The Big Splash (23 page)

walked to my locker with Kevin's love notes still in my hand. Katie was going to want them for evidence, but for now they were mine. They seemed to be the final piece of the puzzle, filling in the backstory for Melanie and Kevin's crime. Yet something was still bugging me, like a piece of meat stuck between my back teeth. I sat on the floor next to my locker to take another look.

All the same phrases from before jumped out at me. “Do it and we'll be together.” “Nikki is the only thing standing in our way.” I started from the beginning, reading this time instead of skimming.

It was in the second note, halfway down the first page: “I remember it like it was yesterday,” it read. “I was sitting in my fifth-grade class. You walked by, just as Mrs. Esposito was rambling on in her nasally voice about the Declaration of Independence. I couldn't take my eyes off of you.”

I reread the sentence. It said the same thing the second time around. I pulled out the forged hall pass from my back pocket, a realization hitting me like a blind cyclist. I held the signature by “Mr. Allan” next to the sentence I had just read. The handwriting looked different enough, unless you looked closely. The double “L's” in “nasally” and “Mr. Allan” stood out like water in the desert.

There was one more connection I didn't want to make, but I had to. I pulled out a note that had been left in my locker just a few days ago. I knew before looking that they would be there. The double “L's,” upright and balloony, like no other “L's” I'd seen. The connections were suddenly obvious. I hustled over to Katie's office, hoping I wasn't too late. Someone deserved Jenny's brand of justice. It just wasn't Kevin.

Liz was waiting dutifully outside Katie's door. Jimmy Mac was crouched beside a row of lockers, trying to make himself invisible. His pen was poised, waiting for
something to happen. When I approached, they both opened their mouths to speak. I put my index finger to my lips, silently telling them to be quiet. They snapped their mouths shut.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. I had to be quick. Only eight minutes 'til the bell rang.

“Jenny?” I said.

“I don't think she's—” Liz started to say before I shushed her.

“Jenny?” I scanned the hallway, looking for possible places to hide. There were only a couple hundred. I prowled around as if I were in a minefield. Liz and Jimmy Mac watched me nervously. “I know you're around,” I called out. “I can hear your angry breathing.”

“Don't strain your eyes, Matt,” Jenny said, from around the corner. She deliberately pumped her soaker, letting me know that a head-on charge wouldn't be in my best interest. She still planned to take Kevin and Melanie out, just as soon as they left Katie's office.

“Don't do this, Jenny,” Liz said. “Please.”

“I'm sorry it has to be this way. But they took out my sister!”

“I know,” Liz said, as if she were admitting something
she never wanted to face. “Kevin's not a good guy, but he's my brother and I love him, so please don't do this!”

“Nikki's my sister! He took her out! What do you expect me to do?”

The door to Katie's office opened, interrupting this battle of the dutiful sisters. Liz's eyes went wide as she froze in place, not sure what to do. I still couldn't see Jenny, but I could feel her tense up, ready to pounce and spray anything that moved.

“Katie!” I yelled. “Don't come out!”

“
No
!” Jenny screamed like a wounded animal. She popped out of her hiding spot, her Super Soaker poised and ready.

Katie's door stopped in mid-swing. “What the hell's going on out there?”

“Nothing!” Jenny shouted. “Come on out!”

“We've got a little situation out here,” I said. It was a mild understatement. “You're better off right now listening from behind that door.”

“Shut up, Matt!” Jenny pointed her squirt gun at me. “They have to get what's coming to them! They deserve it!”

“No, they don't. If anyone deserves it, Jenny, it's you.”

“What?”

Liz looked at me, the realization creeping across her face. “Matt, you mean … ?”

“Yeah. Jenny's behind this whole thing.”

Everything stopped. Then Jenny started laughing.

“You're crazy,” she said through her giggles.

“You're the one who wrote these love notes to Melanie, not Kevin. You forged his handwriting.”

“You're making this up, Matt. To spare your precious girlfriend's brother. I'm not going to be your patsy!”

“You don't have to be. You're guilty.”

“Why would I take out my own sister? Huh?”

“The same reason most people do anything,” I said. “Money. You and Vinny had a great little forgery operation set up, and Nicole was going to make you take it down.”

“No. I just met Vinny the other day.”

“You two should get your stories straight. He says he's known you for years.”

“He's lying, and even if he isn't, what does that prove?”

“Nothing on its own. Plenty when you combine it with these.” I held up “Kevin's” notes. “You made one
fatal mistake. You had ‘Kevin' write, ‘I was sitting in my fifth-grade class. You walked by, just as Mrs. Esposito was rambling on in her nasally voice about the Declaration of Independence.'”

“So?”

“Kevin didn't have Mrs. Esposito in fifth grade. He sat next to me, in Mr. Green's class.”

“So what?” Jenny said, laughing. She was getting nervous, twitchy, and she still had the squirt gun pointed at me.

“The notes don't stand up, Jenny. They work on the quick glance, but not on the long look. Even an amateur can see that, and Katie's no amateur.” I held one of the forged passes up to the note that Jenny had written to me, the one that told me to “call” her, the one she wrote on Wednesday. What felt like a million years ago. “You never got your ‘L's down, especially the doubles.

“Nikki had left Vinny's crew and a life she loved to try to be a good example to you,” I said. “She had no idea that you and Vinny had been in business right from the start. But she found out and she wasn't happy. She was going to shut you down, and you weren't strong enough to stop her.”

Jenny didn't say anything. Her eyes darted back and
forth. She was trying to decide who to take out first. I kept talking, trying to keep her occupied.

“You had to take her out, but didn't think you could do it on your own. You thought of a plan. You knew that Joey Renoni had a crush on Melanie, but Melanie loved Kevin and would do anything for him. It was easy to get to her. All you had to do was forge some letters—not a problem with all the free samples that Kevin wrote to your sister. You dangled a promise of Kevin's love in front of Melanie's face, and provided her with the means and the plan to take out Nikki.”

She started laughing. “Matt, this is ridiculous! Why would I do it, then hire you to find me?”

“You didn't hire me to find you. You hired me to find Melanie and Kevin. You thought you had it all sewn up. You were friends with Melanie, so you knew exactly which buttons to push to make her believe that Kevin really wanted her. You knew that Katie hated Kevin because Melanie was in love with him. And you knew that whatever you pinned on Kevin was going to stick, because Katie would want it to, especially when she saw the notes.”

“Matt,” Jenny said sweetly, still holding the gun on
me, “you don't really believe this, do you? I saved you from that booby trap in your locker.”

“A booby trap that you set. It was a win-win situation for you. If you saved me, I'd never suspect you were behind it. If you didn't, then I was out of the picture, and maybe the case would never get solved. Either way, you were okay with the outcome.”

“Matt, I would never try to hurt you,” she said in a way that was supposed to make me drop what I was doing and grovel at her feet.

“Sorry, kid, that might have worked on Tuesday, but I'm a little older now, and a whole lot wiser.”

Her smiled faltered. “You're a little light on proof, don't you think?”

“Well, there is one thing,” I said. “After you set the booby trap in my locker, you found something and took it. You knew you probably shouldn't have, but you couldn't help yourself. It was your sister's, and because you took her out, you believed it was yours now. You have it on you right now, you're too proud not to. I don't think it has any good luck left, though. I think your sister used it all up.”

For a moment, Jenny just stood there, as if she was trying to decide whether the charade was worth keeping
up. Finally, she pulled the little surfer girl figurine out of her pocket. A wicked little grin spread across her face, like crude oil seeping into the ocean. “Oh, I don't know,” she said, “I think it still has a little left.”

“Jenny?” a small voice said from behind Katie's door. It was Melanie. “You?”

“Sorry, Mel,” Jenny said, without sounding sorry at all. “You were a good friend and all, but business is business.” She pumped her squirter twice for emphasis.

“You can't get all of us,” I said.

“Oh, no?” she asked. She lifted up the bottom of her cardigan. Tucked in her waistband were two little squirt guns. “The soaker is for whoever's brave enough to go first. These,” she said, referring to the smaller guns, “are for the cowards who are left. What do you say, Matt? Are you feeling brave today?”

“You're not fast enough,” I said.

“Ha! You think Nikki was fast? I used to hide and watch her practice, seeing how she shaved time off her draw, knowing where I could make even further improvements. Never underestimate the power of sibling rivalry.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liz inching toward Jenny. I stood stone still.

“Nikki was such a hypocrite,” Jenny scoffed. “She was a monster, yet she thought she could tell me what to do. She wanted to put me out of business—a business that I built from the ground up, with no help from anybody! She had no problem using her talents, but wanted to stop me from using mine. Do you really think that's fair?”

Liz kept inching over to Jenny. I used every bit of willpower to not look her way.

“Of course not. But that's okay. I've got the cure for what ails me right here,” Jenny said, tapping her soaker. “In two minutes, that bell's going to ring and fill this hallway with kids, kids who love to see a good show. You want to give them a good show, Matt?”

“You think you're as good as your sister?” I asked. “So did every other two-bit hood that came through this place. What makes you different?”

“Keep talking, Matt. Make me feel better about taking you out.”

“You're all talk, Jenny. In the end, you didn't even take Nikki out. You had someone else do it for you, a scared and lovesick little girl. How does
that
prove you're better than your sister? Huh? To me it says you're scared of her.”

“You'd better shut up.”

“You're scared of her! You're never going to be half as
good as she was. You're always going to be the plain, ordinary, invisible sister to Nikki Fingers.”

“Shut up!” The squirt gun was pointed straight at me now. She was pumping it furiously, building up pressure.

“You're second-rate, Jenny! Even if you do manage to take us all out, you know what everyone's going to say? There goes Nikki's little second-rate sister!”

“
Shut up! Shut UP! SHUT UP!
”

“AAAAAAA
!” Liz yelled, and pounced. Jenny turned and pulled the trigger. The blast was like a cannon. It struck Liz dead center, right below her waist. She fell backward, about five feet away from me. She had a shocked and helpless look on her face, and a giant, spreading wet spot on her pants.

The bell rang.

Kids streamed out of the classrooms. They started drifting over, noticing that something was up. Liz closed her eyes. Her middle-school life was over before it had begun, and she only had a couple of seconds left before the laughter would start.

Jenny looked down at her in disbelief. “Liz, I—”

“
AAAAAA
!” Melanie came barreling out of Katie's office, her scream full of pain and rage. Jenny tried to reach the squirt guns in her belt, but she panicked and fumbled them. Melanie hit her full force, tackling her,
sending the squirt guns skidding across the tiles.

The kids in the hallway saw Melanie and Jenny fighting and swarmed around them. They weren't disappointed. Melanie and Jenny fought like wolves over a single piece of meat. It made the fight Kevin and I had the other day look like a tea party.

Nobody even noticed Liz. Before they got a chance, I grabbed her and threw her over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. I started running with no idea where I was headed. “Anyplace in particular you want to go?” I asked. “The nurse's office? The cafeteria? Kansas City?”