Wang nodded. They clasped hands once for luck and split up to carry out the mission.
Wang tiptoed to Emmett's locker. He'd memorized the combination, but his fingers were shaking as he reached for the lock. They could get into real trouble for breaking into someone's locker! Be brave, he told himself. Operation Free Juliet must not fail.
He grasped the lock, dialed the combination, yanked and felt the bolt yield. Carefully, he opened the locker door.
Emmett's locker was as neat as a girl's bedroom. All his school books lay stacked on the shelf above the coat hooks, with a paperback copy of
Romeo and Juliet
at the very top of the stack. On the door of the locker hung a square mirror with a comb tucked behind it. Below the mirror was a photograph of Emmett with the cast of the
Anne of Green Gables
television series. Above the mirror, Emmett had taped the love notes from his Secret Admirer.
Wang reached into his backpack and pulled out the stuffed teddy bear. Where to put it? On the floor of the locker, he decided, with Emmett's copy of
Romeo and Juliet
tucked between its paws. He set the teddy bear down and was reaching for the book at the top of the pile when he heard Josh's voice saying, very loudly, “Hey, Emmett! Wow! It's great to bump into you!”
Wang jumped. The stack of books toppled from the locker shelf onto the hallway floor. Wang flung himself to the ground and started shoveling the books back into the locker, burying the teddy bear under French grammar and math equations.
“Hey wait, Emmett!” Josh's voice sounded desperate. “I saw you in that
Anne of Green Gables
show. You were great. Could you, um, could you give me your autograph?”
Wang threw the last book in, slammed the door, snapped the lock closed, grabbed his backpack and raced down the hallway. Ten steps took him to the back stairwell. He pounded down the stairs and burst through the door at the bottom, ignoring the sign that said
Emergency Exit Only
. An alarm clanged as he sprinted across the teachers' parking lot. He ran for his life, never looking back, and didn't stop running until he reached his parents' grocery store, which was one bridge, two parks and seven bus stops away.
On the sidewalk outside the store, Wang bent over to catch his breath. He didn't think anyone had seen him running out of the school building. He hoped Josh had gotten away without arousing any suspicions. When his heart stopped thumping and his breathing returned to normal, Wang climbed the front steps, grabbed the mail from the mailbox and went inside.
His mom was chatting with a customer at the checkout. Farther back, in the produce section, his dad was discussing the freshness of the bok choy with another customer. Wang said “Hi” in what he hoped was a casual manner; then he quickly climbed the stairs to the apartment where his two brothers were sitting on the sofa, playing video games. He was about to drop the mail on the hall table when the letter on the top of the pile caught his eye. It was addressed to Wang Xiu and his father, Mr. Ham Xiu, and it was from the National Organization of Public School Chess Associations. Wang, still on the alert from his break-and-enter mission, felt his heart start to pound again like the drum of an enemy army, warning of danger.
Wang glanced around. His brothers were glued to their video game. There was no sign of his parents. Quickly, he slipped the letter into his jacket pocket. Then he tiptoed to his room and shut the door.
Using a trick he'd seen in a movie, Wang wedged a chair underneath the doorknob to stop anyone from coming in. Then he pulled the letter out of his bag and looked at it again. The National Organization of Public School Chess Associations. It looked official. It looked like trouble.
His heart raced. His fingers crept around the envelope flap. He knew he shouldn't open the letter without his dad. But on the other hand, good guys sometimes did a lot worse things than opening other people's letters. They broke into safes and wrecked cars and even killed their enemies. The kung-fu movies his parents rented out to customers were filled with furniture getting splintered to bits and motorcycle chases through crowded markets, where whole stalls full of fresh vegetables were overturned and went to waste. Compared to that, Wang wasn't doing anything really bad. If it was just an innocent letter, he could always show it to his dad afterward. And if it was trouble⦠Well, if it was trouble, he didn't dare let his dad find out about it. He had no choice. “Sorry, Dad,” Wang whispered as he ripped the letter open.
Dear Mr. Xiu and Wang,
We regret to inform you that a formal complaint has been lodged against Wang, by Mr. Conrad Binkle and his son, Wilmot Binkle.
The Binkles accuse Wang of sending another student to take his place at the recent Centennial High School Fall Chess Tournament in order to improve his chess ranking.
As you can understand, the National Organization of Public School Chess Associations takes all allegations of fraudulent impersonation extremely seriously. It is not acceptable for a student to claim false victories by sending another student to play in his place.
We have decided to deal with this complaint at our Annual General Meeting on November 20. We invite you both to attend the meeting and answer the allegations.
If the complaint proves to be true, we regret to inform you that Wang will be expelled from his school chess club and banned from competition in all Public School chess tournaments.
Sincerely yours,
The Board of Directors
National Organization of Public School Chess Associations
Wang dropped the letter on his bed. His fingers trembled. His stomach burned like he'd swallowed a bottle of hot vinegar.
Fraudulent impersonation
? Sending another player to improve his chess ranking?
“It wasn't like that at all!” he moaned. But who was going to believe him? Why hadn't he just told his dad in the first place that he wanted to go to fencing practice instead of the chess tournament? Now it was too late. Now he'd be expelled from the chess club in disgrace, and every time the father of another chess player came into the store, his dad would have to hang his head in shame.
Wang sank to the bed. There had to be some way out of this. He looked at the letter again. The board of directors' meeting was on November 20. Less than three weeks away. Less than three weeks to come up with a plan. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the letter and stuffed it to the very bottom of his backpack. Then he slipped the chair out from under the door handle and snuck through the back hallway to the kitchen. There was no one around. Through the wall, he could hear the beeps and shouts of his brothers playing video games in the living room. Stealthily, Wang picked up the phone and dialed Josh.
“Hey, Prez,” he said. “We've got a problem.”
NINE
YOUNG LEADERS OF THE FUTURE
“S
o, how's my favorite Young Leader of the Future?” Josh's mom asked as they sat down to dinner a few days later.
“Fine,” said Josh. Actually, he wasn't fine at all. He had a lot on his mind. The day after the locker break-in, the principal had announced that if the person who set off the school's fire alarm was caught, he'd be suspended for a week. Operation Free Juliet still wasn't finished. And now, they had to come up with a plan to thwart the Binkles.
All this plotting and planning was making Josh's brain hurt. It was like trying to play three chess matches at once.
Josh had been playing a lot of chess online since the tournament. He enjoyed the strategy and the idea of thinking three moves ahead of your opponent. It wasn't easy, but it was a lot less complicated than real life. In chess, people had to follow rules about where and when they could move their pieces. In real life, people seemed to do things without following any rules at all. And in chess, if you lost, you could set up the pieces and start over again. In real life, you didn't get to go back to the beginning and start over, as though your mistakes had never happened. In real life, when things went wrong, real people could get into real trouble. The idea of him and his friends getting into trouble weighed heavily on Josh's mind.
To top it all off, Mom had made something weird for dinner again. It was supposed to be lasagna, but Josh had his doubts about that. He rooted around at it with his fork, searching for something lasagna-like: a hunk of tomato or a piece of hamburger meat. No luck. Even the noodles didn't look like regular noodles. They were green, with strange vegetables like leeks and artichokes sandwiched between them, all smothered in a white, gooey sauce. On top, like a birthday candle stuck in a piece of cake, was something that looked like a tiny twig. It still had leaves on it, whatever it was. Josh flicked it off with his fork. He didn't eat twigs.
“So what have you kids been doing?” his mother asked, pouring herself a glass of wine.
“Huh?” said Josh.
“In the club.”
“Oh,” said Josh, taking an experimental bite of his dinner. “Well, we've got one guy who's competing in chess tournaments and a girl who has the lead role in the school play.”
And we're trying to get both of them out of it
,
he thought. But of course, he didn't tell his mom that.
“That's wonderful,” said his mother. “And what about you?”
“I'm the president,” said Josh. That seemed pretty obvious.
“Yes, but what have you done?” said his mother.
Josh stopped puzzling over his food and started puzzling over his mother instead. It seemed she was never happy unless he was trying to “better himself.” But what was better than president? Wasn't president the best you could be?
“I'm the president,” Josh repeated.
“Yes, honey, but presidents have to
do
things,” she said. “Like organize debating tournaments or mock parliaments or entrepreneurship seminars.”
Josh thought about that, biting into a piece of green noodle. He wondered if he could tell his mom about any of the things he'd done as president of Dunces Anonymous. Impersonating Wang at a chess tournament? Nope. Writing fake love poems to Emmett Blackwell? Nope. Helping Wang break into Emmett's locker? Double nope. Josh sighed. Once again, it seemed there was nothing he could say to his mother that would make her happy.
“You know,” his mother continued, digging into her supposedly-lasagna dinner. “I was talking to Stacey Hogarth's mom the other day about your club, and she's sure that Stacey's never heard of it.”
“Mom!” Josh wailed. “What were you doing, talking to Stacey Hogarth's mother?”
“I ran into her at a meeting of the Women's Business Council, dear. In any case, your club doesn't seem to have a very high profile at school.”
“Of course we don't have a high profile, Mom! There's only three of us in the club!”
“Only three of you?” His mom tapped the tines of her fork against her placemat. “Then it's obvious. You have to hold a membership drive!”
“A membership drive?” said Magnolia, when Josh presented the idea at the next meeting of Dunces Anonymous. “But we don't want any new members!”
“More members mean more problems,” Wang agreed. “We already have enough problems as it is. And besides, what are we going to do about the Binkles?”
Josh tapped his little wooden mallet thoughtfully on his desk. Stacey's bake-sale committee had disbanded after the successful Halloween bake sale, and her Christmas party committee didn't start meeting until next week, so they had a rare chance to use the classroom at lunch hour.
“That's not the only thing, guys,” said Josh. “My mom thinksâ¦well, I kind of told herâ¦that it's a club for junior achievers. And she thinks it's called Young Leaders of the Future.”
“Young Leaders of the Future?” Magnolia winced. “That's lame.”
“I was thinking we could call it the Parent Avengers,” Wang interjected. “Three young crusaders avenging the wrongs of parents against kids!”
“Why are we changing the name of the club?” Magnolia protested.
“Guys! Guys!” Josh banged the mallet on his desk. “I haven't told you the most important thing yet! Guess who my mom told about the club?”
But before Wang and Magnolia could guess, the classroom door opened and in walked Stacey Hogarth.
Stacey was a tall girl with a snub nose and brown hair pulled back tight in a ponytail. She marched up to Josh and stood in front of him, arms crossed.
“Your mother told my mother that you're the president of a club called Young Leaders of the Future, and I want to join,” Stacey said.
“Sorry,” said Josh, gripping the mallet for courage. “The club is all full up.”
“That's impossible,” Stacey replied. “Your mother told my mother that you're having a membership drive.”
Josh opened his mouth and closed it again. What was he supposed to say to that?
“That's right,” Wang said. “The membership drive was incredibly successful, and now we're all full up. Sorry. Try again next year.”
Stacey glared around the room skeptically.
“There's only three of you here,” she said.
“That's right,” Magnolia answered this time. “Because we're the President's Special Committee.”
“That's fine then,” said Stacey, plopping her bum down on Josh's desk. “Because
I
want to be on the President's Special Committee too. I've got
lots
of ideas for this club!”
Josh looked at Stacey Hogarth's bum on his desk. It was wearing a short black skirt with a pocket on each butt-cheek. He didn't like it there. It made him feel very crowded.
“Stacey,” said Josh, trying to mimic his mother's most businesslike tone. “We cannot move forward under these parameters.”
“What are you talking about?” Stacey asked. She twisted around to look at him.
“He means,” said Magnolia, standing up and crossing her arms, “that you can't join the President's Special Committee without an application letter.”