t smiling, but he doesn’t look miserable, like anybody else would if they found themselves caught in a downpour. It’s as if he doesn’t even know he’s waterlogged.

  Come to think of it, maybe he really doesn’t.

  I’m not proud of my staff. They should be out there helping him. Bus duty is shared equally among the faculty. I feel a twinge of guilt. It’s pretty clear that the other teachers have been taking advantage of Mr. Aidact—having him cover their duties for the cafeteria, lunch recess, and detention.

  I brought it up to Kelly Tapper after the third day that she dumped her detention duty onto him. “Come on, Kelly. Your basement pipes can’t leak every day.”

  She was embarrassed but not too shy to explain it away. “He doesn’t complain.”