Page 37 of Gone Tonight
My whole body was trembling now.
James reached for the door handle. It was locked.
He looked at me and shrugged, and for a second I thought that was it—we were going to turn around and do something else tonight.
Then James began kicking the door with the hard soles of his shoe, again and again, as the cheap, hollow door shuddered. It only took a half-dozen kicks until the wood around the knob began to splinter and the door gave way.
I half expected people to come running at the noise, but of course the building had been empty for hours.
Somehow, breaking in removed the menace from this room. James knew exactly what I needed to offset the sickening helplessness I’d felt in this space.
James flicked on the overhead light. Coach’s shiny sunglasses were still on the desk, right where he put them after he’d brought me in here.
James handed me the bat and told me it was all mine.
I lifted it above my head and brought it down on the sunglasses. The impact of the bat against the metal desk jarred my arms all the waydown to their sockets. The sunglasses flew off the table, their frames crushed.
Then James pointed to the Clapton guitar.
The words “I can’t” died on my lips. Sure I could. Coach had taken something far more valuable from me than a piece of memorabilia.
I stepped forward, holding the bat over my shoulder like I was waiting for a pitch. The room was so small I checked behind me to make sure James wouldn’t get hit by my backswing. I took a deep breath, then let loose.
The guitar was completely ruined by my fourth hit, but I whacked it until my arms grew tired.
When I finally handed James the bat, he winked at me and said our work here was almost done.
That was when I heard the distant sound of footsteps coming down the hallway.
Panic shot through me. Coach would probably suspect I was behind the vandalism, but I could create an alibi with James. Our school didn’t have any cameras or security guards. No one could prove it was us.
Unless an eyewitness saw me and James.
While all this ran through my head, James was moving around. The destroyed guitar and its case had fallen to the floor behind the desk, so he didn’t need to hide them from any passersby. He pushed the door all the way open, so you couldn’t immediately tell it was damaged, and he left the lights on. James was still holding the bat, which was evidence of what we’d done.
The sound of shoe soles slapping against the linoleum floor was just down the hall now, drawing closer with every step.
James was so calm he had to have a plan. But he was moving too slowly—there was nowhere to hide. We’d be caught.
My heart felt like it was about to burst.
I wouldn’t just be kicked off the Poms squad. I’d probably be kicked out of school. The police would arrive, and everyone would know what I’d done. I might even get arrested.
Right before he came into view, I heard Coach’s voice. He called outthe name Donna—that was our vice principal—as if he was expecting to see her.
It was all over. Coach was coming. We were about to be discovered.
I shrank back into the office. But James did the opposite.
He lifted the bat and stepped forward, in perfect timing for the bat to explode in a half circle and meet Coach’s stomach as Coach rounded the corner and stepped over the threshold into his office.
Later, I pieced together what had happened. James told me some details when he drove me home that night, and the rest I put together through newspaper articles I researched.
At the beginning of the night, while I was waiting outside the school, wondering what was taking James so long, James broke into the main office and found Coach’s phone number on a list of contact information for teachers. He called Coach and identified himself as a police officer who wanted to alert Coach about a break-in at the school and the theft of his signed guitar. He told Coach that the assistant principal—Donna—was already at the scene in Coach’s office.
Coach came rushing in. He hadn’t surprised us, after all.
It was James who’d surprised him.
