I clam up because Mr. Aidact is coming our way.

  Stinky Newhouse throws out a line: “What’s poppin’?”

  “Brand-new whip, just hopped in,” Mr. Aidact spits back.

  They smile at each other and bump fists.

  Detention sure is different now that the new teacher is running things. It used to have a solemn atmosphere, where the lawbreakers of the school went to be punished for their crimes. Now it’s turned into a game of Stump Mr. Aidact, who seems to have memorized every song lyric in history. It started with Stinky and rap songs, but now kids grill him with lines from pop, rock, country, heavy metal, reggae, punk, show tunes, and alternative. Mr. Aidact always has the answer. Even Oliver got in on the action. Last night, he spent an hour memorizing part of an opera that’s all in German. Without even missing a beat, Mr. Aidact rattled off what comes next. (At least I’m guessing that’s what it was. I don’t speak German.)

  Mr. Perkins is pretty salty about the whole thing. I don’t think he loves it when Mr. Aidact has jobs beyond being his supervising teacher. He doesn’t like it that Mr. Aidact is coaching girls’ field hockey either. What he really hates is when there’s a conflict between the two, and he has to cover detention.

  “That’s not my job,” I overhear him complaining to Principal Candiotti.

  Seems to me student teachers learn to be real teachers by doing teacher things. If that’s not his job, what is? That guy is way too cranky to be a teacher. He needs a career more suited to his personality, like professional hermit or the person in every neighborhood who tells kids to get off his lawn.

  The day of the Halloween dance isn’t much of a school day because most classes are working on last-minute decorations for the gym. The teachers aren’t thrilled about it, but the PTA ran out of money, so we have to improvise. Nobody sold the gross flax bars that were supposed to be our big fundraiser, which means everything we can’t afford to buy, we have to make ourselves. It isn’t going to look very slick, but the deejay wouldn’t cut his price, so the entire budget is going to him.

  Even detention gets in on the act. We spend the hour cutting out stencils of pumpkins, witches, and black cats, and making a black-and-orange paper chain.

  “Why are we doing this?” Stinky complains, as five of eight legs drop off his stenciled spider. “What is this for?”

  “For the dance,” supplies Mia, who spends almost as much time in detention as Stinky, due to chronic lateness.

  “What dance?” Stinky demands.

  “The Halloween dance,” Oliver tells him.

  Stinky is mystified. “When’s that?”

  “Tonight!” Mia explodes.

  “That’s why we don’t call it the Groundhog Day Dance,” Oliver adds. “Because it isn’t Groundhog Day. It’s Halloween.”

  “Well, I’m not going to any dance,” Stinky grumbles.

  “Why not?” puts in Mr. Aidact.

  “It’s stupid.”

  “A dance is a social gathering,” Mr. Aidact lectures. “It can be neither smart nor stupid.”

  “There’s going to be a deejay,” Mia adds. “You like music.”

  “I don’t have a costume,” Stinky mutters.

  “Just draw a fake mustache with Magic Marker,” Oliver tells him. “You don’t want to miss this. The place is going to be on wheels!”

  I almost break my neck whipping my head around to glare at him, my Oliver Alert blaring. We’re doing something so against the rules that our next stretch in detention could be a hundred years, and he’s dropping hints in front of a teacher!

  Oliver winks at me.

  I don’t wink back.

  11

  Oliver Zahn

  I guess I grew a lot more than I thought since fifth grade. When I take out the Batman costume, it looks like an outfit for one of those American Girl dolls. Well, not that small, but you get the picture.

  I’m stuck with it, though. The Halloween dance starts in less than an hour. It’s too late to come up with a plan B. So I strip down to my skivvies, step into the “feet,” and pull the stretchy polyester fabric all the way up. It’s a pretty tight squeeze—especially if you want to breathe—and I practically have to dislocate both shoulders to get the arms in. I read somewhere that Houdini had to do that to escape from a straitjacket. Well, if he could do it in the name of stardom, I can do it in the name of rule-wrecking.

  I throw on the cape and the headpiece and examine myself in the mirror. Wow, I look like I’ve been spray-painted gray. It’s so tight that you can tell that my belly button is an “innie,” not an “outie.” It’s pretty humiliating. The good news is that I’ve got the Grim Reaper cloak to cover it up with and a skeleton mask to complete the outfit. I’m only going to be Batman when I’m riding the Big Wheel on the video—and no one’s going to know that’s me.

  “Leaving now,” I call to my parents. “I won’t be too late.”

  My mom catches up with me in the hall. “You be careful, Oliver. There are high schoolers out there, picking on the younger ones and stealing their candy.”

  “I’m not going trick-or-treating,” I tell her. “I’m just going to the dance.”

  There are a lot of little kids on the street already, and I make a big show of pretending to be scared by their costumes, even the girl dressed as a Crayola crayon. I think they’re a lot more scared by me. The skeleton mask is really creepy. The kids are all carrying loot bags. Me too. Mine isn’t for candy, though. I’m hoping nobody notices that mine is shaped exactly like a Big Wheel. My Batman headpiece is in there too.

  I arrive at Nathan’s house at the same time as a group of trick-or-treaters, and Nathan’s dad tosses a couple of Tootsie Pops into my bag. They make a loud rattling sound as they bounce off the Big Wheel.

  “That’s quite a stash you’ve got there, kid,” he comments. “How long have you been out here—since last week?”

  “It’s me, Mr. Popova. Oliver.”

  When Nathan comes down the stairs, I realize that I got off easy with the Batman suit. His family threw out all his old costumes, so he had to improvise what to put on under the Grim Reaper robes. He’s wearing his mom’s pink Lululemon leggings and a black T-shirt that reads DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR. I can see his eyes burning at me through the eyeholes of his skeleton mask.

  “It’s not that bad,” I assure him.

  “It’s worse,” he says mournfully. “These Lululemons look like I forgot to put on any pants.”

  “When the robe’s closed, all that will be covered,” I soothe. “Where’s your Big Wheel mask?”

  He slips a second mask into the bag and we set out for school. He carries both scythes, since I’ve got the bulky sack.

  The closer we get to Brightling, the more we’re on the alert. A lot of kids are arriving for the dance, clustering on the lawn, pointing and laughing, admiring one another’s costumes. Keeping to the shadows, we avoid the crowd and stash the big bag in the cover of some bushes close to the side entrance. Then we put on our skeleton masks and join the group out front to make sure everyone sees us—two Grim Reapers, and not Batman and the Lululemon guy at all.

  There are a few other Reapers, and the usual assortment of ghosts, wizards, and witches. The football players, as usual, are too lazy to put on costumes and just wear their uniforms. Rosalie is dressed up as Marie Curie, with glowing stones taped all over her white lab coat. Laki is a medieval knight, waving his six-foot-long plastic lance far too close to people’s faces. Ainsley is a chipmunk. A group of six eighth graders is the hit of the night so far. They’ve stitched themselves together into a multicolored caterpillar. They’re having a little trouble walking, but they’re an amazing sight. I’m really impressed—but, obviously, I’ve got bigger things to worry about in the coming hours.

  At exactly six thirty, they open the doors to the gym and we all pour inside. The place looks pretty good for an amateur decorating job. Most of the credit for that goes to the deejay’s special effects—bubbles rising, clouds of mist, and multicolored laser lights cutting the air. A lot of teachers are there as chaperones, including Principal Candiotti. I spot Mr. Aidact, who is methodically blowing up orange and black balloons using a helium tank. Rosalie’s mom is with him, talking a blue streak.

  Nathan sidles up to me. “Check out Perkins. He brought that giant briefcase. I wonder what he keeps in there?”

  “Probably his personality,” I reply. “He doesn’t want it to escape.”

  Nathan doesn’t answer. He’s staring at the door, where Stinky has just entered the gym. The detention king isn’t wearing a costume or even a mask. Also, he didn’t take my advice and draw on a fake mustache. There are only two things different about him. First, the word ME is written across his forehead in bright green Magic Marker. Second, clutched in his left hand is a sleek, silvery fish.

  Nathan and I practically break our legs getting over to him.

  “Stinky!” I exclaim. “Glad you’re here! Love the costume—great idea to come as . . .” I pause, hoping he’ll finish the sentence for me.

  “That shows what you know,” Stinky shoots back. “I’m not wearing a costume. I’m—” And he points to his forehead.

  “Awesome,” Nathan puts in. “You’re yourself. And . . . ?” He gestures toward the scaly form in the eighth grader’s fist.

  “Everybody thinks my name is Stinky—which it’s not!” he tells us with his usual aggrieved expression. “So when I started thinking about what I wanted to go as, I didn’t want to be a fireman or secretary of the navy or anything dumb like that. I just want to be me, so I wrote it right on my forehead.”

  “And why the fish?” I inquire.

  “I don’t stink. So I brought along something that does to show people the difference. Me”—he points to his forehead—“Stinky.” He brandishes the fish and then holds it up to his nose. “At least it will stink. It’s still a little frozen. Stupid fish.”

  At that moment, the sound system blasts to life with the first song of the night.

  “Gotta fly,” Stinky tells us briskly. “I need to request some music that doesn’t come from a kindergartner’s birthday party playlist.” He hustles off to the deejay station, fish held high.

  “I feel like we should be doing something, but I have no idea what,” Nathan muses nervously.

  I shrug. “What are we supposed to do? He’s an eighth grader. He could probably kill us.”

  “But we’re letting him make an idiot out of himself!”

  “No, we’re not,” I insist. “The place is packed; the air is full of mist and bubbles; there are costumes everywhere you look. Who’s going to notice one little fish—at least till it starts to defrost? Relax. We’ve got a rule to take down tonight.”

  Nathan stiffens his jaw, which makes the bony “chin” of his skeleton mask jut out. Poor kid. He doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of operation.

  I have to hand it to Rosalie’s mom. She may have laid an egg with those poison flax bars for the fundraiser that didn’t raise any funds, but she sure hired a great deejay, no matter what Stinky says. Pretty soon, the gym is jumping and the noise is off the charts. The dance floor is packed with gyrating costumes and the snack and drink tables are mobbed. It’s the perfect kind of party for sneaking out of, since the teachers are completely overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. No one is misbehaving yet, but it’s so wild that it looks like Halloween could dissolve into chaos in the blink of an eye. Out of all the faculty, only Mr. Aidact seems calm and detached, because Mr. Aidact is always calm and detached. I have to admit he’s a very chill guy.

  When his back is turned, we slip from the gym and dash to the side entrance. Nathan holds the door open and I haul the bag with the Big Wheel out of the bushes and inside. We wrestle the pink-and-lavender kiddie bike out into the open, rip off our Grim Reaper robes, and switch masks. I replace mine with the Batman headpiece. I have to snicker at Nathan’s—he’s Squidward, complete with a bouncy rubber nose.

  We don’t have to worry about being quiet. The noise coming out of the gym is so loud that they couldn’t hear us if we were screaming and banging drums. The entire school building pulses with the heavy beat from the deejay’s sound system and the pounding feet on the dance floor.

  Nathan gulps. “All right, where do we do this?”

  “Right outside the office,” I reply. “Where all dumb rules come from.” I feel my chest swelling with pride—or maybe that’s just the skintight Batman suit. I’m experiencing the satisfaction of seeing a plan come together perfectly. A couple of minutes ago, we were two Grim Reapers at a school dance. Now we’re Batman and Lulu-Squidward—and the school hall is 100 percent empty and 100 percent ours.

  We set up just outside the office doors with Nathan filming on his phone. I bend myself into a painful pretzel climbing onto the undersize Big Wheel. Nathan has to place my feet on the pink pedals. At this point, my knees are practically behind my ears. I know a moment of uncertainty. Am I actually going to be able to make this thing go? Will it still count as rule-wrecking if Nathan has to push me down the hall? After all, the rule says you can’t ride a Big Wheel in school. There’s nothing in the student handbook against sitting paralyzed on one, pushing against the pedals, grunting.

  And then my legs start to move, sending the Big Wheel rolling slowly down the corridor. “Start shooting!” I holler at my cameraman as I pick up speed.

  And pretty soon I’m doing it—lumbering along on noisy plastic wheels, cruising past trophy cases, bulletin boards, and pictures of graduating classes from decades long ago. My right hip is killing me, but at least I know I won’t limp, because my left knee hurts even worse. And anyway, it’s all worth it for a rule well wrecked.

  Now comes the hard part—the U-turn at the end of the hall. Luckily, the entrance to the library is wide. Otherwise, I would have hit the wall and been stuck there forever. I stall out a couple of times, but I manage to get myself headed in the right direction. I come roaring up the corridor at my cameraman, grinning in triumph—which is a waste of effort, since no one will be able to see my face behind the Batman mask. By the time I reach Nathan, he has to jump out of the way because I’m freewheeling. The dismount isn’t very graceful. Okay, I fall off and my nose bleeds a little.

  “Did you get it?” I pant. “Tell me you got it!”

  “I got it!” he crows.

  Hunched over his screen, we watch the video right then and there. It’s a thing of beauty. It looks like what it is—a ridiculous rule exposed for all to see. It looks like justice.

  On the spot, we upload it to the seventh-grade chat. We use the name Freedom Avenger and title the clip Section 24-B. That’s the part of the Code of Student Behavior where the no–Big Wheels rule is written down.

  Nathan exhales in relief. “It’s over! Let’s get back to the dance!”

  “But you haven’t had a turn yet!”

  “I don’t want a turn,” he counters. “I just want to get back in my Reaper costume and survive this night.”

  I’m adamant. “You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t take a ride. It’s epic!”

  “I believe you. Now let’s get out of here—”

  “No!” I grab him by the shoulders and force him onto the Big Wheel. Either he’s a lot more flexible than I am, or those Lululemons really are amazing workout pants, because his legs allow his feet to go right on the pedals, no problem.

  He isn’t moving, though, so I reach out with my foot and give the Big Wheel a mighty shove. And that is a major mistake.

  Nathan takes off at a sharp angle, ricocheting off the wall.

  “Steer!” I shout.

  And he does—straight into the pedestal that holds the 1974 girls’ state championship field hockey trophy. The impact launches him free of the Big Wheel. At the last second, he holds up his hands to protect his face, and his flailing elbow knocks the trophy off the pedestal.

  The shiny award, pride of Brightling, sails through the air and smashes into pieces as it bounces along the tile floor. The wooden base breaks off; the winged victory figure is de-winged and decapitated; one handle snaps away; and the cup itself is battered and dented beyond recognition.

  Through the Squidward head, I can see the horror in Nathan’s eyes. “We’re dead! We’re so dead! Mrs. Candiotti loves this trophy more than she loves Mr. Candiotti! Look what you made me do!”

  “Maybe it’s not so bad. We can collect the pieces, glue them together—”

  “Oh, sure! And no one’s going to notice that the cup part looks like somebody ran over it with a cement mixer!” he rages.

  He’s right. “We’ve got to hide the evidence!” I whip my Batman cape over my head and spread it out on the floor. We gather up what’s left of the trophy and tie the cape into a bundle.

  “What about the Big Wheel?” Nathan wheezes.

  “Leave it,” I decide. “I found it in the garbage. There’s no way anybody can tie it to us.”

  We retrace our steps to the side entrance, where we left our stuff. We switch back to the skeleton masks and shrug into our Grim Reaper robes.

  I open up the custodian’s closet and pull out two shovels.

  Nathan is distraught. “What are those for?”

  “We’re going to bury the broken you-know-what in the sandpit. It’ll be like it never existed.”

  “Tell that to Mrs. Candiotti,” he shoots back. “She passes that pedestal twenty times a day. And what’s she going to see? Nothing!”

  “It’s better than finding it all smashed to pieces,” I reason. “Now grab a shovel and let’s go.”

  Stepping out of the building into the chilly Halloween night takes away what’s left of our breath. The pounding music from the dance is even louder out here, since the high gym windows are open. We can see as far as the street, where little kids in colorful costumes swarm everywhere. I hope nobody notices two Grim Reapers, carrying shovels instead of scythes, heading for the athletic field to bury incriminating evidence.

  “I can’t believe what we’re doing right now,” Nathan moans.

  I try to put a positive spin on it. “This happens in rule-wrecking every now and then. You have to be able to think on your feet and improvise.” To be honest, I’m pretty freaked-out myself. It shows how wrong things can go. You start out riding a Big Wheel and before you know it, you’re burying a beloved trophy behind the school.