Chapter 3
Madeline
When fifth period ended, I kept an eye out for Cooper while I made my way to drama class. I wanted to see if he was skulking through the halls in his PE uniform.
He probably wouldn’t be. He probably had one of his groupie girls drive to his house and pick up extra clothes. He was between girlfriends right now, so the single hopefuls were lining up to be noticed.
A lot of girls at SCH had crushes on Cooper.
Granted, the guy was handsome in a brooding, bad boy sort of way.
He had a nice jawline; I’d give him that.
But his brown hair, somewhere between wavy and curly, was too long and looked messy half the time.
Some girls went on and on about how pretty his blue eyes were.
Complete hype. They were average blue eyes.
And the scruff on his chin—it wasn’t sexy.
It was proof the guy was too lazy to shave.
I usually went for the smart guys, the preppy ones who were clean-cut and already working on their college applications. The best boyfriend was the type who was intelligent enough to carry on a conversation and could help me with my math homework, which, let’s face it, I always needed.
Cooper had been in my biology class last year.
Not only did he not pay attention, he fell asleep more than once.
The teacher never bothered to wake him up and passed him with flying colors anyway.
In a school that prided itself on its football team, none of the teachers would dare put the team at risk by giving the star quarterback a bad grade.
As I made my way to drama class, I saw no sign of Cooper in the hallways—at least not until I reached the theater.
Cooper, dressed in his PE clothes, was leaning against the wall by the door, arms folded and posture rigid.
He could have been waiting for Claire, his younger sister who also took the class, but I knew he was waiting for me.
He had a death glare aimed in my direction.
“You,” he said.
Well, this was a new development. We’d never confronted each other about any of the other pranks.
“Hi, Cooper,” I said in an airy manner. “What brings you here? Sudden interest in drama?”
He pushed away from the wall and stalked over. “Only the drama you keep causing. What’s with you? Doesn’t Daddy give you enough attention at home, so you have to get it here too? Or are you just a really big fan of mine and want my stuff?”
He said the last sentence extra loud, and everyone near us in the hallway turned to stare at me.
I felt my cheeks blushing. A good actress shouldn’t blush when she doesn’t want to. “Nope. That’s definitely not it.”
He held out a hand to me. “Give me my clothes back. Now.”
They were safely tucked away in my locker. “I’m sure they’ll turn up somewhere. Eventually. Check eBay every once in a while.”
He took a step closer in a clear attempt to violate my personal space and intimidate me with his football physique. “Look, if you want your Hello Kitty convertible back, you’re going to return my clothes right now.”
“My convertible?” A sudden worry gripped my stomach. “What did you do to my car?”
He shrugged. “Blame Miata. If they didn’t want people to pick up their cars and play hide-and-seek with them, they wouldn’t have made them so light.”
I scoffed. “You’re bluffing. You couldn’t lift a car.”
He waved a hand in the direction of the school’s front doors. “Check the parking lot.”
I narrowed my eyes, searching for signs he was lying. The boy looked far too confident.
He smiled at me. “I think it’s a fair deal. My clothes for your car.”
It wasn’t a fair deal. It was a clear escalation. If what he said was true, he’d taken this to a whole new level.
My eyes ran over him. Nah, he was bluffing. If he’d manhandled my car somewhere, he’d be a lot sweatier. “You really should dump PE and switch to theater,” I said. “Maybe with some training, you could pull off a convincing lie.”
He snorted and opened his mouth to speak, but a familiar voice cut him off. “Mr. Nash! Ms. Seibold!”
We turned to see the principal bearing down on us, fire in her eyes. “Would you like to explain why Ms. Seibold’s convertible is underneath the bleachers?”
Maybe I was jaded by all of the pranks. My first thought was Wow, Cooper must have a great brand of deodorant.
“You were saying?” he retorted smugly.
I didn’t answer because Mrs. Tsuru reached us. She pointed at me and then at Cooper. “I’ve had enough of this. You two will go to my office and remain there until your parents come to discuss your behavior with me.”
Dang. Busted. My dad would not be happy about this.
Cooper usually could turn on the charm to sway any teacher—including Mrs. Tsuru. He hung his head in penitence. “I’m sorry, but my mom can’t come in. She has to work.”
Like my dad didn’t. He was a lawyer. He couldn’t just leave his clients to come to the school.
“That’s too bad,” Mrs. Tsuru said. “Because neither of you is going anywhere until your parents come.”
I blinked innocently. “Why do I have to go to the office? I’m not the one who illegally stole a car and hid it underneath the—”
“Ms. Seibold,” the principal cut in. “I saw you earlier near the boys’ locker room carrying a bag of clothes, and now Cooper is here in his PE uniform. I’m suddenly doubting your explanation. So in the office. Now!”
My dad really wouldn’t be happy to get a call. How much trouble would I be in?
All the way to the front office, Mrs. Tsuru lectured us.
She told us how in Ghana, where she grew up, students considered education a privilege.
They didn’t waste their opportunities on frivolous tricks that made things harder for everyone.
And the two of us, being leaders in the school, should know better than to set this kind of example.
Which went to show you how well she knew me. I wasn’t a leader. Cooper was the popular one. Since drama rehearsal was at the same time as sports practices, it mostly involved people who weren’t athletically inclined. That alone practically made theater kids oddities and outcasts.
“Don’t think I don’t know about your other pranks,” Mrs. Tsuru continued. “The video of his football fumbles, which could be considered cyberbullying, the raw chicken in her locker, and the water balloons in his. That’s damage to school property.”
First off, the video was anonymously uploaded under the very neutral title Funny Football Moments, so it couldn’t technically be considered bullying or be traced back to me.
Also, school jurisdiction doesn’t erase students’ First Amendment rights of free speech.
I know enough about the law—thanks, Dad—to cover myself in that regard.
The water balloon prank hadn’t done damage to property because I’d taken all of Cooper’s books out beforehand and put them on random shelves in the library.
They’d been perfectly safe. The water balloons had just fallen out, splashed onto him, and given the janitor one more reason to hate teenagers.
I didn’t point any of this out. Not antagonizing the judge is courtroom survival 101.
We reached the front office. Mrs. Tsuru was still going on about our crimes as she ushered us inside. “And the current cricket invasion of our school—I’m assuming those originated from one of your lockers.”
Cooper and I exchanged a look. “I never had any crickets in my locker,” I said.
Cooper shrugged. “I never had any in mine either.”
Instead of being happy that we hadn’t been tormenting each other with crickets, Mrs. Tsuru huffed. “Great. That means we have an unrelated infestation.” She pointed to a couple of chairs in the front office lobby. “Sit here while I call your parents. And an exterminator.”
She swooshed past us and was gone.
I sat in my chair with a thud. My dad had heard me mention Cooper before.
I spent a lot of time talking to Selena about him, sometimes on the phone, sometimes when she was over at my house.
Every once in a while, Dad told me to ignore the haters or pointed out that teenage boys don’t have fully developed brains yet.
Dad didn’t know about the pranks. At least not all of them. Certainly, he’d suspected that something was up when I brought two hundred water balloons to school.
But he would see my side of it. He knew Cooper was a jerk.
I folded my arms stiffly. “I hope you’re happy now.”
“You’re the one who started this,” Cooper said. “Don’t blame me for where it ended.”
My mouth dropped open. “I didn’t start this.”
He glowered at me, full of disdain. “Mrs. Tsuru didn’t buy your denial of putting that video together. You expect me to? If you want to seem believably innocent, you shouldn’t have openly asked people for their footage of the games.”
“Opportunity doesn’t prove guilt,” I said. “And besides, you started this by spreading rumors that my dad bought me the part of Maria in The Sound of Music.”
Cooper looked me straight in the eye. “Your father did buy you that part. The drama teacher thanked him for his generous donation in front of the entire class.”
His sister must have told him about that. Claire had tried out for the lead too. I hadn’t realized she was so bitter about being cast as one of the singing nuns instead.
He gave me a judgy look. “Puts a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘pay for play,’ doesn’t it?”
He was so, so wrong. “My father donated money after I got the part, not beforehand. He does that because he’d rather give money than help with whatever fundraiser the drama club would force us to do otherwise—which, by the way, is because all of the school’s money goes to the football team instead of supporting the arts.
If you need further proof,” I said, gathering indignation, “he gives money to the school for a lot of things, but it’s never gotten me extra credit in any of my classes. ”